Titans of History

BEETHOVEN

1770–1827

Sweet sounds, oh, beautiful music, do not cease!

Reject me not into the world again.

With you alone is excellence and peace,

Mankind made plausible, his purpose plain.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, “On Hearing a Symphony of Beethoven” (1928)

Ludwig van Beethoven’s music encompassed the transition between the Classical and Romantic styles, and his astounding contribution was all the more remarkable for being completed against the background of the encroaching deafness that plagued the last thirty years of his life. His nine symphonies raised the genre of orchestral music to a grand level, while his late-period string quartets and piano sonatas are some of the most transcendent achievements in classical music.

Born in Bonn, Germany, Beethoven was of Flemish descent. Both his father, Johann van Beethoven, and grandfather worked as court singers to the elector-archbishop of Bonn. Unfortunately, however, his father was also an alcoholic, who attempted to raise the family fortunes by touting his second son Ludwig as a child prodigy, somewhat unsuccessfully.

Unlike Mozart, Beethoven’s genius took time to flower fully. Nevertheless, by the age of nine he was receiving composition lessons from Christian Gottlob Neefe, court organist at Bonn, becoming official assistant organist by the age of fourteen. Around this time Beethoven traveled to Vienna, and it is likely that he met Mozart and played to him. But his stay was interrupted by news of his mother’s illness, and he was forced to return home to Bonn, where he found her dying of tuberculosis.

Beethoven now took charge of the family finances, largely because of his father’s increasing incapacity. He began working as a musical tutor to the children of wealthy courtiers, as well as performing as a violinist in the court orchestra and the local theater. His positions allowed him to meet many influential nobles, including the Viennese aristocrat Count Ferdinand Waldstein, a skilled musician who became a friend and patron. Possibly at Waldstein’s arrangement, Beethoven went to Vienna to study with the composer Haydn, lessons paid for by the elector, his employer. He left Bonn in 1792 and never returned.

Impressing the Viennese salons and nobility with his virtuoso performances on the piano, Beethoven performed widely and was considered a superb improviser—even greater than Mozart. His compositions at this time included piano sonatas, variations and concerti, as well as his first two symphonies, all of which show the influence of his own heroes, Mozart and Haydn.

The following years, up until around 1802, are considered Beethoven’s early period, during which he composed some significant piano works. Brilliant, fine compositions, they are not as innovative as the music of his later years. By now Beethoven’s progressive deafness had become impossible for him to ignore. He was brought close to despair and, perhaps recognizing that his career as a virtuoso was over, began to focus on composition.

The story goes that when Beethoven oversaw the first performance of his Ninth Symphony at the Kärntnertor Theater in 1824, the soloists in the orchestra had to point out that the audience was applauding his work. Turning to see the silent adulation, he began to weep. He was by now totally deaf and never heard the work that had just been performed to such acclaim.

Beethoven had noticed the first symptoms from 1796, when he had begun to experience tinnitus, a constant ringing in his ears that made it difficult to hear and appreciate music or to engage in conversation. By 1802 there was little doubt that his condition was serious, and worsening. For a composer there could be nothing so destructive. Fully realizing the depth of his affliction darkened his mood. In the summer of 1802, in a letter discovered only after his death and known as the “Heiligenstadt Testament,” he wrote:

O ye men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the cause of my seeming so … for six years I have been in a hopeless case, made worse by ignorant doctors, yearly betrayed in the hope of getting better, finally forced to face the prospect of a permanent malady whose cure will take years or even prove impossible.

All that kept him from suicide, he said, was his art, which made it “unthinkable for me to leave the world forever before I had produced all that I felt called upon to produce.”

Although he could not hear the music he composed, Beethoven’s gradual descent into deafness coincided with an increasing brilliance in his composition, with his middle-period works being characterized by themes of struggle and heroism, and those of his third period—the late period—a time of total deafness, displaying a powerful intellectual depth.

By 1817 Beethoven was completely deaf, and for the latter part of his life he was able to communicate with friends only through written conversations. The resulting notebooks are unique historical documents, recording his thoughts and opinions on his music and the way it should be interpreted, and there are also written notes in the scores of his works.

At Beethoven’s autopsy he was diagnosed as having a “distended inner ear,” which had developed lesions over time. Since then, other explanations have been suggested, including syphilis, typhus, the physical damage caused by beatings from his father and the effects of immersing his head in cold water to stay awake.

Posthumous analysis of Beethoven’s hair revealed dangerously high levels of lead, certainly damaging to health, the effects of which may have contributed to his unpredictable moods. We may never know the cause of his deafness for certain; but what is beyond doubt is Beethoven’s heroism in defying his condition to create a musical world of such timeless resonance today.

Settled in Vienna, he produced a series of masterpieces. His Symphony No. 3, completed in 1803, was originally dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte, whose revolutionary zeal made him a hero to Beethoven. When Napoleon declared himself emperor in May 1804, the disillusioned composer angrily removed the dedication. Nevertheless, this dramatic, powerful symphony remained a landmark in Beethoven’s musical development and when published in 1806 was suitably re-entitled Sinfonia eroica.

Beethoven’s middle period saw a rush of compositions that included the Waldstein and Appassionata piano sonatas, the Fourth Piano Concerto, the Razumovsky Quartets and the Violin Concerto, and also his first and only opera, Fidelio. His Symphonies Nos. 4 and 5 also date from this period, with the Fifth, its opening theme recognizable the world over, being a landmark in musical originality. Just as original is his Symphony No. 6, known as the Pastoral, in which woodwind instruments imitate the birds of the local countryside. The Symphonies Nos. 7 and 8 mark the close of a period filled with orchestral masterpieces.

Composing less in his later years, as complete deafness claimed him, Beethoven’s late-period works, from around 1815 onwards, are marked by increased intimacy and emotional power. His final piano sonatas, opuses 109, 110 and 111, are extraordinary virtuoso works, in which complexity is perfectly partnered with lyricism. On the other hand, his majestic Symphony No. 9, of 1824, explodes with the final movement’s “Ode to Joy,” featuring a full choir and soloists—its soaring and exhilarating jubilance now used, somewhat absurdly, to drum up enthusiasm for the bureaucracy of the European Union. His last string quartets were completed in 1826, which coincided with the attempted suicide of Beethoven’s nephew, to whom he was guardian. This, along with a bout of pneumonia and the onset of cirrhosis of the liver, probably contributed to his death in March 1827.

Prone to black moods and periods of emotional upheaval, Beethoven had difficulty maintaining relationships, and he never married—though a letter discovered after his death, addressed to his “Immortal Beloved,” has led many to speculate on the possibility of a secret, married lover. He was buried in great pomp, his funeral in Vienna befitting a composer who had become famous throughout Europe as one of the greatest of his, or any other, time.