Beethovens Life

Ludwig van Beethoven was a complex man consumed by a towering

genius all the more remarkable for the deafness with which he
struggled. He lived a life driven by an unquenchable need to make
music. His legacy is music that still delights, challenges, and moves us.

Born in Bonn, Germany on December 17, 1770 (or perhaps a day

earlier according to some records), Beethoven had a miserable
childhood. He was one of seven children, only three of whom survived
to adulthood. Although he loved his gentle mother, Maria, he feared
his hard-drinking, demanding father, Johann. His father had no great
talent, but he gave music lessons to the children of the nobility. From
the time Ludwig was a small boy, turning the iron handle of window
shutters to hear the musical noise, the child had been absorbed by
music. His father recognized the boys ability and nurtured it, possibly
because he saw it as a source of income.

In 1787, when he was seventeen, Beethoven made his first trip to

Vienna, the city that would become his home. There, he was quickly
immersed in the life of Europes cultural capital, even playing the piano
for Mozart. Mozarts prediction was: You will make a big noise in the
world.

Difficult Times

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Beethovens stay was cut short by a series of family tragedies. He
returned to Bonn to his dying mother. Shortly after, his infant sister
died. When his father lost his job, Beethoven had to take responsibility
for the family.

After his fathers death in 1792, Beethoven returned to Vienna for

good. The serious boy had grown into a man who was by turns rude
and violent, kind and generous. He helped raise money for the only
surviving child of Johann Sebastian Bach, who was living in poverty,
and he donated new compositions for a benefit concert in aid of
Ursuline nuns.

Despite his temper, Beethoven attracted friends easily. He studied

piano with composer Franz Joseph Haydn. And even though the
student-teacher relationship failed the two remained friends. In
Vienna, Beethoven also met Mozarts rival, Antonio Salieri the man
rumored to have poisoned Mozart. Salieri was kind to Beethoven and,
in return, Beethoven dedicated three violin sonatas to him.

Beethovens struggle to hear

At the age of twenty-eight, just before writing his first symphony,

Beethoven began to lose his hearing. He tried every available
treatment and, at first, there were periods when he could hear. But in
the last decade of his life he lost his hearing completely. Nevertheless,
he continued to lead rehearsals and play the piano as late as 1814.
Possibly he heard music by feeling its vibrations.

As time passed, Beethoven became more and more absorbed in his

music. He began to ignore his grooming, pouring water over his head
instead of washing in a basin. On one of his beloved country walks, a
local policeman who assumed he was a tramp arrested Beethoven. His
rooms were piled high with manuscripts that nobody was allowed to
touch. He had four pianos without legs so that he could feel their
vibrations. He often worked in his underwear, or even naked, ignoring
the friends that came to visit him if they interrupted his composing.

Watch out for that temper!

The stories about Beethovens temper became legend: he threw hot

food at a waiter; he swept candles off a piano during a bad

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performance; he may even have hit a choirboy. His intensity spilled
over into his family life. He became embroiled in a bitter custody battle
for a nephew who attempted suicide to escape the family animosity.

Perhaps he was terrified and furious about losing the world of sound.
Perhaps he was completely preoccupied by the need to create. Despite
his behaviour, he was admired and respected for the music that
poured from him. He knew that it moved his listeners to tears, but he
responded, Composers do not cry. Composers are made of fire.

What about the women in Beethovens life?

With his talent and his larger-than-life personality, Beethoven was

popular among women. Although he never married, he dedicated such
pieces as the Moonlight Sonata and Fr Elise to the women in his life.

Beethoven, Thunder and Death

In November 1826 Beethoven returned from his brothers estate to

Vienna in an open wagon. By the time he got home he was ill with
pneumonia, from which he never fully recovered.

Late in the afternoon of March 26, 1827, the sky became dark.
Suddenly a flash of lightning lighted Beethovens room. A great clap of
thunder followed. Beethoven opened his eyes, raised his fist, and fell
back dead. He was fifty-seven years old.

Ludwig van Beethovens funeral was the final demonstration of the

esteem in which he was held. On March 29, 1827, twenty thousand
people lined the streets, while soldiers controlled the grieving crowd.
Nine priests blessed the composers body.

He was buried in a grave marked by a simple pyramid on which was

written one word: Beethoven. Today his remains lie beside those of
the Austrian composer Franz Schubert, in Viennas Central Cemetery.

I shall hear in Heaven Beethovens last words

Artists Who Have Also Faced Challenges

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We are haunted by the idea of Beethoven, the composer of some of
the most beautiful music the world has known, losing the sense that
must have mattered the most to him his hearing. He was not the
only artist to have confronted, and risen to, such a challenge.

Francisco Jos de Goya (17461828), one of the great Spanish

masters, became deaf in 1792 as the result of an illness. He continued
to paint, but his work reflected his sadness.

The great French Impressionist painter Claude Monet (18401926)

found his eyesight failing him late in his life. He continued to paint,
studying his subjects so closely that the paintings appeared
fragmented like abstract art.

Edgar Degas (18341917), another French artist began to lose his

eyesight when he was in his fifties. He began working in sculpture and
in pastels, choosing subjects that did not require careful attention to
detail.

One of the finest artists to come out of Mexico was Frida Kahlo
(19071954). She began painting in 1925 while recovering from a
streetcar accident. Many of her paintings reflect the physical pain she
suffered.

The Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh (18531890) suffered from

seizures and depression. After quarrelling with fellow artist Paul
Gauguin (18481903), he sliced off a piece of his ear lobe. Van Gogh
committed suicide in 1890.

Itzhak Perlman (1945), the wonderful Israeli violinist, became ill with
polio at the age of four. As a result of the disease, Perlman performs
and conducts from a seated position.

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 Beethovens Turbulent Times

Beethoven lived in a period of great turmoil. The French Revolution,

which began on July 14, 1789, rocked Europe. The ideals of the French
Revolution included equality and free speech for all. Within four years
those fine ideals devolved into the Reign of Terror that overtook
France and affected the rest of Europe. In 1798, Napoleon conquered
Egypt, beginning his rise to power. Against the political upheaval,
every aspect of human life seemed to shift. It was an age of change in
ideas, the arts, science, and the structure of society itself.

An age of the musician: Earlier in the 18th century, the Church

dominated the world of music. As time went on, the nobility began to
enjoy music and even learned to play musical instruments. Composers
and musicians were their servants. With his fiercely independent spirit,
Beethoven challenged this notion. It is good to move among the
aristocracy, he said, but it is first necessary to make them respect.
When a nobleman talked while he was performing, Beethoven stopped
playing to declare, For such pigs I do not play!
Literature and art also flourished during Beethovens lifetime. The
first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica appeared in three volumes.

An age of exploration: In 1770 Captain James Cook circumnavigated

the globe, charting the coast of New Zealand and eastern Australia as
well as the Bering Strait. James Bruce traced the Blue Nile to its
confluence with the White Nile in 1771.

An age of invention: John Kay patented the fly shuttle in 1733,

making it possible to weave wide cloth. James Hargreaves invented
the spinning jenny in 1765, which spun many threads at the same
time. James Watt invented the steam engine, patented in 1769, and
Robert Fulton initiated steamship travel. The first railroad in England
began operation early in the eighteenth century.

Beethoven became a friend of Johann Nepomuk Malzel, the Court

Mechanician. He invented the musical chronometer, which in time was
refined to the metronome, a device that can be set to a specific pace
to guide the musician. Beethoven loved the chronometer and even
composed a little canon to the words Ta ta ta (suggesting the beat of
the chronometer) lieber lieber Malzel.

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An age of science and mathematics: Joseph-Louis Lagrange
formulated the metric system and explained the satellites of Jupiter
and the phases of the moon. Benjamin Franklin conducted his
experiments with electricity. Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen.
Edward Jenner developed the smallpox vaccine. Musician and
astronomer William Herschel discovered Uranus.

An age of new pastimes: Coffee drinking which Beethoven loved

became a part of social life. Gambling, lotteries, card-playing, chess,
checkers, dominoes, and billiards all entertained people.

Human Rights and the Arts

Throughout history, artists have used their talents to comment on

social issues. Beethoven who lived through the French Revolution
and the Napoleonic Wars, a time of immense social and political
change in Europe and the world responded through his music. His
only opera, Fidelio, is set in Spain and is based on the story of a
nobleman who is unjustly imprisoned for threatening to reveal the
crimes of a politician.

Beethovens third symphony, the Eroica, was originally dedicated to

Napoleon Bonaparte. The finale of his magnificent Ninth Symphony is
based on a poem written by the German poet Friedrich von Schiller,
with words and music that yearn for peace, joy, and the brotherhood
of man.

Like Beethoven, we have lived through enormous social and political

upheaval: world conflicts, the rise and collapse of nations, and
devastating political oppression around the world. We have also seen
hopeful changes, such as the creation of the United Nations as the
principal international organization committed to building peace and
global security.

In Beethovens time, as in ours, the arts have been a voice to rail

against political oppression and to make us aware of the plight of
those in the greatest need.

All the world over, ordinary men, women, and children have been
moved to action through music. We Shall Overcome and Nkosi
sikelel iAfrika (God Bless Africa) are two songs that carried a

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tremendous amount of influence for Blacks in the US and in South
Africa in their struggle against racism, inequality and injustice in the
last half of the 20th century. And Beethovens Ninth Symphony rang
out at the Tiananmen Square protest in 1989 and at the collapse of
the Berlin Wall in 1990.

Beethovens Famous Peers

Musicians
Beethoven was not the only composer writing music in this period.
Beethoven influenced Richard Wagners (-18131883) early
instrumental works. Franz Liszt (18111886) invented the solo piano
recital. Giuseppe Verdi (18131901) composed great operas. Frdric
Chopin (18101849) and Robert Schumann (18101856) also
belonged to this era.

Poets
British poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850), along with Samuel
Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), began the English Romantic Movement
in literature. Like Beethoven in music and Turner in painting,
Wordsworth used nature as a theme in much of his writing. Here is an
example of one of his best known poems:

I Wandered Lonely as A Cloud

by William Wordsworth
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high oer vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;

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 A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company;
I gazed and gazed but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
1804

Artists
The shift from the Classic to the Romantic tradition was also reflected
in the work of painters and sculptors such as the Spanish master
Francisco Jos de Goya and Swiss-born Angelica Kauffmann, who
produced more than five hundred paintings in her lifetime.

The painter who most closely paralleled Beethovens move to

Romanticism was Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (17961875). Early in
his career he painted structured landscapes, but as he matured in
works like Ville dAvray and Memory of Mortefontaine, he showed a
more imaginative style, creating a filmy aura.

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 Beethoven the Musician

A pockmarked, unkempt, awkward, brash, yet supremely self-confident

young Beethoven easily took his place as both performer and composer
in Vienna the heart of musical Europe. He lived for a time in the
home of Prince Lichnowsky, an accomplished musician who studied
and played Beethovens new piano sonatas and paid the cost of
publishing his Opus 1.

Beethoven's initial purpose in coming to Vienna was to study with

Haydn and to learn from the great master the style of Viennese
classicism - a structured worldview where the form of things was more
important than their content. Poetry, literature, painting and music of
this Classic period were restrained and rational.

This formal, disciplined study, however, had little appeal to

Beethoven's unruly, irrepressible, revolutionary spirit. He absorbed
just what suited him, and proceeded on his own course. Thus, we
find, even in his first published compositions, a bold new voice in
music. Formally, these early works still hark back to traditional
classical forms. But the emotional intensity, rough humor, burning
energy and bold modulations reveal a creator who has struck out on a
new path.

By the 1800s, Classicism was giving way to Romanticism and this shift
was evident in Beethovens music.

Beethoven and Romanticism

Romanticism valued imagination and emotion over intellect and

reason. It was based on a belief that people are naturally good, that
physical passion is splendid, and that political authority and rigid
conventions should be overthrown.

Beethovens Romanticism transformed every kind of music he

composed. One of his most popular compositions is the Moonlight
Sonata, the second of two sonatas making up Opus 27. It became
known as the Moonlight Sonata well after Beethovens death, when
poet Ludwig Rellstab said that it reminded him of moonlight rippling on
the waves of Lake Lucerne in Switzerland. Like all Romantic art, it
appeals to the senses more than the mind.

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Beethovens Romance no.1 for Violin in G, Opus 40 and his Romance
no. 2 for Violin in F, Opus 50, written between 1798 and 1802, were
called romances for their light, sweet tone, almost like a song. This is
typical of the Romantic period in music: many pieces lend themselves
to being sung as well as played.

Beethovens movement away from Classicism and toward Romanticism

is clearest in his symphonies. Before Beethoven, symphonies,
originating in courtly dances like the minuet, had conformed to the
ideals of Classicism with rigid structure and rational form. Beethovens
Romantic symphonies broke out of those confines and became large,
sometimes epic structures that told a story and plumbed emotional
depths.

Beethoven the Artist

Beethoven was more than a great composer. He was a force of nature,

the first important musician to break free successfully from the
mentality of servant. He was an Artist, and he wrote for posterity, not
just for mere mortals who happened to live at the same time as he.
When confronted with rules of harmony he had supposedly broken,
Beethoven brusquely retorted, "I admit them." He was markedly lacking
in social graces, but proud to the point where he could say to a prince
and benefactor, straight to his face, "What you are, is by accident of
birth; what I am, I created myself. There are, and have been,
thousands of princes; there is only one Beethoven."

Did you know that Beethoven got stressed out too!

Beethovens first public appearance as a piano virtuoso took place

when he was twenty-five years old. He was to play his Second Piano
Concerto, but two days before the performance it was still not finished
and Beethoven was suffering from an upset stomach. He continued to
write while a friend fed him remedies and, just outside his chamber,
copyists sat waiting for the music as the composer finished writing
each sheet.

His career would be full of such last-minute scrambles. On the morning

of the concert to present an oratorio, Christ on the Mount of Olives, a
friend found Beethoven sitting in bed, composing the part for the

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trombones. The piece had its first rehearsal at 8:00 a.m., with the
trombone players reading from the original sheets of music.

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 What to Listen for

In his nine Symphonies, Beethoven set into motion a new concept of

what a symphony should be like. In contrast to the rigid structure and
rational form of the genre's humble beginnings in the mid-eighteenth
century, when it consisted of three puny movements lasting about ten or
twelve minutes total, Beethoven increased its formal dimensions and
expanded its time frame (the Third Symphony lasts about 50 minutes;
the Ninth well over an hour!). He created a much bolder harmonic
language, added more instruments, and, above all, heightened the
emotional intensity. Every one of these symphonies is a masterpiece,
and the four (Nos. 3, 5, 6 and 9) rank among the greatest of the great.

After the turn of the century, when he brought out his First Symphony,
nearly everything Beethoven wrote had something novel, sensational,
strange or incomprehensible about it. Take Symphony No. 5, for
instance. Today, it is the world's most popular symphony, and with
countless performances of the Fifth behind us, it is all too easy to forget
just what a forward-looking and "modern" work it really was back in
1808. For example, there was not a single tune you could hum in the
opening movement. Instead, listeners got an intense, concentrated
onslaught of a four-note rhythmic cell (the famous "da-da-da-daaah")
unfolding with unparalleled energy, leaving them gasping under the
emotional impact.

A few years earlier (in 1804), Beethoven completed his Symphony No. 3
("Eroica"). It was originally dedicated to the First Consul of France,
Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon represented to Beethoven all that was
noble and glorious in the human race - a daring young man who had
risen through the ranks on his own initiative and powers, who had
liberated men from tyranny, who had defied oppressive governments,
and who was espousing the battle cry of the French Revolution: "Libert,
galit, Fraternit!" But when Beethoven learned that Napoleon had
proclaimed himself Emperor (in May of 1804), he flew into a rage,
rushed to the table on which the Eroica lay, ripped off the dedicatory title
page and cried, "Is he then too nothing more than an ordinary human
being? Now he, too, will trample on all the rights of man and indulge
only his ambition. He will exalt himself above all others, become a
tyrant." Some time later, Beethoven inscribed the title "Sinfonia
Eroica, Composed to Celebrate the Memory of a Great Man." (Note: not
to "a great man," but to the memory of a great man!) But the Eroica

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Symphony is not really about Napoleon, or even about the memory of
this man. It is about music - how notes are put together into musical
cells, groups of cells, phrases, paragraphs and towering edifices in
sound. The real hero of the Eroica is music itself.

Beethoven's single Violin Concerto was longer and more complex than
any previous work of its kind by a wide margin, but in symphonic
thought and expansiveness of gesture, it eclipsed all predecessors. It is
still considered one of the most exalted of all concertos for any
instrument. As was common in Beethoven's day, he wrote the concerto
for a specific soloist, the virtuoso Franz Clement. The deeply lyrical
quality of this concerto, the finesse of its phrases and its poetry all
reflect the special qualities of Clement's playing. The third movement is
a lively rondo - a formal structure in which one particular theme keeps
returning, with other themes in between. You may hear a relationship
between this main theme and that of Beethoven's "ode to Joy" theme,
which comes next on the program. There is an outdoorsy, down-to-
earth, informal spirit to this music.

If Beethovens Third Symphony broke records, his Symphony No. 9

went even further much further. In its grandeur, elemental power,
cosmic scope and affirmation of the universal human spirit, the Ninth
seemed to embrace the whole world. Among its special features is the
use of a chorus and vocal soloists to deliver a textual message, not
just a musical one. This had never before been done in a symphony.
Beethoven borrowed and adapted some stanzas from the Ode to Joy
by the German poet and dramatist Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805). The
main theme of the final movement, where the chorus sings, is known
to almost everyone in the western world. It sounds so simple and
natural, yet Beethoven went through nearly twenty versions of it
before he was satisfied, changing a note here, sustaining one there, or
repeating another. (Composing is not as easy as you might think!).

We encounter Napoleon again in connection with another Beethoven

composition called Wellingtons Victory which received its first
performance in 1813 (on the same concert with the premiere of another
Beethoven symphony, the Seventh). It is sometimes called the "Battle"
Symphony, though it is not really a symphony at all, but rather a short,
single-movement work for orchestra with some special effects to
simulate the sounds of battle. This work celebrates the British victory
over Napoleon in the Peninsular War. Wellington's triumph contributed

13
to the downfall of Napoleon. Beethoven wrote Wellington's Victory for a
gala benefit concert in Vienna for Austrian and Bavarian soldiers
wounded in the Battle of Hanau.

What would a piece of music by Alexander Brott be doing in a Beethoven

concert? Well, his Paraphrase in Polyphony has a curious story behind
it that relates directly to Beethoven. In 1966, a yellowed scrap of paper
was found containing a tiny fragment of music, a canon, by Beethoven.
This paper had originally belonged to a man named Theodore Frederic
Molt, who had received the canon directly from the great Beethoven
himself back in 1825. Molt, a German musician, was living in Montreal
at the time. He had visited the composer in Vienna to pay his respects,
and Beethoven presented him with this tiny composition. Molt returned
to Quebec with the canon, but after his death it disappeared until 1966
when it was found in New York.

When Montreal composer Alexander Brott learned about this discovery,

he examined Beethoven's canon and wrote a full-length, 20-minute
composition he called Paraphrase in Polyphony, from which we hear an
excerpt, based on this canon. Alexander Brott is the father of today's
conductor and still living in Montreal; in a little over a month from now,
he turns 87. A "paraphrase" is simply another way of saying something.
"Polyphony" is the use of two or more musical lines at the same time. A
"canon" (not the war machine, which is spelled with two "n"s) is a type
of polyphony. You all know the songs ""Three Blind Mice" and "Frre
Jacques." Both are examples of canon - one voice begins, a second
starts a bit later singing the exact same tune, and a third enters still
later.

Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 (Pastorale), composed in 1808, is another

of the world's greatest symphonies. Into it Beethoven poured all his
love for the simple pleasures of the countryside. His personal life was
one of turmoil, stormy relationships and constant stress caused by
growing deafness, which eventually became total. He greatly valued the
time he spent in the woods outside Vienna. "How glad I am to be able
to roam in wood and thicket," he wrote in his Diary, "among the trees
and flowers and rocks. No one can love the country as I do. My bad
hearing does not trouble me here." But there are storms in nature as
there are in people's lives. The excerpt that we hear on this concert is
one of the most famous storms ever conceived in music. First a few
isolated raindrops are heard falling, the wind picks up, and suddenly the

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 heavens burst open. Torrents of rain, lashing wind and flashes of
lightning are vividly depicted in this exciting episode. Trombones,
seldom used by Beethoven (they're in the Ninth Symphony also) are
heard here, as are the shrill piccolo and thundering timpani (drums).

Beethovens Ninth Symphony

By the time the Ninth Symphony premiered in Vienna in 1824,

Beethoven was almost completely deaf. Nevertheless, he insisted on
conducting the orchestra himself. He continued conducting even when
the piece had ended because he could not hear that the orchestra had
stopped playing. One of the sopranos tugged at his sleeve so that he
would turn around to face the audience an audience wild with
applause.

Beethovens Ninth Symphony continues to move the hearts of people

everywhere. It was played during the Beijing student protests in China
in 1989 and at the dismantling of Germanys Berlin Wall in 1990. It
has become a symbol of unity, of love, and of the overwhelming power
of music to change those who hear it forever.

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Ludwig Van Beethoven's Struggles

As many people know, Ludwig Van Beethoven was one of the most talented,
famous, influent and successful musicians of the classic style. Beethoven gave
many contributions to the classic music, including beautiful songs, sonatas,
concerts, string quarto and much more. However, something only few people
know about is how much he had to struggle and suffer before he managed to
achieve such memorable goals and be immortalized in the history of music.
Beethoven came from a medium-high class family in Germany, but even
though he is from a family with such nice condition and status, his life was sort
of troublesome. He spent his childhood living with his parents and his two
younger brothers, but the problem was that his parents always fought over his
father serious drinking problems. The drinking problems of Beethovens father
were so serious that sometimes he had to steal some of his fathers salary to
prevent his spending all of it in alcohol.
By the age of nine, Beethoven started playing the piano and slowly began to
develop his genius as he already started showing a good amount of talent in
music. Later, his mother died from sickness, and he would graduate in music
and move so that he could stsrt his career.
Beethoven became a real idol in the classic music, but as he kept proceeding
in his career and getting his genius to be recognized by the world, he also faced
many problems. Unfortunately, Beethoven started getting deaf, and frightened
by his coming deafness, he entered in a deep depression, which was intensified
by many love failures and also by the deaf of his father.
Sometime later, Beethoven was completely deaf; his depression came to its
climax and he even considered suicide. However, his love for music and his
friends helped him to overcome it, and then he started the most productive
period of his life. Beethoven managed to keep composing by feeling the
vibrations of the piano on the floor, but he still cried when he played his
amazing songs to the audience but was unable to hear their applauses. He kept
working in music until his life was taken by a disease in his sixties.
Beethoven was a example to all humanity. He showed us that regardless of
your goals and struggles you have, if you never give up and always do your
best, you can achieve your dreams.
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-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and the predominant musical
figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras.

Synopsis
Composer Ludwig van Beethoven was baptized on December 17, 1770, in
Bonn, Germany. He was an innovator, widening the scope of sonata,
symphony, concerto and quartet, and combining vocals and instruments in a
new way. His personal life was marked by a struggle against deafness, and
some of his most important works were composed during the last 10 years of
his life, when he was quite unable to hear. He died in 1827 at the age of 56.
Early Years
Composer and pianist Ludwig Van Beethoven, widely considered the greatest
composer of all time, was born on or about December 16, 1770 in the city of
Bonn in the Electorate of Cologne, a principality of the Holy Roman Empire.
Although his exact date of birth is uncertain, Beethoven was baptized on
December 17, 1770.
Since as a matter of law and custom, babies were baptized within 24 hours of
birth, December 16 is his most likely birthdate. However, Beethoven himself
mistakenly believed that he was born two years later, in 1772, and he
stubbornly insisted on the incorrect date even when presented with official
papers that proved beyond any reasonable doubt that 1770 was his true birth
year.
Beethoven had two younger brothers who survived into adulthood, Caspar,
born in 1774, and Johann, born in 1776. Beethoven's mother, Maria Magdalena
van Beethoven, was a slender, genteel, and deeply moralistic woman. His
father, Johann van Beethoven, was a mediocre court singer better known for
his alcoholism than any musical ability. However, Beethoven's grandfather,
godfather and namesake, Kapellmeister Ludwig van Beethoven, was Bonn's
most prosperous and eminent musician, a source of endless pride for young
Ludwig.

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Sometime between the births of his two younger brothers, Beethoven's father
began teaching him music with an extraordinary rigor and brutality that
affected him for the rest of his life. Neighbors provided accounts of the small
boy weeping while he played the clavier, standing atop a footstool to reach the
keys, his father beating him for each hesitation or mistake.
On a near daily basis, Beethoven was flogged, locked in the cellar and deprived
of sleep for extra hours of practice. He studied the violin and clavier with his
father as well as taking additional lessons from organists around town.
Whether in spite of or because of his father's draconian methods, Beethoven
was a prodigiously talented musician from his earliest days and displayed
flashes of the creative imagination that would eventually reach farther than any
composer's before or since.
Hoping that his young son would be recognized as a musical prodigy
la Mozart, Beethoven's father arranged his first public recital for March 26,
1778. Billed as a "little son of six years," (Mozart's age when he debuted for
Empress Maria Theresia) although he was in fact seven, Beethoven played
impressively but his recital received no press whatsoever. Meanwhile, the
musical prodigy attended a Latin grade school named Tirocinium, where a
classmate said, "Not a sign was to be discovered of that spark of genius which
glowed so brilliantly in him afterwards."
Beethoven, who struggled with sums and spelling his entire life, was at best an
average student, and some biographers have hypothesized that he may have
had mild dyslexia. As he put it himself, "Music comes to me more readily than
words." In 1781, at the age of 10, Beethoven withdrew from school to study
music full time with Christian Gottlob Neefe, the newly appointed Court
Organist. Neefe introduced Beethoven to Bach, and at the age of twelve
Beethoven published his first composition, a set of piano variations on a theme
by an obscure classical composer named Dressler.
By 1784, his alcoholism worsening and his voice decaying, Beethoven's father
was no longer able to support his family, and Ludwig van Beethoven formally
requested an official appointment as Assistant Court Organist. Despite his
youth, his request was accepted, and Beethoven was put on the court payroll
with a modest annual salary of 150 florins.
In an effort to facilitate his musical development, in 1787 the court decided to
send Beethoven to Vienna, Europes capital of culture and music, where he
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hoped to study with Mozart. There is only speculation and inconclusive
evidence that Beethoven ever met with Mozart, let alone studied with him.
Tradition as it that, upon hearing Beethoven, Mozart was to have said, "Keep
your eyes on him; some day he will give the world something to talk about. In
any case, after only a few weeks in Vienna, Beethoven learned that his mother
had fallen ill and he returned home to Bonn. Remaining in there, Beethoven
continued to carve out his reputation as the city's most promising young court
musician.
When the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II died in 1790, a 19-year-old
Beethoven received the immense honor of composing a musical memorial in
his honor. For reasons that remain unclear, Beethoven's composition was never
performed, and most assumed the young musician had proven unequal to the
task. However, more than a century later, Johannes Brahms discovered that
Beethoven had in fact composed a "beautiful and noble" piece of music
entitled Cantata on the Death of Emperor Joseph II. It is now considered his
earliest masterpiece.
Composing for Audiences
In 1792, with French revolutionary forces sweeping across the Rhineland into
the Electorate of Cologne, Beethoven decided to leave his hometown for
Vienna once again. Mozart had passed away a year earlier, leaving Joseph
Haydn as the unquestioned greatest composer alive.
Haydn was living in Vienna at the time, and it was with Haydn that the young
Beethoven now intended to study. As his friend and patron Count Waldstein
wrote in a farewell letter, "Mozart's genius mourns and weeps over the death of
his disciple. It found refuge, but no release with the inexhaustible Haydn;
through him, now, it seeks to unite with another. By means of assiduous labor
you will receive the spirit of Mozart from the hands of Haydn."
In Vienna, Beethoven dedicated himself wholeheartedly to musical study with
the most eminent musicians of the age. He studied piano with Haydn, vocal
composition with Antonio Salieri and counterpoint with Johann
Albrechtsberger. Not yet known as a composer, Beethoven quickly established
a reputation as a virtuoso pianist who was especially adept at improvisation.
Beethoven won many patrons among the leading citizens of the Viennese
aristocracy, who provided him with lodging and funds, allowing Beethoven, in
1794, to sever ties with the Electorate of Cologne. Beethoven made his long-
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awaited public debut in Vienna on March 29, 1795. Although there is
considerable debate over which of his early piano concerti he performed that
night, most scholars believe he played what is known as his "first" piano
concerto in C Major. Shortly thereafter, Beethoven decided to publish a series
of three piano trios as his "Opus 1," which were an enormous critical and
financial success.
In the first spring of the new century, on April 2, 1800, Beethoven debuted his
Symphony No. 1 in C major at the Royal Imperial Theater in Vienna. Although
Beethoven would grow to detest the piece -- "In those days I did not know how
to compose," he later remarked -- the graceful and melodious symphony
nevertheless established him as one of Europe's most celebrated composers.
As the new century progressed, Beethoven composed piece after piece that
marked him as a masterful composer reaching his musical maturity. His "Six
String Quartets," published in 1801, demonstrate complete mastery of that
most difficult and cherished of Viennese forms developed by Mozart and
Haydn. Beethoven also composed The Creatures of Prometheus in 1801, a
wildly popular ballet that received 27 performances at the Imperial Court
Theater.
Around this time Beethoven, like all of Europe, watched with a mixture of awe
and terror as Napoleon Bonaparte proclaimed himself First Consul, and later
Emperor, of France. Beethoven admired, abhorred and, to an extent, identified
with Napoleon a man of seemingly superhuman capabilities, only one year
older than himself and also of obscure birth.
In 1804, only weeks after Napoleon proclaimed himself Emperor, Beethoven
debuted his Symphony No. 3 in Napoleon's honor. Later renamed the "Eroica
Symphony" because Beethoven grew disillusioned with Napoleon, it was his
grandest and most original work to date -- so unlike anything heard before that
through weeks of rehearsal, the musicians could not figure out how to play it.
A prominent reviewer proclaimed Eroica, "one of the most original, most
sublime, and most profound products that the entire genre of music has ever
exhibited."
Losing Hearing
At the same time as he was composing these great and immortal works,
Beethoven was struggling to come to terms with a shocking and terrible fact,
one that he tried desperately to conceal. He was going deaf. By the turn of the
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century, Beethoven struggled to make out the words spoken to him in
conversation.
Beethoven revealed in a heart-wrenching 1801 letter to his friend Franz
Wegeler, "I must confess that I lead a miserable life. For almost two years I
have ceased to attend any social functions, just because I find it impossible to
say to people: I am deaf. If I had any other profession, I might be able to cope
with my infirmity; but in my profession it is a terrible handicap." At times
driven to extremes of melancholy by his affliction, Beethoven described his
despair in a long and poignant note that he concealed his entire life.
Dated October 6, 1802 and referred to as "The Heiligenstadt Testament," it
reads in part, "O you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn or
misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause
which makes me seem that way to you and I would have ended my life -- it
was only my art that held me back. Ah, it seemed impossible to leave the world
until I had brought forth all that I felt was within me."
Almost miraculously, despite his rapidly progressing deafness, Beethoven
continued to compose at a furious pace. From 1803-1812, what is known as his
"middle" or "heroic" period, he composed an opera, six symphonies, four solo
concerti, five string quartets, six string sonatas, seven piano sonatas, five sets
of piano variations, four overtures, four trios, two sextets and 72 songs. The
most famous among these were symphonies No. 3-8, the "Moonlight Sonata,"
the "Kreutzer" violin sonata and Fidelio, his only opera. In terms of the
astonishing output of superlatively complex, original and beautiful music, this
period in Beethoven's life is unrivaled by any of any other composer in history.
Despite his extraordinary output of beautiful music, Beethoven was lonely and
frequently miserable throughout his adult life. Short-tempered, absent-minded,
greedy and suspicious to the point of paranoia, Beethoven feuded with his
brothers, his publishers, his housekeepers, his pupils and his patrons. In one
illustrative incident, Beethoven attempted to break a chair over the head of
Prince Lichnowsky, one of his closest friends and most loyal patrons. Another
time he stood in the doorway of Prince Lobkowitz's palace shouting for all to
hear, "Lobkowitz is a donkey!"
For a variety of reasons that included his crippling shyness and unfortunate
physical appearance, Beethoven never married or had children. He was,
however, desperately in love with a married woman named Antonie Brentano.
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Over the course of two days in July of 1812, Beethoven wrote her a long and
beautiful love letter that he never sent. Addressed "to you, my Immortal
Beloved," the letter said in part, "My heart is full of so many things to say to
you -- ah -- there are moments when I feel that speech amounts to nothing at all
-- Cheer up -- remain my true, my only love, my all as I am yours."
The death of Beethoven's brother Caspar in 1815 sparked one of the great trials
of his life, a painful legal battle with his sister-in-law, Johanna, over the
custody of Karl van Beethoven, his nephew and her son. The struggle stretched
on for seven years during which both sides spewed ugly defamations at the
other. In the end, Beethoven won the boy's custody, though hardly his
affection.
Acclaimed Works and Death
Somehow, despite his tumultuous personal life, physical infirmity and
complete deafness, Beethoven composed his greatest music -- perhaps the
greatest music ever composed -- near the end of his life. His greatest late works
include Missa Solemnis, a mass that debuted in 1824 and is considered among
his finest achievements, and String Quartet No. 14, which contains seven
linked movements played without a break.
Beethoven's Ninth and final symphony, completed in 1824, remains the
illustrious composer's most towering achievement. The symphony's famous
choral finale, with four vocal soloists and a chorus singing the words of
Friedrich Schiller's poem "Ode to Joy," is perhaps the most famous piece of
music in history.
While connoisseurs delighted in the symphony's contrapuntal and formal
complexity, the masses found inspiration in the anthem-like vigor of the choral
finale and the concluding invocation of "all humanity."
Beethoven died on March 26, 1827, at the age of 56. An autopsy revealed that
the immediate cause of death was post-hepatitic cirrhosis of the liver. The
autopsy also provided clues to the origins of his deafness. While his quick
temper, chronic diarrhea and deafness are consistent with arterial disease, a
competing theory traces Beethoven's deafness to contracting typhus in the
summer of 1796.
Recently, scientists analyzing a remaining fragment of Beethoven's skull
noticed high levels of lead and hypothesized lead poisoning as a potential
cause of death, but that theory has been largely discredited.
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Ludwig van Beethoven is widely considered the greatest composer of all time.
He is the crucial transitional figure connecting the Classical and Romantic ages
of Western music. Beethoven's body of musical compositions stands
with Shakespeare's plays at the outer limits of human accomplishment.
And the fact Beethoven composed his most beautiful and extraordinary music
while deaf is an almost superhuman feat of creative genius, perhaps only
paralleled in the history of artistic achievement by John
Milton writing Paradise Lost while blind. Summing up his life and imminent
death during his last days, Beethoven, who was never as eloquent with words
as he was with music, borrowed a tag line that concluded many Latin plays at
the time. "Plaudite, amici, comoedia finita est," he said. "Applaud friends, the
comedy is over."

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