Beethoven is, undoubtedly, my favorite composer. So I decided to start my music pages with him. Be warned, though, I'm no music history scholar!
E.T.A. Hoffman wrote, "Beethoven's music sets in motion the lever of fear, of awe, of horror, of suffering, and awakens just that infinite longing which is the essence of romanticism. He is accordingly a completely romantic composer..."
I think this pretty much sums up who Beethoven was, and why I enjoy playing--or attempting :-) to play-- his music so much!!
Beethoven was born in December, 1770, in the city of Bonn, Germany. By the time he was five years old, he was already beginning to show promise as a musician, prompting his father, Johann, to try making him into another Mozart. However, Beethoven preferred to be by himself, improvising, against his father's orders.
His first concert was on March 26, 1778, in Cologne, Germany, where he was presented with one of his father's young voice students. In 1787, on a brief visit to Vienna, he played for Mozart, who prophesied a bright future for him.
He often would compose while walking outside, but it was very difficult for him. He kept notebooks where he jotted down plans & themes for compositions. One example is the sketches for the Quartet Op. 131 which covers three times as many pages as the finished copy of the work.
(I think this is another reason why I like Beethoven so much. Doesn't it make him seem so much more human to know that the wonderful things he composed didn't come easy to him?!)
The melancholy which is usually associated with Beethoven could have been a result of his deafness. It began appearing around 1796, and grew increasingly worse until by 1820, he could hardly hear at all. In 1802, he wrote a letter to his brothers that was to be read after his death entitled the "Heiligenstadt testament", in which he describes how he suffered when he realized that there was no cure for his deafness. *"I must live alone like one who has been banished, I can mix with society only as true necessity demands. If I approach near to people a hot terror seizes upon me and I fear being exposed to the danger that my condition might be noticed. Thus it has been during the last six months which I have spent in the country...What a humiliation for me when someone standing next to me heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing, or someone heard a shepherd singing and again I heard nothing. Such incidents drove me almost to despair, a little more of that and I would have ended my life--it was only my art that held me back. Ah, it seemed to me impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt was within me...Oh Providence--grant me at last but one day of pure joy--it is so long since real joy echoed in my heart..."*
Within 12 years of his arrival in Vienna, he was acknowledged throughout Europe as the foremost pianist and composer for the piano of his time, and as a symphonist who ranked equally with Hayden & Mozart. Also, unlike most composers, he was always able to write for himself, rather than on command. It is probably because of this that his music seems to be such a direct representation of himself, instead of someone else. More than any composer before him, his music gives the impression of being a direct outpouring of his personality.
References:
Grout, Donald Jay. A History of Western Music. Fourth Edition W.W. Norton & Company. inc. New York. 1988
*Thayer's Life of Beethoven rev. and ed. E. Forbes (Princeton, 1967) pp.304-06.
