Beethoven Biography
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and the predominant musical figure in the transition period between the classical and romantic eras.
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Who was Ludwig van Beethoven?
Ludwig van Beethoven (December 16, 1770 – March 26, 1827), was a German pianist and composer widely considered the greatest of all time.
Whose innovative compositions combined voices and instruments, expanding the scope of the sonata, symphony, concerto, and quartet.
He is the crucial transitional figure connecting the classical and romantic ages of Western music.
Beethoven’s personal life was marked by a struggle against deafness. Some of his most important works were composed during the last 10 years of his life. When he couldn’t hear. He died at the age of 56 years.
The biggest
Widely considered the greatest composer who ever lived, Ludwig van Beethoven dominates a period of musical history like no one before or since.
Rooted in the classical traditions of Joseph Haydn and Mozart. His art stretches to encompass the new spirit of humanism and the incipient nationalism expressed in the works of Goethe and Friedrich von Schiller.
His oldest contemporaries in the world of literature. Kant’s rigorously redefined moral imperatives.
The ideals of the French Revolution, with its passionate concern for the freedom and dignity of the individual.
He revealed more vividly than any of his predecessors the power of music to convey a philosophy of life without the aid of a spoken text.
In some of his compositions is found the strongest affirmation of the human will in all of music, if not all of art.
Although he himself was not a romantic, he became the origin of many things that characterized the work of the romantics who followed him, especially in his ideal of program or illustrative music.
Innovative
This he defined in connection with his Sixth Pastoral Symphony as «more an expression of emotion than painting».
In his musical form, he was a considerable innovator, extending the scope of desonata, symphony, concerto, and quartet.
While in the Ninth Symphony he combined the worlds of vocal and instrumental music in a way never before attempted.
His personal life was marked by a heroic fight against deafness usurpation, and some of his most important works were composed during the last 10 years of his life when he was unable to hear.
In an age that saw the decline of court and church patronage, he not only supported himself from the sale and publication of his works.
Likewise, he was also the first musician to receive a salary with no obligations other than to compose how and when he felt inclined.
Beethoven’s music
Some of Beethoven’s best-known compositions include:
‘Symphony No. 3’
In 1804, a few weeks after Napoleon Bonaparte proclaimed himself Emperor of FranceBeethoven presented his «Symphony No. 3» in honor of Napoleon.
Beethoven, like all of Europe, looked on with a mixture of wonder and terror; he admired, loathed, and to some extent identified with Napoleon.
A man of seemingly superhuman abilities, only a year older than himself and also of obscure birth.
Later renamed the «Eroica Symphony» because Beethoven became disillusioned with Napoleon, it was his greatest and most original work to date.
Because it was unlike anything heard before, the musicians couldn’t figure out how to play it during weeks of rehearsal.
A prominent critic hailed «Eroica» as «one of the most original, most sublime,
‘Symphony No. 5’
One of Beethoven’s best-known works to modern audiences, «Symphony No. 5» is known for its ominous first four notes.
Beethoven began composing the piece in 1804, but its completion was delayed a couple of times for other projects.
It premiered at the same time as Beethoven’s «Symphony No. 6», in 1808 in Vienna.
‘Fur Elise’
In 1810, Beethoven completed «Fur Elise» (meaning «For Elise»). Although it was not published until 40 years after his death.
In 1867, it was discovered by a scholar of German music. However, Beethoven’s original manuscript has since been lost.
Some scholars have suggested that it was dedicated to her friend. Student and fellow musician, Therese Malfatti, whom she allegedly proposed to at the time of the song’s composition.
Others said it was for the German soprano Elisabeth Rockel, another friend of Beethoven’s.
‘Symphony No. 7’
Premiered in vienna in 1813 to benefit soldiers wounded in the battle of HanauBeethoven began composing, one of his most energetic and optimistic works, in 1811.
The composer called the piece «his most excellent symphony». The second movement is often performed separately from the rest of the symphony, and may have been one of Beethoven’s most popular works.
‘Missa Solemnis’
Debuting in 1824, this Catholic mass is considered among Beethoven’s greatest achievements. Less than 90 minutes long, the rarely performed piece features a choir, orchestra, and four soloists.
‘Symphony No. 9’
Beethoven’s ninth and final symphony, completed in 1824, remains the illustrious composer’s crowning achievement.
The symphony’s famous choral finale, featuring four vocal soloists and a choir singing the words of Friedrich Schiller’s poem «Ode to Joy,» is perhaps the most famous piece of music in history.
While connoisseurs were elated by the formal and contrapuntal complexity of the symphony, the masses were inspired by the hymn-like vigor of the choral finale and the final invocation of «all humanity».
‘String Quartet No. 14’
Beethoven’s «String Quartet No. 14» debuted in 1826. Approximately 40 minutes long, it contains seven linked movements that are played without interruption.
The work was reported as one of Beethoven’s favorite later quartets and has been musically described as one of the composer’s most elusive compositions.
Beethoven was deaf?
At the same time that Beethoven was composing some of his most immortal works, he was struggling to come to terms with a terrible and shocking fact, one that he tried desperately to hide: he was going deaf.
At the end of the 19th century, Beethoven struggled to understand the words spoken to him in conversation.
Beethoven revealed in a heartbreaking 1801 letter to his friend Franz Wegeler: «I must confess that I lead a miserable life.
For almost two years I have stopped attending any social function, simply because it is impossible for me to tell people: I am deaf. If I had another profession, I could cope with my illness, but in my profession it is a terrible handicap.
Sometimes driven to melancholy extremes by his grief, Beethoven described his despair in a long, moving note that he concealed all his life.
Dated October 6, 1802 and referred to as «The Heiligenstadt Testament», it reads in part: «Oh you men who think or say that I am malevolent, obstinate or misanthropic, how much do you mistake me?
They don’t know the secret because that makes me look like that and it would have ended my life, it was just my art that stopped me.
Ah, it seemed to me impossible to leave the world until I had manifested all that I felt was within me.»
the heroic period
Almost miraculously, despite his rapidly progressing deafness, Beethoven continued to compose at a furious pace.
From 1803 to 1812, what is known as his «middle» or «heroic» period, he composed an opera. Six symphonies, four solo concertos, 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 were symphonies No. 3-8, the «Moonlight Sonata», the «Kreutzer» violin sonata and Fidelio, his only opera.
In terms of the astounding output of superlatively complex, original, and beautiful music, this period in Beethoven’s life is unrivaled by any composer in history.
When and how did Beethoven die?
He died on March 26, 1827, at the age of 56. An autopsy revealed the immediate cause of death to be posthepatitic cirrhosis of the liver.
The autopsy also provided clues to the origins of his deafness. Although 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 796.
Scientists analyzing a remaining fragment of Beethoven’s skull noted high levels of lead and hypothesized lead poisoning as a possible cause of death, but that theory has been largely discredited.
When and where was Beethoven born?
Ludwig Van Beethoven was born approximately on December 16, 1770 in the city of bonnin the Electorate of Cologne, a principality of the Holy Roman Empire.
Although his exact date of birth is uncertain, he was baptized on December 17, 1770.
Since by law and custom, babies were baptized within 24 hours of birth, December 16 is their most likely date of birth.
However, Beethoven himself mistakenly believed that he was born two years later, in 1772.
He stubbornly insisted on the wrong date, even when presented with official documents proving beyond any reasonable doubt that 1770 was his true year of birth.
family and childhood
Beethoven had two younger brothers who survived to adulthood, Caspar, born in 1774, and Johann, born in 1776.
Beethoven’s mother, Maria Magdalena van Beethoven, was a slender, gentle and deeply self-righteous woman.
His father, Johann van Beethoven, was a mediocre court singer. He is more 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 the young Ludwig.
Sometime between the birth of his two younger brothers, Beethoven’s father began teaching him music with a rigor and brutality that affected him for the rest of his life.
The brutality of the Father
Neighbors noticed the little boy crying while playing the clavier, standing on a stool to reach the keys, and his father hitting him for every hesitation or mistake.
Almost every day, Beethoven was flogged, locked in the cellar, and deprived of sleep for extra hours of practice.
He studied violin and clavier with his father and took additional lessons from organists in the city. Beethoven was a prodigiously talented musician from his earliest days.
He displayed flashes of creative imagination that would eventually go further than any composer before or since.
Hoping that his young son would be recognized as a musical prodigy like Mozart. Beethoven’s father arranged his first public recital on March 26, 1778.
the recital
Advertised as a «little son of 6…