Ludwig van Beethoven

1820 portrait by Karl Stieler

Ludwig van Beethoven (pronounced [ˈbeː.to.vən]) (baptized December 17, 1770 – March 26, 1827) was a German composer and pianist. He is generally regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of music, and was the predominant figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western classical music. His reputation and genius have inspired—and in many cases intimidated—ensuing generations of composers, musicians, and audiences.

Scholars have long debated the subject of Beethoven’s faith and its affect on his life and music, however in his letters Beethoven often mentioned his religious convictions and his relationship with God. In one such letter he wrote, “I have no friend. I must live by myself. I know however, that God is nearer to me than others. I go without fear of Him. I have constantly recognized and understood Him.” In another letter to his friend, the Grand Arch Duke Rudolf, the composer wrote, “Nothing higher exists than to approach God more than other people, and from that to extend His glory among humanity.”

Life

Beethoven was born at Bonngasse 515 (today Bonngasse 20) in Bonn to Johann van Beethoven (1740—1792) and [[Magdalena Keverich van Beethoven (1744—1787). Beethoven was baptized on December 17, but his family and later teacher Johann Albrechtsberger celebrated his birthday on December 16.

Beethoven's first music teacher was his father, a musician in the Electoral court at Bonn who was apparently a harsh and unpredictable instructor. Johann would often come home from a bar in the middle of the night and pull young Ludwig out of bed to play for him and his friend. Beethoven's talent was recognized at a very early age and his first important teacher was Christian Gottlob Neefe. In 1787 young Beethoven traveled to Vienna for the first time, where he may have met and played for Mozart. He was forced to return home because his mother was dying of tuberculosis. Beethoven's mother died when he was 18, and for several years he was responsible for raising his two younger brothers because of his father's worsening alcoholism.

Beethoven moved to Vienna in 1792, where he studied for a time with Joseph Haydn in lieu of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who had died the previous year. He received additional instruction from Johan Georg Albrechtsberger (Vienna's preeminent counterpoint instructor) and Antonio Salieri. Beethoven immediately established a reputation as a piano virtuoso. His first works with opus numbers, the three piano trios, appeared in 1795. He settled into the career pattern he would follow for the remainder of his life: rather than working for the church or a noble court (as most composers before him had done), he supported himself through a combination of annual stipends or single gifts from members of the aristocracy, income from subscription concerts, concerts, and lessons, and sales of his works.

Ludwig van Beethoven: detail of an 1804 portrait by W.J. Mähler

Social difficulties

Beethoven's personal life was troubled. Around age 28, he started to become deaf, which led him to contemplate suicide (see the 1802 Heiligenstadt Testament). He was attracted to unattainable (married or aristocratic) women; he never married. His only uncontested love affair with an identified woman began in 1805 with Josephine von Brunswick; most scholars think it ended by 1807 because she could not marry a commoner without losing her children. In 1812 he wrote a long love letter to a woman only identified therein as the "Immortal Beloved." Several candidates have been suggested, but none has won universal support. Some scholars believe his period of low productivity from about 1812 to 1816 was caused by depression resulting from Beethoven's realization that he would never marry.

Beethoven quarrelled, often bitterly, with his relatives and others (including a painful and public custody battle over his nephew Karl); he frequently treated other people badly. He moved often and had strange personal habits, such as wearing dirty clothing even as he washed compulsively. Nonetheless, he had a close and devoted circle of friends his entire life.

Many listeners perceive an echo of Beethoven's life in his music, which often depicts struggle followed by triumph. This description is often applied to Beethoven's creation of masterpieces in the face of his severe personal difficulties.

Beethoven in 1823; copy of a destroyed portrait by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller

Health

Beethoven was often in poor health. According to one of his letters, his abdominal problems began while he was still in Bonn and thus can be dated to before 1792. In 1826 his health took a drastic turn for the worse, leading to his eventual death. The autopsy report indicates serious problems with his liver, gall bladder, spleen, and pancreas. There is no general agreement on the exact cause of death. Modern research on a lock of Beethoven's hair cut from his head the day after he died and a piece of his skull taken from his grave in 1863, both now at the Beethoven Center in San Jose, California [1], show that lead poisoning could well have contributed to his ill-health and ultimately to his death. The source (or sources) of the lead poisoning is unknown, but may have been fish, lead compounds used to sweeten wines, pewter drinking vessels, lead-based medicinals, or long sessions in mineral baths. It is unlikely that lead poisoning was the cause of his deafness, which several researchers think was caused by Paget's disease, cochlear otosclerosis, or an autoimmune disorder such as systemic lupus erythematosus, although recent studies have shown that some lead poison victims have suffered from hearing loss as well. The hair analyses did not detect mercury, which is consistent with the view that Beethoven did not have syphilis (syphilis was treated with mercury compounds at the time). The absence of drug metabolites suggests Beethoven avoided opiate painkillers.

Beethoven's grave in the Zentralfriedhof, Vienna.

Beethoven died on March 26, 1827 at the age of 56, after a long illness. He was buried in the Währinger cemetery. Twenty months later, the body of Franz Schubert (who had been one of the pallbearers at Beethoven's funeral) was buried next to Beethoven's. In 1888, both Schubert's and Beethoven's graves were moved to the Zentralfriedhof (Central Cemetery), where they can now be found next to those of Johann Strauss I and Johannes Brahms.

Personal beliefs and their musical influence

Beethoven was much taken by the ideals of the Enlightenment and by the growing Romanticism in Europe. He initially dedicated his third symphony, the Eroica (Italian for "heroic"), to Napoleon in the belief that the general would sustain the democratic and republican ideals of the French Revolution, but in 1804 crossed out Napoleon's name on the title page upon which he had written a dedication to him, as Napoleon's imperial ambitions became clear, renamed the symphony as the "Sinfonia Eroica, composta per festeggiare il sovvenire di un grand Uomo", or in English, "composed to celebrate the memory of a great man". The fourth movement of his Ninth Symphony features an elaborate choral setting of Schiller's Ode An die Freude ("Ode To Joy"), an optimistic hymn championing the brotherhood of humanity.

Though scholars disagree on Beethoven's religious beliefs and the role they played in his creative endeavors, the fact remains that he did compose important music that had decidedly religious overtones. Beethoven religious music includes the epic "Missa Solemnis," the Mass in C, the oratorio "Christ on the Mount of Olives," "Opferlied" (Song of Sacrifice) and the "Gellent Songs," Op. 48, providing evidence that his faith was an important aspect of his musican output. For discussion, see Ludwig van Beethoven's religious beliefs.

Work

Beethoven composed in a great variety of genres, including symphonies, concerti, piano sonatas, string quartets and other chamber music, masses, opera, lieder, and various other genres. He is viewed as one of the most important transitional figures between the Classical and Romantic eras of musical history.

As far as musical form is concerned, Beethoven built on the principles of sonata form and motivic development that he had inherited from Haydn and Mozart, but greatly extended them, writing longer and more ambitious movements. But Beethoven also radically redefined the symphony, transforming it from the rigidly structured four-ordered-movements form of Haydn's era to a fairly open ended form that could sustain as many movements as necessary, and of whatever form was necessary to give the work cohesion.

The three periods

Beethoven's career as a composer is usually divided into Early, Middle, and Late periods.

In the Early period, he is seen as emulating his great predecessors Haydn and Mozart while concurrently exploring new directions and gradually expanding the scope and ambition of his work. Some important pieces from the Early period are the first and second symphonies, the first six string quartets, the first two piano concertos, and the first twenty piano sonatas, including the famous Pathétique and Moonlight.

The Middle period began shortly after Beethoven's personal crisis centering around deafness. The period is noted for large-scale works expressing heroism and struggle; these include many of the most famous works of classical music. Middle period works include six symphonies (Nos. 3–8), the last three piano concertos, triple concerto and his only violin concerto, five string quartets (Nos. 7–11), the next seven piano sonatas including the Waldstein, and Appassionata, and his only opera, Fidelio.

Beethoven's Late period began around 1816 and lasted until Beethoven's death in 1827. The Late works are greatly admired for and characterized by their intellectual depth, intense and highly personal expression, and experimentation with forms (for example, the Quartet in C Sharp Minor has seven movements, while most famously his Ninth Symphony adds choral forces to the orchestra in the last movement). This period includes the Missa Solemnis, the last five string quartets and the last five piano sonatas.

His Ninth Symphony, in the estimation of musicologist Harold C. Schonberg, “ is music turned inward, music of the spirit, music of extreme subjectivity and extraordinary grandeur.” It is a work that embodies the "spirit" of Romanticism, though it would be Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann who would forge the new compositional style, especially with regard to form and harmonic invention, reflective of what would come to be known as Romantic style.

Considering the depth and extent of Beethoven's artistic explorations, as well as the composer's success in making himself comprehensible to the widest possible audience, the Austrian-born British musician and writer Hans Keller pronounced Beethoven "humanity's greatest mind altogether".

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Albrecht, Theodor, and Elaine Schwensen, "More Than Just Peanuts: Evidence for December 16 as Beethoven's birthday." The Beethoven Newsletter 3 (1988): 49, 60-63.
• Clive, Peter. Beethoven and His World: A Biographical Dictionary. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-19-816672-9.
• Davies, Peter. The Character of a Genius: Beethoven in Perspective. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002. ISBN 0-313-31913-8.
• Beethoven in Person: His Deafness, Illnesses, and Death. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001. ISBN 0-313-31587-6.
• DeNora, Tia. "Beethoven and the Construction of Genius: Musical Politics in Vienna, 1792-1803." Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1995. ISBN 0-520-21158-8.
• Geck, Martin. Beethoven. Translated by Anthea Bell. London: Haus, 2003. ISBN 1-904341-03-9 (h), ISBN 1-904341-00-4 (p).
• Hatten, Robert S.. Musical Meaning in Beethoven (in English). Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 372. ISBN 0253327423. 
• Kropfinger, Klaus. Beethoven. Verlage Bärenreiter/Metzler, 2001. ISBN 3-7618-1621-9.
• Meredith, William. "The History of Beethoven's Skull Fragments." The Beethoven Journal 20 (2005): 3-46.
• Morris, Edmund. Beethoven: The Universal Composer. New York: Atlas Books / HarperCollins, 2005. ISBN 0-06-075974-7.
• Solomon, Maynard. Beethoven, 2nd revised edition. New York: Schirmer Books, 2001. ISBN 0-8256-7268-6.
• Late Beethoven: Music, Thought, Imagination. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. ISBN 0-520-23746-3.
• Stanley, Glenn, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Beethoven. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-521-58074-9 (hc), ISBN 0-521-58934-7 (pb).

External links

• General reference
  • Beethoven-Haus Bonn. Official website of Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, Germany. Links to extensive studio and digital archive, library holdings, the Beethoven-Haus Museum (including "internet exhibitions" and "virtual visits"), the Beethoven-Archiv research center, and information on Beethoven publications of interest to the specialist and general reader. Extensive collection of Beethoven's compositions and written documents, with sound samples and a digital reconstruction of his last house in Vienna.
  • Raptus Association for Music Appreciation site on Beethoven
  • One Stop Beethoven Resource - articles and facts about Beethoven from Aaron Green, guide to Classical Music at About.com.
  • The Beethoven Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61: Some Twentieth-Century Viewpoints
  • Beethoven’s Personality and Music: The Introverted Romantic

• Scores

• Recordings
  • Beethoven's Nine, The Philadelphia Orchestra performs all nine symphonies for NPR's Performance Today
  • Piano Society — Beethoven. Many free recordings, articles and biography.
  • The Unheard Beethoven - MIDI files of hundreds of Beethoven compositions never recorded and many that have never been published.
  • Klaviersonaten - MIDI files of Beethoven's complete piano sonatas
  • Beethoven cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
  • Recording of the Ninth Symphony, with Maximianno Cobra directing the Europa Philharmonia Budapest Orchestra & Choir.
  • Recording of the piano sonata opus 110, with extensive analysis
• Specific topics
  • Beethoven manuscripts at the British Library
  • Contemporary reviews of Beethoven's works
  • Pictures of "Beethoven in Vienna and Baden". In French.
  • Beethoven's Hair - trace the journey of Beethoven's Hair.
  • Für Elise - and other Beethoven resources.
  • The Guevara Lock of Beethoven's Hair, from The Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies.
  • Hair analysis says Beethoven died of lead poisoning. CBC News, 18 October 2000.
  • The Beethoven Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61: Some Twentieth-Century Viewpoints
  • The Third Symphony Recording: Philarmonia Baroque - Creative Commons
• Related topics
  • Beethoven's last apartment in Vienna, digitally reconstructed 2004, on Multimedia CD-ROM edited by Beethoven-Haus Bonn

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