How a deaf Beethoven was able to become one of the greatest composers, and why he never married

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

May 7, 1824. One of the greatest icons in the history of music, Ludwig van Beethoven, enters the stage of the Vienna Theater. On this day, one of the most ambitious musical works, the Ninth Symphony, including the famous "Ode to Joy", was presented to the public. Everything is fine, but the composer hears nothing. Almost no one in the audience knows that Beethoven is almost completely deaf. How could he create such beautiful music without hearing sounds?

Ludwig van Beethoven not just the greatest composer. He is, without any doubt, one of the heroes of the modern era. Each era has its own heroes. The times of antiquity were marked by such figures as Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and other great personalities. New times have come for Europe and new heroes with them. Politicians, military leaders, generals have lost their relevance. Other significant people became examples of new heroic qualities in tune with the coming era. One of them was the brilliant composer, the owner of the truly divine gift.

It is generally accepted that Ludwig had a difficult, hopeless childhood, that he was unhappy, deaf almost from birth, lonely and poor. Of course, a genius must be poor, otherwise humanity does not want to recognize his genius. But that was not entirely true. More precisely, in many respects it is a lie.

Abusive father and unhappy childhood

The future genius was born into a musical family. His father, Johann van Beethoven, was a rather talented tenor singer. So respected that he was invited by respectable wealthy people to teach their children music. Often, Beethoven's father is completely unfairly portrayed as a degraded loser, drunkard and despot.

Johann was authoritarian. He really wanted to educate the second Mozart from Ludwig. But the thing is that the boy was capable of music and his father saw it. Otherwise, no amount of compulsory long-term studies would have helped Ludwig later become a great composer. True, Johann did not immediately consider the composer's talent of his son. In this he was helped by Ludwig's teacher, Christian Gottlob Nefe, who taught the boy musical literacy.

It was Nefe who was the first to notice that the boy was not just a second Mozart, he was the real musical genius of the composer. He told the boy's father about this and was the first to introduce the public to Ludwig's music. The audience was delighted with the music of the young Beethoven, who at that time was only twelve.

Unfortunately, in 1787, Ludwig's mother and Johann's beloved wife, Mary Magdalene, died. After that, the composer's father broke down. He began to drink, gradually sank and Ludwig had to support him and his brothers. But the father was always immensely proud of his son-composer.

Deaf composer

Beethoven was not always deaf, as many believe. He began to gradually lose his hearing from about twenty-six years old. He was completely deaf by forty-four, before that he had difficulty, but he could distinguish sounds. Beethoven used a special auditory tube. It was rather bulky, which made carrying it with you extremely uncomfortable.

When the composer began to lose his hearing and realized that it was incurable and what awaited him in the end, he was simply in despair. Ludwig was very afraid that they would find out about his deafness, he began to refuse to play and conduct. He even contemplated suicide. He endlessly asked God why he was given such a cruel test. But in the process, he resigned himself and learned to live with it. Beethoven began to write in special, as he said, conversational notebooks, which became his life story.

The most important thing is that what the composer was so afraid of did not happen: yes, he did not hear sounds, but the music did not leave him. She sounded in his head all the time. He worked by gripping one end of a pencil in his teeth, while the other rested against the body of the piano. This is how the composer felt the vibrations. He wrote his most amazing works precisely at a time when he was rapidly losing his hearing. So God has his own plans for us, which we often cannot comprehend, but this is always the best.

Lonely and unhappy

Beethoven was never married, but he was not alone. He was often carried away as a real highly creative person. Novels just always ended in failure. Ludwig was rumored to be shy with women and puritanical to the core. He could not afford liberties with the lady. Married ladies were always a definite taboo for him. With some he had no luck. Indeed, very often the ladies saw in him only a means to achieve their selfish goals. And having played enough with the feelings of a promising genius, they jumped out to marry a mundane rich man.

Sincere mutual feelings with Teresa Brunswick, to whom Beethoven was secretly engaged, also ended in nothing. Despite the feelings, the couple broke up for unknown reasons. Many historians are inclined to consider Beethoven's famous letter to a certain "immortal lover" addressed to Teresa. But there is no exact confirmation of this. Or maybe it is generally addressed not to some woman, but to the true eternal beloved of the great composer - Music?

With Ludwig there were always friends, acquaintances, relatives nearby. He even sometimes left Vienna, where he lived, out of town to be alone and to do what he loved more than life itself - his music. When he wanted to work alone, he wrote so that no one visited him, that he was busy and he did not need anyone now.

The loneliness of the great master was rather moral. He was often misunderstood. Sometimes they could not fully appreciate Beethoven's works because of their complexity. The composer was well aware that many of his works were not for the masses, the public would not understand them. He wrote music for himself. It is often mentioned how Beethoven directly answered Schindler to such a reproach: "How do you, with your mediocrity, understand something extraordinary?"

In his letters and notes, unlike the same Mozart, who always wrote the word la musique in French, Beethoven writes - die Kunst ("art" in German). For Beethoven, music was a divine and sacred art. One of the most famous portraits of the composer, Willibrord Mähler, depicts him as Orpheus.

Beggar genius

Beethoven was never particularly rich. Only this is not because he did not earn anything. The composer was simply not interested in various household goods. Beethoven could always help his friends with money if they needed it. Ludwig once wrote: “Just imagine if one of my friends is in need, but I have no money, and I cannot help him right away, it doesn’t matter, I just have to sit down at the table, get down to work, and very soon I I will help a friend get out of need … It's just wonderful. So, I decided that let my art serve for the good of the poor."

Ludwig supported his not very prosperous family with his own money until his death. Beethoven even left a legacy to his unlucky nephew Karl, whom he loved very much, the preferred shares of the Austrian National Bank. Although he himself is said to have died in bed with bedbugs. Contrary to popular belief, the composer's dwelling was not at all so miserable. It was a luxurious apartment, which was occupied by a general of the Austrian army before him.

Beethoven's message to all mankind

The composer lived in a turbulent historical period. The world was filled with violence, wars, hunger and devastation … However, when the world was not filled? In this seemingly hopeless darkness of life, Ludwig van Beethoven was the one who showed people the light in the kingdom of darkness. Having conquered his suffering, he shows people that they cannot give up under the pressure of life's circumstances. You cannot make excuses that the world lies in evil. Beethoven said that he knows no other sign of greatness than kindness.

The composer expressed his views and principles best in his music. The works that he was able to create when he stopped hearing fascinate, have a hypnotic effect on the listener. They are drunk, Beethoven declares: “I am Bacchus, who squeezes out the sweet juice of grapes for humanity. It is I who grant people the divine frenzy of spirit."

The idea of the work, which has become an immortal masterpiece and the hallmark of the great composer, he nurtured for more than two decades. The Ninth Symphony became a breakthrough for him. Beethoven tried on, used different musical forms. Initially, the immortal "Ode to Joy" was supposed to decorate the tenth or eleventh symphonies (the composer said that he wrote them, but the manuscripts were not found). Nevertheless, he included it in the Ninth Symphony.

For the first time "Ode to Joy" was performed together with the Ninth Symphony in 1824. Eyewitnesses said that after the music had finished, the composer stood with his back to the audience. One singer took notice and turned it around. The applause of the audience, who had come to a state of frenzied delight, sounded as many as five times. At the same time, according to etiquette, it was customary even for crowned persons to applaud only three times. The ovation was interrupted only with the help of the police. The composer was so shocked that he lost consciousness and did not come to him until the evening of the next day.

On the score of the Ninth Symphony, Ludwig van Beethoven wrote: "Life is a tragedy. Hurray!"

The death of a hero and the triumph of life

When the composer died, a huge number of people came to see him on his last journey. The best Austrian actor delivered his posthumous speech, and the best poet in Austria, Franz Grillparzer, wrote an obituary. Beethoven's birthday and the day of his death began to be celebrated with grandiose concerts. Many plays, poems, books have been written in his honor.

The composer's contemporaries knew perfectly well that he was a genius, that he was not like everyone else, that he was a very special person. Now Beethoven's personality is an icon for musicians of different styles and trends. Even though he himself died, but his music will live forever, inspiring whole generations.

Read more about the personal life of the great composer in our article unrequited love of Ludwig van Beethoven.