"For many people, Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827), represents the highest level of musical genius. He opened new realms of musical expression and profoundly influenced composers throughout the nineteenth century.
"Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany, into a family of musicians. By the age of eleven, he was serving as assistant to the court organist, and at age twelve he had several compositions published. When he was sixteen, he played for Mozart, who reportedly said, 'Keep your eyes on him; someday he will give the world something to talk about.' Shortly before his twenty-second birthday, he felt Boon to study with Hayden in Vienna, where he spent the rest of his life.
"Beethoven's first years in Vienna brought hard work, growing confidence, and public praise (although his studies with Hayden were not entirely successful and he went secretly to another teacher.) This music-loving city was dazzled by his virtuosity and moved by his improvisations. And although he rebelled against social convention, asserting that an artist deserved as much respect as the nobility, the same aristocrats who had allowed Mozart to die in poverty showered Beethoven with gifts. In 1809, three nobleman obligated themselves to give an annual income, their only condition being that he remain in Vienna--an arrangement unprecedented in music history. Unlike earlier composers, Beethoven was never actually in the service of the Viennese aristocracy. He earned good fees from piano lessons and concerts, and publishers were quick to buy his compositions.
"But during his twenty-ninth year, disaster struck: he felt the first symptoms of deafness, which his doctors could do nothing to halt. On October 6, 1802, Beethoven wrote an agonized letter addressed to his brothers from Heiligenstadt, a village outside Vienna. In the letter (now known as the Heiligenstadt testament), he said, 'I would have ended my life--it was only my art my art that held me back.' This victory over despair coincided with an important change in his musical style; works that he created after his emotional crisis--perhaps most significantly the gigantic Third Symphony, the Eroica, composed from 1803-1804--have a newer and heroism. (He planned to name the Third Symphony Bonaparte, after Napoleon; but when Napoleon proclaimed himself emperor, Beethoven struck out the dedication and later wrote on the new title page, 'Heroic Symphony composed to celebrate the memory of a great man.')
"As a man, Beethoven remains something of a mystery. He was self-educated and had read widely, but he was weak in elementary arithmetic. he claimed the highest moral principles but was often unscrupulous in dealing with publishers. He was orderly and methodical when composing but dressed sloppily and lived in incredibly messy apartments. He felt in love with several women but never formed a lasting relationship. The contradictions in his personality are especially evident in his attempted suicide. Beethoven took consolation from nature for disappointments in his personal life, and ideas came to him as he walked in the countryside. His sense of isolation grew with his deafness. Friends had to communicate with him through an ear trumpet and, during his last years, by writing in notebooks which he carried.
"Despite this, and despite mounting personal problems, Beethoven had a creative outburst after 1818 that produced some of his greatest works: the late piano sonatas and string quartets, the Missa solemnis, and the Ninth Symphony--out of total deafness, new realms of sound.
Beethoven's Music
"For Beethoven, music was not mere entertainment but a moral force, 'a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.' His music directly reflects his powerful, tortured personality.
"Beethoven's demand for perfection meant long and hard work--sometimes he worked for years on a single symphony while also writing other compositions. He carried musical sketchbooks everywhere, jotting down and revising ideas; the final versions of his works were often hammered out laboriously.
"Beethoven mostly used classical forms and techniques, but he gave them new power and intensity. The musical heir of Haydn and Mozart, he bridged the classical and romantic eras; many of his innovations were used by later composers. In his works, tension and excitement are built up through syncopations and dissonances. The range of pitch and dynamics is greater than ever before, so that contrasts of mood are more pronounced. Accents and climaxes seemed titanic. Greater tension called for a large-scale structures in which every note seems inevitable. But his music is not all stormy and powerful; much of it is gentle, humorous, noble, or lyrical.
"More than his predecessors, he tried to unify contrasting movements by means of musical continuity. Sometimes one movement leads directly into the next, without the traditional pause; sometimes a musical bond is created by similar themes. He also greatly expanded the development section of sonata-form movements and made it more dramatic. His works often have climactic, triumphant finales toward which the previous movements seem to build--an important departure from the light realized ending of Haydn and Mozart.
"Beethoven's most popular works are the nine symphonies, written for larger orchestras than Haydn's or Mozart's. Each of them is unique in character and style, though the odd-numbered symphonies tend to be more forceful and the even-numbered ones calmer and more lyrical. In the finale of the Ninth Symphony (Choral), Beethoven took the unprecedented step of using a chorus and four vocal soloists, who sing the text of Schiller's Ode to Joy.
"His thirty-two piano sonatas are far more difficult than those of Haydn and Mozart and exploit the improved piano of his time, drawing many new effects from it. In these sonatas, he experimented with compositional techniques which he later expanded in the symphonies and string quartets. The sixteen string quartets are among the greatest music composed; and each of the five superb piano concertos is remarkable for its individuality.
"While most of Beethoven's important works are for instruments, his sense of drama was also expressed in vocal music, including two masses and his only opera, Fidelio.
"Beethoven's works is usually divided into three periods: early (up to 1802), middle (1803-1814), and late (1815-1827). some works of the early period show the influence of Hayden and Mozart, but others clearly show Beethoven's personal style. the works of the middle period tend to be longer and more heroic; the sublime works of the late period often contain fugues as well as passages that sound surprisingly harsh and "modern." When a violinist complained that the music was very difficult to play, Beethoven reportedly replied, 'Do you believe that I think of a wretched fiddle when the spirit speaks to me?'
The above is from Music an Appreciation by Roger Kamien, Brief Edition, McGraw Hill Companies, Inc. Pages 150-153.
In Building a Classical Music Library, Bill Parker writes , "Like C.P.E. Bach, Beethoven was a transitional figure, but between different eras--the Classical and the Romantic. We place him here (in the Classical period) only because of the tendency in recent years has been to stress his roots with Haydn (with whom he studied) and his affinities with Mozart, not to mention . . .his worship of Handel. This view is, I think, to the good; but it does not compel us to abandon the view that Beethoven was also the first great Romantic composer.
"Critics of Beethoven's day often found his works impossibly wayward and incomprehensible. He returned their scorn, often filling his next work with the very qualities they had condemned in his last. To this day there are people who believe the elliptical arguments of his late string quartets are not the musings of genius, but the ravings of madness. By the end of his life Beethoven had covered more ground, from his first simple pieces for mandolin to the cosmic cries of the Ninth or 'Choral' Symphony, than any composer who had lived until then.
"Within a few years of his death, he was widely considered the founding father and greatest genius of the Romantic movement in music. Though he is still probably the most popular of the great composers, there has been a reaction in recent years by those who resent his role, by extension, as greatest composer of all. Heretical detractors have pointed to his lack of ease in composing, his struggle to think up great melodies, his difficulty with vocal writing, his reliance on melodramatic contrasts and military rhythms to make an effect.
"But to others--most others--he is, and no doubt always will be, in his sense of inevitability, poetic depth, dramatic cogency, and force of expression, the musical corollary of Shakespeare in literature, and of Michelangelo in art. Whatever the opinion, one thing seems certain: even if Bach or Mozart before him was greater, no one has surpassed him since. Two centuries later, there is no composer who has even a remote chance of achieving consensus as Beethoven's equal."
Building A Classical Music Library by Bill Parker, Jormax Publications, Minneapolis, Minnesota, page 38-39.
Beethoven, Ludwig van - The Magnificent Master Provides a detailed examination of the composer's life and career. With pictures, research projects, a forum, and a full index of his works. This is a good site.
Beethoven Depot Large Source of Beethoven midi files. This site also has a message board where you can discuss Beethoven with others who love his music.
Ludwig van Beethoven -
The "Heiligenstädter Testament"
Beethoven, Ludwig van - Fan Page Catalog of his works, including those with and without opus numbers. Details of movements of symphonies, concertos, sonatas, and quartets. I really like this site
Ludwig von Beethoven Join the Beethoven channel on an IRC DALnet server to discuss the master's works with other aficionados.
The Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies--San José State University
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