Born in Germany in 1780, Beethoven showed signs of musical talent at an early age. A man often regarded as Mozart's heir, he relocated to Vienna finally. In addition to his many sonatas and conciertos, he composed nine symphonies. He continued to produce several masterworks even after he began to experience hearing loss.
War rumors were rife in France when Beethoven learned of his father's death in November 1792, when he arrived in Vienna. Bonn was no longer Beethoven's domain. The widespread assumption that Beethoven was Mozart's heir led him to study the great master's works and compose music with a distinctly Mozartian flavor in the years after his death.
His primary goals were to become an accomplished musician and scholar before he tried to establish himself as a composer. Under Haydn's guidance, he aimed to become a master of counterpoint. Ignaz Schuppanzigh also taught him violin. Also during this time, the Italian vocal composer Antonio Salieri began tutoring him on occasion; they stayed in touch until 1802, maybe even 1809.
In 1794, when Haydn left for England, the Elector expected Beethoven to return to Bonn. He persisted with his counterpoint lessons with Johann Albrechtsberger and others while he was in Vienna. The fall of Bonn to the French in October 1794, as Beethoven's employer had probably expected, removed both the necessity for his return and his stipend, for whatever reason. However, he had received financial support from some members of the Viennese elite who had recognized his talent, such as Prince Karl Lichnowsky, Baron Gottfried van Swieten, and Prince Joseph Franz Lobkowitz.
After establishing himself as a renowned composer and musician, Beethoven started to experience hearing loss in his mid-20s. Though contemporary genetic testing has shown health concerns, including elevated lead levels, the reason for his deafness is unknown. People back then didn't know any better, therefore they used lead plates for their meals.
Perhaps Beethoven's landlords were tired of hearing him bang on the piano at all hours of the night, yet he continued to compose and conduct while moving from apartment to apartment in Vienna.
Like many other composers of his day, Beethoven kept playing publicly as a musician; it was how they got their works out, alongside composition. His justifiable fear that it might destroy his career caused him to hide his deafness for a long time.
But no one ignored his ailment. Looking into the pianoforte portion made the music unrecognizable, according to composer Louis Spohr, who observed Beethoven practicing in 1814. Such a tragic end broke my heart.
When Beethoven's hearing completely failed at the age of 45, he also lost his prominence in the public eye. After he stopped singing and making public appearances, he began to communicate primarily through journals, allowing only a small group of close friends to see him. Due to his inability to hear, he gradually became a reclusive recluse.
Making Music in the Dark
Many wonder how Beethoven kept on creating even after he lost his hearing, but the truth is that it probably wasn't that hard. Rhythm and melody are the building blocks of music's language. He could sit at his desk and make music without hearing it because he knew the rules of music.
But when he drew back from the spotlight, Beethoven's manner transformed. Dark undertones started to creep into his once-vibrant piano sonatas. His renowned Sixth Symphony also mirrors his unique life as a deaf person. The pastoral symphony, which Beethoven composed after losing his hearing, evokes the tranquility of the countryside. As a deaf person, he needed this symphony to remind him of how vital it is to maintain his sanity by living in the country.
With the support of his friendships with Haydn and Waldstein, Beethoven began to establish himself as a performer and improviser in the salons of Vienna's upper class. Nikolaus Simrock, a friend of his, began distributing his compositions after completing a set of piano variations on a theme involving Dittersdorf. Despite his fame as a piano prodigy in Vienna by 1793, he seems to have waited until their final release to publish them in order to make the most of their impact.
Beethoven played several piano concertos, including one he composed, in the Burgtheater on March 29th, 1795, as part of his three-day public debut in Vienna. The Mozart concerto in D minor, for which he had written a cadenza soon after reaching Vienna, was probably the one he played as the last piece on March 31. He finished writing his two piano concertos in this year: one in B-flat major, which he had begun almost a decade ago before moving to Vienna, and another in C major, which he had composed mostly in 1795. Despite the publication of his first piano concerto, Opus 15, in March 1801, his second, Opus 19, was not until December of the same year. He named the second piece his first piano concerto as he thought it was the more significant of the two. He wrote new cadenzas for both works in 1809.
Upon his public debut, he issued Opus 1, a set of three piano trios, which was the first of his compositions to be assigned an opus number. The works, which Beethoven had composed in honor of his patron Prince Lichnowsky, were commercially successful, and Beethoven nearly paid his living expenses with the money he earned from them. The notorious piano "duel" between Joseph Wölfl and Beethoven occurred in 1799 at the home of Baron Raimund Wetzlar; the following year, Beethoven defeated Daniel Steibelt in a similar setting in the salon of Count Moritz von Fries. Released in 1799, Beethoven's eighth piano sonata, the "Pathétique," "exceeds any of his earlier creations, in intensity of character, depth of emotion, degree of originality, and inventiveness of motivic and tonal manipulation," argues musicologist Barry Cooper.
Beethoven composed his first six string quartets in the years 1798–1700. Their first year of publishing was 1801. He also completed the Septet in 1799; it would later become a classic piece of his. Following the successes of Haydn and Mozart, he established himself as a leading figure among the younger generation of composers with the premieres of his First Symphony in 1800 and Second Symphony in 1803. But his melodic invention, modulation, texture, and emotive characterisation set him apart from his contemporaries. Some of his older pieces had an immediate effect because of this. On 2 April 1800, Beethoven hired the Burgtheater for the debut of his First Symphony and a full program of music, which included several pieces played by Haydn and Mozart as well as his own Septet, Symphony, and one of his piano concertos. In spite of the performance's positive reviews—"the most intriguing concert in a long time"—in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, some critics noted that "the musicians did not bother to pay any attention to the soloist." By 1800, patrons and publishers were eager to acquire Beethoven's music and services.
An Era of Unparalleled Heroism: 1802–1812
After a disagreement with a vocalist in 1798 caused Beethoven to have a fit, the composer warned English pianist Charles Neate that the composer had a history of hearing loss. An acute bout of tinnitus exacerbated his age-related hearing loss. In 1801, he started telling Wegeler and another friend, Karl Amenda, about his illnesses and the difficulties he was having in social and work settings because of them. It was probably otosclerosis, maybe together with auditory nerve degeneration.
On his doctor's advice, Beethoven retreated to the little Austrian town of Heiligenstadt, which is not far from Vienna, from April to October 1802. In the Heiligenstadt Testament, a letter he sent to his brothers, he discusses his suicidal thoughts prompted by his deteriorating hearing and his resolve to persevere for the sake of his job. After his demise, the letter—which was never actually mailed—was discovered among his personal papers. In his letter to Wegeler, Beethoven did state his determination to "seize Fate by the neck; it shall definitely not crush me completel'y." However, in his letters to Amenda, he was much more optimistic and mentioned his ongoing professional and financial success during this period. "Let your deafness no longer be a mystery - even in art." Beethoven notated this on one of his musical sketches in 1806, when he was a young composer.
Though it had no effect on his composing ability, Beethoven's hearing loss made doing live performances more difficult, which put a heavy financial strain on him during that time. Contrarily, Czerny noted that Beethoven's hearing was perfectly normal all the way up until 1812. Beethoven never totally lost his hearing; he could still tell the difference between very quiet sounds and those that came on suddenly.
In early 1813, Beethoven's creative output dropped, suggesting he was going through a tough emotional period. His personal appearance and public manners, particularly when eating, deteriorated; he had always been neat.
Family issues may have had a role in this. To see his brother Johann, Ludwig van Beethoven stopped by during the latter part of October 1812. Since Johann was already the father of an illegitimate child, he urged Therese Obermayer and Johann to end their relationship. In spite of his pleading with the local religious and secular authorities, Johann and Therese were wed on November 8th, and he was unable to persuade Johann to end the connection.
Hearing of his brother Kaspar's tuberculosis illness and death caused more worry. Beethoven had to jump through several legal hurdles to recover 1,500 florins that he borrowed to Kaspar in 1813 when he was unwell. Shortly after Kaspar's death on November 15, 1815, Beethoven and Johanna, who was Kaspar's widow, went to war over custody of their nine-year-old son Karl. Following his application's approval, Beethoven was named the child's sole guardian by Kaspar. A late codicil to his testament awarded Kaspar and Johanna the joint guardianship. Even though he had successfully removed his nephew from her care in January 1816 and had him sent to a private school in 1818, Beethoven was once again engrossed with the legal processes involving Karl. When the matter was transferred to the civil judge of Vienna on 18 December 1818, Beethoven lost his exclusive guardianship. This was due to his failure to demonstrate his noble birth during his testimony before the Landrechte, the court representing the aristocracy. He was able to gain control in 1820 after a protracted legal struggle. In the years that followed, Beethoven's interference in his nephew Karl's life was relentless.
In 1823, Beethoven finally finished three of his most ambitious works: the Missa solemnis, the Ninth Symphony, and the Diabelli Variations. These pieces had consumed him for years.
On March 19, Beethoven gave Rudolph the completed Missa manuscript. He was patient in getting it performed and published because he planned to sell the manuscripts to courts in Germany and Europe for fifty ducats apiece. One of the few who accepted the present was Louis XVIII of France, who also gifted Beethoven a substantial gold medallion. Working on the Symphony and its variants took up the rest of Beethoven's working year. Despite Diabelli's ambitions of publishing both pieces, other publishers like as Schlesinger and Carl Friedrich Peters were intrigued by the possible reward of the Mass and pushed Beethoven to publish it. The Viennese audience's attitude to Beethoven's music had grown more critical of him. He informed Johann Friedrich Rochlitz in 1822 when he was in town:
No mention of me whatsoever... How steadfast am I? Not only do they not want to hear it, but they also can't provide it. The operettas? They are totally disregarded. The entire orchestra? Producing anything other than one's own creation is impossible. Are you referring to the solo tracks? They were so out of date when they were here, and style is king. From time to time, Schuppanzigh will find at least four.
Is it possible for the Missa and the Ninth Symphony to debut in Berlin? That is what he wanted to discover. Upon hearing the news, his devoted Vienna fans immediately began pleading with him to perform in their hometowns. Following his persuasion, Beethoven premiered the symphony and excerpts from the Missa solemnis at the Kärntnertortheater on May 7, 1824, to unanimous praise. As he stood behind conductor Michael Umlauf, Beethoven, who had hearing problems, failed to notice the ovation that followed the concert's beating time. The sound didn't reach his ears until he pivoted to listen. 'The Symphony breathes such a fresh, vibrant, genuinely youthful vitality...,' Carl Czerny said, "while inexhaustible brilliance has shown us a new universe," as the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung proclaimed. In spite of the fact that he may have occasionally caused the old wigs to shake their heads, this original man's intellect still produces art, power, and ingenuity. Beethoven did not earn much money from the performance because of the astronomical expense of producing it. Regarding the low turnout for a second concert on May 24th, his nephew Karl made the observation that "many people had already gone into the country" in response to the question, even though the producer had guaranteed a minimum fee. Beethoven never performed in public again after that. After Beethoven accused Schindler of either tricking him or mishandling the ticket earnings, Karl Holz, the second violinist of the Schuppanzigh Quartet, took over as Beethoven's secretary. However, by 1826, both Schindler and Beethoven had made peace.
Beethoven kept writing string quartets for Galitzin even though his health was getting worse. You do realize that the quartet in E is where it all begins? In March of 1825, the Schuppanzigh Quartet premiered the Phantasmagoria. He became unexpectedly ill in April 1825 while writing the quartet in A minor, Op. 132. A 'Holy song of thanksgiving to the Divinity, from a convalescent, in the Lydian style.' He named it the Thirteenth Quartet, op. 130, in B?, and he wrote it when he was in Baden for his recuperation. was the subsequent quartet to reach completion. major. Debuting in March 1826, the last contrapuntal movement of the six-part composition presented a formidable obstacle for both the performers and the listeners. Publishing house Artaria persuaded Beethoven to write an additional coda and release it as a separate piece in exchange for a larger payment. What about Beethoven's favorite, the last four in this series? He thought his little piece Op. 131 was his best work up to that point.
Beethoven continued his antagonistic connection with his nephew Karl in demanding and critical letters. Even though Beethoven had forbidden it, Karl started seeing his mom again in August, and he nearly took his own life by shooting himself in the head. He relocated to Gneixendorf with his uncle Johann and Beethoven after his discharge from the hospital so he could recuperate. Beethoven sent Schlesinger another quartet that he had completed while at Gneixendorf. "Muss es sein?" was the note that Beethoven made.Underneath the languid chords that usher in the last part of the text, "Es muss sein!" serves as the response to the movement's faster main theme.'. Titled "Der schwer gefasste Entschluss," this piece encompasses four movements. So, in November, Beethoven completed his last composition, the replacement finale for the quartet of opus 130. Beethoven began to argue with Johann over Karl, the successor to the kingdom whom Johann had chosen for the position instead of Johann's wife, while already ill and depressed.
On his way back from Gneixendorf to Vienna in December 1826, Beethoven fell ill again. In December, Dr. Andreas Wawruch saw a number of symptoms while caring for him, such as a high temperature, jaundice, dropsy, swollen limbs, coughing, and difficulty breathing. Up to the day he passed away, these symptoms remained. Beethoven underwent a battery of procedures to remove the excess fluid from his abdomen.
It wasn't until Karl enlisted in the army in Iglau at the beginning of January that he saw his uncle again, despite the fact that Karl wrote, "My beloved father..." to him just after leaving Beethoven's deathbed in December. "I am living in contentment and sorrow only that I am apart from you." Beethoven drafted a will appointing his nephew as his only heir soon after Karl departed. Beethoven encountered Dr. Malfatti later in January, whose treatment primarily involved alcohol. As news of Beethoven's grave sickness spread, several of his old associates, including Diabelli, Schuppanzigh, Lichnowsky, Schindler, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, and his student Ferdinand Hiller, made the journey to see him. A case of Schotts's expensive wine and £100 from the London Philharmonic Society were among the several gifts and compliments sent. During this period, Beethoven was primarily bedridden, but he would occasionally make heroic efforts to get out of bed. Greetings, friends, the end of the world is near, he told Schindler and everyone else there on March 24. Subtly, he said, "Pity—it was too late" when the Schott wine arrived later that day.
On March 26, 1827, at the age of 56, Beethoven passed away with just his friend Anselm Hüttenbrenner and a woman identified only as "Frau van Beethoven" present. “Beethoven opened his eyes, raised his right hand and stared up for many seconds with his fist clenched...”—as Hüttenbrenner puts it—in response to a lightning bolt and thunder that rang out at five o'clock in the afternoon. "Not another breath, not another pulse more." Huge numbers of mourners around the body, and Hüttenbrenner, Hiller, and others preserved a single hair. It is possible that Beethoven's heavy alcohol use contributed to the serious liver issues shown by the postmortem examinations. Further findings included the enlargement of his auditory and related nerves.
On March 29, 1827, in Vienna, some 10,000 people turned out to see the burial procession of Beethoven. Composer Franz Schubert and musician Joseph Mayseder were among those who carried the flame. The actor Heinrich Anschütz delivered Franz Grillparzer's funeral oration. Beethoven was put to rest at the Währing cemetery, northwest of Vienna, following a burial service in the Holy Trinity church on Alserstrasse. The remains of Beethoven were brought to the Zentralfriedhof in Vienna in 1888 and interred close to those of Schubert after having been taken in 1863 for scientific study.