He had a life full of suffering and
tragedy…
He was a son of nature, intended to love and
to be loved…
The power, the thunderer, Prometheus of
Music…
Board shoulders, athletic build body, always
very rumpled wild black hair, melancholically sad eyes. Shakespearean
King Leer...
Beethoven was a master symphonist - the
master symphonist in the eyes of most musicians and listeners. His
compositions for orchestra were revolutionary in his day; while he
adhered to Classical musical forms, his melodies and orchestration
were of such unprecedented power and beauty that they astonished even
the most hardened listeners.
One of his the most famous motives - the
theme of his 5th symphony is known, in his own words, as "Fate,
knocking at the door." It seems fate really was knocking at the
door for all of his life.
From his first years his life was not happy
for him. Seeing the extensive musical talent of young Ludwig, his
father, a music enthusiast, but an extremely crude and violent person,
wanted to make him a next Mozart. Ludwig was only four years old when
his father started to force him to play the harpsichord and violin for
hours a day, shutting him alone in his room. But boy did not come to
hate music. He was not as gifted as Mozart was, but he was unusually
talented, learning the piano, organ and violin at an early age.
One of his first instructors, and the most
significant in his life was a court organist and notable musician of
the time, Christian Gottlob Neefe. Under his instruction, at the age
of ten Beethoven published his first compositions (Nine variations in
C Minor). "If I ever become anybody," Beethoven wrote to
Neefe in October, 26 1873, "I shall owe it to you".
***
At thirteen his teacher got him a salaried job in the court orchestra,
where Ludwig obtained his profound knowledge of instrumentation.
At the age of 17 he left for Vienna with the
hope of studying with Mozart. According to some sources Mozart took
little notice of him, to others - he was impressed by Beethoven's
improvisatory skills and said: "Watch this young man; he will yet
make a noise in the world," but because of his mother's death
Beethoven returned to Germany. In 1792, when he came back, never to
return to his motherland for the rest of his life, Mozart was not
alive any more. But he became a pupil of other famous musicians:
Joseph Haydn gave him composition lessons, Johann Alberchtsberger -
lessons of Counterpoint and Fugue, Salieri trained him in vocal
writing.
Young Beethoven was accepted as the most
important performing pianist of his time, giving concertos at the
homes of music patrons. But his unbowed character could not live in
frivolous Vienna. In 1809 he was given a salary from three richest
noblemen with only one condition - to remain in Austria and compose.
Despite his dislike of Vienna, Beethoven rejected the position of
court musician for the King of Westphalia and became the first free
composer in music history.
But fate was already knocking at his door:
his hearing became gradually weaker. The first symptoms appeared in
1796. For several years he kept secret to himself, avoiding company so
as not to be noticed in his infliction. In 1801 he could no longer
hide and in the letter to his friends he wrote: "Your Beethoven
is very unhappy. You must know that the best part of me, my hearing,
has became very weak…How sad is my life…I'm deaf. Had my
profession been any other, things might still be bearable: but if it
is, my situation is terrible…" The tragic sadness was expressed
in some of his work in this period: in the Largo of the Piano Sonata
in D, opus 10 (1798), in the Sonata Pathetique, Op.13 (1799). It is
important to notice that only opus 1 of his work was written before
1796, the next opus - the first three Piano Sonatas appeared in March
1796. So, almost all Beethoven's works are that of a deaf man.
Another kind of suffering was added to that:
his was rejected by his dearest love, Giulietta Guicciardi, to whom in
1802 he dedicated his Piano sonata in c#.***
In some years he met Theresa von Brunswick - a women, who played a
very significant role in his life, whom he will love until the end of
his life, and to whom he will write the famous letter, overfill with
tender and love - "Immortal beloved" (it is difficult to say
why they were not married. Preferably, the main reason was the
difference in those social positions).
Beethoven passed a terrible crisis, his
deafness was more and more significant and the last hopes of
recovering his health disappeared. At that time he wrote a letter for
his brothers, Carl and Johann, known as "Heiligenstadt
Testement", with the following direction: "To be read and
carried out after my death". He was on the verge of suicide.
"How humiliated I have felt if somebody standing beside me heard
the sound of a flute in the distance and I heard nothing... If not for
my music, little more of this and I would have ended my life... I have
been stranger to the trill of joy for so long. When, O God, when shall
I feel joy once more?" But his powerful nature could not give up
under the weight of his suffering: "My physical beneath improves
always with the growth of my intellectual force… Yes, I can fell
that my youth is only just beginning... O, if I were only free from my
deafness I would embrace the world!… No rest! At least, none that I
know of except sleep;… I will wage war against destiny."
Up to about this year (1802) the first
period of his creative work finished. he produced 6 string quartets,
10 piano sonatas, and 2 symphonies. He continued to maintain the basic
Classical traditions of form yet his use of melody, rhythm and harmony
expands upon the musical vocabulary of other composers of the time.
This second stage of Beethoven's musical
development was stirred in part by the political unrest of the period.
The democratic proclamations of the French Revolution was changing the
face of Europe. The Symphony #3 "Eroica" was written for and
around Napoleon Bonaparte.***
Beethoven deeply believed in the ideals of
liberty, equality and brotherhood for all men. He felt himself to be
equal, if not superior, to the nobles to whom he was indebted and to
whom he was expected to bow down. Bettina Brentano, who saw him at
that time, says "no king or emperor was ever so conscious of his
power."
A story is told that as he and the great
German poet, Goethe, were walking through the street a Imperial
family. "Duke Rudolph raised his hat to me, the Empress bowing to
me first…" - wrote Beethoven the day after, "I amused
myself in watching the procession pass by Goethe. He remained on the
roadside bowing low, hat in hand. I talk him to task for it pretty
severely and did not spare him at all". Some after Goeater said:
"Beethoven is, unfortunately, possessed of a wild and uncouth
disposition; he is not wrong in his finding the word detestable, but
that is not the way to make it pleasant for himself or for others. We
must excuse and pity him for his deaf", and ignored him
completely.
Much of Beethoven's music from this period
reflects his revolutionary spirit. It was the period, when in attempt
to find his own style, he broke rules of classical composition.
Webster's dictionary says, that term "classic" "denotes
primary the principles and characteristic of Greek and Roman
literature and art; considered as embodying formal elegance,
simplicity, dignity and correctness of style". The second period
of Beethoven creative work can not be considered as a purely classic.
It was the beginning of his romanticism. E.T.A. Hoffmann, an important
critic and creative writer of the time, wrote: "Beethoven's music
sets in motion the lever of fear, of awe, of horror, of suffering, and
awakens just that infinite longing which is the essence of
Romanticism. He is accordingly a completely Romantic composer".
The fist two symphonies, in C and D, belong
to school of Mozart and Haydn. In 1802 Beethoven said: "I am not
satisfied with my work up to present time. From today I mean to take a
new road". The third symphony was really an example of that new
road. Some features can be noticed: the connecting of the second theme
with the first, the second movement is of unusual form - a funeral
march, unusually long third movement, which used to be the shortest
and now raised to the level with others, the extraordinary importance
of the coda, with the introduction of a new theme in it. The
distinguishing element one can find: his melodies are much more
emotional, the ones of his predecessors. A great amount of music was
produced during this part of his life: 1 opera, 3 string quartets, 2
piano concertos, 5 symphonies, overtures and incidental music and
numerous piano sonatas.
In about 1816, the third period of
Beethoven's music began. His deafness became complete. Beethoven began
to drink heavily causing severe inflammation of his digestive tract
and liver damage which was eventually to be the cause of his death.
After the autumn of 1815 he could only
communicate with his friends by writing, by this time dates the change
of style in his music, beginning with Sonata op.101. He continued his
earlier experiments, but with a new approach to the development of
melodic themes. Before, short motives of three or four notes would be
used in various ways; now, entire melodies would be worked, reworked
and varied.
He also blurred the dividing lines of the
sections within movements, developing a seemingly more complex form,
and broke away from classical forms by writing a sonata in 2 movement
and a string quartet in 7 movements.
At that period he wrote two the most massive
of his works: 9th Symphony (Choral) and Messa Solemnis.
In Symphony #9 in D Minor, his last
symphonic work, he adds a solo quartet and chorus. Never before had
any composer added voices to a symphony. Many were to follow
Beethoven's lead in the future. In this last big work he set
Schiller's Ode to Joy to music, a poem which describes the eternal
brotherhood of man. On 7 May, 1824, completely deaf, he conducted this
symphony. He heard nothing when the audience was applauding to him,
and even did not suspect, until he saw them, clapping their hands and
waiving hats.
"On March 26 the Viennese heavens were
split with lightning and growled with thunder. It was almost as the
city was giving voice of grief. A peal thunder rumbled in Beethoven's
death room. Ever the rebel, Beethoven feebly raised a defiant fist
toward the heavens. Then he fell back, and died". This story has
become part of his literature. The medical conclusion about the
reasons of his death looked like the list of diseases. It was not easy
to say what is healthy. Martin Cooper in his monograph gave a detail
inscription of Beethoven's medical history: deafness, cirrhosis of
liver, possibly venereal disease (syphilis?). And as a concluding
phrase of his work he wrote: "He never did think much of us;
perhaps we should leave him in peace"…
Beethoven last words were: "Plaudite,
amici, commedia finita est" - "Friends applaud, the Comedy
is over".
Not the comedy, but the tragedy.
