Ludwig van Beethoven
1770-1827

The greatest composer there ever was, and ever will be, Ludwig van Beethoven is the father of Romanticism. His works are those of great feeling, showing truly is pain and suffering he could tell not say in words. The master of all forms of music, Beethoven was even at times not composing for a career, but rather to express his thoughts of life. He had an enormous range of writing ability, from his stormy, crashing "Eroica" Symphony No.3 to his smooth, mellow "Moonlight" Sonata No.14. And though he suffered very much, his music never suffered, as it is cherished and protected by all, realizing that indeed, Beethoven is the one titan of the musical giants.

Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, on the banks of Germany. His father was a drunkard who abused Beethoven into being a child prodigy, like the previous childhood of Mozart. His mother died when Beethoven was just seventeen years old, leaving Ludwig to take care of a drunken father, two brothers, and a sister. In his early childhood, Beethoven battered, forcingly pushed to practice until his he would be like the child Mozart was. Beethoven was even brutally awakened in the middle of the night by his father, to practice at the piano half-asleep.

He began playing the piano and composing at a very young age, which attracted the attention of several wealthy people, who became his close friends. They and the prince of Cologne encouraged and helped Beethoven to travel to Vienna, to spread the news of his talent, and to study and seek his fortune. In Vienna, Beethoven dreamed of studying with Mozart, but he had died just the year before. He therefore asked to study with the other classical great, Franz Joseph Haydn, and was accepted. He studied with Haydn for over a year, and moved on to various other teachers.

From that time he left Bonn, he never had a regular job as a musician. Most composers by the age Beethoven was in was either composing for either church or court, but Beethoven was a new and different kind of musician - a free-lance composer. Other than rare piano teachings, Beethoven received money either from the selling of his works to publishers or works he wrote for his friends of high Viennese nobility. At the end of his first ten years in Vienna, he had gained much fame for his numerous works, immediately spreading out of Vienna and throughout all of Europe.

But soon the notorious tragedy of Beethoven struck: he began to lose his hearing. At first, he was only slightly deaf, when he could hear loud talking and loud music. Later, however, the entire world seemed to close their doors on him, as the whole realm of sound was completely lost. Most people would have gave up. What good is a musician with no sense of hearing? It is just as ridiculous as to try to walk with no legs. But Beethoven did not let that stop him. Although he closed himself off from people, his connections to music were truly unbreakable. He was in a sense of close denial, as he avoided as many people as he could, taking walks in the woods get away from people and to get closer to nature. Now was a point where Beethoven composed for his own needs, rather than for a career.

He heard music with his inner ear now. Instead of halting Beethoven's thoughts of musical creation, it allowed him to discover new landmarks of music, to see music as a necessity in life, instead of an ornament. Beethoven was so devoted to music that when he could not hear it anymore, he painfully cried and craved for it, showing this anguish in his compositions. The reaction to his total deafness was that of great violent change, a stage referred to as Strum un Drang (Storm and Stress). His inner ear strengthened his mental status of music, enabling him someway, somehow, to hear music as well as the outer ear of a normal person.

There was never a time Beethoven composed a piece quickly and easily. He often struggled with tremendous levels of agony, locked up in a room, usually not eating. These circumstances unfortunately lasted until the very minute he passed away. In addition to his bad health, Beethoven died peacefully but full of sorrow, like the end of one of his great, melancholy compositions.

One of the many amazing pieces of his works, his nine symphonies, is like a timeline of his life, marking each event that occurred. There were three essential periods of Beethoven's life, noticeably separated in his symphonies. The first period, symphonies one and two, are known as Beethoven's "Classical" Period, when he was still studying the precise, mathematical works of Mozart and Haydn. The second period, his "Romantic" period, symphonies three through eight, were his creation of Romanticism, when he was beginning to lose his hearing, making the lush, sweeping sounds of his characteristic and revolutionary sounds. His last period, marked by his notorious Ninth Symphony, is his "Personal" period, when he was nearing his death, questioning the events of his life, and philosophizing with music.

Though he was a composer, he was completely deaf, but that would not stop him. Beethoven once wrote, "I will struggle with fate; it shall never drag me down." Indeed, fate was something Beethoven truly struggled with, and in the process creating numerous of monumental, rebellious music that strike the heart with pure pain and agony, but also with a pleasant realization that life is not something to take advantage of, to live your life into every possible corner. He has sworn that fate would never drag him down. With Beethoven as an opponent, fate hardly had a chance.

Beethoven is the new true definition of "Classic." Someone so bold with melancholy harmony and crashing shaped the idea of classical music into such a different perspective that all the rest to follow him see the Classical Era itself as a long lost artifact that does not need to be rediscovered. We have something new and improved: Romanticism.

© 1999 H.Tsai

Some Famous Works:
Für Elise
Seven Inversions of God Save the Queen
Sonata No.14 "Moonlight", First Movement
Sonata No.8 "Pathétique":
First Movement
Second Movement
Third Movement

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