Creativity can sometimes be the result of torment. Ludwig van Beethoven was a famous classical composer with a hard life. Throughout his entire life, he suffered from various diseases, hearing difficulties, mental disorders and social problems, (Russell and Nibley 25 ). Yet despite all of these terrible ailments, he was able to compose music that is considered some of the best ever composed, and that is still appreciated today.
Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany on December 17, 1770 (F.C.C). His father, Johann, was an alcoholic who used to bully and beat Ludwig and drag him crying out of bed to practice piano. His mother, Maria, in contrast, was kind and intelligent (Russell and Nibley 11 - 12). He was a natural musician and performed when he was seven on piano and at eight had piano, violin, and viola lessons. When he was eleven, he was deputy court organist (Russell and Nibley 12). He showed talent at an early age so when he became deaf, it was a tragic loss for him. Even though Beethoven became deaf, he still managed to become well skilled at composing, a job which requires hearing.
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Testing on Beethoven’s hair indicated tremendous amounts of mercury in his system. Mercury could have been prescribed as a remedy for his various illness when he was a child. This poisoning could explain his early deafness and his odd behavior (Russel and Nibley 1,7). Beethoven’s middle years were spent supporting his family because his father and mother had died when he was young (Russell and Nibley 14). He was influenced by many people who helped and encouraged him during these years. Beethoven supposedly got his musical traits from his grandfather (Russell and Nibley 11). Then as a young organist, Christian Gotlob Neefe, taught Beethoven and was a good mentor and friend. Later, in 1792, Beethoven left Bonn to live in Vienna, where Josef Haydn served to promote Beethoven to the Viennese cultural community (Russel and Nibley
German composer and pianist, Ludwig van Beethoven, was born December 1770 and spent most of his life in Vienna, Austria. His first teacher was his alcoholic father, who worked as a musician at the Court of Bonn. Teaching him day and night, Ludwig suffered from his father's harsh and erratic behavior. For a time, he and his father played at the Church. As his father's alcoholism increased, Ludwig became the main musician.
Also among Beethoven’s teachers, though later in his life, were Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, an organist at the imperial court in Vienna whom he studied under until 1795, and Antonio Salieri; Mozart’s old rival whom Beethoven learned vocal composition in the same period he was studying under Albrechtsberger. Before Albrechtsberger and Salieri was a man named Haydn, whom he studied under for a period of about three years starting in 1792 until 1794 when Haydn moved to London. It is said that Beethoven admired Haydn so much that he was the only man he had ever bent his knee to kiss the hand of. Finally, Beethoven studied under Aloys Forster, a specialist in writing scores for quartets. It is plane to see that throughout his life, his talent was not only constructed through his love of music, but forged by his exposure to multiple mediums and teachings throughout his life.
One myth about Beethoven involves the rumors around his deafness. It is true that by the time he finished his last symphony he was deaf, but he had a lifetime of writing music to develop the skills necessary to write, even when he could no longer hear. Beethoven began losing his hearing in 1801. Musical Style Beethoven was one of the greatest composers of the Classical period. His music overlaps two time periods, as he helped to define and expand the Classical period into the Romantic period.
1819 is the year in which his hearing was thoroughly depleted. He could no longer play the piano virtuously and had to communicate by text. As a result, he spent a majority of his time composing. Beethoven would sketch out his compositions in a book. These books have been maintained and it is evident that he would work on several pieces at once. During this time, his compositions ranged from simple melodies to more elaborate and edited works. In 1804 Beethoven completed his Third Symphony. This piece was originally a tribute to Napoleon Bonaparte, but when Beethoven found that Napoleon was proclaimed an emperor he deleted the dedication. At this point in his life, Beethoven seriously considered marriage. His first love was for a woman named Giulietta Guicciardi. When this relationship eventually broke, he sought the hand of Giulietta’s cousin, Josephine. The bond between them broke and the engagement was ended. Beethoven’s final attempt with a woman was with his doctor’s daughter, Therese Malfatti. As is expected, this relationship also failed and Beethoven reached the final part of his life as a bachelor. The rate and quality of his compositions slowed and he became more and more isolated. Another depressing and negative event in Beethoven’s life took place in 1815. His brother died. Caspar Anton Carl left behind a son and a widow and instructed
Ludwig van Beethoven is considered by many to be the best and most influential composer of all time. His imminence as a composer becomes even more remarkable when one considers the fact that he suffered severe hearing loss for much of his life and was totally deaf for the last decade of his life; the same time that he was composing some of his best-known and most highly regarded works. In order to understand how a man who could not hear the music he was creating became one of the best composers of all time, it is important to study Beethoven's life.
Beethoven’s hearing was getting so bad, he could not hear orchestras in theaters unless he was sitting really close, he struggled with hearing the voices of singers, and he had difficulty hearing the high notes (50). Away from music, Beethoven struggled with hearing people that spoke in low tones and people that spoke very softly (50). Beethoven did not want the word to get out that he was losing his hearing, he believed his music career would be tainted if people knew about his hearing condition. Beethoven was able to hear some music and speech up to about 1812, but at the age of 44 Beethoven had little to no hearing, he could not hear speech or music (51).
Beethoven is perhaps the most famous musician of all time. His influence on later composers was extremely huge, to the extent where many composers were intimidated by his music. Ludwig van Beethoven was born in 1770 into a family of musicians. His father and grandfather were both musicians at the court of Elector in the German town of Bonn. His grandfather was very respected, but his dad not so much given that he was an alcoholic. At a young age, Beethoven was put in charge of his family’s finances and started a job at the court. He composed music and helped look after the instrumentation. Around the same time, he began to write music. In 1790, an important visitor passed through Bonn: this was Franz Joseph Haydn. He was on his way to London for a visit when he stopped to meet Beethoven and agreed to take him on as a student when he came back from London to Vienna. In 1792, Beethoven moved to Vienna to study with Hayden. Apparently, it did not go as planned. Hayden was old fashion and a little overbearing, while Beethoven was rebellious and headstrong. Beethoven found support among the rich arts who lived in Vienna. Prince Lichnowsky gave him board and lodging at his place for in return, Beethoven would compose music and preform at evening parties.
This is also the time when the middle period starts. From now up until 1813, Beethoven develops and enhances the high classical style into a more dynamic and individualistic style. It is now that he writes symphonies Nr. 3 - 8, piano consert Nr. 5 and a lot of chamber music. But as he learns to control his craft and develop the music into new undiscovered grounds, he also suffers from reminders of the pains of real life. He has early in life discovered that his hearing wasn't what it should be, and the disorder gets worse as time goes by. It gets to the point where Beethoven is thinking of ending his life as he sees no way out of his despair. That fact is documented in the letter he wrote to his brothers in 1802, the so called . This hearing disorder seems to have affected his social life to a great extent. He became difficult to handle in social interactions and could suddenly burst into outbreaks of anger and show bad temper where he usually insulted someone. If that is the reason for his troubles with women, or if their is something traumatic hidden in his childhood, I don't know, but the fact is that he never got involved with a woman in a normal relation. Beethoven seems to have been attracted to women he couldn't get, or at least was hard to get. An example is Antoine Brentano, with whom he had a relationship, but who broke up with him to marry a friend. It is
Around 1796, Beethoven began to lose his hearing.[8] He suffered a severe form of tinnitus, a "ringing" in his ears that made it hard for him to perceive and appreciate music; he also avoided conversation. He lived for a time in the small Austrian town of Heiligenstadt, just outside Vienna. Here he wrote his Heiligenstadt Testament, which records his resolution to continue living for and through his art. Over time, his hearing loss became profound: there is a well-attested story that, at the end of the premiere of his Ninth Symphony, he had to be turned around to see the tumultuous applause of the audience; hearing nothing, he began to weep.[9] Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was born in the town of Bonn, Germany on December 16 of 1770. Bonn is located in western Germany on the Rhine River. Beethoven showed an affinity for music at an early age. His father, Johann, taught Ludwig to play the piano as well as the violin. Johann did this in hopes that his son would become a prodigy, and then reach fame like Wolfgang A. Mozart. Unfortunately though Beethoven
Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany in 1770. His father, a music enthusiast, dreamed of molding his son into the next Mozart. Beethoven never showed the impressive characteristics of Mozart, but he was unusually talented, learning the piano, organ and violin at a very early age. At 14, he was already skilled enough on the organ to receive a professional appointment (Beethoven). He held positions as an assistant organist in the electoral chapel where he obtained his first
Beethoven returned to Vienna in 1972 to continue his musical education. Beethoven never returned to his hometown and stayed in Vienna for a while. The in Vienna, Beethoven had valuable lessons from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Hayden, Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, Antonio Salieri, and Aloys Forster. Each of them had taught Beethoven something special. Beethoven quickly adopted a reputation as a great pianist, a child prodigy. Everyone in the music industry has learned to admire Beethoven and his talent.
Brilliant Beethoven wanted to be someone known, as he found ways to incorporate emotion into his work. His newly found techniques and the amount of love he had for music was what other fellow composers lacked. Breaking the rules of western music, Beethoven was able to connect the Classical era to the Romantic. As a result of his musical style, he made a bridge between the two eras mentioned above. Not only did Ludwig begin composing in the Classical era, which brought music to its highest expressive level, expanding in formal, structural, harmonic terms the musical style created by composers such as Mozart and Haydn Works throughout the middle periods were more forward-looking, which brought emotion in the play of music, hence the beginning of the Romantic era. This then inspired other composers to follow or take ideas from his footsteps. Near the end of his composing, Beethoven was nearly deaf. Yet, he managed to create pieces characterized by harmonic and formal structures. Despite, causing a ripple in the Romantic era, Beethoven still followed the fundamental formal paradigms that made classical music
Ludwig Van Beethoven was born on about December 16th, 1770 in Bonn, Germany and died on March 26th, 1827, In Vienna, Austria. The exact date of Beethoven’s birth is unknown he was baptised on December 17th. Beethoven lived between the Classical and Romantic eras. Some of Beethoven's most notable pieces of music are Symphony No. 5 , Fur Elise, and Missa Solemnis. Beethoven knew how to play The Piano, The Viola, and The Violin. When Beethoven composed some of his most famous and important music he was deaf and couldn’t listen to the music he wrote. When Beethoven was a child he was abused by his father when he made a mistake or hesitated while learning/playing music. Beethoven dropped out of school, at the age of 11 to help his family make money,
Johann Beethoven was a tenor singer in the same place has his father. Johann gave piano and violin lessons in his spare time to assist his income. Johann fell in love