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Was Ludwig van Beethoven deaf?
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Who is Ludwig van Beethoven?
Most know classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven struggled with deafness — but many don’t realize how much of a struggle it was. Beyond composing without hearing a note, Beethoven grappled with living in the 1800s when few understood deafness, hindering his ability to communicate, work as a musician and even find a place to live.
Dec 17, 2019 · When Ludwig van Beethoven’s magisterial 9th Symphony premiered in 1824, the composer had to be turned around to see the audience cheering — he could not hear the audience’s rapturous applause....
- Dr. Howard Markel
- Overview
- Approaching deafness
- Beethoven and the theatre
- The established composer
A change in direction occurred with Beethoven’s gradual realization that he was becoming deaf. The first symptoms had appeared even before 1800, yet for a few years his life continued unchanged: he still played in the houses of the nobility, in rivalry with other pianists, and performed in public with such visiting virtuosos as violinist George Bridgetower (to whom the Kreutzer Sonata was originally dedicated). But by 1802 he could no longer be in doubt that his malady was both permanent and progressive. During a summer spent at the (then) country village of Heiligenstadt he wrote the “Heiligenstadt Testament.” Ostensibly intended for his two brothers, the document begins:
O ye men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the cause of my seeming so. From childhood my heart and mind was disposed to the gentle feeling of good will. I was ever eager to accomplish great deeds, but reflect now that for six years I have been in a hopeless case, made worse by ignorant doctors, yearly betrayed in the hope of getting better, finally forced to face the prospect of a permanent malady whose cure will take years or even prove impossible.
He was tempted to take his own life,
But only Art held back; for, ah, it seemed unthinkable for me to leave the world forever before I had produced all that I felt called upon to produce.…
There is a Werther-like postscript:
Britannica Quiz
A change in direction occurred with Beethoven’s gradual realization that he was becoming deaf. The first symptoms had appeared even before 1800, yet for a few years his life continued unchanged: he still played in the houses of the nobility, in rivalry with other pianists, and performed in public with such visiting virtuosos as violinist George Bridgetower (to whom the Kreutzer Sonata was originally dedicated). But by 1802 he could no longer be in doubt that his malady was both permanent and progressive. During a summer spent at the (then) country village of Heiligenstadt he wrote the “Heiligenstadt Testament.” Ostensibly intended for his two brothers, the document begins:
O ye men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the cause of my seeming so. From childhood my heart and mind was disposed to the gentle feeling of good will. I was ever eager to accomplish great deeds, but reflect now that for six years I have been in a hopeless case, made worse by ignorant doctors, yearly betrayed in the hope of getting better, finally forced to face the prospect of a permanent malady whose cure will take years or even prove impossible.
He was tempted to take his own life,
But only Art held back; for, ah, it seemed unthinkable for me to leave the world forever before I had produced all that I felt called upon to produce.…
There is a Werther-like postscript:
Britannica Quiz
The next few years were those of Beethoven’s short-lived connection with the theatre. In 1801 he had provided the score for the ballet Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus (The Creatures of Prometheus). Two years later he was offered a contract for an opera on a classical subject with a libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder, who had achieved fame and wealth as the librettist of Mozart’s The Magic Flute and who was then impresario of the Theater an der Wien. Two or three completed numbers show that Beethoven had already begun work on it before Schikaneder himself was ousted from the management and the contract annulled—somewhat to Beethoven’s relief, as he had found Schikaneder’s verses “such as could only have proceeded from the mouths of our Viennese applewomen.” When the new management reengaged Beethoven the following year, it was largely on the strength of his now almost-forgotten oratorio, Christus am Ölberg (Christ on the Mount of Olives), which had been given in an all-Beethoven benefit concert, together with the first two symphonies and the Third Piano Concerto.
The year 1804 was to see the completion of the Third Symphony, regarded by most biographers as a landmark in Beethoven’s development. It is the answer to the “Heiligenstadt Testament”: a symphony on an unprecedented scale and at the same time a prodigious assertion of the human will. The work was to have been dedicated to Napoleon, intermittently one of Beethoven’s heroes, but Beethoven struck out the dedication on hearing that Napoleon had taken the title of emperor. Outraged in his republican principles, he changed the title to Eroica and added the words “for the memory of a great man.” From then on the masterworks followed hard on one another’s heels: the Waldstein Piano Sonata, Opus 53; Piano Sonata in F Minor, Opus 57, known as the Appassionata; the Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Opus 58; the three Razumovsky Quartets, Opus 59; the Fourth Symphony, Opus 60; the Violin Concerto, Opus 61.
During all this time, Beethoven, like Mozart, had maintained himself without the benefit of an official position—but with far greater success insofar as he had no family to support. His reputation as a composer was steadily soaring both in Austria and abroad. The critics of the Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, the most authoritative music j...
May 17, 2024 · Was Ludwig van Beethoven deaf? Beethoven was not born deaf , but he gradually became deaf. Although his deafness did not become total until 1819, the first symptoms of the impairment manifested before 1800.
- What is Ludwig van Beethoven known for?Beethoven is widely regarded as the greatest composer who ever lived, in no small part because of his ability—unlike any before him—to translate fe...
- How did Ludwig van Beethoven get his start in music?Beethoven was born into a musical family. His father tried to make him into a child prodigy, like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but did not succeed. Bee...
- What did Ludwig van Beethoven compose?Beethoven composed music in the transitional period between the Classical and the Romantic eras, and his work has been divided into (roughly) three...
- Was Ludwig van Beethoven deaf?Beethoven was not born deaf, but he gradually became deaf. Although his deafness did not become total until 1819, the first symptoms of the impairm...
- How did Ludwig van Beethoven change music?Beethoven was an innovator of musical form. He widened the scope of the symphony, the sonata, the concerto, and the quartet and in so doing broke m...
Apr 3, 2014 · Classical Musicians. Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer whose Symphony 5 is a beloved classic. Some of his greatest works were composed while Beethoven was going deaf. Updated:...
Mar 7, 2023 · Classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven suffered hearing loss, leading to his complete deafness. Yet he was still able to compose masterpieces of music. Here’s how.... How did Beethoven go deaf? “For the last three years my hearing has grown steadily weaker...” - so wrote Beethoven, aged 30, in a letter to a friend.
May 9, 2024 · Over the years, his hearing loss worsened, and by the time he died at age 56 in 1827, the composer was totally deaf. But the cause of Beethoven’s deafness has always been a mystery, along...
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