Happy B-Day, Ludwig

HIS BIRTH

Ludwig van Beethoven was born in December 1770, twenty years after JS Bach’s death and 13 years after Mozart’s birth. The actual date, however, is not known for certain. Most say it was the 16th, others the 15th or 14th and I once saw it as the 13th. Years ago I decided to celebrate it on the 15th (and I do celebrate it every year) for the, ahem, obvious reason that of all these dates, the 15th is the only one that can be evenly divided by 3. (Never mind, it’s just one of my quirks.)

HIS DEAFNESS

The most well-known aspect of Beethoven’s personal life is his deafness. He first noticed a buzzing in his ears at the age of 25 while playing a concert in Prague, realized a definite loss of hearing in 1798, and the condition gradually worsened throughout his life. By 1802, he was so despairing of his deafness that he contemplated suicide. With his own will and nothing else, he overcame his depression and decided to accept “Fate’s challenge.” Consequently, he began to compose at a furious rate and during the next 8 years (his most productive period) he completed 4 symphonies, 11 piano sonatas, over 2 dozen songs, an opera, 2 piano concertos, and over 2 dozen other works.

By 1818, ear trumpets and similar devices (some made for him by Malzel; the same Malzel, I think, who developed the metronome) were no longer effective – he had become completely deaf – and he was forced to communicate through what he called ‘conversation books’. Most of his music from this period (1818 to his death in 1827) consists of intimate (many say introspective) chamber works, the notable exceptions being the Missa Solemnis (1823) and the Ninth Symphony (1824).

Now, this is such a well-known, oft-told story that it seems maybe a bit trite to write about it. However, it’s so incredible that it deserves another look. Here was a brilliant musician, one of the best all-time keyboardists, blessed with a possibly nonpareil creative well-spring and he becomes deaf. Slowly. What was going through his mind during these years? How was it that he never succumbed to this slowly rising tide of aural darkness nor drowned in self-pity? From where did he draw his Herculean resolve?

A FEW TIDBITS

Despite an unpleasant and poor childhood, Beethoven was basically a jovial fellow and had many friends and close friends, whom he truly loved. As far as I can tell, his detractors and supporters were of equal number. Some found him stubborn (Haydn for one) and as his deafness increased, he was often rather difficult to get along with. (After his death, his housekeeper said, in effect, “Good riddance!”) Occasionally, musicians would make fun of him behind his back, sometimes people on the street would snicker at him, and sometimes children would play mean tricks on him and, on more than one occasion, sneaked up behind him and threw feces on his coat. I think it is easy to understand his brusque demeanor. First, he refused to accept mediocrity while most are comfortable with it; second, he loved company but could no longer carry on a simple conversation; third, as you can see, life was often unpleasant for him.

HIS DEATH

On 24 March 1827, Beethoven signed the score of his last work, the String Quartet Op. 131, received the last sacrament, and died two days later at 5:45pm. It is true that at that moment, a raging thunderstorm befell Vienna: Nature mirroring the impact he had made and would continue to make. At his funeral, Vienna’s leading musicians were his pallbearers, and an estimated 50,000 people attended. (This, in a city of only 200,000 – that’s one out of every four people! Imagine over 2 million attending a funeral in LA.)

THE GREATEST?

Many claim Beethoven is the greatest composer of all time. I believe it’s Mozart, but I never disagree when someone says Beethoven. Beethoven himself praised many other composers including Palestrina, Schubert, Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Spontini, Clementi and Cherubini. He was tepid concerning Spohr and Weber, and downright sour on Meyerbeer and Rossini. Who did he think was the greatest? Well, he once said, “Handel is the greatest composer who ever lived. I would uncover my head and kneel on his grave.”

TRIVIA

You’ve all heard the Moonlight Sonata. Well, Beethoven did not call it that; to him it was simply Piano Sonata #14 in C# minor. It was the poet Rellstab who came up with the title “Moonlight”, which makes sense, I suppose, if you listen to only the first and second movements. The third movement scorches. (By the way, Rellstab wrote libretti for Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn, and some of his poems were set to music by Schubert and Liszt.)

A similar thing is true with the Appassionata but I think it was his publisher who came up with this title. To Beethoven it was Sonata #23 in F minor. When asked the meaning of the F minor sonata, Beethoven replied, “Read Shakespeare’s ‘Tempest’.”

I’m almost certain that Beethoven was the first composer to put metronome (tempo) markings on his music. It’s interesting that of the over 180 recordings of his 5th Symphony, the First Movement of every single one of them is played slower than he indicated. The one that comes closest is John Eliot Gardiner and his Revolutionary and Romantic Orchestra. This recording and the one made in 1975 by Carlos Kleiber and the Vienna Philharmonic are my favorites.

One of Beethoven’s works is seven variations of “God Save the King” for piano; another is five variations of “Rule, Britannia.” They were written to celebrate Wellington’s victory over Napoleon on 21 June 1813.

The first sketches for his 9th Symphony were made in 1812 but he didn’t finish it until 12 years later. There exist sketches for a 10th Symphony.

A LOCK OF HAIR

Beethoven, after the age of 20, suffered almost continually from a variety of illnesses. Recently, the reason may have been discovered. It goes like this: A day after his death, a young Jewish musician named Ferdinand Hiller, a student of the composer Hummel, who was a close friend of Beethoven’s, snipped a large lock of Beethoven’s hair, and for over a century it remained a Hiller family keepsake. During WWII, Hiller’s descendants gave it to Kay Alexander Fremming, a Danish physician, as a token of gratitude. Fremming had been active in the Danish underground, which rescued Jews from Hitler’s Holocaust by secretly transporting them by boat to safety in Sweden. After Fremming’s death, his daughter consigned the lock to Sotheby’s of London for auction. In 1994, Brilliant and Alfredo Guevara, along with other members of the American Beethoven Society, bought it for $7300. Since then, it has undergone dozens of analyses (scientific, not musical) and it was found that some strands contained lead at more than 100 times the normal readings. So there is a good chance that lead poisoning was the cause of his many ills.

There’s another interesting thing about that lock of hair. During most of his adult life, Beethoven was in pain, primarily in his abdomen. Doctors prescribed drugs to ease the pain but he refused to take them saying they clouded his mind and made it impossible to compose. Well, analyses were done to find traces of any pain killers and NONE were found. So it is evident that Beethoven was a living example of the integrity he so often insisted upon. In other words, he actually lived according to his own gospel.

SOME QUOTES

Truth exists for the wise; beauty for the susceptible heart. They belong together, are complementary.
True art is selfish and inflexible: it will not submit to the mold of flattery.
I despise a world which does not intuitively feel that music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.
True art is imperishable.
Nature is a glorious school for the heart.
Joy follows sorrow; sunshine, rain.
I carry my thoughts about me for a long time, often a very long time, before I write them down. I make changes, reject and reattempt until I am satisfied.
I would much rather come to visit you and your family than many rich persons who betray themselves with the poverty of their inner selves. (In a letter to an 8 year old girl, who was an ardent fan.)
Is he then, too, nothing more than an ordinary human being? (Of Napoleon after he proclaimed himself emperor.)
Pity that I do not understand the art of war as well as I do the art of music; I should yet conquer Napoleon!
Hate reacts on those who nourish it.
How stupidity and wretchedness always go in pairs.
Habit may depreciate the most brilliant talents.
I shall grapple with Fate; it shall not quite bear me down.
O, it is lovely to live life a thousand times.
I, too, am a King!
They will not be able to rob me of my place in the history of art.
There have been thousands of princes and there will be thousands more; there is only one Beethoven!

I REMEMBER

I remember when I first listened to Beethoven. I was eleven years old and it was his Fifth Symphony. It washed over me like a tidal wave from the heavens: profound and sacred, immense and unyielding. It parted the clouds and pounded the earth; it twisted like a giant serpent, sinewy strong and unbreakable; it sang like angels – millions of them –, pure and wondrous. It was at once Odin and Jupiter, Thor and Mercury, Diana and Persephone. Beethoven himself was Prometheus stealing fire from the gods and setting the world ablaze. I had found an ideal; an ideal I didn’t think could exist. Imagine bending down to pick up a nickel and grabbing onto a treasure worth billions. Imagine living a life by candlelight then one day stepping out into the bright summer sun. He changed my life – he changed all our lives.

Over the years, I’ve learned many lessons from Beethoven: not only about music – my oh my has he taught me so much about music! – but about study and hard work, about discipline and persistence, about the necessity of technical mastery, about the importance of dreams.

MY TAKE

Beethoven erupts. He is the ideal by which all composers, indeed all artists, are measured (pity us!) and it just might be that his fecundity will never be surpassed nor matched. He is at once unpredictable and inevitable, vast and intimate, implacable and tolerant. Within a moment he can go from a discordant maelstrom to a heart-wrenching beauty that will make the coldest of men weep. Despite myopic critics, mediocre reviews and ridicule from some of his contemporaries, he never contaminated his integrity with desires for fame or money or popularity. It is we who submit to his will – not the other way around. Perhaps, this is the secret to his greatness.

He fathered two centuries of musical revolutionaries with his creativity, intellectuality, and mastery-without-apology. Today, 174 years after his death, he is still the titan that bestrides the musical world.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LUDWIG

by DWIGHT BERNARD MIKKELSEN

copyright © 2001 NotesLinger Arts