Who Is Ludwig van Beethoven
It is the life story of Ludwig von Beethoven, who never played a game with his friends, who perhaps did not even have a friend, and who started music, hating his father and turned into a musician known to the whole world.
“Do not practice art alone but penetrate to her heart; she deserves it, for art and science only can raise man to godhood.” This sentence belongs to Beethoven, who wrote the 9th Symphony as a deaf man, directed his concert and was applauded loudly. I know that it is hard to believe! A person who makes music despite being deaf, and moreover, whose music touches the world may sound as bizarre as a person with five ears…
While writing about Beethoven, I have always thought about what pain could do to us and remembered that we could channelize it if we wanted to. He went through a challenging childhood and became such a prominent figure that is known to the world. And I also thought that he was not meant to be a regular person. Beethoven was either going to disappear or burst out like this. Thankfully, he did the latter…
His childhood
When Beethoven was born on December 17, 1770, as the son of Maria Magdalena (Keverich) and Johann van Beethoven couple, in the city of Bonn within the Roman Empire, his parents named him after his grandfather, “Ludwig van Beethoven”.
To get to know Beethoven, we should start with his grandfather. Born in Mechelen, Belgium (1712-1773), the grandfather Beethoven was 20 years old when he moved to Bonn, Germany. He first got a job as the Head Chorister in a palace, singing songs in the choir. In 1761, he was appointed as the Kapellmeister of that palace. Yes, he was now conductor, and his name was mentioned as one of Bonn’s most distinguished musicians. His only child, Beethoven’s father Johann, was also working as a tenor at this palace. He was also giving violin and keyboard lessons.
Beethoven was going to have an unhappy childhood. Days would pass, and he would become petrified in the face of the losses that he could not prevent from his life, like the leaves that fell in autumn, and he would turn in upon himself. He always saw his mother and siblings ill. And then, one by one, he saw the death of his brothers… they were 7 and Beethoven was the second child. 3 of them were deaf, 2 were blind, and the other was mentally retarded. Four of his brothers died, there were only 2 of them left: Kaspar Anton Karl and Nikolaus Johann.
They had a poor home, not enough food. His father, Johann, was a drunken alcoholic. He wasn’t just an alcoholic, He was also a high flyer, and he wasn’t even aware that he was turning his son’s life into a hell…
He hated music as a kid
His father, Johann, had worked in palaces, but he never achieved fame, and he was passing on all his feelings of failure, anxiety, anger, jealousy, whatever they were, to his son. He was quite into music, but because of alcohol, he was nothing but a third-rate singer. If he had not succeeded, then his son Beethoven could have done it; actually, he should have done it.
Johann realized that Beethoven was absolutely talented. His son was 4 years old when he discovered his ability. That’s how Beethoven’s cruel education process began… His first teacher was his father. He was spending every single moment at the piano, and he certainly didn’t have the luxury of making mistakes. If he did, he would have paid for it. He was often punished with beatings and sometimes other ill-treatment that his father considered appropriate. Besides, his success was never rewarded. Beethoven hated music to his guts. Isn’t it unbelievable? Because his father was pushing him so hard, it was impossible for him to love music. But even admitting that hatred would take years. Most probably, he was so terrified even to think about his hatred at his child’s age…
As a result, Beethoven would turn into an emotionally deficient, introvert child, who avoided revealing his love as much as possible, and finally an adult, too. It wasn’t all, though. Beethoven was always sick in general as a result of the beatings and the stress he was under. Deafness would also be one of the consequences…
His music education
It was pretty clear that Beethoven’s education process was based on music. He had other music teachers than his father. He started having organ lessons with Gilles van den Eeden and keyboard lessons with their family friends Tobias Friedrich Pfeiffer. On the other side, he was also introduced to the violin and viola at Franz Rovantini’s lessons.…
He was only 5 years old, but he was going through such intense training! Pfeiffer, who was their family friends would pick up from where his father had left off, and sometimes he would wake Beethoven from his sleep in the middle of the night, and they would forcefully study music.
His father, Johann, was doing his best to get Beethoven moving quickly. He was also monitoring Mozart. He knew about the tours he was on with his father, Leopold. He believed that Beethoven should be like Mozart. Moreover, why not become a father and son like them? Time passed, and Beethoven was only 7 years old when he gave his first public concert in 1778.
In 1779, he began to get his first compositional lessons from Christian Gottlob Neefe. In 1783, with the help of Neefe, he published his first composition. Then he started working as his teacher’s assistant. Beethoven was earning his first money as an assistant by 1784. Meanwhile, he began to receive financial and moral support. After the first 3 piano sonatas, published in 1783, Archbishop Maximillian Friedrich couldn’t stay indifferent to this magnificent talent of Beethoven…
Meeting Mozart
Beethoven went to Vienna in 1787, hoping to work with Mozart finally. They met, though! If he hadn’t learned of his mother’s illness and gone back, history might have written something else about these two. At least there were some records. Beethoven had shown Mozart his talents with a short piano show. Beethoven’s music notes made Mozart smile. He had listened to him with other musician friends and turned to them and said: “Have a good look at this child! One day, the whole world will know him”…
Beethoven was too upset even to care if the dream he was chasing came true or not since he was unaware whether it belonged to him or his father. He left Vienna because of his mother’s illness, and in the same year, his mother couldn’t resist tuberculosis at the age of 40. Now he seemed to be back to the painful times of his childhood. He became more and more withdrawn and melancholic. His father, on the other hand, was even more of an alcoholic now.…
After his mother
His mother was his only safe harbour, and now she was gone. Despite the pain of her absence, he locked this together with other emotions. Now that his father had given up all, he should have taken responsibility for his younger brothers. He had no other choice. He was sure he would stay in Bonn for the next 5 years. Had he ever thought about what might have happened if he had returned to Vienna with Mozart?
Maybe he couldn’t work with Mozart. When he found out about his death in 1791, he would never have had the opportunity to work again. However, there were also some benefits of his skills here, too. That’s when he met Franz Wegeler, and thanks to him, the Von Breuning family, one of the most elite families of that time. He was now a frequent visitor to the von Breunings’ house. He also gave music lessons to their children. His educational life was not a nice one; but, he was striving to be a good teacher. These new acquaintances were bringing the new ones. He met Count Ferdinand von Waldstein one of the noblemen of Germany. Another name he was financially supported by was him. He even wrote a sonata called Waldstein.…
Meanwhile, his father was getting more and more addicted to alcohol day by day. In 1789, Beethoven finally resorted to legal means and ensured that half of his father’s salary was paid to him. So he could support his family better. He was earning money himself by playing the viola in the orchestras of elite palaces; however, it was still not enough. Thanks to the viola works, he came across more Mozart operas. He also had a friendship with the famous flute virtuoso Anton Reicha during this time.
Beethoven was now a well-known musician who played viola and piano…
Vienna days
His 5-year term had ended, and Beethoven went to Vienna again in 1792. This time, he was relieved of all duties and had no reason to backtrack. Mozart was dead. He began working alongside the famous composer Joseph Haydn. Haydn became one of his biggest supporters when he noticed his brilliant talent. He was playing his work, which he composed, in the palace orchestra in 1975. He was making a good amount of money and living like a nobleman, far from his poor past.
Furthermore, he had his self-confidence now. Now Beethoven’s fame as a pianist and with the compositions were notorious. He would become a source of inspiration for all classical musicians of the 19th century.
It had been a long time since he had that painful education in his childhood. Now it was time to climb up the celebrity ladder…
He became deaf
Yes, it was the time of fame, but that fame was replaced by horrible ringing in the ears. So far, Beethoven had been plagued with many health problems such as rheumatism, rheumatic fever, colitis, blood irritation. He was now at the beginning of deafness. The ringing in the ears, which began in 1801 and which he tried not to pay attention in the beginning, increased day by day. He had trouble connecting with people. These ringings first increased, and then they started to come from deeper and deeper. It was like there was a lot of lightning, and there was no sound.
And he finally could not hear and sound. Yes, he became deaf. The year was 1817. And, interestingly, that didn’t stop him from making successive compositions. When all the sounds stopped, he soon realized that he couldn’t stop making music, even though his first reaction was to run away from everyone and everything. In the beginning, he thought that the quieter he was, the more alone he should stay. He added huge solitude to his silence. But then he realized that despite his ears’ silence, the passion in him hadn’t stopped. No matter how hard it was, he kept making music.
No matter how music began to be given to him with the feeling that it was like injecting a poison, eventually, it turned out to be a passion within him for so long. Just like he never gave in to anyone when it was about music, he didn’t surrender to that silence either. There is such a memory in the sources: During a concert, a count told Beethoven, in a cocky manner, “Comm’n musician, play!” he left everything there and walked away. However, he did not stop and wrote a short letter: “You are the count! You are here today, and you will be gone tomorrow. But Beethoven is one and only and will always be”.
Letters to immortal love
Although Beethoven could never express how he felt because of what he had experienced, in the end, he was a man of art. He was also in love, of course, and most of the time, he revealed the emotions, which carried him away, in his compositions. Try listening to it with that feeling. Whenever he was carried away with the emotion of someone, he would describe it as The Immortal Love. He never told anyone who this woman or women were. It was one of his greatest feelings he had within himself.
Combining his music with love, Beethoven wrote letters to the woman he was in love with for many years, but he never used her name anywhere. One of the letters said: Oh, God, why should a man who loves someone so much be away from who he loves? And now my life is very miserable; your love makes me the happiest and the most unhappy of people; I need a calm and regular life at this age; can our relationship be like this as well?
Keep loving me; never misjudge the most faithful heart of your love.
His most famous work: The 9th Symphony
There is not a single person on Earth who doesn’t know the 9th Symphony. Each of us has listened to it at least once in our lives. Whether aware or unaware… Yes, the 9th Symphony is a stunning one which is now the Anthem of the European Union.
Beethoven started the 9th Symphony, being unaware of it becoming his most famous work when he started suffering from deafness. It was undoubtedly the most important decision of his life. This symphony had a 20-year-old history. When those ringings in his ear got even louder and reached out to his brain after his ears, Beethoven finally completed his Symphony, which he had worked on for 20 years but could never finish. He had always taken notes about it, and with enthusiasm accumulated from all his emotions over all these years, the 9th Symphony came out.
It didn’t happen in a split second, though. No matter what, the condition of his ears was making it very difficult for him. Nevertheless, he had been trained in difficult circumstances, when his fingers which were piled up with all the painful moments of his life, were on the piano, everything was all right. He must have been feeling like all the pieces of the puzzle are in one place. Just like that, the 9th Symphony emerged…
The 9th Symphony met the audience for the first time
He was in dark silence, Beethoven. There was no sound anymore, so if there was a sound around, he couldn’t hear it. Except for the musical notes. He was sure he could hear the notes all over his body. Now the 9th Symphony would meet its audience for the first time.
There were 10 thousand people in the concert hall. The orchestra, on the other hand, consisted of 300 people. It consisted of interesting tones, and Beethoven had made a great effort to add the human voice in particular. He described his symphony as “A bridge from Man to God”.
He had a desire; he wanted to conduct his symphony himself. However, for someone who couldn’t hear at all, it was impossible. The ups and downs of the sounds, the follow-up of the music notes… he was aware of all this, but he was still positioned on the ring where the conductor would be. Umlauf, who was there to conduct the symphony, did not even interfere because of his admiration and respect for Beethoven. He went and was positioned somewhere else and, like everyone else, he held his breath and waited for Beethoven.
Beethoven stood upright, confident and proud, with his face turned to his orchestra. Yes, he, in fact, didn’t hear anything. But watching him there, it wouldn’t be weird to think he had. Beethoven read his symphony from the blowing of everyone in the orchestra, the shape of their cheeks, the touch of their instruments. He couldn’t hear, but he was feeling his symphony, which he learned by heart in his inner world. The symphony wandered in his silent world and overflowed, filling the ears of his audience. Everyone was fascinated by this admirable state of him. In the end, people couldn’t resist when it was half of the symphony; they all stood up and gave Beethoven a standing ovation. Beethoven, unaware of what was going on behind him, could not understand why the orchestra, which waited for the applause, had stopped. At that moment, someone ran up to him and turned him towards the audience. Now he could see the applause.
These cheers were the infinity band of Beethoven’s wounded child heart, and those who listened to the symphony in front of him could only feel the pain. Beethoven held his breath and waited until the applause was over. When it was over, the symphony resumed on. Beethoven, who always remained composed and always refrained from opening himself to the outside, could not stand any longer and burst into tears in front of the orchestra when the symphony was over.
He had succeeded…
Ludwig von Beethoven died
Beethoven met a new disease on a holiday return: Cirrhosis! The disease got too serious that he couldn’t get out of the bed. Now it was towards the end. According to the resources, his death was as follows: on March 26, 1827, it was a raining day with lightning when the water was flooding. Flashes of lightning brightened Beethoven’s dimmed room. Beethoven suddenly tried to stand up, which he was able to do halfway through. Then he raised his fist in the air and let his lifeless body on his bed. He must have been at peace since he was able to leave behind the many suffering he had withstood in life. There was a crowd of more than 30 thousand people who bid farewell to him at his funeral…
After his death, many people said and thought that he was an alcoholic like his father. However, according to the resources, Beethoven rarely consumed alcohol. He’d rather have coffee. Alcohol wasn’t the cause of the cirrhosis.
It wasn’t just the agony he left behind. Only the 9th Symphony would be enough, but he had so many achievements among his agony. Beethoven was the owner of 9 symphonies, 5 piano concertos, 1 violin concerto, 1 piano, a triple concerto for violin and cello, 32 piano sonata, and many chamber music pieces. One Beethoven, who gave pleasure to our ears with his passionate, dramatic pieces making us feel like we live and feel the music and who started the Romantic Period of classical music with his Op. 109 piano sonata, has passed from this world…
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