Composer Profile:

 

• 1770-1827 (age 57)

• German Composer

• Born in Bonn, Germany

 

Content:

 

Just a small overview to put things into perspective; Beethoven was born into a family with a musician father who taught him how to play piano and violin, but who liked to drink. He often pulled the young lad out of bed to perform for his drinking buddies, dealing with consequences a lot more severe than the wooden spoon if he didn't!

He realised from an early age that in order for him to become anything in the professional world that he'd have to leave this life, and so headed for Vienna. Beethoven's hearing started to deteriorate around 1796, and unfortunately by age 48, in 1818, he was completely deaf and unable to carry out conversations with people, communicating only by writing.

 

My personal project was about the emotionality in Beethoven's music and how people of his day reacted to it, and honestly I thought there would be a lot more available material than there actually was. Even though Beethoven was such an influential artist (and still is) there is currently no existing documentary study as there is for the likes of Mozart and Schubert, meaning that a lot of the interesting biographical knowledge about his work is either non-existent, yet to be found or yet to be translated, which is a pity. It would have made my research a whole lot easier. Anyways! Enough about that and on to what I did uncover.

 

We learn a lot about how people were affected by the emotive sound of Beethoven's music through passing remarks made by other composers who encountered Beethoven on their way. I found the name of one of Beethoven's students, Carl Czerny, during my academic research, and his name opened a lot of doors for me. It was Beethoven's sonatas that I mainly focused on throughout my research, the "Moonlight Sonata" in particular. One thing I did pick up on my way was that in general Beethoven was not very good with the whole 'feeling' thing, which may have contributed to this stern, broody, anxsty, frowny persona that is associated with him (See the awesome selfie above. Frown-brow on fleek.) Czerny illustrates this brilliantly when he recollects a time when Beethoven finished an improvisation for some concert. Using the words of Czerny; "his improvisation was most brilliant and striking, in whatever company he might chance to be, he knew how to produce such an effect upon every hearer that frequently not an eye remained dry, while many would break out into loud sobs".. to which he would respond, rather insulted, with a remark like "you are fools" or by laughing. While we can't be sure it was a typical reaction on his part, it definitely happened once. And as far as taunting sobbing audiences go- once is enough! You get the picture, his music was emotional, he wasn't!

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-Áine