The Age of Classical Music — 3 — Beethoven

Beethoven was the summit that music reached in the classical age. He represents the bridge over which the music of self-expression crossed to the other bank... He is the close of the classical age and the opening of the romantic age.

He was born in Bonn of a tender mother who filled his heart with love and hope and who died when he was seventeen, and of a father coarse in nature and hard of heart, who wanted to exploit his son's genius by having him play before the crowds to bring in money, though Beethoven had not yet reached the age of eight.

In 1787 Beethoven set out for Vienna, where he met Mozart, and the latter prophesied of him that he would "make a noise in the world." He gave him several lessons on the piano. After his mother's death in the same year, he returned to Bonn, where his family life worsened because of the misconduct of his father, who spent most of his time in drinking and dissipation.

In 1790 he met "Papa Haydn" when Haydn was on his way to London, and Haydn offered to give him some lessons if he would agree to go to Vienna again. As the offer was tempting, Beethoven packed his bags and set out for Vienna in 1792, where he received some lessons in the development of musical themes at the hands of Haydn; yet despite Haydn's direct influence, he inclined toward Mozart's style. In this early period of his life the first signs of strange moods appeared in him, and his teachers were afraid of him and for him, because his ideas were ahead of his time. They did not perceive that flame which had begun to light the corners of the world, and so they considered him dangerous and extreme in his ideas — a communist, in the political language of the present age!

The story of Beethoven's life is the story of a few friends who gave him their sincere affection. Those who befriended him did not befriend him for his outward beauty; they befriended him for the loftiness of soul they felt in him. He had a head large in proportion to his body, and he never took any care of his outward dress. His short stature added to the ugliness of his appearance. Great names never intoxicated him, nor titles. He was the model of the free democrat who pays no heed to the small things that people scramble after. His brother once visited him and did not find him in, so he left his card, on which was written beside his name: "Man of property." Beethoven promptly sent him his own card, having written beside his name: "Man of mind." He believed Napoleon to be the savior of humanity and dedicated to him his third symphony, known as the Eroica; but when he heard that Napoleon had set himself up as emperor, he flew into a rage, tore out the dedication page, and trampled it underfoot...

He was once walking with the German poet Goethe when the emperor's procession passed. Goethe drew back and stood aside, after lifting his hat from his head and bowing in salute to the emperor; but Beethoven paid no heed at all and went on his way without turning to see what was happening around him. For this reason he lost Goethe's friendship. He never bound himself to accepted custom and convention.

At twenty-seven Beethoven began to lose his hearing little by little, and the weakness of his hearing bred in him a feeling of hatred and resentment. The loss or weakening of hearing can be borne in any profession, but it is a catastrophe for a musician. The visitor to Beethoven's house in Bonn today may see the ear-trumpets by means of which the specialists tried to avert the catastrophe.

Beethoven was quick to anger and quick to forget, noble of spirit, goodness his constant way. He paid no heed to customs and traditions if they did not accord with his temperament, and from these very qualities sprang what we feel in his music of loftiness, nobility, and perfection of workmanship.

This musician was an idealist in his thinking; he lived and composed according to the desires of his soul and the stirrings of his heart, and rarely did he compose to win favor or gain.

He esteemed woman fully and gave her her due of respect. He loved Countess Guicciardi, who refused to marry him, and to her he dedicated the Moonlight Sonata. He loved more than once, but he never married.

The hardest stage of his life began in 1822, when he lost his hearing completely; yet in spite of all this he composed his Ninth Symphony, though he never heard a single note of it with his bare ear — he heard with his spirit and his heart. It is told that he did not know of the acclaim with which the symphony was greeted during the performance until one of the players pulled him around to see — for he had turned his back to the audience in his burning enthusiasm.

Beethoven loved nature intensely, and often walked in the forest, his hands behind his back, his head bowed, clutching a small notebook in which he set down every new idea that came to him. He wrote to one of his friends: "I wander — my music notebook with me — among the hills and valleys, setting down a few ideas. No one loves nature as I love it."

Haydn and Mozart make up the period known as the classical age, and Beethoven came at the end of this period; he inherited the legacy of his two forerunners and added to them something new and a great power: the power of expressing the self. Though Beethoven is counted the summit that music reached in the classical age, he represents the bridge over which the music of self-expression crossed to the other bank. In other words, he was the close of one age and the opening of another: the close of the classical age and the opening of the romantic age.