Was Beethoven deaf? – Biography at a glance

Introduction

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As we think of 1770, the year Beethoven was born, the images of some of the protagonists of the history of all times flow in our eyes.

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The two centuries at the turn of which Beethoven was born represent a stormy moment of transition between radically different ways of seeing the world, which while influencing each other maintain substantial differences between them. With Beethoven, born in 1770 and died in 1827, we live the terminal moment of the eighteenth-century era and we glimpse the first shoots of the nineteenth-century one. The enormous differences and conflicts that emerged from the passage between these two centuries are evident if you notice how different the characters living during the year of birth of the Bonn composer are different in historical heritage:

Napoleon Bonaparte	Protagonist of the historical-political phenomena that will lead to the crisis of the Enlightenment
James Watt	Inventor of the steam engine
Pietro Verri	Italian Enlightenment founder of the periodical Il Caffè
Adam Smith	Founder of Liberalism
. . .	. . .

The definition of a personality lived in such a contradictory period is complex: in Beethoven’s testament, the so-called Heiligenstadt Testament, we find romantic awarenesses such as the possibility of Art to represent a salvation for humanity; in his Music, on the contrary, we glimpse markedly Enlightenment characters and a certain detachment from the first experiences of Romanticism.

In whatever company he came across, he knew how to produce such an effect on every listener that no eye remained dry; many even burst into sobs, for there was something wonderful in his expression, besides the beauty and originality of his ideas and the inspired way he expressed them. At the end of such an improvisation he burst into a loud laugh and mocked his listeners for the emotion that he himself had provoked in them: “You are crazy! – he exclaimed and shouted – Who can ever live among such spoiled children?”.

Beethoven: Life, Opera, The Family Novel – Maynard Solomon/G. Pestelli, Venice, 1986.

Beethoven Philosopher

We might be tempted at this point to say that we are more interested in the figure of Beethoven, and that we must use his compositions (and not his letters) as a yardstick for judging his personality. Supporting this thesis, one should think of Beethoven as an innovator of the musical enlightenment, a current in turn founded on that of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. This current was centered on the concept of Reason, an instrument through which the Enlightenment sought to abolish the social privileges of the feudal system. Of course, most of the intellectuals adhering to the Enlightenment were bourgeois, that is, people who could afford access to an education: Beethoven is no exception, since he enrolled at nineteen, in 1789, in the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Bonn.

The Works

Despite the large number of extramusical interests, Beethoven’s production is substantial: we can outline three macro-categories, as in the table below.

Symphonies	9
String Quartets	16
Piano Sonatas	32

To these macro-categories we must add, as a corollary, many other aspects of its production. Think, for example, of concertos for piano and orchestra.

The Symphonies

Beethoven finished at about thirty-eight years one of the Symphonies that will make him immortal in the musical scene: we are talking about the Fifth Symphony In C Minor. Together with the Ninth Symphony, this is the only one composed in a minor tonality. Both share the modulation system to the major in the final movement. The strength of these symphonies is to transform a synthetic theme into a great imaginative architecture: just think that according to Schindler, Beethoven himself questioned on the meaning of the main theme of the Fifth Symphony replied that it was destiny that beats at the door. You can listen to both symphonies below, or buy the score from the banner below.

The Quartets

From the so-called First Vienna School, formed by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, the String Quartet will undergo profound renovations. Particularly with Beethoven, traditional forms are at times disrupted. Take for example the six Op Quartets. 18, in particular No.4 in C Minor, where Beethoven replaces the second half, usually slow, with an Andante Scherzoso followed by the Minuet. You can listen to it below or buy the disappeared one from the banner below: if you do, you will contribute to the support of this blog.

The Sonatas

From Beethoven’s entire life we deduce how much he cared about being recognized as a composer before as a pianist. For this and other reasons in the sonatas he indulged in a certain experimentalism: think of the sonatas Op. 2, dedicated to his Master Haydn, or to the subsequent Op. 13 in C Minor where we find in the Allegro con brio a theme that should be proposed in E♭ Major, as per the traditional rule, but that Beethoven proposes in E♭ Minor. You can listen to it below, or buy the paper score from the banner below. If you choose the paper score, by clicking on the banner a small part of your purchase will support this blog.

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Was Beethoven deaf?

The answer is no, if we consider the first twenty-five to thirty years of the composer’s life. But in the period of artistic maturity, the one that made Beethoven the romantic legend par excellence, he fought hard with hearing problems witnessed by the aforementioned Testament of Heiligenstadt.

I bring you below a poignant fragment, which can give you an idea of the harshness of the conditions of the great Bonn composer. He not only struggled with a bitter illness, but also with the prejudices of the society of his time; as you will read, Beethoven wanted to make it clear to his contemporaries but also to posterity how his grumpiness was not the result of an innate nature, but of the way in which he lived the unfortunate social implications of his illness. In the Testament , in fact, we read:

O you men who consider me hateful, grumpy and even misanthropic, how wrong you do me! You do not know the cause of what makes me appear to you like this. My heart and soul from childhood were prone to the delicate feeling of benevolence and I have always been willing to perform generous actions. Consider, however, that for six years I have been struck by a serious illness worsened by incompetent doctors. From year to year my hopes of recovery were gradually frustrated and in the end I was forced to accept the prospect of a chronic illness (the healing of which will perhaps take years and will be completely impossible). Despite being endowed with an ardent temperament, lively and indeed sensitive to the attractions of society, I was soon forced to seclude myself, to spend my life in solitude. And if sometimes I have decided not to give weight to my infirmity, alas, with how much cruelty I have then been driven back by the sad, renewed experience of the weakness of my hearing. However, I could not say to people: “Speak louder, shout, because I am deaf”. Ah, how could I have detected the weakness of a sense that in me should be even more perfect than in any other! – a sense that I once possessed in the state of great perfection, a perfection that certainly few people in my art have or have ever had. No, I can’t; forgive me, therefore, if at times you will see me standing aside from your company, which I once had to seek. My misfortune makes me doubly suffer because it leads me to be misunderstood. For me there can be no relief in the company of men, there can be no lofty conversations, no mutual confidences. Forced to live completely alone, I can stealthily enter society only when the most urgent needs require it; I must live as a proscribed. […]

And later we read:

[…] These experiences brought me to the brink of despair and little was missed that I did not end my life. My art alone has held me back. Ah, it seemed impossible to me to leave this world, before having created all those works that I felt the imperious need to compose; and so I dragged forward this miserable existence, really miserable since my body so sensitive can, from one moment to the next, rush from the best conditions of spirit into the most anguished despair. Patience. They tell me that this is the virtue that I must now choose as my guide; and now I own it. Lasting must be, I hope, my resolution to resist to the end, until the inexorable Parche like to break the thread; maybe my state will improve, maybe not, anyway I, now, am resigned. Being forced to become a philosopher at just 28 is […] not really an easy thing and for the artist it is more difficult than for anyone else.

And again:

[…] Almighty God, who looks at me to the depths of my soul, who you see in my heart and you know that it is full of love for humanity and the desire to work well. O men, if one day you read these words of mine, remember that you have wronged me; and the unhappy should draw comfort from the thought of having found another unhappy one who, despite all the obstacles imposed by nature, did everything in his power to rise to the rank of noble artists and worthy men. […]

Conclusions

Do not think that on a composer of the caliber of L. V. Beethoven we can only write these few lines: on his gigantic figure we will have the opportunity to return several times in the articles of this blog. We had already talked about it with the previous article on the analysis of his sonatas, we will return to do it. See you tomorrow, with our new daily article!