BEETHOVEN

Beethoven

Beethoven

Introduction

Few artists have so fascinated their own and future generations to the degree that Beethoven has. As a figure of legend, he is equalled among his contemporaries only by Napoleon (1762-1821), whose early triumphs as a revolutionary leader inspired Beethoven and many other artists of the time. More generally, Beethoven is one of the artists who shaped Romantic consciousness (Solomon, 1978). Within this consciousness, willingly and unwillingly, he became the supreme model of the artist as moral and symbolic leader.

It is no exaggeration to talk of a Beethoven myth—the myth of the artist who triumphs over all the woes that fate places in his path, whether social and political adversities or personal tragedies and debilitating illness, through the extraordinary power of his musical creation (Robbins, 1992). The triumph does not come easily; it requires sacrifices, isolation, privations, and heroism on a truly cosmic scale. This artist becomes a romantic symbol of the independent spirit, a symbol of all humanity and its unending struggles (Lockwood, 2002). The adjectives promethean, titanic, heroic, colossal, and transcendent are frequently used to describe Beethoven the man as well as his art (Kerman, 1997). His artistic legacy comprises nine symphonies, sixteen string quartets, thirty-two piano sonatas, the opera Fidelio, five piano concertos, a violin concerto, two masses, and numerous chamber music compositions, songs, choral works and orchestra overtures. Virtually none of Beethoven's mature works can be regarded as anything other than a masterpiece, and his influence on many musical genres was truly revolutionary (Kinderman, 1997).

The term classical music is somewhat problematic because it has at least three meanings. First, in restrictive usage, it refers to Western, especially European music of the classical music era, typically identified as the period from the mid-1700s through the first third of the 19th century. The musicians of this era contributed many enduring symphonies, string quartets, and sonatas. Haydn and Mozart are the prototypical composers of this period, and Beethoven served as the link between the classical and romantic periods (Jones, 1998). Second and in less restrictive usage, classical music includes Western music of the medieval, Renaissance, baroque, classical, romantic, 20th century, and contemporary periods that is composed by professionally trained artists using music notation and usually performed faithfully to the score—again, by professionally trained artists. Because formal training and education typically are required to perform such music, it is often referred to as “serious” music (DeNora, 1995). A third, less common, usage of the term classical music refers to the serious music of non-Western cultures, such as Chinese classical music (court music) or Indian classical music (marga).

Life and Works

Fact and fiction in Beethoven's life are very difficult to separate. Born in Bonn to a family of musicians, he had a difficult childhood, though his musical ability at thirteen impressed his teacher, Neefe, who wrote that “this young genius … will undoubtedly become a second Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart if he progresses as well as he has begun” (Cooper, 2000).

He moved from Bonn to Vienna in 1792, the year after Mozart's death, and ...