Ludwig van Beethoven Overview

Musicologists usually break up the great Ludwig van Beethoven's career into three periods: early, middle, and late. But to add a touch more flavor, you could call them the "I'm young and getting my feet wet" period, followed by the "Since... [more]

Musicologists usually break up the great Ludwig van Beethoven's career into three periods: early, middle, and late. But to add a touch more flavor, you could call them the "I'm young and getting my feet wet" period, followed by the "Since I'm going deaf, I'm gonna get wacky and break some rules" period, and finally the glorious, isolated-by-deafness, "There are no external influences, all resources come from within" period. Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany, in 1770 and began playing the piano as a small child. He spent his early youth helping to support his family by working as a deputy organist for his father's employer, the elector of Cologne. As a young adult, Beethoven made a permanent move to the city that would grant him renown: Vienna. He studied for a short time under the great Haydn as well as Albrechtsberger and Salieri, and began to publish his first serious compositions. The young man managed to make all the right connections in the aristocratic circles of Vienna and performed his works throughout the city. At this point, he was content to master a high classical style, to the ample satisfaction of his noble patrons. The works of Haydn and Mozart influenced much of Beethoven's early works. However conventional, his early pieces were not without originality or experiment; the piano concertos and sonatas, for example, show a growing comfort with expanding the classical forms. This period of warming up, of learning and perfecting his craft, allowed for his later experimentations, which began around 1801. By the time the maestro wrote his third symphony, the "Eroica," he realized he was slowly going deaf. He was also no longer writing solely for the pleasures of the Church and the aristocracy; he'd become intent on driving his craft in the direction of his choice. With the "Eroica," Beethoven began to disregard the conventions of the day. He reconfigured the forms of his pieces, inserting a slow movement where one would expect a quick one and a quicker movement where convention called for something slower. He chose to shift keys at moments when the practice of the day would advise against it. He broke up themes, rather than presenting them in their entirety, and amply deployed dramatic narration. The four movements in the "Eroica" vary in mood from a mournful dirge to the joyful and celebratory scherzo, and in doing so represent a triumphant journey through death to rebirth and exultation. Moody and various, this the composer's third symphony was a forerunner of the Romantic movement in symphonic music. In these middle years, Beethoven wrote a multitude of daring symphonies, revolutionary piano sonatas and string quartets, and an opera, "Fidelio." The remarkably prolific period ended suddenly, with several personal catastrophes -- among them the complete loss of his hearing. The composer stopped composing for a while, then emerged again in what has come to be known as his late period, when he produced such masterpieces as "Hammerklavier" and the "Ninth Symphony," as well as his late string quartets and piano sonatas. "Hammerklavier" is one of the more remarkable and technically complex piano sonatas ever written. And the great Ninth Symphony, seamlessly incorporating the instrumental with the choral, travels triumphantly from darkness to light, from the depths of misery and despair to enlightenment. In his last years --utterly deaf, prone to illness, and almost completely isolated from others -- Beethoven surpassed himself. [show less]