The International Beethoven Project

In this section, we share some quotes from books and other sources about Beethoven’s life and about the meaning of his work.  We hope that this will inspire and invite readers to reflect on some of the themes of Beethoven’s contribution to our civilization.  We also hope that readers will learn about aspects of the man and the composer they never knew before!  Please share your thoughts and insights.

The only framework of reference you need are Beethoven’s dates:

Born in Bonn: 1770 – Died in Vienna: 1827.

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The following segment comes from a lesser known but very insightful book on Beethoven called: Beethoven: His Spiritual Development. By J.W.N. Sullivan.  Vintage Books, 1960 edition. New York.  In this quote, Sullivan is reffering to the Beethoven of the 1790s and very early 1800s, when Beethoven was not yet completely handicapped by his increasing deafness.  It is clear, from this description, that Beethoven was not always so “mad,” and that he probably could be quite charming and sociable;  our popular conception of Beethoven today is often ignorant of those earlier years, and yet this side of his personality was evident in the music of that more classical period, and in some ways remained with him until the end (think of the Diabelli Variations of 1823, which despite their incredible variety and complexity, are yet variations on a waltz!).

“Beethoven, especially at this time, was no misanthrope.  The whole man was intensely alive and lived in a vivid world.  Everything interested him.  He was eager for society, and for anything that contributed to the wealth of impressions that poured in upon him every day.  His art was not yet a refuge to him, a mystery to be served, the only region in which his soul could escape all trammels and become completely free, but a glorious vehicle for the expression of the vivid experiences life presented to him.   He enjoyed conversation and reading, brilliant social functions, and unconstrained laughter in taverns.  He travelled.  And, at this time, according to Wegeler, he was always in love, “and made many conquests which would have been difficult if not impossible for many an Adonis.”  All this made an excellent setting for the morality of power.  Beethoven’s real strength, his contempt for others, and his success, must have made this doctrine thoroughly congenial to him.  He was, in fact, admirably constructed to be an exponent of the morality of power.  But a higher destiny was reserved for him.  It would appear that Beethoven first noticed symptoms of his deafness in 1798.  His first reference to it, however, occurs in a letter to Amenda, dated June 1, 1801…” (p.67)

Thoughts?