We explain who Ludwig van Beethoven was, what his most outstanding musical works were and why he is considered one of the most important composers in history.
Ludwig van Beethoven was the predominant musical figure during the transition between Classicism and Romanticism in Western music.
Who was Ludwig van Beethoven?
Ludwig van Beethovenknown simply as Beethovenwas a German musician and composer, Considered the greatest composer in history and one of the central figures of classical music or academic. His work embodies the transition between the era of classicism and that of Romanticism between the 18th and 19th centuries.
Heir to previous geniuses of Viennese classicism, such as Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), Beethoven composed numerous musical pieces of diverse genres: piano music, chamber music, sacred music, opera, incidental music , lieder and orchestral music. His works were innovative and had an immense influence on later composers of the 19th century, and remain extremely popular today..
Beethoven’s life, likewise, is a source of interest and admiration, since At 44 he was almost completely deaf, but he still composed some of his greatest works and conducted orchestras. with unbridled passion. His grave, located in Vienna’s Central Cemetery, is a place of pilgrimage for musicians, tourists and lovers of classical music.
Birth and childhood of Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was born in the city of Bonn, in present-day Germany, on 16 December 1770. At that time, the city was the capital of the Principality-Archbishopric of Cologne, part of the Holy Roman Empire.
Despite their humble origins in Flanders (Netherlands), the Beethoven family was traditionally dedicated to music.. The paternal grandfather, Louis van Beethoven, held the position of Kapellmeister to Prince-Archbishop Maximilian Frederick von Königsegg-Rothenfels (1708-1784). In turn, Ludwig’s father, Johann van Beethoven, was a court musician, but of little talent and little appearance.
Ludwig was the second son of Johann and his wife Mary Magdalene, daughter of a cook, and the eldest of only three who reached adulthood, of the five the couple had in total. Since he was a child, his father made him the subject of the most rigorous and demanding musical education.because he wanted young Ludwig to have the same precocious genius as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose reputation as a musical prodigy was known throughout Europe.
That paternal severity made Ludwig an unhappy child. His father used to get him out of bed at night to play for a visitor he wanted to impress. It was a disaffective upbringing, Ludwig was often left in the care of servants, since his father was given over to drink..
Even so, young Ludwig demonstrated his musical aptitudes early on. At the age of seven he gave his first concert in publicin the city of Cologne, where his father introduced him by subtracting his age to highlight his precocity and early genius. At the age of eleven, he left school and was adopted as a student by the German composer and conductor Christian Gottlob Neefe (1748-1798).recently nominated as court organist.
Under the tutelage of Neefe, Ludwig composed his first work at the age of twelve: Nine variations on a march by Ernst Christoph Dressler (WoO 63), and soon became his assistant in court work. This opened the doors of the Bonn opera house for him in 1783 and sent him on a first, unsuccessful tour of Holland.
In 1784, The new prince-archbishop of the region, Maximilian Francis of Austria (1756-1801), decided to send him to Vienna to study with the famous Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.But Ludwig’s stay in Vienna did not last long: his mother fell ill with tuberculosis and his father asked him to return to Bonn.
There is not much verifiable information about the Vienna meeting between Mozart and Beethoven, so it is shrouded in rumour and legend. Biographer Otto Jahn claims that Mozart was very impressed by the young Ludwig’s talent. Other sources, however, claim that Mozart never met Beethoven, that he refused to be his teacher or that he gave him only a few lessons. In any case, Mozart’s musical work was extremely influential on Beethoven’s.
Beethoven’s youth
At 18 years old, young Ludwig van Beethoven was the breadwinner of the family.
Ludwig remained in Bonn for the next five years. In 1787 his mother died and his father sank into depression and alcoholism, so the young man had to take charge of the home and his brothers. For this he taught music classes to the children of the local aristocracy.
The death of his mother greatly affected the young Beethoven., who already demonstrated something of the melancholic and untimely temperament that characterized him during his adult life. However, in those years he experienced the first of his numerous loves. And although he proposed marriage to many of those women, for one reason or another, he was always rejected.
In 1789, he enrolled at the University of Bonn, where he studied some German literature, as he sought to remedy his lack of formal education. Over there came into contact with revolutionary thought from Franceespecially with Professor Eulogius Schneider (1765-1794), who years later was guillotined in the French Republic.
In 1790, moreover, Beethoven faced his first failures. When Emperor Joseph II died in Vienna, he was commissioned to compose a cantata for the funeral eulogies of the monarch, which took three weeks to compose. But the piece was not performed at the last minute (and was not, in fact, until 1884).
This episode was repeated six months later, during the celebratory cantata for the new emperor, Leopold II. The musician finished the piece on time, but it was not performed. Some Beethoven biographers claim that the work was too complex for the modest Bonn performers..
This bad streak was interrupted in 1791, when the young Beethoven traveled with the rest of the Prince of Bonn’s orchestra to Mergentheim, south of Würzburg, for two months. There he had the opportunity to demonstrate his talent on the piano, through improvisations and the execution of parts of his recently published Righini variations..
Beethoven’s early masterpieces
Three trios for piano, violin and cello It was Beethoven’s first major work. This is the Beaux Arts Trio version.
At barely twenty-four years of age, Beethoven began to carve out his place as a piano virtuoso and a future master of musical composition.. Settled in Vienna, in 1795 he gave his first professional concert, exhibiting some of his pieces, and between 1793 and 1795 he composed his first major work: Three trios for piano, violin and cello (Opus 1).
This piece was first performed at the home of Prince Carl von Lichnowsky (1761-1814), a well-known musical patron and friend of Mozart, to whom it is also dedicated. From then on, the aristocrat was one of Beethoven’s great promoters, and in 1796 he took the musician with him to Prague, to make him known..
That same year, Beethoven published his Three piano sonatas (Opus 2) and became a well-known figure in the circles of Viennese high culture, for whom music was a favourite pastime. This opened the door for him to study with Haydn, with the organist Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, with the imperial chapel master, Antonio Salieri, and with the violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh.
As the power of the Prince of Bonn weakened, Beethoven’s patronage came to an end and with it the musician’s obligations to the Bonn court. Thus, the young master suddenly found himself free to follow his own steps in Vienna. He was hosted by Prince von Lichnowsky and kept different addresses, a habit he would cultivate for the rest of his life.
Beethoven’s first international tour took place in 1796, and consisted of a tour of Prague, Dresden, Leipzig, Berlin and Budapest. And in 1800, with his studies already completed, He faced a famous musical duel with the pianist and composer Daniel Steibelt (1765-1823). Beethoven took some of his opponent’s works and modified them as he performed them, with such grace that he was quickly declared the winner. Steibelt, humiliated, publicly announced that he would not set foot in Vienna as long as Beethoven resided there, and immediately moved to Paris.
That same year, Beethoven gave a new concert in Vienna, where he presented his Septet in E flat major (Opus 20) and its Symphony No. 1 in C major (Opus 21), and performed works by Mozart and his teacher Haydn, with whom he would soon break. Other nobles joined in his patronage and protection, such as Baron Gottfried van Swieten.
Around 1802, this first period of Beethoven’s career came to an end, characterized by the predominance of the piano and by the commitment of his works to the techniques and musical trends of the 18th century..
When naming Beethoven’s compositions (and those of most classical musicians) the term is used opus (from the Latin “work”) or its abbreviation Op. followed by a number, as a way of cataloging the pieces.
There are, however, works that are not part of this classification, and that is why they are grouped under the acronym WoO (from German) Werk ohne Opuszahl“Work without opus number”) and a number. For example, the famous bagatelle For Elisa It is classified as “WoO 59”.
Beethoven’s deafness
In 1802, a concern joined Beethoven’s life: was going deaf. He had perceived some signs of this over the last few years, which as time went by worsened and became permanent.
Thus, while spending the summer in the town of Heiligenstadt (in present-day Austria), on October 6 he wrote a letter to his brothers Karl and Johann, known as the “Heiligenstadt Testament.” In this letter, Beethoven tells his brothers about his increasing deafness and the concerns it brings about his artistic and professional future.. The letter was not sent and was found after his death.
In his “Heiligenstadt Testament,” Beethoven referred to his increasing deafness in these terms:
“Yes, I have spent these last six months in the countryside, advised by my intelligent doctor, to take care of my ears as much as possible. He almost foresaw my current situation, although sometimes, dragged by the instinct of society, I have allowed myself to stray from the indicated path. But what humiliation when someone next to me heard the sound of a flute in the distance and I didn’t hear anything, or when someone heard a shepherd sing and I didn’t hear anything either. Such situations pushed me to despair, and I almost ended my life myself.”.
Taken from the magazine Classic2June 2013. The original text is kept in the State Library and…