German composer Ludwig van Beethoven is considered one of the most important figures in the history of music. He continued to compose even while losing his hearing and created some of his greatest works after becoming totally deaf.
Early years in Bonn
Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany, on December 16, 1770. He was the eldest of three children of Johann and Maria Magdalena van Beethoven. His father, a musician who liked to drink, taught him to play piano and violin. Young Ludwig was often pulled out of bed in the middle of the night and ordered to perform for his father's drinking companions, suffering beatings if he protested. As Beethoven developed, it became clear that to reach artistic maturity he would have to leave Bonn for a major musical center.
At the age of twelve Beethoven was a promising keyboard player and a talented pupil in composition of the court organist Christian Gottlob Neefe (1748–1798). He even filled in as church organist when Neefe was out of town. In 1783 Beethoven's first published work, a set of keyboard pieces, appeared, and in the 1780s he produced portions of a number of later works. In 1787 he traveled to Vienna, Austria, apparently to seek out Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) as a teacher.
He was forced to return to Bonn to care for his ailing mother, who died several months later. His father died in 1792
He was forced to return to Bonn to care for his ailing mother, who died several months later. His father died in 1792
Years in Vienna
In 1792 Beethoven went back to Vienna to study with the famous composer Joseph Haydn (1732–1809). Beethoven was not totally satisfied with Haydn's teaching, though, and he turned to musicians of lesser talent for extra instruction. Beethoven rapidly proceeded to make his mark as a brilliant keyboard performer and as a gifted young composer with a number of works to his credit. In 1795 his first mature published works appeared, and his career was officially launched.
Beethoven lived in Vienna from 1792 to his death in 1827, unmarried, among a circle of friends, independent of any kind of official position or private service. He rarely traveled, apart from summers in the countryside. In 1796 he made a trip to northern Germany, where his schedule included a visit to the court of King Frederick William of Prussia, an amateur cellist. Later Beethoven made several trips to Budapest, Hungary. In 1808 Beethoven received an invitation to become music director at Kassel, Germany. This alarmed several of his wealthy Viennese friends, who formed a group of backers and agreed to guarantee Beethoven an annual salary of 1,400 florins to keep him in Vienna. He thus became one of the first musicians in history to be able to live independently on his music salary.
Personal and professional problems
Although publishers sought out Beethoven and he was an able manager of his own business affairs, he was at the mercy of the crooked publishing practices of his time. Publishers paid a fee to composers for rights to their works, but there was no system of copyrights (the exclusive right to sell and copy a published work) or royalties (profits based on public performances of the material) at the time. As each new work appeared, Beethoven sold it to one or more of the best and most reliable publishers. But this initial payment was all he would receive, and both he and his publisher had to contend with rival publishers who brought out editions of their own. As a result Beethoven saw his works published in many different versions that were unauthorized, unchecked, and often inaccurate. Several times during his life in Vienna Beethoven started plans for a complete, authorized edition of his works, but these plans were never realized.
Beethoven's two main personal problems, especially in later life, were his deafness and his relationship with his nephew, Karl. Beethoven began to lose his hearing during his early years in Vienna, and the condition
Composing for Audiences
 |
| Portrait of Beethoven by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820 (Photo: WikiCommons) |
In 1792, with French revolutionary forces sweeping across the Rhineland into the Electorate of Cologne, Beethoven decided to leave his hometown for Vienna once again. Mozart had passed away a year earlier, leaving Joseph Haydn as the unquestioned greatest composer alive.
Haydn was living in Vienna at the time, and it was with Haydn that the young Beethoven now intended to study. As his friend and patron Count Waldstein wrote in a farewell letter, "Mozart's genius mourns and weeps over the death of his disciple. It found refuge, but no release with the inexhaustible Haydn; through him, now, it seeks to unite with another. By means of assiduous labor you will receive the spirit of Mozart from the hands of Haydn."
In Vienna, Beethoven dedicated himself wholeheartedly to musical study with the most eminent musicians of the age. He studied piano with Haydn, vocal composition with Antonio Salieri and counterpoint with Johann Albrechtsberger. Not yet known as a composer, Beethoven quickly established a reputation as a virtuoso pianist who was especially adept at improvisation.
Beethoven won many patrons among the leading citizens of the Viennese aristocracy, who provided him with lodging and funds, allowing Beethoven, in 1794, to sever ties with the Electorate of Cologne. Beethoven made his long-awaited public debut in Vienna on March 29, 1795. Although there is considerable debate over which of his early piano concerti he performed that night, most scholars believe he played what is known as his "first" piano concerto in C Major. Shortly thereafter, Beethoven decided to publish a series of three piano trios as his "Opus 1," which were an enormous critical and financial success.
In the first spring of the new century, on April 2, 1800, Beethoven debuted his Symphony No. 1 in C major at the Royal Imperial Theater in Vienna. Although Beethoven would grow to detest the piece -- "In those days I did not know how to compose," he later remarked -- the graceful and melodious symphony nevertheless established him as one of Europe's most celebrated composers.
As the new century progressed, Beethoven composed piece after piece that marked him as a masterful composer reaching his musical maturity. His "Six String Quartets," published in 1801, demonstrate complete mastery of that most difficult and cherished of Viennese forms developed by Mozart and Haydn. Beethoven also composed The Creatures of Prometheus in 1801, a wildly popular ballet that received 27 performances at the Imperial Court Theater.
Around this time Beethoven, like all of Europe, watched with a mixture of awe and terror as Napoleon Bonaparte proclaimed himself First Consul, and later Emperor, of France. Beethoven admired, abhorred and, to an extent, identified with Napoleon a man of seemingly superhuman capabilities, only one year older than himself and also of obscure birth.
In 1804, only weeks after Napoleon proclaimed himself Emperor, Beethoven debuted his Symphony No. 3 in Napoleon's honor. Later renamed the "Eroica Symphony" because Beethoven grew disillusioned with Napoleon, it was his grandest and most original work to date -- so unlike anything heard before that through weeks of rehearsal, the musicians could not figure out how to play it. A prominent reviewer proclaimed Eroica, "one of the most original, most sublime, and most profound products that the entire genre of music has ever exhibited."
Losing Hearing
At the same time as he was composing these great and immortal works, Beethoven was struggling to come to terms with a shocking and terrible fact, one that he tried desperately to conceal. He was going deaf. By the turn of the century, Beethoven struggled to make out the words spoken to him in conversation.
Beethoven revealed in a heart-wrenching 1801 letter to his friend Franz Wegeler, "I must confess that I lead a miserable life. For almost two years I have ceased to attend any social functions, just because I find it impossible to say to people: I am deaf. If I had any other profession, I might be able to cope with my infirmity; but in my profession it is a terrible handicap." At times driven to extremes of melancholy by his affliction, Beethoven described his despair in a long and poignant note that he concealed his entire life.
Dated October 6, 1802 and referred to as "The Heiligenstadt Testament," it reads in part, "O you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you and I would have ended my life -- it was only my art that held me back. Ah, it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt was within me."
Almost miraculously, despite his rapidly progressing deafness, Beethoven continued to compose at a furious pace. From 1803-1812, what is known as his "middle" or "heroic" period, he composed an opera, six symphonies, four solo concerti, five string quartets, six string sonatas, seven piano sonatas, five sets of piano variations, four overtures, four trios, two sextets and 72 songs. The most famous among these were symphonies No. 3-8, the "Moonlight Sonata," the "Kreutzer" violin sonata and Fidelio, his only opera. In terms of the astonishing output of superlatively complex, original and beautiful music, this period in Beethoven's life is unrivaled by any of any other composer in history.
Despite his extraordinary output of beautiful music, Beethoven was lonely and frequently miserable throughout his adult life. Short-tempered, absent-minded, greedy and suspicious to the point of paranoia, Beethoven feuded with his brothers, his publishers, his housekeepers, his pupils and his patrons. In one illustrative incident, Beethoven attempted to break a chair over the head of Prince Lichnowsky, one of his closest friends and most loyal patrons. Another time he stood in the doorway of Prince Lobkowitz's palace shouting for all to hear, "Lobkowitz is a donkey!"
For a variety of reasons that included his crippling shyness and unfortunate physical appearance, Beethoven never married or had children. He was, however, desperately in love with a married woman named Antonie Brentano. Over the course of two days in July of 1812, Beethoven wrote her a long and beautiful love letter that he never sent. Addressed "to you, my Immortal Beloved," the letter said in part, "My heart is full of so many things to say to you -- ah -- there are moments when I feel that speech amounts to nothing at all -- Cheer up -- remain my true, my only love, my all as I am yours."
The death of Beethoven's brother Caspar in 1815 sparked one of the great trials of his life, a painful legal battle with his sister-in-law, Johanna, over the custody of Karl van Beethoven, his nephew and her son. The struggle stretched on for seven years during which both sides spewed ugly defamations at the other. In the end, Beethoven won the boy's custody, though hardly his affection.
sources: http://www.biography.com/people/ludwig-van-beethoven-9204862#losing-hearing
http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ba-Be/Beethoven-Ludwig-van.html
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar