Page 24 - Quantum Times 2020 Summer Edition

Starting in 1815, his personal life
doubt. QUANTUM TIMES
Haydn lived in Vienna at the time, and the
young Beethoven now planned to study with
Haydn. 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 devoted himself to studying music
with the most outstanding musicians of the
time. He studied piano with Haydn, vocal
music with Antonio Salieri, and confronted
Johann Albrechtsberger. Beethoven had not
yet become a composer, but soon established a
reputation as a piano player, and he was
particularly good at improvisation.
When Beethoven was still a young man, he
was having a blazing career as a pianist, also as
composer of the two duve towns because he
wrote music for himself. Although losing his
hearing, Beethoven created his greatest
masterpieces from 1802 to 1814, including
Appassionata Sonata and Fidelio. In
Beethoven’s mid-thirties, he found that he was
beginning to lose his hearing (no one even
noticed why and what happened), which also
changed his musical style; later on, this is often
referred to as his hero works, such as
"Symphony No. 5".
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unraveled, and his work slowed
tremendously. After the death of his
brother, the process of adopting his nephew
was a tremendous court battle that led to a
decline in Beethoven’s compositional
output. By 1819, Beethoven was completely
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deaf, and he didn’t tell anyone about his
problem. The letter he wrote 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:
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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."
After he could no longer perform in public,
he started to write pieces for others, not for
himself but for the future. This was a huge
point of departure from what he had been
doing. Beethoven died on March 26, 1827 at
the age of 56 because of liver cirrhosis after
hepatitis.
Beethoven composed his most beautiful
and extraordinary music while deaf, which is
almost a superhuman feat of creative
genius. Beethoven’s life and imminent
death have never been as eloquent with
words as in music. His music, in some ways,
changed our thoughts about how we think
of music.
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