I recently listened to a biography of Beethoven called "Beethoven the Universal Composer" by Edmund Morris.
This comprehensive biography goes from birth to death.
Beethoven was yet another disturbed artist, not unlike George Orwell, whose biography I listened to recently.
He was said to be ugly and short and rather arrogant. His life went from lower middle class to upper middle class to lowest middle class ending up somewhat successful.
He was a rather dysfunctional person. Rather possessive and abusive. He was raised by an alcoholic father who was very strict and would often wake him at midnight to force him to practice music. He showed early on an amazing propensity for improvisation and amazing talent that his father did his best to quash in order to show him off as a child prodigy as that of Mozart.
Beethoven studied a little under Mozart in his early teenage years. At 19 he composed his first music for the death of some royalty that was then rejected to be resurrected a century later by Brahms? was it? who said it was the most amazing music of its time. However, during his time, Beethoven's music was quite out of the ordinary, which is why his music still survives today.
Beethoven also suffered several health problems, he had chronic diarrhea which is alleged upon autopsy to have helped lead to his deafness. He died of cirrhosis of the liver.
There is no question that Beethoven was an amazing talent, especially composing his ninth symphony while completely deaf. Now that...THAT...is amazing.
It is said that his health problems could have also motivated his abusive behavior, as well. He was stated to have had quite the temper.
one of my favorite Saturday Night Live skits was of Belushi portraying Luwig von Beethoven
No comments:
Post a Comment