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 Return to Piano Project 2009 Home Page >> The Early Years Beethoven's Keyboard Works and Performing Style Developments in the Piano during Beethoven's Lifetime The Influence of Bach
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Piano Project
2009: Beethoven and the Piano —Jacob Greenberg Ludwig van Beethoven is a crucial figure in the history of music, known as a titanic musical personality and a master craftsman. Beethoven was also a transitional composer between two centuries, with one foot in the eighteenth century and one in the nineteenth, and the striking evolution of his style guided listeners in his age into the Romantic era. Beethoven was not a Romantic himself, but he was a heroic presence in the arts. His works gained inspiration from earlier styles and pointed towards an entirely novel individualism in music, which reflected literary trends of the era and the humanistic ideals of writers like Goethe and Schiller. Beethoven composed with the spirit of revolution; the French Revolution at the turn of the nineteenth century formed his philosophy and imbued his music with forward-thinking idealism. A Brief Biography of the Early Years Beethoven was the eldest surviving child of Johann and Maria Magdalena van Beethoven, a family that was Flemish in origin. Some of Ludwig’s relatives were distinguished musicians: his grandfather was Kappellmeister of the archbishop-elector of Cologne, and lived in Bonn, where Ludwig was born. The death of Ludwig’s grandfather when Ludwig was three put his family’s prosperity in decline and, as the young Beethoven’s musical talent developed, there was pressure on him to become the breadwinner of his family. Beethoven took early lessons in piano and organ, and made his public debut at eight. His father wanted him to be a prodigy in the manner of Mozart, but Ludwig did not attract attention for his gifts until he was a teenager, and was instead put into the service of the court in Bonn sin several musical capacities. He played viola in the court orchestra, was assistant to the court organist, and played continuo in the Bonn Opera, all before he was thirteen. These experiences amounted to an unusually well-rounded musical education, and an all-consuming one: Beethoven left school at eleven. By 1787 he had made such progress that Maximilian Francis, the archbishop-elector of Bonn, was persuaded to send Beethoven to Vienna to study with Mozart. Beethoven had a brief, successful audition for Mozart, during which Mozart reportedly said, “Keep your eyes on him; some day he will give the world something to talk about.” Beethoven’s time in Vienna was cut suddenly short when he received news of his mother's death. He spent the next five years in Bonn with his increasingly alcoholic father. But Beethoven gained new colleagues and distinguished teachers, including none other than Joseph Haydn, who passed through Bonn in 1790 and immediately recognized Beethoven’s gifts. With the encouragement of his supporters in Bonn, Beethoven took a leave of absence from the court to travel to Vienna and study with Haydn at the Elector’s expense, and never returned to his home city. Beethoven’s reputation grew in Vienna as his first published works reached wide circulation and his skills as an improviser became known in distinguished circles. His personality also became known to the public—moody and fitful, yet a magnetic performer. On the occasions when he conducted, “every limb,” as it was described, “was possessed by a different violent spirit.” A somewhat homely man with a pockmarked face, Beethoven could not have been a better musician to represent the “Sturm und Drang”’ (storm and stress) style of the early nineteenth century. Beethoven stormed into musical life in Vienna and it was never the same. In his life, Beethoven was no stranger to suffering. With symptoms of his deafness beginning in 1799, he was deaf for nearly half of his life. In an 1802 letter to his brothers Carl and Johann known as the “Heiligenstadt Testament," Beethoven made reluctant peace with his condition, and resolved to devote his life to his art. It was perhaps with this letter that Beethoven’s musical individualism—a devotion to music as expression of self, and one’s innermost thoughts—took hold. The next years contain many of Beethoven’s greatest works, including the Eroica symphony and the first version of his opera Fidelio, not to mention dozens of pieces for piano. |
 Ludwig van Beethoven, in an 1820 portrait by Joseph Karl Stieler  The Beethoven House in Bonn  Beethoven at age 13 (artist unknown) |
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