Ludwig van Beethoven

When Beethoven began work on his first symphony he had been a resident of Vienna for seven years, and was enjoying a growing reputation as a composer. He had already composed the first ten sonatas for piano, including the Pathétique. Other important completed works were the first two piano concertos and some of the op. 18 string quartets. His instrumental ensemble works included the wind Octet in...

The years 1801-02 marked the nadir of Beethoven’s emotional life, as he grappled with the reality of his increasing and permanent deafness. His despair was total, and the prospect of suicide is clearly implied in the documentary evidence. Tumultuous and bitter family feuding entered into this cruel time, but the famous “Heiligenstadt Testament” records his final triumph over the depression and...

Beethoven’s first symphony has been called “a fitting farewell to the eighteenth century” and dates to 1800, eight years after his arrival in Vienna as a young composer. His second symphony was completed in 1802, the momentous year of his “Heiligenstadt Testament.” The latter document marked the turning point in Beethoven’s life. It was an anguished letter (never sent, however) to his brothers in...

      This symphony, along with the first and second symphonies of Beethoven, has not nearly the reputation of the rest of them. It especially stands in great contrast to its immediate predecessor, the monumental third—the “Eroica,” a work that changed forever the significance of the genre. Any great work of art must be judged by its intrinsic qualities, yet it often is...

Beethoven’s fifth symphony is the iconic work of classical music. It pervades the whole world of symbols and imagery of musical art as an evocation of a welter of ideas. In a sad way it is almost impossible to escape all of these associations extrinsic to the work itself and to focus only on Beethoven’s composition. But distancing one’s self from it all and listening to the symphony as if for the...

In 1808 Beethoven completed his sixth symphony at a time during which he was enjoying a rising popularity, albeit one without financial security. He already had written some of his most memorable and lasting works, and was a composer fully in possession of technical mastery and supreme musicality—in other words, even if he had composed no more, his place in music history would have been secure...

This work is simply a gem, and while certainly well known, deserves to be even better appreciated by concert audiences. Beethoven, himself, famously said that it was one of his best works. And, unlike so many works of genius that initially were pearls cast before swine, everybody knew on the spot that this work was great. It is commonplace, of course, for scholars to think of Beethoven’s musical...

It is commonplace, of course, for scholars to think of Beethoven’s musical life in three great periods—the last one being the time of compositions that “challenge” comprehension and appreciation. The fecund middle period, roughly the first decade of the nineteenth century, is the time of dozens of the magnificent works that came to define the composer and establish his eternal reputation, and his...

In the decade leading up to about 1812 Beethoven had enjoyed the most productive period of his life. He not only had composed well over two dozen major works—works that stand in the highest ranks of Western music—and many more other compositions in various genres, but he had changed the game of musical composition in lasting ways. Building upon the work of Haydn and Mozart, he crafted a musical...

By 1806 Beethoven had surmounted a series of significant distractions that had seriously affected his creative life. The difficulties that he had with writing his only opera, Fidelio, are well documented. Other factors were the misery of his ardent, but unsuccessful, personal relationship with the young widow, Josephine von Brunsvik, and, of course, dealing with the reality of his deafness. But...