Beethoven, His Music, and the World

Melissa Lee
Mr. Inman
Modern World History
10-25-08

Beethoven, His Music, and the World

The era of Ludwig van Beethoven—the 18th and 19th centuries—seems to be the height of classical music. It was the golden age of music when popular music consisted of classical music performed by orchestras and choruses in theatres. It was one era Bach met and influenced young Mozart, Haydn taught Beethoven, and Shubert came to Beethoven’s deathbed. Beethoven, among all the composers mentioned, although they all are extremely famous, would deserve the title of the greatest composer of all time. The intro of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is probably the most known piece of music in the history of music. However, not only did he make music, he also was very interested in politics, as European politics at the time was the most intense of the world. As a result, the musical genius’s work is sometimes not only purely artistic, but also influenced by and influential on politics.

Before Beethoven, instrumental music was considered the lower form of music. The higher form was vocal music with the popularity of a capella, which was not even one of the high forms of art. Music in general was considered to be inferior to other forms of arts, for instance, painting and literature. Today, instrumental music has become one of the highest form of the art, which is a striking change. What is more striking is that Beethoven, who is just one individual, was largely responsible for this change. While Mozart worked with voices mostly, Beethoven concentrated more on instrumental performances. Also, his influence on piano music was great. Being a piano player himself, Beethoven appreciated the sound of piano. The piano was still in the early stage of development at Beethoven’s time. He accepted the limitations of the piano, and transformed them into a greater effect. His piano improvisation was also described to be extremely brilliant that it made every single person in the audience tear. Clearly seen here is Beethoven’s brilliance in improvisational techniques that play an important role in his style for piano pieces. Beethoven’s piano pieces mostly consisted of sonatas. During the First Period, which extends from the Three Trios to the First Symphony, Beethoven’s piano sonatas show traces of improvisation, for example, sudden changes in accents or rhythms. They also show sudden major changes in dynamics such as crescendos leading to a sudden piano. In contrast, Beethoven started using more codas and repetitions during the Second Period, which is from the Moonlight Sonata to the Piano Sonata in E Minor. The Third Period piano pieces were mixtures of various forms of music such as dance, sonata, and march. By merging numerous forms and improvisational techniques in piano music, Beethoven enriched the texture of the sound. Also, his technique of inserting a solo part before the whole orchestra parts would cause struggling of later composers in attempt to reproduce.

Beethoven’s most famous pieces include the nine symphonies, piano sonatas, concerti, and chamber music. As he was taught by Haydn, Haydn’s influence lies largely in Beethoven’s works. Haydn is often called “the Father of Symphony,” and clearly Beethoven’s symphonies inherit their style from Haydn. The Second and Third periods’ magnificent style is most likely from Haydn. Dance rhythms and folk music influences also affected his music as they did other composers of the time. The great preceding composer, Mozart, was heavily influential on Beethoven’s work. Mozart was already well-known in Europe as a musical genius by the time Beethoven started composing music—in fact, the reason Beethoven’s father offered him musical education was the hope that young Ludwig might become a musical prodigy like Mozart. Beethoven’s earliest works bear a lot of resemblance with Mozart’s sonatas with use of the same key, same tempo, and even some lines sounding like variations of Mozart’s themes. Moreover, Beethoven’s earliest works also suggest that he learned how to use some wind instruments from Mozart.

One of the most well-known facts about Beethoven is that he was deaf. Modern medical science suspects typhoid fever in the youth to be responsible for his loss of hearing. According to the first violinist of the first performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Josef Böhm, although there was a great flood of applause and cheers, Beethoven could not hear it, and the alto soloist had to turn him towards the crowd to show what was going on. With a strong willpower, Beethoven managed to imagine the sound of music for a few years, but he soon became incapable of hearing any music. Although he remembered the sounds of instruments and was capable of imagining how the music would sound, he was not always right and could not judge his own work sometimes, which had a critical effect on the quality of the compositions . When he was conducting, the members of the orchestra could not play according to him. They had to look at the assistant conductor. As his memory of sound faded, his works got stranger and pulled sorrow and pity out of people who had appreciated his works. Beethoven himself was so discouraged by deafness that some critics even said the negative change in his works were due not to the illness, but depression followed by the thought that he could not write good music anymore and could not even conduct his own earlier works. On the other hand, in spite of the bad reputation of Beethoven’s later works at the period, some critics of later years appreciated the later style.

Beethoven lived in the age of revolution. French Revolution broke out when he was nineteen, and people at the time were generally mesmerized by the ideas of Enlightenment—freedom and equality. Even after French Revolution ended, Napoleon swept Europe with blood. Austria, where Beethoven lived, was one of the most powerful nations in Europe at the time. Austria formed a coalition with three other countries to fight Napoleon. The Austrians were defeated by Napoleon, but they attempted to fight Napoleon again by offering assistance to Russia, which did not help the Russians. The Third Symphony, also known as the Eroica Symphony, is considered one of the most political works of Beethoven. The symphony was first performed in 1804 and was written in the height of Napoleon’s reign. Napoleon Bonaparte had been “a man of Revolution” until that point. However, he crowned himself the Emperor of the French. The Eroica Symphony was originally to be named the Bonaparte Symphony in honour of Napoleon. Beethoven refused to dedicate his work to a hypocrite. He did note that the piece was “composed to celebrate the memory of a great man”, but he dedicated it to Joseph Lobkowitz, his patron. Napoleon and all the national heroes of France and other European nations were responsible for the “heroic” style that can be found on works of the Second Period. This style includes dramatic developments that later mark Beethoven’s style. The Eroica Symphony is a turning point in Beethoven’s musical career, getting away from the melancholy melodies of the First Period. Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio, has a political story as well. It involves a prisoner who is arrested solely out of the governor’s will, which is related to the Enlightenment idea of people’s equality before the law. His choral works were largely political in terms of lyrics. At the end of the Ninth Symphony, the chorus sing that “all men will become brothers beneath joy’s gentle wing”, extracted straight from the Enlightenment idea of brotherhood.

Ferruccio Busoni, a great pianist and composer, said about Beethoven, “With Beethoven, humanity enters into music for the first time.” The honour has its reasons. Beethoven did bring a huge change into music. As Schubert said, “Who can do anything after Beethoven?”