Beethoven, from Classicism to Romanticism

Few composers have changed so profoundly the very idea of what a musician is. Ludwig van Beethoven arrived in Vienna as the heir of Haydn and Mozart; when he died, he had become the image of the Romantic artist: an independent creator, struggling against fate, writing for all humanity and for posterity rather than to please a prince.

From Bonn to Vienna

Beethoven was born in Bonn in December 1770, into a family of musicians at the court of the Elector of Cologne. His father, a singer fond of drink, dreamed of making him a new Mozart and drove him hard at the keyboard. In 1792 the young man left for Vienna to study with Haydn; he never returned. He first made his name there as a pianist: a dazzling improviser with a powerful touch who, it was said, broke the strings of the pianos of the day.

Deafness

Towards the end of the 1790s he began to lose his hearing. For a musician it was a catastrophe, which he hid for a long time. In October 1802, in the village of Heiligenstadt, he wrote his brothers a long letter, never sent and found after his death: the Heiligenstadt Testament. In it he confides that he had thought of ending his life and was held back only by his art, which he wanted to carry through. His deafness worsened until it was almost total; in his last years people communicated with him in writing, in "conversation books".

An independent composer

Beethoven never held a permanent post in a prince's service. He lived from his publications, his concerts and the support of admiring aristocrats, who treated him almost as an equal: in 1809, Archduke Rudolph and Princes Lobkowitz and Kinsky pledged him an annual income so that he would stay in Vienna. He saw himself as an artist, not a servant.

The nine symphonies

Beethoven wrote "only" nine symphonies (Haydn wrote over a hundred), but each is a world of its own: longer, more powerful, more personal.

• The Third, "Eroica" (1803–1804), of unprecedented scale. According to his pupil Ferdinand Ries, Beethoven had planned to dedicate it to Napoleon, but furiously scratched out the name on learning that he had proclaimed himself emperor.
• The Fifth (1808), grown entirely from a four-note motif, moving from darkness (C minor) to triumphant light (C major).
• The Sixth, "Pastoral", premiered at the same concert, evoking the countryside: brook, birdsong, storm.
• The Ninth (1824), whose finale brings in soloists and a choir singing Schiller's Ode to Joy. At the premiere, so the story goes, Beethoven, who could no longer hear anything, had to be turned towards the hall to see the audience applauding.

Here is the motif that opens the Fifth Symphony: three short notes and a long one, with two fermatas (notes held as long as the conductor wishes):

M:2/4
L:1/8
Q:1/2=100
K:Cm
z GGG | !fermata!E4 | z FFF | D4- | !fermata!D4 |]

And the theme of the Ode to Joy, adopted as the anthem of the European Union: a deliberately simple, almost folk-like melody moving by step, which anyone can sing.

M:4/4
L:1/4
Q:1/4=100
K:C
E E F G | G F E D | C C D E | E3/2 D/ D2 |
E E F G | G F E D | C C D E | D3/2 C/ C2 |]

The piano, a lifelong laboratory

His thirty-two piano sonatas span his whole career, from early sonatas still close to Haydn to the gigantic Hammerklavier and the last sonatas, intimate and visionary. To these add five piano concertos, a violin concerto, sixteen string quartets (the last ones, thought incomprehensible by many at the time, still fascinate), a single opera, Fidelio, and a great Mass, the Missa solemnis. The lesson The Classical period in the final chapter looks at how to play his works on the piano.

His creative life is often divided into three periods: a first in the line of Haydn and Mozart, a second "heroic" one of great, conquering works (from about 1802), and a last, more inward and experimental. This division is handy but schematic.

The bridge to Romanticism

Beethoven kept the Classical forms (sonata, symphony, quartet), but stretched them, shook them up, charged them with emotion and conflict: violent contrasts, off-beat accents, huge developments, codas that become new developments. He died in Vienna on 26 March 1827; thousands followed his funeral procession, Schubert among them. For every 19th-century composer he would be both a model and an overwhelming shadow.

What to listen for

• Abrupt contrasts: pianissimo then fortissimo, unexpected accents (sforzandos).
• Relentless work on small motifs that run through a whole piece.
• A sense of struggle and triumph: from minor to major, blazing finales.
• In the late works, meditative music, fugues, variations that seem to suspend time.

Listen

• Symphonies Nos. 3, 5, 6 and 9.
• The "Pathétique", "Moonlight" and "Appassionata" piano sonatas.
• Piano Concerto No. 5, "Emperor".
• String Quartet Op. 131.