Beethoven was born in 1770. We don’t know enough about the first five years of his life to know whether it was a good or bad season. But from 1776 on, we know he had a pleasant childhood. Though his family was poor, and his father was strict and severe, he was lucky enough to have a devoted mother, and he spent happy hours in her presence. He also had many friends and many opportunities to have fun.*
In 1778, little Beethoven recognized as “a child prodigy:” he gave his first public concert in Bonn, where he was born. The following year, he began to study with a well-known musician –a director of the National Theater– who immediately recognized his talent and took him under his wing. After two years of instruction, in 1781 –when Beethoven was only 11– he composed three sonatas and one concert for the piano, all of which were published immediately. The same year, he had another reason to be very happy: he became acquainted with a family in Bonn that offered a supportive environment and nurtured his musical talent. Their home was a “refuge for happiness,” (1) as he put it.
In 1784, Beethoven became financially independent –while only 14 years old. That year he was appointed deputy organist in Bonn’s court, with an excellent salary. Thus he could support his whole family. His father had become an alcoholic, his mother was seriously ill, and there were two younger brothers to care for.
Three years later, in 1787, Beethoven’s big dream came true: he was able to leave Bonn for Vienna. Vienna was a cultural magnet at the time, where all the arts and especially music flourished. Bands “played in the streets and the whole city was awash in music,” (2) while “the theaters and the academies were always overflowing.” (3) There, the young Beethoven met Mozart for the first time and received the first major encouragement of his life from him. He improvised a composition on the piano, but Mozart was skeptical because he believed that the young man had previously memorized the composition.
Beethoven then asked Mozart to choose the theme himself –and he improvised again. When Beethoven finished, Mozart said, “This young man will surprise the world someday.”(4)
But Beethoven’s first stay in Vienna lasted only a few months, since he became the head of his family and had to return to Bonn. That year his mother died, while his father was still an alcoholic. That bad event didn’t change Beethoven’s good season, however: he soon managed to be granted a substantial allowance by the state with which to take care of his father as well as his two younger brothers.
In 1789, Beethoven met Prince Maximilian, who held him in high esteem and received him under his protection. With the prince’s help, Beethoven enrolled that year –at the age of 19– in the university, where he had an opportunity to study the works of the philosophers and writers of his era: Kant, Schiller, Goethe, and others. The next year, Beethoven’s first important musical compositions were published, and he began to be recognized as a composer.
At the age of 21, in 1791, he entered high society. He was received at the most exclusive salons, where he taught music, and moved in fashionable court circles. A year later he met the great composer Haydn, who heard him playing a serenade on the piano. Enthusiastic, Haydn invited Beethoven to Vienna. A jubilant Beethoven again left Bonn for Vienna –this time as Haydn’s student. Another dream had become a reality. He was now 22 years old.
The Season from 1792 on
In Vienna, however, Beethoven’s experiences did not meet his expectations. Haydn, no longer young, had too many other preoccupations, and turned out to be indifferent to his gifted student. Disappointed, Beethoven had to start studying with other, lesser-known musicians in 1793. The next year he was able to accept the hospitality of a prince, but even that was short-lived, because Beethoven found the atmosphere in the prince’s palace uncongenial. To support himself, he was now obliged to give music lessons to a diverse array of students.
The big shock in 1794 was more personal: Beethoven began to realize he had a hearing problem. He was only 24. And in 1795, another cause of worry was added: Beethoven gave in Vienna his first major concert, performing his Concerto No. 2 for piano and orchestra. It was a novel, stunning piece that made people think: Beethoven was bringing a more philosophical perspective to music. But the Viennese, accustomed to joyful music and entertainment, had serious reservations.
Beethoven continued giving concerts in other cities –Nuremberg, Berlin, Dresden, Prague. But though he had great success, at the end of one of those concerts he realized with terror that his hearing had become worse. He began experiencing an incessant buzzing in his ears that sounding like a waterfall. And he couldn’t always understand speech clearly. At first he kept quite about his problem. But over the next several years (1797-1800), the situation became catastrophic: he became almost totally deaf. In 1801 he decided to confide in a close friend: “I am extremely distressed,” he wrote to him, continuing that: “the most vital part of myself –my hearing– has become impaired and is steadily worsening. And I do not know whether I will ever be cured.”(5)
To his doctor he also wrote: “For the last two years I have avoided any social interaction –I cannot tell people that I am deaf. It is terrible.”(6) In 1802, his doctor advised him to spend the summer recuperating in the countryside. But “it was a summer full of despair.”(7) Beethoven composed a letter to his brothers that was meant to serve as a kind of will, with the proviso that it be read after his death. He was only 32 years old. The document said, among other things: “I want to end my life, but the music prevents me from doing so. For so long, I have never felt any real happiness. I live as if I am in exile, since it is impossible for me to participate in the company of others, to talk with friends, to hear and be heard. I feel I am indeed a miserable creature.”(8)
The same year, a new reason for despair was added to Beethoven’s life. The woman he loved, Giulietta Guicciardi –said to have been “frivolous and self centered”(9)– abandoned him after a two year relationship. His despair over the lost relationship, combined with his illness, created the worst crisis of his life so far. Beethoven was on the brink of suicide. He didn’t know that his bad season would be followed by a good one at a certain time.
Things were not much better in the musical arena, normally his only consolation. In 1805 Beethoven’s melodrama Fidelio was performed –the only opera he wrote. Though it would later be considered a masterpiece, the initial production was a total failure; it closed after only three days. This failure was repeated the following year. Fidelio was presented again, in a new form, but only for two performances –the theater was almost empty, the earnings insignificant.
Things only got worse between 1807 and 1809. Beethoven experienced another disappointment in love. He fell in love with a young, aristocratic Hungarian woman, Theresa von Brunschwick. Though they became engaged, her mother disapproved, and did not allow them to see each other. Finally they broke off the engagement.
Beethoven was also beset by financial problems. In 1808 he decided to leave Vienna to accept position as a choir director in Kassel. But some of his friends interceded and helped him get a state allowance, so he could stay in Vienna. In 1809, however, the situation worsened: Napoléon’s army seized Vienna after a violent attack that convulsed the city. The “royal court and all the nobility abandoned the city, while in the streets and homes chaos prevailed.”(10)
Beethoven “found shelter in a pub, covering his aching ears with pillows to avoid the deafening report of the cannons.”(11) Ordinary life in Vienna came to a standstill. The currency “became worthless, prices soared, and inflation loomed.”(12) Beethoven’s state allowance almost evaporated, and he often didn’t even have enough money for food. At the same time, he suffered “from excruciating abdominal pain.”(13) Shabbily dressed, “ill, and stooped over, he attended the funeral of his former teacher Haydn, under the menacing guard of armed French soldiers.”(14)
But at some point in 1809, this bad season finally ended for Beethoven.
The New Season from 1809 on
Just after this season began –in 1810– Beethoven finally achieved a major goal: he became acquainted with a charming, clever woman, Bettina Brentano, who would devote herself to him, and would make up for all the failed relationships he had experienced with other women. “Being close to Beethoven,” she wrote in a letter to Goethe, “causes me to forget the world.”(15)
The most important fact however, is that in this favorable season Beethoven managed to triumph over his cruel fate –over the problem of his deafness. This problem stopped bothering him, because he found a solution: he would hold with his teeth a wooden hearing aid –basically a long, slim piece of wood– and touch it to the piano; this allowed him to perceive the sound of the music through the mouth to the inner ear.
In other ways too, the good days returned: In 1812 Beethoven became acquainted with Goethe, and a comfortable friendship evolved between them despite their age difference (Beethoven was 42, Goethe 62). When they strolled through the streets of Vienna, people would bow –something that annoyed Goethe, but for Beethoven it was heaven sent: “Don’t worry, Your Excellency,” he once said to Goethe jokingly, “maybe the bows are only for me.”(16)
In 1813, Napoléon began to lose power, and Beethoven, full of enthusiasm, started to compose the Victory of Wellington –an immediate success. The following year Beethoven performed that work at the congress that took place in Vienna after Napoléon’s downfall. The czar of Russia, the emperor of Austria, the kings of Denmark, Prussia, and Bavaria, “princes, ministers, diplomats, and other statemen” (17) were all present, and they paid homage to Beethoven. It was a concert triumph.
From then on, Beethoven’s life was glorious. In 1814, his melodrama Fidelio –a failure a few years earlier– was performed again in Vienna, this time in revised better form –the good season in which he was had helped very much – and it was a tremendous success. Repeat performances of Fidelio were held in other European cities, including Prague, Leipzig, and Berlin, always to great acclaim.
As Beethoven’s reputation reached its apogee, he began to earn a great deal of money. His performances attracted audiences of thousands, among them many celebrities. The Austrian government offered state-owned halls for his performances. And friends began to surround him and draw him into an active social life. He frequented the various cafés and restaurants of Vienna, where the previously gloomy Beethoven became unrecognizably gregarious, telling jokes and drinking champagne. He walked the streets of Vienna, stopping in shops to browse or buy things and talk with ordinary people.
In Vienna’s central park, the Pratter, children would offer him flowers. After his walk, Beethoven would meet his friends in the park’s noisy cafés, where “amidst cigarette smoke and the smell of alcohol, all the artistic and intellectual problems of the times were solved.”(18) To communicate, he would hand a notebook to his companions and have them write down their questions or comments. He would respond orally with ease and humor.
In this good season, too, the women who had previously ignored him began to fill his life. They were young, beautiful, and from the upper social echelons. His biographers report that there were at least fifteen of them: besides Bettina Brentano, they included Dorothy von Ertmann, Marianne von Westerholt, Eleonore von Breunig, Rachel von Ense, and Josephine von Brunschwick (the sister of Theresa von Brunschwick, to whom Beethoven had been engaged in 1807, until her mother cut it off). Giulietta Guicciardi –the Italian woman who had abandoned him in 1802, leading him to contemplate suicide– also returned, but Beethoven was no longer interested.
In the professional arena, Beethoven had a prodigious musical output: he finished his 32 sonatas for the piano, composed his famous oratorio Misa Solemnis, and finished part of the Ninth Symphony. The oratorio Misa Solemnis –“Beethoven’s hymn to God”(19)– was completed in 1820. From then on, Beethoven had a deeply spiritual outlook.
The same year (1820), the city of Vienna proclaimed Beethoven an honorary citizen of the city, an honor that thrilled him. In 1825 –at the age of 55– Beethoven arrived at the high point of his life: his Ninth Symphony was performed in Vienna and was an unprecedented triumph. The audience went wild, and Beethoven was profoundly moved. When the concert was over, several theater workers “had to carry him out: he had fainted!”(20)
The Season After 1825
Starting in 1825, Beethoven began facing serious health problems: arthritis and eye ailments. He remained at home, often in bed. He was forced to ask his brother for help, and retreated to his brother’s home in the countryside, staying in a small room and subsisting on an inadequate diet. The next year (1826), things got worse. Beethoven’s friends abandoned him, he gave up composing, and his works stopped being performed. After the Ninth Symphony’s success in 1825, no other concerts featured his works. Deeply disappointed, he complained in his diary that “Vienna’s high society seems interested only in dancing, horseback riding, and attending the ballet.”(21)
Beethoven tried to get all of his works published, but without success –his bad season didn’t allow it. The royal court that previously supported him now ignored him. Late in 1826, on a chilly December day, he abandoned his brother’s “lukewarm hospitality”(22) in the countryside and returned to Vienna –on the “milkman’s cart,”(23) because his brother, despite having his own coach, had not made it available to him. As a result, Beethoven arrived in Vienna seriously ill with pneumonia.
After a few days his health took a turn for the worse: his feet became swollen and he suffered from abdominal pain. On January 3, 1827, he wrote his will. Bedridden, he complained to two friends visiting him, that he had been left alone in life, without family members to care for him. Besides him was a portrait of Theresa von Brunschwick, the woman he had been engaged to two decades earlier.
On March 24, 1827, the end came. Beethoven asked the two friends attending him for Rhein wine. But it was too late. Two days later, on March 26, 1827, the great Beethoven died –at the age of 57– while a violent storm battered Vienna.
Conclusion
This biographical sketch has shown that in 1776 a good season started in Beethoven’s life, then a bad season started in 1792. A new good season begun in 1809, while another bad season started in 1825. Based on these Beethoven’s dates of his seasons’ alternations, combined with the dates of the other persons’ that will follow, you can find how your own good and bad seasons will be in the future.
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* I have taken all the facts and details in this chapter from Gino Pugneti’s Beethoven, published in Greek by Fytrakis Publications, Great Men of All Seasons series, Athens, 1965. There are also Beethoven’s biographies in English which you can examine to be confirmed for the truth of this chapter’s facts, as for example: a) Barry Cooper’s Beethoven, Oxford Press, 2001, or b) Maynard Solomon’s Beethoven, Schirmer Books, 2001.
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