Beethoven Flashcards
When did Beethoven’s hearing loss begin?
Roughly 1797
When was the Heiligenstadt Testament written and when was it published?
Written 1802
Published posthumously 1827
When was Beethoven’s ‘Heroic’ period?
1802-1812
When was Beethoven’s ‘Fallow period’?
1813-1817
What factors could have contributed to Beethoven entering a ‘fallow period’?
- His increasing deafness
- Napoleon’s military defeat following the failed invasion of Russia in 1812: His heroic period was heavily influenced by Napoleon’s empire
- Creative exhaution after composing so many works in 1803-12, including 8 symphonies
Why did his early deafness not impede much on his output?
- It motivated him to compose more and to make the most of his hearing before it left him completely
- He used his art as an outlet and way of dealing with the pain deafness brought - in the Heiligenstadt Testament he claimed that the only thing keeping him from suicide was his art
- Before developing hearing loss he had increasingly used sketchbooks to plan out his works, meaning he was accustomed to composing on paper by the time he lost hearing
How does the thematic content of Beethoven’s work point to his deafness?
Lockwood (2003) believes the topics of death are clear in some of Beethoven’s slow movements e.g.:
Finale of String Quartet No. 6 ‘La Malincolia’
The Largo et mesto of his Piano Sonata No. 7
The Adagio of his String Quartet No. 1 (themes of death, loss of love, suicide, and abandonment)
Which of Beethoven’s ‘characters’ does he potentially project his feelings on his deafness onto?
When Christ addresses his emotional torment in ‘Christus am Oelberge’
The extreme suffering and isolation felt by Florestan when trapped in the dungeon in ‘Fidelio’ (similar to how Beethoven isolated himself from society)
How did the publication of the Heiligenstadt Testament in 1827 affect people’s perception of Beethoven’s ‘heroic’ period?
They saw the themes of struggle and triumph over adversity as an allusion to the struggle he faced with his deafness and the determination he felt to overcome it
His heroic style developed just after the start of his hearing loss, so this checks out
What characterises Beethoven’s late style?
Dramatic contrasts in character, style, and metre, as well as unconventional harmony
How did people attribute the unconventionality of Beethoven’s late style to his deafness?
Critical reception of Beethoven’s late quartets was characterised by claims that “they were the insane ramblings of someone unable to hear what lunacy they had authored” (Vernon, 2023)
Bernstein in ‘The Joy of Music’ criticised his late orchestration for bringing out “unimportant” parts, attributing it to the fact that he was unable to judge their volume
Even Beethoven’s own student, Carl Czerny, claimed that his deafness had a “disturbing effect” on his later compositions
What evidence is there that the quirks of Beethoven’s late style were intentional?
In an article in the Italian Journal of Audiology and Phonetrics, Franz et al. point out how lack of unresolved dissonances were actually deliberate and part of Beethoven’s experimentation with the relationship between multiple melody lines
In Beethoven’s ‘Serioso’ string quartet, critics of the time struggled to justify the sudden shift in tonality in the coda and justified it with his deafness - in reality Beethoven was probably making a humorous observation on the exaggerated seriousness of the rest of the work
How might his deafness have influenced his late style?
Through not being able to hear his writing, Franz et al. hypothesise that this actually freed him from the musical conventions of the time, allowing him to compose in a more experimental manner
