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How is it possible to be a composer - and that is all you can be - and to discover that you are slowly going deaf? That was the starting point for my research into Beethoven's life. Beethoven's triumph over his deafness - his ability to compose even though he could not hear his own music - is one of the great miracles of art. Does anyone doubt that Beethoven is the greatest composer who ever lived? If not Beethoven, then who? There is only one serious contender - Mozart - and a stimulating time could be had arguing their respective merits. I will not in any way denigrate Mozart, since Beethoven admired him above all composers (albeit late in life transferring his affections to Handel). But given Beethoven's relatively small output - just nine symphonies, five piano concertos, one violin concerto, sixteen string quartets, one opera....... - I would argue that piece for piece he has more devotees than Mozart, or indeed his other great contemporary, Haydn. Beethoven lived for fifty-six years and three months. His childhood was spent in his home town of Bonn; his entire adult life in the great musical city of Vienna. For readers who would like a sequential overview of Beethoven's life, I have created a three-part chronology, to be read in conjunction with my trilogy, The Last Master.
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© John Suchet |
