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Who is Ludwig van Beethoven?
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Most know classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven struggled with deafness — but many don’t realize how much of a struggle it was. Beyond composing without hearing a note, Beethoven grappled with living in the 1800s when few understood deafness, hindering his ability to communicate, work as a musician and even find a place to live.
Dec 17, 2019 · When Ludwig van Beethoven’s magisterial 9th Symphony premiered in 1824, the composer had to be turned around to see the audience cheering — he could not hear the audience’s rapturous applause.
- Dr. Howard Markel
- How Did Beethoven Go Deaf?
- How Old Was Beethoven When He Started Losing His Hearing?
- Why Did Beethoven Go Deaf?
- What Treatment Did Beethoven Seek For His Deafness?
- If Beethoven Couldn't Hear, How Did He Write Music?
- Did Beethoven’s Deafness Change His Music?
- Did Beethoven Continue to Perform?
“For the last three years my hearing has grown steadily weaker...” - so wrote Beethoven, aged 30, in a letter to a friend. The young Beethoven was known as the most important musician since Mozart. By his mid-20s, he had studied with Haydnand was celebrated as a brilliant, virtuoso pianist. Read more: Definitively the 20 greatest Beethoven works of...
Around the age of 26, Beethoven began to hear that ringing and buzzing in his ears. In 1800, aged 30, he wrote from Vienna to a childhood friend - by then working as a doctor in Bonn - saying that he had been suffering for some time: “For the last three years my hearing has grown steadily weaker. I can give you some idea of this peculiar deafness w...
The exact cause of his hearing loss is unknown. Theories range from syphilis to lead poisoning, typhus, or possibly even his habit of plunging his head into cold water to keep himself awake. At one point he claimed he had suffered a fit of rage in 1798 when someone interrupted him at work. Having fallen over, he said, he got up to find himself deaf...
Taking a lukewarm bath of Danube water seemed to help Beethoven’s stomach ailments, but his deafness became worse. “I am feeling stronger and better, except that my ears sing and buzz constantly, day and night.” One bizarre remedy was strapping wet bark to his upper arms until it dried out and produced blisters. This didn't cure the deafness—it onl...
Beethoven had heard and played music for the first three decades of his life, so he knew how instruments and voices sounded and how they worked together. His deafness was a slow deterioration, rather than a sudden loss of hearing, so he could always imagine in his mind what his compositions would sound like. Read more: 10 pieces of classical music ...
Yes. In his early works, when Beethoven could hear the full range of frequencies, he made use of higher notes in his compositions. As his hearing failed, he began to use the lower notes that he could hear more clearly. Works including the Moonlight Sonata, his only opera Fidelioand six symphonies were written during this period. The high notes retu...
He did. But he ended up wrecking pianos by banging on them so hard in order to hear the notes. After watching Beethoven in a rehearsal in 1814 for the Archduke Trio, the composer Louis Spohr said: “In forte passages the poor deaf man pounded on the keys until the strings jangled, and in pianohe played so softly that whole groups of notes were omitt...
- 7 min
Nov 23, 2020 · Even 250 years after Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth, medics still deal with the cause of his deafness which is still obscure. We are presenting the first systematic review of medical publications on the most likely cause of Ludwig van Beethoven’s deafness.
- Jan Peter Thomas, Jan Peter Thomas, Stefan Dazert, Andreas Prescher, Christiane Voelter
- 10.1007/s00405-020-06467-w
- 2021
- 2021
The year 2020 marks the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven, the famous composer and pianist, well known all over the world. He was a genius with a disability.
May 9, 2024 · German composer Ludwig van Beethoven began losing his hearing in his 20s, a fact that deeply upset and embarrassed him. Over the years, his hearing loss worsened, and by the time he died at...
Sep 6, 2018 · In his 20s, Beethoven began experiencing issues with his hearing. The first symptom was tinnitus, a high-pitched droning sound that interferes with clarity and definition in hearing. By then, Beethoven was already well known as a composer and performer, and of course he continued to compose until his death at the age of 56.
