0.10 Appendix 1: musician biographies  (Page 6/37)

Contemporary accounts of Beethoven’s playing stress especially the compelling emotion of his performance and his spectacular improvisations. In the words of one witness:

"His improvisation was most brilliant and striking. He knew how to achieve such an effect upon every listener that frequently not an eye remained dry, while many would break out into loud sobs, for there was something wonderful in his expression in addition to the beauty and originality of his ideas and his spirited style of rendering them."

The course of Beethoven’s life was profoundly affected by deafness, whose first signs appeared a few years after his arrival in Vienna when he was in his mid-twenties. At first he tried to conceal his condition because, as he confessed in a will he drew up in 1802:

"It was not possible for me to say: speak louder, shout, because I am deaf. Alas, how would it be possible for me to admit a weakness of the one sense that should be perfect to a higher degree in me than in others, the one sense which I once possessed in the highest perfection, a perfection that few others of my profession have ever possessed…. For me there is no recreation in the society of others, no intelligent conversation, no mutual exchange of ideas. Only as much as is required by the most pressing needs can I venture into society. I am obliged to live like an outcast."

Beethoven’s hearing continued to deteriorate and during the last decade of his life he was almost totally cut off from experiencing the performance of music. At the premiere of his great Ninth Symphony in 1824, he sat among the performers, following the manuscript of the score, but hearing nothing. As reported in a contemporary account:

"At the performance, a man went up to him at the end of each movement, tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the audience. The motion of the clapping hands and the waving of handkerchiefs caused him to bow, which gave rise to great jubilation."

Beethoven’s deafness brought his career as a pianist to a premature end. In his frustration at not being able to hear, he would strike the keys with such force that he broke hammers and strings, while in soft passages, he would play so lightly that no sound came out. He was also compelled to curtail his activities as a conductor because of incidents such as one where “the deaf composer caused the most complete confusion among the singers and orchestra and got everyone quite out of time, so that no one knew any longer where they went.”

Beethoven’s social relationships also suffered. Beethoven would speak, but the spontaneity of the conversation suffered because those with whom he spoke had to write down their words. Many of these conversation books have been preserved and are an important source of information about Beethoven’s thoughts, personal relationships, and daily routine. Observers of the time frequently describe Beethoven as eccentric and coarse-mannered, and these qualities seem to have been accentuated by his deafness. For example, he spoke too loudly and often hummed to himself when out walking.