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The composer’s surname is so widespread in the world that even those who don’t know anything about classical music know it. In 1992, the fluffy Saint Bernard Beethoven, who knew how to interpret the leitmotif of the Symphony of Destiny, saved the world from evil, and the name Beethoven is known to less Hollywood movie lovers from Stanley Kubrick’s book Screwing Orange (from Anthony Burg). The first part of the “Moonlight Sonata” is constantly spinning in popular culture: internet meditation videos, scenes from Hollywood movies, commercials, music boxes sold to tourists, shops, planes, and I still don’t know where. And where Symphony’s “Fate” leitmotif doesn’t. 5 or “Ode to Joy” of the Ninth, which became the official anthem of the EU in 1985.
I wonder if L. van Beethoven would have liked to receive so much attention and be inclined almost every day in the contexts of popular culture. Although recognition is important to every creator, L. van Beethoven would not have wanted it at all, because he did not like superficiality. On the contrary, his music, like nowhere else, is rich in philosophy and psychological depth, and the great values of this world are revealed here.
A misunderstood genius
There is much to talk about L. van Beethoven from many angles, and from very different angles, but the common denominator of almost all of them becomes the fact that this composer, by his thought, far exceeded the time in which he lived.
“Sorry, sorry, it’s too late!” – He said he was already ill when he received twelve bottles of wine from his publisher before his death. “It’s a shame, and it’s a shame, too soon,” his contemporaries would have said if they had known how human history would unfold further, because if his life had advanced several decades, he probably would not have been called an incomprehensible genius and not he would have had to say it so harshly before dying: “Pludite, amici, comedy finite est” (“Plite with palms, friends, finished comedy”). And after ending his tragedy in this world, he left, leaving the composers of future generations with a considerable challenge: he was timid for many to follow in his footsteps, and he often experienced that in some genres perfection will never be achieved, because he still has it. will compare with L. van Beethoven. .
Symphony: from joke to drama
After all, it was L. van Beethoven transforming the symphony genre: when at dusk the life of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was considered an entertaining orchestral work, L. van Beethoven created his First, which was accepted as a joke. due to its unusual seriousness. And at the end of his symphonic cycle in Ninth D minor, he added soloists and a choir to the largest orchestra ever seen before humanity, music alone was not enough to express his thoughts: he needed the “Ode to Joy” from the poet Friedrich Schiller because he cared about the fate of all humanity.
L. van Beethoven risked not being understood by the excited Viennese public, but according to legends, after the last notes of the work, much applause was heard, and the composer himself, already completely deaf, was still directing the last bars. In this way, he entered an unprecedented area of symphonic music: after this premiere, only Johannes Brahms decided to write a symphony in Austria almost half a century later, correcting his for almost a decade, until he decided it wouldn’t sound much worse than L. van Beethoven.
And Gustav Mahler, who composed his almost a century later, was so afraid that the ninth, like L. van Beethoven, would be fatal to him, trying to deceive fate by creating the tenth first. Unfortunately, in his creative biography, however, all nine remain. 9 remain unfinished – the composer died. American avant-garde John Cage has repeatedly rejoiced that he was born in the United States, joking that L. van Beethoven and his majestic symphonies do not breathe on his back, making him, unlike the poor Europeans, free to do whatever you want in music.
Before the waves
L. van Beethoven was born in Bonn in December 1770, but the exact date of birth is still unknown. The first composition was composed at the age of twelve, it was Nine variations for piano in C minor, which is completely childless, on the contrary, a composition that is not so easy to bite even for expert pianists.
L. van Beethoven’s childhood was not very idyllic, because Father Johann van Beethoven really wanted his son to impress Europe with his talent in the same way as W. A. Mozart, and if he failed, he would punish him. In 1792, L. van Beethoven moved to Vienna, where the star of Joseph Haydn and W. A. Mozart was still shining.
When the composer was 26 years old, he realized that he was starting to lose his hearing: he had to communicate with friends with a notebook, and he could play the piano, direct and create to the fullest, so he wanted to end his life. After finding peace, he began to create again: in 1802 the world saw the famous Moon Sonata, in 1803 he began to write a symphony dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte, but then, frustrated, he erased the dedication, writing a new one, to the Hero unknown.
In 1808 he composed the Symphony of Destiny with the famous leitmotif at the beginning of the first part. His symphonic, piano and chamber works became increasingly complicated: the last piano sonatas were not performed for long, almost until the 20th century. early, as the pianists still seemed too complex, impossible to play, and the string quartets seemed strange to the Vienna audience.
However, L. van Beethoven was popular: listening to his ninth and three parts of “Missa solemnis” in May 1824, thousands gathered. Incidentally, this was probably his last public performance: the composer died on March 26, 1827. – lonely, tormented by hepatitis, liver cirrhosis, and pneumonia, but 10,000 people are said to have attended his funeral. people
Unsatisfied love
L. van Beethoven has created around 722 works, but the world, nothing less than his ingenious, masculine music and his loves. According to legend, Julie Guicciardi inspired the composer to create the Moon Sonata, which returned the music to the composer after a crisis.
We know of this love story from the rest of the composer’s letters to a childhood friend, but unfortunately she was not destined to live long because Julie’s father did not want to marry her daughter by a man from a lower social class. Later, the romantic relationship associated L. van Beethoven with Josephine Brunsvik, who was taught to play the piano, but was married. Fifteen passionate love letters written by L. van Beethoven have survived. She responded to the composer’s feelings, but the family forced her to end the relationship for the same reason: social differences. He then flirted with Therese Malfatti, to whom he had probably also dedicated his famous muffin, Eliza, but the pairing was again unsuccessful. There were others, but his true love or mysterious loved one, to whom he poured his soul into letters, remained unknown: it is believed that it was his brother’s wife, whom they both loved at the same time, but his brother was quick to marry.
L. van Beethoven was not handsome, he did not have very good manners, but he was attracted to a woman. It was probably not the charm of his personality that seduced him, but rather the fancy piano improvisations, because L. van Beethoven’s students were mostly seduced, noble, and often married. But he was more inclined to add to music not his experiences of unhappy love, but rather frustration with social inequality: bowing down and appeasing the nobles seemed incomprehensible and unacceptable. It was this theme that often became the inspiration for creativity. Legends told so far, like L. van Beethoven, when he met a nobleman or even a king, did not take his hat off, thinking that everything should bow to him, because he is a composer!
The most secret sonata experiences
For L. van Beethoven, piano work was like writing a journal that reflects not only the evolution of his musical evolution, but also the thoughts and feelings that tormented his soul and heart, as well as his fickle or even unpleasant character.
Let’s think about his famous fourteenth moon sonata in C minor, which in movies or commercials creates a dreamy atmosphere of a calm and melancholic night; to be precise, this is just the first part. Let’s listen to the third part of this sonata, which with its stormy sound moves almost 100 musical kilometers from the first one. This shows how volatile L. van Beethoven could have been, how quickly his mood could change, and how wonderfully two completely different and seemingly incompatible things could have simultaneously merged into his personality: meditative peace and rebellion.
The eighth “Pathetic” in C minor, performed by almost all pianists, presents an even different scale of humor, from the silent tragedy to the rather painful one spilled with musical sounds. His 21st C major Aurora is the day of the dawn, the 23rd in Appassionata (or Passionate) in F minor we hear another tragedy, and the last sonata not from the composer. 32 C minor has only two parts containing as many emotions as possible in one piece: in the final passages, pianists say they find even elements of sight or jazz, which appeared only almost 100 years after the composer’s death .
The piano was the great love of L. van Beethoven, to whom he confided not only his feelings, but also trusted to experiment with piano forms and techniques. By the way, he was the first composer to create for the piano that we know today, although this instrument was invented long before, around 1700, only in the work of L. Beethoven did it become as powerful and colorful as it is now.
The first independent artist
L. van Beethoven earned his premier status not only by forming an entirely new approach to the symphony and sonata genres and a virtuous new piano performance, but also by being the first composer to live an independent creative life.
He did not serve or please anyone, neither the nobles nor the church, as composers who lived before him did, he transformed music as a craft profession into the concept of a free creator. “Liberty, equality, brotherhood”: the motto of the Great French Revolution became the inspiration for many of its symphonies, as well as its only opera. This was inspired by a true story that took place during the Great French Revolution, when a woman disguised as a man, Leonora, named after Van Beethoven in the story of Fidelius, became a prison guardian and freed her husband freely. .
Freedom, loyalty, justice and idealism: this was the main message of L. van Beethoven’s “Fidelius”, and the musical language constantly improved for almost ten years: he wrote four overtures alone, but did not find the final version, which satisfies him by full. Incidentally, this opera is complicated, so it is not a very common guest on the stage of opera houses. The reason for this probably lies not only in the rather slippery musical passages, but also in the difficult interpretive decisions: the greatness of L. van Beethoven’s music was revealed in the symphonies, the intimacy in the sonatas, and his opera is a Such a strange mix of everything that doesn’t correspond to romanticism or modern opera, so artists and directors often cause a bit of confusion.
Genius and Lithuania
Although we have our own musical hero in Lithuania: Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, it is difficult to compete with L. van Beethoven even for him, especially in piano contexts. Perhaps it would be fair enough to say that almost everyone admires him, but very little, very little: perhaps Daumantas Kirilauskas should be named as his most outstanding admirer. He studied in Vienna with Karl-Heinz Kämmerling himself, a famous scholar of L. van Beethoven, and has repeatedly mentioned that L. van Beethoven’s work has a central position in his repertoire, because it is with him that he combines other compositions.
L. van Beethoven’s symphonic music is periodically included in our repertoire by our symphony orchestras, performing their symphonies, the overture “Egmont” or one of five concerts for piano and orchestra. The fate of the Lithuanian “Fidelijus” is a bit sadder: this was performed at the Lithuanian National Theater of Opera and Ballet in 2015, when the opera was directed by Oskaras Koršunovas, concentrating on the vicissitudes of love and politics, but not it remained in the repertoire for a long time.
So who is L. van Beethoven? The encyclopedic answer, claiming that he is a composer and pianist of German classicism, says as much as the fact that the apple is round.
“Music is a higher discovery than philosophy,” he used to say, and this is evident in his music. There is probably no other composer in the entire history of music whose name is so widely inflected and music is spread in a wide variety of contexts. Therefore, to know who she was, or more exactly, it is worth listening to her music longer and more carefully. He really would like that 250th birthday greeting. If then, in 1827, he had known that the applause would never stop for him, and the comedy was not over yet …
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