Beethoven, Ludwig Van (1770-1827) German composer born in Bonn and one of the greatest classical composers of all time.
Beethoven slowly became deaf and conducted his final performance while entirely deaf.
He hoped to study under Mozart in Vienna in 1787 but it’s unclear if this connection was ever made.
While Mozart wrote symphonies relatively quickly, Beethoven scratched out several belabored drafts before finding the right combination of notes.
The opening of his 5th symphony, “da da da da”, is one of the most familiar, if not the most familiar of classical passages known to mankind. Beethoven wrote it while mostly deaf.
The fourth movement of his 9th symphony, “Ode to Joy,” was featured in the Stanley Kubrick film, A Clockwork Orange and was played during an official birthday celebration for Adolf Hitler.
Music historians are quick to point out that Beethoven could not have forseen the many contradictory uses and abuses of his work.†
Beethoven’s piano sonatas display a range of emotion rarely found in that genre, the “Moonlight Sonata” being perhaps the most moving and memorable.
His life and death are dramatized in the film, Immortal Beloved (1994).
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†‘Ode to Joy,’ Followed by Chaos and Despair by Slavoj Zizek in The New York Times, December 24, 2007.
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