Books: Beethoven - Anguish And Triumph By Jan Swafford

 

(Divebycuriosity) - If you are interested in Ludwig Van Beethoven and in the life of the genius you might enjoy the biography "Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph" by Jan Swafford (1,483 pages! amazon). 

The author describes Ludwig`s development, who and what influenced him and the genius` struggles with employers, competitors and his fragile health. Swafford, who himself is a composer, elaborates and explains the  symphonies, chamber works, concertos & many other pieces of music, their development processes and how the - often surprised - audiences had responded. 

We learn about the political, economical & sociological environments Beethoven has to deal with; influenced by dynamical history of the German speaking countries - a patchwork of about 300 kingdoms, duchies, electorate,  cities and other independent polities -, which was then a patchwork of independent countries.     

Beethoven was most of his life sick, struggled with frequnt Diarrhea and suffered a worsening hearing loss, that naturally impaired his work. Some authors claim that the hearing loss was caused by syphilis but Swaffort suggests that the illness could have been caused by the fact that in the 18th century people drank wine spices with lead, because the heavy metal made cheap wine sweeter.

 

                    No Luck With Women 

Contrary to Mozart, Beethoven did not have luck with women and stayed his whole life a bachelor. Partly because of his look, he was described as massive and ugly, partly because of his bad health and partly because of his temperate. Many women adored his music and ingenuity, so they were hanging around him and wrote him a lot letters, but they had no carnal interests. And Beethoven courted stubbornly aristocratic women who did not want to marry a commoner whatever his qualities were, partly because their children would lose their aristocratic title.

In the 19th century there was no real market for music and no copyrights existed. Multiplying the notations was expensive and often compositions got stolen and plagiarized. Beethoven depended financially on the support of dukes, counts and other aristocrats, who enjoyed his music and bragged with concerts written for them, but they kept distance to a commoner and treated him arrogantly.

The ignorance and arrogance of the aristocrats may have influenced his political beliefs. He sympathized with the French and the French revolution, even though they occupied his home town Bonn. Beethoven even planned to call his Third Symphony "Bonaparte" to celebrate the rise of Napoleon. But the fact that Napoleon became a dictator and made himself emperor, opened the composers eyes and he changed the symphony`s name to "Eroica".

I chose the portrait above because it looks friendly, the genius might have looked different. But anyway, I have learned a lot from this biography - highly recommended.