Beethoven's life and musical legacy

Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven: His Life, Career, and Impact

Ludwig van Beethoven is one of the most influential and well-known composers of the Western world. Certain themes from his symphonies and other works are instantly recognizable to most people in the Western world, whether or not they are lovers of classical music or even realize that they are hearing Beethoven at all, and his life story is both a cautionary tale and an inspirational reminder of the power of human will. Famously deaf by the end of his life and career, Beethoven continued to compose for many years despite his lack of ability to truly hear what he was composing or, during performance, conducting. Though this is the element of his life that often receives an abundance of attention, however, it is relatively insignificant in the light of the enormity of Beethoven's talent as a musician and composer, and the influence that he wielded not only on the music of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, but truly on the trajectory of Western music as a whole.

Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany, as the second oldest child of a court musician, and he was quickly recognized as a prodigy by his father (Lane 2006). Initially trained by his father, Beethoven gave his first public performance as a musician at the tender age of eight, and by eleven he began receiving more formal training from other court musicians then working and living in Bonn (Lane 2006). Most musicians of merit -- such as Beethoven's teachers -- or at least the musicians of merit that were known and were able to make a living from their craft, were under either the direct employ or the patronage of the nobility and aristocrats of the day, and this was a feature that would figure prominently in Beethoven's own career.

A large part of Beethoven's influence on the music world was dependent on the reach he had; though his musical brilliance is indisputable, it might not have been known in Beethoven's own day and in our own had he not had the connections that he was provided with. His connections to the aristocrats of Bonn enabled him to travel to Vienna to study first with Mozart, and during a second period with Schenk, Salieri, and Haydn -- all major composers and musicians in their own right (Lane 2006). Continuing patronage in his adulthood allowed Beethoven to keep composing, and to do so in a very inventive and free manner that was not beholden to the direct whims and desires of nobleman or aristocrats. Though many of his works were dedicated to one or more of his numerous patrons over the years, he was not encumbered by the desires of these patrons or the expectations of court music, and was not even beholden to profits from performances, and this allowed the composer to pursue his musical interests in an entirely self-directed manner (Lane 2006).

The originality that this enabled -- or rather the complete state of non-hindrance that this created for the originality that existed in Beethoven already -- is the other major source for Beethoven's influence. That is, the innovation that Beethoven created all but necessitated the composer's inordinate influence on the trajectory of Western music; his sound was at once rooted in the technicalities and tones of the last generation of masters, many of whom were Beethoven's instructors, and evocative of the social and industrial revolutions that were occurring throughout Beethoven's lifetime. His harmonies, discords, and turbulence changed the shape of music forever.