Beethoven on the piano (film "Immortal Truth")
March 3 is National Ear Love Day, and the two Arabic numerals "3" act like two ears, reminding us of hearing protection and attention to the deaf. Arguably the most famous deaf man in history, Beethoven was diagnosed with hearing loss at the age of 26 until he became completely deaf many years later.
Deafness not only brought beethoven a musical obstacle, but also an emotional anxiety and psychological pain, but Beethoven did not succumb to fate in the end, and he said the deafening words when composing the fifth symphony ("Destiny"): "I will choke the throat of fate, it cannot make me completely submit!" ”
In addition to music, another thing Beethoven carried that never left his body was a lifetime of illness and physical torment, and the damage to his most important senses — hearing. Physical and mental pain will constantly threaten his sense of discipline and responsibility, as well as his lofty ideals.
Medicine as a science at the time was lackluster, so the cause of Beethoven's pain may never be determined. It is possible that other sources such as kitchenware, contaminated wine or mineral water ingested large amounts of lead. It would deposit in his bones and slowly penetrate, destroying his digestive system. As a teenager, he was plagued by stomach cramps and diarrhea, and never recovered, which exacerbated his paranoia and world-weariness. He gave to humanity but never understood others, and although he wholeheartedly longed for love and companionship, he became more and more intolerant of outsiders as he grew older. His own flesh became a terrible and merciless enemy.
He wrote at the age of 30: "I am already cursing my Creator and my existence. "Even if the cause of his suffering is not lead poisoning, there will be another reason, or the combined effects of a similar series of painful chronic diseases, and the torment of acute diseases."
When Beethoven left Bonn with confidence and a perfectly just hope for the light, what awaited him was not only glory, but also tribulation.
At the end of 1797, Beethoven suffered from a serious illness, possibly typhus. This means weeks of pain, fever, coughing, coma, and even delirium. The disease severely affects the body and nervous system and is often fatal at the time. It also affects hearing.
The Hammer of Destiny fell through the hectic social and creative activities. According to Beethoven's recollection, it began with an extreme outburst. In his apartment he was arguing about music with a tenor who left and returned, knocking on the door while Beethoven was busy composing music. He jumped up from the table, so angry that he was attacked by a spasm, and fell to the ground, his hands on the ground. After getting up, he said: "I found myself deaf and have been like this ever since. ”
Statue of Beethoven's former home in Bonn, Germany
Later, his hearing recovered somewhat, but not all. Now there was a constant ensemble of screams, buzzes, and hums in his ears, which drove him crazy from morning to night.
He frantically ran to the doctor. They comforted him and gave him medicine. One doctor after another, treatment after treatment. But it didn't work. Medicine will have to wait at least half a century or more to treat or deal with such disabilities. Doctors at the time had little understanding of the true cause of the disease. Although the scientific method has developed rapidly, medicine has not made much progress since the Middle Ages. People don't yet know the effects of bacteria and viruses, no antibiotics, no understanding of the structure of the nervous system and the function of the digestive system. The stethoscope was not invented until 1816. There were also no surgical anesthetics at the time; doctors cut the patient at break-in at breaks with great speed, trying to complete the operation before the screaming patient dies. Most medications are completely ineffective, and some cause serious harm.
For Beethoven, the fear of deafness trumped the chronic old ailments: gusts of vomiting and diarrhea that had plagued him since his youth. In his career, he has seen those around him as enemies, and now his body is his most vicious and inescapable enemy. His life, his creation, his spirit were all struck by forces that had nothing to do with his music, his talent, his intellect: the power of fate that had robbed his infant brothers and sisters, his teacher Franz Ovantini and his mother.
He is 27 years old. At first he should not have believed that young people would refuse to face what was happening to them. His loss of hearing must be covered up, his fear and despair must be covered up. He felt that it would destroy his profession in the future. This fear is completely understandable. He needs to cover everything up and show the world his original confident and strong side. He didn't tell anyone about it—including Amanda, Franz Weigler, and Stephen von Brunning.
When he can't hear and can't respond to others on time, people will feel like he's wandering and thinking about things. Let them guess. He wanted to find a cure. He had to find it. So he saw one doctor after another. Beethoven is the worst patient imaginable, it is impossible to take medication or fast for a long time as prescribed, and if the treatment does not work immediately, he will be angry. Doctors have tried to use leeches, bloodletting, warm and cold baths, painful and dangerous treatments for tying the bark to their hands, and there is no clear scientific basis. At least doctors already know that cheap wine with lead salt can have serious effects on digestive system and personality: it can make people irritable and paranoid (Beethoven is already irritable and paranoid enough). Lead-containing alcohol is illegal but still widespread.
Beethoven may also know these dangers, may not know. If he did know, it would be too late.
Oil painting: Beethoven created in front of the piano
Inevitably, his health problems affected his music. The slow movement of op.10's Sonata in D major may be the first hint, or "Pathos". He had written tragic music before, but not as radically as these. As a young man, he described death powerfully in Joseph Cantata, because he had seen it with his own eyes. His teacher and several siblings were dead; he witnessed his mother dying. For everyone at that time, death was everywhere, and everyone's life was like a battlefield. But the new threat beethoven faced was different, it was an internal decay: a slow death, perceptible, powerless in the face of the torment of fate.
Fate will become an enduring theme in his music, and it has always been hostile. There must have been times when he roared in his ears, his body afflicted by vomiting or diarrhea or both, and he fell into a bottomless abyss of misery and despair. In addition to the shadow of deafness, the persistent and intense tinnitus that Beethoven suffered was itself enough to kill people. But when he was able to work, he still threw himself into the work with the energy of the past, irrepressible talent and self-confidence. He faced extraordinary suffering with extraordinary endurance and courage. He needs to be strong.
Aside from death itself, deafness is the most terrifying thing a musician will ever encounter. It's easy to understand and hard to bear. After the first blow, it took him a while to realize that he could not get treatment and could only gradually fall into a situation of deafness. His days as a performer are numbered.
It was normal that he didn't recognize it right away. It is normal that the patient cannot see the future.
Later he said that hearing problems bothered him the most in normal times and the slightest when composing music. When immersed in a trance, he can shield himself from the noise in his ears and concentrate only on what he conceives on the piano or in his head, drafts on the score. In 1799 he was not happy but creative. At the beginning of the year he filled his second draft with a string quartet in F major, which eventually became the first of a collection of pieces commissioned by Archduke Robkowitz. Page after page, he drafted variations for a recurring pattern, writing an almost monogamous first movement, which he often did in his later works.
His compositional process alternates between improvisation on the keyboard and grabbing a quill and sketching on the sheet on the table he places at the piano. No matter what the weather was, he would come once or twice a day to walk along the city walls, his mind filled with music, and he hurried past the ancient palaces and fortresses and wandered around Vienna.
That's the rhythm of his creation.
Day after day, year after year: improvisation, drafting on the table, going out for a walk.
The above content is selected from the American music biographer Jan Swaford's Biography of Beethoven: Tribulation and Glory, and is published with permission from the publishing house.
[American] Jan Swaford, "Beethoven's Biography: Tribulations and Glory", translated by Han Yingchao, Qizhenguan Zhejiang University Press, February 2020
Beethoven's life is hardly happy. The love and perfect family that the world yearns for have no connection with him, the pain and suffering have always lingered, and the healthy body has become a luxury, and he has to use the note to communicate with others. But he never lost his passion for life and always aspired to be a kind, noble, and dedicated man. What this book wants to do is to restore the true image of Beethoven in the melody. This image may be world-weary, rude, and suspicious, but it has flesh and blood, making those musical works more three-dimensional and more charming.
About the Author: Jan Swaford (1946–), American composer and writer. Swaford graduated magna laude from Harvard University and received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Yale School of Music. He is mainly known for a series of biographies of musicians, including the biography of Charles Ives, the biography of Brahms, the biography of Beethoven, and the author of the Classic Guide to Classical Music.
(Editor / Li Yinan, Judge / Ren Hui)