Beethoven's Testament
Last night we went to one of our music appreciation classes given by Brenda Miller, an amazing and entertaining musicologist. It was devoted to Beethoven's Second Symphony and how it relates to his life and the Heiligenstadt Testament.
Heiligenstadt is a village near Vienna where Beethoven went to escape from the world on his doctor's advice. By the age of 28 Beethoven was stone deaf, and he suffered greatly because of it. He felt shame from the fact that he was a leading composer, and he was considered very anti-social because of this affliction that he had kept secret. But, he also suffered greatly from a number of other painful symptoms, which have been interpreted recently as being due to lead poisoning, a not uncommon occurence in that age (due to the use of lead water pipes and cooking utensils). However, there are relatively few reports of complete deafness as a result of lead poisoning, so this may be doubtful.
While there, isolated from the world and with few if any friends, Beethoven considered suicide. At a particularly bleak moment he started to write his suicide note, known as the Heiligenstadt Testament. He wrote this over two days. On the first day it is clear that he intends to commit suicide, but on the second day he gradually retracts from this decision and apparently decides to try to live with his disabilities, as long as he can continue to write music. The music he composed often required great effort, but sometimes it appeared as if by magic.
It was at this particularly difficult moment that Beethoven was inspired and wrote down his Second Symphony. This was a particularly original and novel musical composition, yet has been overshadowed by his later and more powerful odd-numbered Symphonies, 5, 7 and 9.
In this Symphony no. 2 we can see the two aspects of Beethoven's character striving with one another, his tendency to depression and suicide and his joy in life and music. Although some of the slow second movement may seem gloomy and depressive, in fact it is a majestic largo (slow) cadence that seems to be considering fate. The final fourth movement is very contradictory to this and consists of a series of musical jokes, with a particularly raucous beginning that was considered rude in his day and lead to the banning of this Symphony.
A group of Amricans have bought an authentic clump of Beethoven's hair and there has been talk of cloning him since some of the hair has root follicles and DNA has been isolated from it. However, in our modern age any cloned Beethoven could not be the same as the original, since he would be protected from his diasabilities and his deafness, and so could never become Beethoven as he really was.
Heiligenstadt is a village near Vienna where Beethoven went to escape from the world on his doctor's advice. By the age of 28 Beethoven was stone deaf, and he suffered greatly because of it. He felt shame from the fact that he was a leading composer, and he was considered very anti-social because of this affliction that he had kept secret. But, he also suffered greatly from a number of other painful symptoms, which have been interpreted recently as being due to lead poisoning, a not uncommon occurence in that age (due to the use of lead water pipes and cooking utensils). However, there are relatively few reports of complete deafness as a result of lead poisoning, so this may be doubtful.
While there, isolated from the world and with few if any friends, Beethoven considered suicide. At a particularly bleak moment he started to write his suicide note, known as the Heiligenstadt Testament. He wrote this over two days. On the first day it is clear that he intends to commit suicide, but on the second day he gradually retracts from this decision and apparently decides to try to live with his disabilities, as long as he can continue to write music. The music he composed often required great effort, but sometimes it appeared as if by magic.
It was at this particularly difficult moment that Beethoven was inspired and wrote down his Second Symphony. This was a particularly original and novel musical composition, yet has been overshadowed by his later and more powerful odd-numbered Symphonies, 5, 7 and 9.
In this Symphony no. 2 we can see the two aspects of Beethoven's character striving with one another, his tendency to depression and suicide and his joy in life and music. Although some of the slow second movement may seem gloomy and depressive, in fact it is a majestic largo (slow) cadence that seems to be considering fate. The final fourth movement is very contradictory to this and consists of a series of musical jokes, with a particularly raucous beginning that was considered rude in his day and lead to the banning of this Symphony.
A group of Amricans have bought an authentic clump of Beethoven's hair and there has been talk of cloning him since some of the hair has root follicles and DNA has been isolated from it. However, in our modern age any cloned Beethoven could not be the same as the original, since he would be protected from his diasabilities and his deafness, and so could never become Beethoven as he really was.
posted by Jack Cohen at 4:30 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home