Once Beethoven was out for a country ramble with fellow composer Ferdinand Ries, and while walking they saw a shepherd playing a pipe. "If I belonged to any other profession it would be easier, but in my profession it is a frightful state." "For two years I have avoided almost all social gatherings because it is impossible for me to say to people 'I am deaf'," he wrote. He feared his career would be ruined if anyone realised. And yet if anyone shouts I can’t bear it."īeethoven tried to keep news of the problem secret from those closest to him. The sound I can hear it is true, but not the words. I can give you some idea of this peculiar deafness when I must tell you that in the theatre I have to get very close to the orchestra to understand the performers, and that from a distance I do not hear the high notes of the instruments and the singers’ voices... Sometimes too I hardly hear people who speak softly. "For the last three years my hearing has grown steadily weaker. In 1800, aged 30, he wrote from Vienna to a childhood friend - by then working as a doctor in Bonn - saying that he had been suffering for some time: How old was Beethoven when he started going deaf?Īround the age of 26, Beethoven began to hear buzzing and ringing in his ears. Then, he started to notice a buzzing sound in his ears - and everything was about to change. The first time it was performed in this manner was in 1813 with astounding success ever since.Click here to listen to our podcast, Beethoven: The Man Revealed on Global Player, the official Classic FM app > the second part of the symphony was replaced with the second part of Symphony No. Listening to this symphony’s grand finale one can hardly decide what to think more astonishing: Beethoven’s amazing creative fantasy, the impeccable form, the amazing talent in using all the musical resources in developing the themes or his compact, luscious, sumptuous instrumentation.įrom 1821, Symphony No.2 by Beethoven was always performed in Paris with a substitution, i.e.
Ceaikovski thought that this segment captures " a whole series of images, full of unrestrained joy, full of bliss and pleasure of life". The second theme is in fact a typical tune from a Hungarian dance. Everything is captured by movement like a popular folkloric song. Practically, this is the point where dance begins. Part IV – Allegro con brio – emanates an immense joy from beginning to the end. In Trio, the composer uses a theme from an Austrian folkloric song, the theme of which had been jotted down while Beethoven was in Teplitz. As a whole, it conveys a genuine bucolic scene with pictural meanings and associations. Part III – Presto meno assai – represents a splendid triumph in rendering the scherzo form. While in the first part the A major sonorities conferred greatness and sumptuousness, the theme in Part II, in A minor, brings a whole new atmosphere, thus emphasizing the contrast between the two. Part II – Allegretto – is perhaps the most expressive of the secondary parts of his symphonies. This first part brings many new elements, hard to decipher, because perfection expressed through sounds cannot be translated into words.
Then, on the rhythmical background we hear the motif of Part I. Part I – Vivace – starts with a slow introduction – Poco sostenuto – solemn and majestic in character.
This is the moment when we identify a new stage in the composer’s creation, where classical elements intertwine with romantic ones, thus generating a new expression far more intimate and more complex. it is a composition reflecting Beethoven’s unparalleled wisdom. 92, named " The Apotheosis of Dance" by Wagner, was begun in 1809 and was finalized in the summer of 1812.