Tabloid Tuesday: Ludwig van Beethoven

Many of you are well aware of the most reported-upon aspects of Beethoven’s private life. These include his deafness, and the “Immortal Beloved” letter to a mystery woman, supposedly written in the year 1812.

Since those bits have been over-discussed and over-publicized (if you don’t know much about them, look up pretty much any other biography on Beethoven), I have decided to write about something else concerning this early nineteenth-century musician.

As you’ve probably picked up on by now, I have a mild interest in literature. That’s why this week I am going to explain to you why Beethoven’s early adulthood strongly resembles the form of the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century novel.

Something that occupies the focus of most fictions written around the time that Beethoven was alive was money. The major anxiety for all women characters in Jane Austen novels for instance, while ostensibly love is actually about the annuity and estate tied to the men who these women fell for.

Money prevented marriages, condemned ill-suited connexions, and rarely allowed the perfect match to take place in the first 300 pages.

So back to our composer. When he was a young man, he had Great Expectations (see what I did there?) placed upon him.

His teacher, Gottlob Neffe said of Beethoven when he was only 11 years old that “he would surely become a second Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart if he were to continue as he has begun.”

As he grew a little older, Beethoven became part of a circle of aristocratic friends, and even had an older woman who seems to have acted as a pseudo mother figure (see Lady Russell from Jane Austen’s Persuasion). She prevented advances from ill suitors and gave advice to the young composer.

It was not long before Beethoven impressed Haydn with his musical prowess and became his pupil. Upon his leaving for further tutelage by this great composer, his friend Waldstein prophetically wrote “you shall receive Mozart’s spirit from Haydn’s hands.”

Unfortunately, Beethoven believed that Haydn was “not well minded towards him” and therefore did not show him much affection or trust. He also believed that Haydn may have been neglecting or even sabotaging his tuition. So he also enlisted a second tutor to supplement his education, without informing his primary teacher.

He said that although he had taken lessons with Haydn, the musician had never taught him anything, so he declined to publish “pupil of Haydn” as a byline to any of his compositions, despite the fact that it was the custom at the time to do so.

Even though he was receiving a healthy annuity, Beethoven found himself in a bit of debt around this time, and complained about his plight to his tutor, who got Beethoven in trouble with some of the governing bodies supplying him with money.

Luckily, a few years later, Beethoven, who was admired by the aristocracy, was patronized by a number of noblemen who offered him a salary to keep composing.

But after the year 1812, the war had decreased the value of the florin, and he found himself in even more difficulty. This was supplemented by the untimely death of a few of his patrons who had suddenly passed away before being able to leave instructions for further payment to the Beethoven. (The untimely deaths highly resemble the plot to more than one late-Romantic novel.)

Though he managed to stay out of crushing poverty, Beethoven struggled with money for his entire life. Relying upon the commissions from publications and donations from patrons are hardly stable, and even with a guaranteed annuity, difficulties can still arise.

The plight of being an artist in the time of Beethoven is that nothing is really sure when it comes to money. This is why so many novels centre on the anxiety of young women finding a good match. In this period, a woman - much like an artist -  was nearly unable to support herself without dependence upon an annuity from an external source, whether that was a husband, inheritance from a father, or an aristocratic patron.

Over the years Beethoven not only suffered financial stress, but various romantic disappointments as well. He was turned down by women he was fond of, and to be honest, just fell in love with women who were unavailable much too frequently.

In fact, after a major disappointment around 1812, Beethoven fell into such a depression that he suffered a slight creative slump.

This just shows how important literature is to understanding different cultures and periods of time – the reality of Beethoven’s life is aptly represented in the literature produced in this period. It reflects values, attitudes, and most importantly, social anxieties at the core of the issues each culture faces on a regular basis.

You can hear the music of Beethoven this season performed by the Kingston Symphony in our season opener: Beethoven & Brahms on September 29^th at 2:30 at the Grand Theatre and in Mozart & Beethoven on December 1^st, at 2:30 at the Grand Theatre.