Beethoven?

It doesn’t seem a coincidence the way the sections in the textbook are arranged for Chapter 20. The section on Romanticism is positioned directly before the section on “Reform and Revolution.” More specifically, the last bit of the Romanticism section is juxtaposed with the tale of the 1830 Revolution of France. It just so happens that that little bit is about Beethoven, and that it briefly mentions the political influences on his works, as well as his own personal physical decline and the pain that came from it. To quote the text,

Like many of his contemporaries he was caught up in a burst of enthusiasm for the French Revolution of 1789. Disillusionment set in when Napoleon, whom he had admired as a revolutionary and for whom he had originally named the Eroica symphony, crowned himself emperor and repudiated his principles, and Beethoven’s disappointment continued through the Napoleonic Wars. At the same time, by the age of thirty-two, Beethoven knew that he was losing his hearing. He hoped the problem would be cured, but it slowly put an end to his career as a virtuoso pianist; by 1819 he was completely deaf. As his condition worsened and his disenchantment deepened , he withdrew into composing, his solitude a powerful symbol of alienation and extraordinary creativity.

Why did I find the need to include that atrociously long quote? We all know that Beethoven didn’t have the happiest or luckiest of lives, but I think there’s more to it than that. Maybe it was just the experience of reading this directly before delving into the stories of bloody revolution during the 1830s and, perhaps worse, in 1848, but something about his particular struggle seemed characteristic of the times. It was in this specific era, when so much was being created, when such artistic creativity and possibility, such hope and belief in one’s leaders, could be so quickly turned to disillusionment. Here, it’s not just the political ideals being crushed, but also one’s chance of making a livelihood, of supporting oneself, that is being stolen during this chaotic time. Although no one would say that Beethoven’s experience was the same as that of the starving peasants or the unemployed workers in the 1840s, this little snippet about his life gives a sense, typical of the hardships of the time, of violation of the big things – hope in a new political era, democratic ideals – and the small ones that are really more essential – managing to get from one day the next, to support oneself, to make a living.