Hero's Destiny: A Tribute to Beethoven's 250th Anniversary

By Ning Zhang

This is a monograph on Western classical music written by a Chinese American. It contains the results of the author's years of work, i.e., more than two hundred thousand words of Beethoven-themed essays in the form of poems, essays, prose, and reviews. The book covers all aspects of the great composer Beethoven's life and career from his birth experience to his emotional life, from the background of the times to his ideology, from the review of his works to the analysis of music appreciation. The book is rich in historical information, rigorous in argumentation, incisive in commentary, and fluent in sentiment and reason. As a nonacademic scholar of Beethoven, this book is characterized by a distinctive personality, free from the constraints of traditional rules and regulations. Based on a comprehensive and profound understanding of the historical figure and his works, the author presents his original arguments and opinions on some important professional topics and fields.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: May 17, 2024
• ISBN: 9781639851294

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Beethoven, I love you!

A Lonesome Fate: Beethoven's Love Life

Birds of a Feather: Exploring Beethoven's Immortal Beloved (I)

Birds of a Feather: Exploring Beethoven's Immortal Beloved (II)

Not a Blade, but a Flame: Beethoven, Counterrevolutionary

The Lion Crouches Down: Listen to the Second Movement of Beethoven's Triple Concerto

The Heroic Finale: Companion to the Eroica Symphony Finale

The Cavatina

Beethoven's Sky, Schubert's Earth

Lang Lang, the Appassionata, and the Emperor

The Eternal Archduke Trio

The Grateful Harp

Triumph and Failure of the Moonlight

An Ode to Mother Nature

Sleeping Beauty Disperses the Tempest

An Eagle's Feather

The Eternity Sonata

Beethoven's Self-Portraits

A Walk by the Shore: Music, My Eternal Beloved

Isn't Beethoven Beethoven?

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

cover.jpg

Hero's Destiny

A Tribute to Beethoven's 250th Anniversary

Ning Zhang

Copyright © 2024 Ning Zhang

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2024

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022909056

Front Cover: Beethoven Monument, Vienna,

1880 by Kaspar von Zumbusch Buchhandler

(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beethovenplatz_06.JPG), Beethovenplatz 06", Added text to create book jacket. by Edited., https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode

ISBN 978-1-63985-128-7 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63985-129-4 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

I respectfully dedicate this book to the friends I met during my time at Towson University in Maryland in the 1990s. Your assistance, support, and rescue during those years are unforgettable to me.

Beethoven, I love you!

I

Beethoven, I love you!

I ask your forgiveness, for a word so often sullied, how could I be so profane?

But to express the depth of my feeling an expression more noble, more beautiful than this I cannot find.

There is nothing of this world that can explain the purity, the depth, the passion, or the immortality of my affection for you.

As the lone sail in a vast sea finds itself unable to escape the bitter waves, as the exile in the desert pines for his sweet oasis, as the insomniac finds warmth in the embrace of the moon, as the meteor tumbling through dead space looks to Sirius with adoration.

This is my love for you, the way a soul loves a soul, the way blood loves blood, the way spirit loves spirit!

Oh, the depth of my love for you—true, everlasting, my brightest and most beautiful dream within a dream!

II

I remember vaguely that it was more than a decade ago. A young boy, eleven or twelve years old, had heard his father tell a tale. Once upon a time, there was a great musician by the name of Beethoven. Though the music he wrote was exquisite, the man himself with deaf and very poor. The boy's young soul was slightly shaken by this story; it felt off. How could a deaf man be a great musician? How could someone who couldn't even experience sound compose something at all, let alone a great piece of music? It was amazing, it was unbelievable.

That was when the name Beethoven first quietly imprinted itself on a young soul. It was our first meeting.

A few years later, the young boy had grown into a teenager. In his melancholy, he began to ponder. One unforgettable evening, he sat himself early by the radio, driven more by curiosity than excitement, waiting for the premiere of what would prove to be a seminal moment in both your lives—your Destiny Symphony. There came a knock at the door. The roaring sound left as abruptly as it came. The boy's heartbeat had risen with the music, and he could feel the blood boiling across his body. He found himself speechless, in a daze. Just what was that? He would never have thought such a thing could exist in this world.

With a great cascade of thunder and lightning, you conquered this soul in the very first encounter. From that day forward, an unbreakable bond was formed.

This blue ball has made many rotations since that fateful moment, and my life has moved along with it. Through all my ups and downs, the night sky of my soul filled with turmoil and loneliness, the stars of its muse shone brightly before fading into the dark. Only you, the star of stars, always shone bright enough to pierce the fog—blazing, flickering, glimmering into eternity.

III

You are my morning sun, the thundering storm in my life adrift, my source of light, my source of strength. This lone soul, lost in the dark sea, is all too familiar with dark clouds circling above. Countless times has its anchors fallen, struggling to stay above board. Raising its bewildered eyes, it sees nothing but the vast expanse ahead, the misty skies above. There are times where the souls feels helpless, exhausted, trapped, but never is it willing to give in. Unconsciously, it finds itself back in the embrace of your expansive spirit.

Your third to ninth symphonies, your violin and piano concertos, your Leonore, your Egmont, your Moonlight, Appassionata and Pathétique, your… How many times have I listened to them, time and time again, without measure, and yet it was as if I had walked into a new world, as if I have been baptized and born again?

When I listen to your music, I can hardly be around anyone else. I find it difficult to enjoy concerts; in them, you are too far away. I cannot listen to my heart's content; the madness within me, intoxicated by your music, makes me hard to bear. The meeting of our souls can only take place in isolation from this chaotic world, in a room with me alone.

Only here can I call upon my heart and soul to plunge into the magnificence that is the space-time of art. I'm a firefly flapping its wings toward the starry sky, a fish whooping its tail into the bottom of the great sea. I am traveling high and low over the relentless vastness; I am flying light and carefree with feather-like elegance. My body and my heart, full of supernatural ecstasy, immerse me into a state of being where all is forgotten. Like a shooting star speeding toward where it had always belonged, like a lump of black coal in the mountain waiting for thunder to strike with a peaceful smile.

At that moment, the dormant volcano of the material and immaterial erupts, roaring into a blazing and flaming flood, wakening every last drop of the potential strength of life. Only at this moment can I truly strip away the animal skin that trapped me as mere ape and tear away the ugly mask that labeled me as a social being. I can live with a face and stance that is as close to ascetic, as close to spiritual as can be, just as the Maker intended when we were granted with this superior inborn nature. I now stand tall beyond the turbid surface of dull existence and see far, far away; my eyes pierce the farthest of skies and spot the gleaming silhouette of God.

In you, I find my moonlight, my oasis, the home I spent my life wandering to discover, the lullaby for my orphaned self. Living is this world, longing to love and be loved. Despite all worldly affections, the love, given or received, none could truly touch and soothe the depths of the great composer's soul. These anxieties, worries, and tribulations were his fated cross to bear, the tragedy of his life. Besides Mother Nature herself, no being in this universe could live infinitely in the finitudes of music. Only through you can my soul, suffocated by its own freedom, find a moment of peace and tranquility in the stormy sea of existence.

Your symphony is more than merely Heroic, its sorrows beyond Pathétique, its existence too special to be just Fate. Like the planets themselves, you must be composed of two poles. To start off, I want to talk about two of your ugly ducklings—Romance in G Major and Romance in F Major.

I would often find myself alone in my room during the quiet midnight. I would shut off the lamp, feel the moonlight embrace me, close my eyes, and listen intently—completely immersed, as if there was nothing else in the world but me and you. What a wondrous melody, what an indescribable beauty, brought to full light by Jascha Heifetz. The honest and pure mutterings of the former find themselves in harmony with the lonesome wanderings of the latter. The stubborn sorrowful tune, the soul of the music, he heartbreaking violin, it was as if they were made for the very purpose of wrenching this alien heart from its chest, to claim this very soul, to make it close its eyes for the last time and lose itself in dream for eternity.

Before the song even had time to end, my eyes would fill with tears, and all I could do is sit blankly in my chair, gradually weathering the ups and downs, the depths of feeling before I finally calmed. My beloved composer, just what kind of picture is this, what kind of sentiment? If your spirit up above could see it all, would you be as moved as you were in life?

IV

Intrigued, one of my university classmates once asked me, Given how much time you spend with Beethoven's music, just what do you get out of it? What do you see, what do you think of? Without hesitation, the answers I gave him were all in the negative. My responses provoked by incredulity and disappointment, but they were all true. Listening to your music, I have almost never grasped anything specific. A very few vivid images cross my mind—rough rolling hills, mighty seas, raging lightning and thunder, the magnificence of the world, but calm pastures, the peaceful forest, a dreamy lake under the night sky, the love of my children. I find it difficult to find such associations. I merely try to listen, discard all my distracting thoughts, then listen again, mobilize my entire heart and soul, then listen again. I make listening the only conscious experience I can feel, try my best to stop every rational thought that enters my mind, feel the thousands of sound waves coursing through me and the infinity of magic radiated within. The beauty and power of this heaven is free of and far beyond anything in our natural world.

I have no intention of studying music theory, and of what I have learned some has long since been forgotten. One who has never laid eyes on a star chart feels that magnificence and wonder of the mysterious night sky far more than one who has. It is this mysteriousness that creates the wonder, the beauty. Ever since I learned how to recognize the constellations, though the skies have cleared themselves to me, my vision has become blurred by my technical knowledge. It lingers, stays with me, and I can't help but feeling a sense of loss.

Ever since, I've never felt like studying music in this way again. I'm satisfied with being able to, in a truly unclouded spiritual and aesthetic sense, leisurely spread my wings and glade through your clear skies, dive deep into the depths of your spirit, gallop and wander across your boundless plains; to absorb every bit of your spiritual heat, your nectar into my very cells, my body, and my soul; to allow your radiance to penetrate this lone soul, wandering through its difficult years on this earth as it seeks find its own ascendance; to find its true self. This soul, so far from free of the many shackles of its false self, has its depth but lacks much else.

In the act of washing itself clean of its vulgar desires, the act of cauterizing its spiritual weaknesses, the soul tempers itself into true steel, lights a fire within itself, and begins to shine ever brighter. Only then can it truly reach a higher level of understanding—of beauty, of philosophy—and only then can it truly love living and life itself. The soul yearns, like you, for majestic freedom, for grace and harmony, to look out into the expanse and find the rhythm in almost perfect lockstep with nature. It yearns to find the universal spirit and, with it, completely, entirely, and eternally merge into one.

V

Dear Beethoven, whenever I speak of your great name, I feel my mouth overflow with a fragrant sweetness. And yet I feel it somehow alien, as if I were a devout believer whose every action and thought were filled by his god. My heart is full of love and admiration for you, like one might have of a dear friend—a great and ordinary friend who stayed by one's side day after day. I often feel that, in terms of thought and emotion, there is no essential difference between us; in spirit we are not so far apart, and our souls are tuned in to the same frequency.

As Schopenhauer said, A person who is endowed with a high degree of mental ability, who has a rich mind, who lives a full and meaningful life, and who has interesting objects to pursue, contains in himself the noblest source of happiness. For example, his understanding and appreciation of the great achievements in history and deep and thorough understanding of the meaning of great events are the unique talents of such people. The great men and women of all times have looked for a soulmate who has a high degree of mental ability, and the great men and women have not lived in vain because their ideas and arts have been known to them.

Indeed, you dedicated yourself to providing inexhaustible color and strength to our lives while we, in turn, have granted you lofty majesty and immortality (perhaps one of the fairest of all grand exchanges in this world). Just like the ocean basin and the vast sea or the sunlight and the solitary sky, the soul and flesh cannot exist as one.

Far from everyone appreciates your music, even fewer understand it, even among those with a rare level of spiritual and emotional competence. Those who could be called one of your own are few and far between, like rocks scattered across the endless sea. I know not if this was a cross you had to bear or an unknowable boon from up above.

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Those who understand it must be freed by it from all the miseries which the others drag about with themselves. I find your own words full of meaning. To me, your revelation and misery are inextricably linked.

Your suffering ebbs across this world—a spiritual suffering, the gentlest of mothers and the most violent of fathers. You are an intimate friend to them all but, by no means, their god. With all the aspirations painted through your blood and tears, you are with the suffering, never as salvation, but rather embrace and castigation. Whether one can feel your embrace, whether one can endure your castigation is, perhaps, the best test for any suffering soul, high or low, strong or meek.

To stand proudly in this blue sea, one must not only have misfortune of deeply experiencing the depths of tragedy and pain found in the material world but also the talent to transform the highest peaks of music into something more, something spiritual. In the depths of your soul, the entire world is your stage, the thread that links us all shakes to your call in the thunderous night. In obsession with beauty, you find that one's life cannot be mastered through mere meditation; in vigorous passion, you forge a spirit unobtainable by mere effort; you ascend above all the mundane and extraordinary human sufferings until you find your own transcendence, a dedication, melancholy, and romance. The small self is consumed to feed the large self, and the essence of the man converges with the divine pulse of the universe, molding into the same course—a radiant, ideal unity.

VI

Dear Beethoven, you fill me with pride for mankind. In you, we find our pride, glory, and hope. You are the child of all mankind; you belong to us all—a great hero of which no one is more deserving of the term, an embodiment and perfection of the ideal. For history to produce such a convergence of character and work has never happened before or since.

Dear Beethoven, you fill me with shame for mankind. We inflicted untold humiliations and inhuman suffering on you during your time with us. Through the flames of our torture tempered you into pure jade, and through the inflicted miseries we reaped untold reward; this is an unmatched injustice, a testament to our self-satisfaction, a cruel human tragedy.

VII

In the entirety of your life and all you have left behind, you have engraved for us the essential value of human existence—in sincerity, kindness; in justice, fraternity; in art, nature; in spirit, thought. Nature itself, good, evil, and our own harsh fates, we are all engaged in an arduous and unending cycle of unity and struggle. Through the fire of it all, we carry on and reach the finality of our short light in an eternal dark.

In the entirety of your life and all you have left behind, you once again proved the meaning of existence for those few of us capable of reaching higher levels of enlightenment—rich in talent, passionate in emotion, profound in thought, and high in consciousness; the resulting anxiousness and sorrow is an inevitable feature of their lives. Survival is endless calamity, a result of the mysteries between the inner soul and outer world, ugly and flawed, overly enthusiastic, sensitive, profound. Their souls, like the lone star in an empty sky, are fated to be alone. Yet nevertheless, the meaning of existence, the true happiness that these lonesome few seek, must necessary be built on this cruel wastes of our world.

So long as one does not lose their innocence, so long as one's will and yearning remain, they, too, will endure the flames of survival and taste the sweet fruit of life; so, too, will the kindled fire of their heart burst into flowers of spirit, of art, spreading, covering the dark night in glorious rapture. Bit by bit, step-by-step, the soul scorches through the heavens like a glorious meteor, making its ascension to the highest peaks its mortal coil can reach—its wings spread, carrying the coil through the realm of its existence, finally arriving at the kingdom of heaven, its journey ends.

VIII

You once said that there is nothing so beautiful as to approach the Divinity and spread its rays for the human race. Your great life, in its many trials and tribulations, has accomplished feats of unmatched beauty. You remain in my heart, the hearts of thousands, as a brilliant star—akin to nature, the holiest of waters, the freshest of streams. You are the nectar that our souls rely on for survival; through you has spread the most beautiful, most vivid of all divinities into our world for which you have found your peace in heaven.

With your music, there is no manner in which my journey through this life has been in vain. With your music, I feel deeply my existence in this world, the true meaning of joy and happiness.

In your love of nature, we are the same, for it is the only thing I can bring myself to compare you to. Alone in a vast field, rolling lake, steep hill, or the great sea, I find myself moved deeply by the beauty of it all. I remember the words of Lord Byron, But one thing want these banks of Rhine—thy gentle hand to clasp in mine!

Dear Beethoven, though it is my great misfortune to not be born in your time, so, too, is it my great fortune to be born in your posterity. How I want believe such a kingdom of heaven exists so that one day you and I can exist in kind, beyond your musical gifts.

At the least, I wish to realize one simple wish: though I was not graced by your music during my birth, I hope it may one day carry me to my rest.

IX

Genius among genius, hero amongst heroes, star amongst stars, heart amongst hearts,

Beethoven, I love you!

(1988)

A Lonesome Fate: Beethoven's Love Life

My cyber friend Yun Tian 's post was very enlightening, but there's one point to discuss. It's rare for a man's outward appearance to be the reason they fail to win a woman's heart; so long as they have wealth, talent, or both, all other factors can be easily overlooked. History is full of ugly men with beautiful wives and vice versa. This is one of the principles of love and one that is tested again and again in all romantic endeavors.

Returning to the topic, Beethoven's fate drew him into the paths of many women. The first forty years of his life was full of romance, mostly with aristocratic women. Most of their names were overshadowed in history by Beethoven's contributions to music, with none but the most diligent of Beethoven researchers familiar. As far as looks were concerned, Beethoven had no real problems. As far as his portraits go, I don't really understand why so many say he's ugly. I see the opposite. It's fair to say that it was his unparalleled musical talent that truly set him apart from other men; it was a trait that few educated, refined noblewomen could truly resist. If we change our perspective a little, of all the male classical music lovers out there, there are few that would not call themselves a fan of Sarah Chang. Few of her male fa Sarah Chang

ns care much about her appearance or weight; it's the elegance and beauty that she creates with a piano that makes man and man fall for her head over heels.

Let's take a look at what Beethoven dedicated to his female lovers and friends—Piano Sonata no. 4 in E ♭ Major (op. 7), Piano Concerto no. 1 in C Major (op. 15), Barbara von Keglevics; Piano Sonata no. 9 in E Major (op. 14-1), Piano Sonata no. 10 in G Major (op. 14-2), song An die Hoffnung (op. 32), Josephine von Brunswick; Piano Sonata no. 14 in C♯ Minor Moonlight (op. 27-2), Julie von Guicciardi; Piano Trio no. 5 in D Major Ghost (op. 70-1), Piano Trio no. 6 in E ♭ Major (op. 70-2), Cello Sonata no. 4 in C Major (op. 102-1), Cello Sonata no. 5 in D Major (op. 102-2), Anne-Marie von Erdody; Piano Sonata no. 24 in F♯ Major à Thérèse (op. 78), Thérèse von Brunswick; Piano Sonata no. 28 in A Major (op. 101), Dorothea von Ertman; Thirty-three variations on a waltz by Diabelli for piano in C Major Diabelli Variations (op. 120), Antonie von Brentano; Poco moto (Bagatelle) for piano in A Minor Für Elise (WoO 59), Therese Malfatti, etc. Some dazzling, isn't it? These women would have had no idea that they would be immortalized by Beethoven in his pieces.

There is something important to note here. Beethoven loved beauty, but he was never blinded by it. The pieces he dedicated to them were relatively minor, pieces with a single instrumental chorus. Only one was larger, an early piano concerto. Beethoven dedicated most of his symphonies and larger works, his masterpieces, to wealthy sponsors such as Archduke Rudolph. It was their support that allowed him to continue pursuing his art form. If we likened Beethoven to a vanguard in the field of classical music, his aristocratic sponsors were the quartermasters, the logisticians that allowed him to continue forward. The romance in his life, in general, followed a certain trend—a period of warm comfort, followed by passionate love, granting Beethoven sudden bursts of inspiration. The ending, however, would always be a deep wound in the soul.

There's another point of interest worth mentioning, a piece that's a household name in China, a piece with recognition akin to Symphony no. 5 and Symphony no. 9, Bagatelle in A Minor Für Elise. Beethoven never gave it much thought; perhaps its composition was simply a flight of fancy, or perhaps Beethoven intended it to be a private performance, a piece that would never see the light of day. In any case, no papers were ever filed, and no publication was ever made. The result, this masterpiece is a WoO (work without opus number). The piece was composed in 1810, and no one knew of its existence except the composer and the woman it was dedicated to, Therese Malfatti. Therese was Beethoven's student, the niece of his physician, and the woman that refused to give Beethoven her hand in marriage. It's difficult to tell how she felt about all this, but she never discarded or published his dedication to her. No one else knew of the piece until after her death in 1851.

Ten years later, German music scholar Ludwig Nohl would find the piece's manuscript, bringing it to the light of day. Its publication in 1867 would introduce an error that has lasted to this day, with Für Therese mistakenly being written as Für Elise, and just like that, Für Elise began its journey around the world. It would have been forty years since Beethoven's death. The great composer would never have imagined that such a small piece, a piece that he had never intended to show the world, would become one of the pillars of classical music for centuries to come. A great tragedy would eventually follow; the manuscript that was so hard earned would eventually be lost again, disappearing into history. But perhaps its disappearance is not such a bad thing. With the original source scattered into the wind, what remains for those in the present is an eternal question. Are Elise and Therese really the same person? If not, then who, exactly, is Elise?

Why don't we take a look about what the women in Beethoven's life had to say about him. Julie von Guicciardi noted that he was very ugly, but noble, refined in feeling and cultured. Josephine von Brunswick said, You have long had my heart, dear Beethoven. If this assertion can give you joy, then receive it from the purest heart. Be careful that it is also entrusted to the purest heart. Receive through this confession, through this confidence, the greatest proof of my love, of my esteem! This is what most ennobles you. That you know how to appreciate it, you acknowledge its value, whose possession I herewith entrust to you, the possession of the noblest of my being. Antonie von Brentano spoke of this great, excellent person who is as a human being greater than as an artist, his soft heart, his glowing soul, his faulty hearing, with his deeply fulfilling profession as an artist, of his warm will and hearty confidence.

He is natural, simple, and wise, with pure intentions. I will place the original in the holy hands of Beethoven, whom I venerate deeply. He walks godlike among the mortals, his lofty attitude toward the lowly world and his sick digestion aggravate him only momentarily, because the Muse embraces him and presses him to her warm heart.

At the age of thirty-five (1806), Beethoven was deeply in love with the widow of Count Deym, Josephine von Brunswick. His feels were expressed in one of his masterpieces, Symphony no. 4. Their relationship was sporadic and remained so for their entire lives. Years 1800 to 1810 was the golden age not only of Beethoven's career but also one for music as a whole, with masterworks such as Symphony no. 3 in E ♭ Major Eroica (op. 55), Triple Concerto for violin, cello, and piano in C Major (op. 56), Piano Sonata no. 23 in F Minor Appassionata (op. 57), Piano Concerto no. 4 in G Major (op. 58), Symphony no. 4 in B ♭ Major (op. 60), Violin Concerto in D Major (op. 61), Symphony no. 5 in C Minor Destiny (op. 67), Symphony no. 6 in F Major Pastoral (op. 68), opera Fidelio (op. 72), Piano Concerto No. 5 in E ♭ Major Emperor (op. 73), and Fantasia in C Minor for piano, chorus, and orchestra (op. 80) being introduced the musical history. The creative contributions love made cannot be discounted.

At this time, Beethoven seriously proposed the idea of becoming a family with Josephine. He would receive no reciprocation from her, who believed that marriage need not follow from love. This would be the closest Beethoven would even come to settling down. He had one foot in the chapel door but never managed to quite get in. Poor Ludwig would be doomed to the bachelor's life. The reasons were many, and we can outline them below.

Compared to Mozart or Haydn's era, composers in Beethoven's era fared better. Nonetheless, their position in society was still lower than that of the aristocracy, burghers, or royal officials. He did not have a great or stable source of income, which led many women and their families to doubt his ability to support a household. This is an understandable issue, and one should not be quick to judge these women for being unwilling to sacrifice themselves in the name of art.

After all, musical notes are not milk and bread; symphonies and sonatas have no ability to fill the stomach. It was not about being demanding. They were still women, and they had their own life's work to consider—raising a family. This in and of itself was a noble and great undertaking, one that Beethoven's mother had undergone. Beethoven was never lucky enough to meet that fairy-tale princess, one that had the estate and resources to support his great work. The countess's decision to not elope with Beethoven was both his fortune and misfortune. At the very least, it was a great fortune was his legacy. Just imagine, a mere nephew was enough to cause chaos in his life. If he had settled down and raised a household like Bach or Mozart, would the Beethoven we know today ever have come to be? The annals of music would have lost one of its legendary composers and gained an unfortunate father in his place.

His deafness was another factor, adding more doubt. He was a composer; his job was to compose and sell music. Deafness was no minor ailment for those in his field, leading to many doubts about his professional and financial future. Women may have loved him, but they had understandable reasons for never marrying him. The rest for them was too great; it was a life-changing decision. As a musician, no matter how resplendent your career, how sublime your talent, how wide your name spreads, the day your ears stop working, what remains? The Oracle of Delphi herself would have been forgiven for failing to make this prediction; of all the men in the world, it would be the deaf Ludwig van Beethoven who would, in the end, become such a legendary figure in classical music.

Even if Beethoven's talents became more renowned after his time, he was still widely recognized as one of Europe's most talented composers during his era, spreading into the New World and cementing his place as one of the world's greatest composers. Unfortunately for Beethoven, world's greatest composer was just an empty title, with no salary attached. Men with no job shouldn't even think of marriage; this is a universal rule, applicable through time and space. Beethoven was far from an irresponsible man; he had sworn a long time ago that he would not marry until he had the ability to support a family. To this end, he had been yearning for full-time employment, something that both allowed him to focus on his musical pursuits and support a family. His dream was to become a kapellmeister, just like his beloved grandfather. This would be a dream he never realized. He got close in 1809 when he received an invitation from Jerome Bonaparte, king of Westphalia.

Beethoven was fluent in French, with no issues speaking or writing Italian, Latin, or English. He nearly went, but the Viennese nobility spared no effort in convincing him to stay. Beethoven himself was very unwilling to leave Vienna. He held great affection for the City of Music, regarding it as his second home. It was fortunate that he did not go; the Kingdom of Westphalia did not last long. King Jermone's fortunes fell with his elder brother, and his kingdom vanished with the fall of the French Empire just four years later. How dangerous! The great Beethoven nearly became the footnote in the history of a puppet king. How the wheels of fate turn!

A decade later, opportunity would once again come knocking. In 1819, Archduke Rudolph of Austria, Beethoven's patron, student, and friend, was made archbishop of Olomouc. Their history of good relations gave Beethoven certain ideas. Rudolph was an archbishop now, and Olomouc would have need of a kapellmeister. Who better than a close friend? Beethoven had too much pride to mention something like this directly to the archbishop during his congratulations. Instead, he dedicated to the archbishop a piece, the Missa Solemnis (op. 123). Was this Beethoven's own way of hinting his desire for the position?

We would have to ask the man himself. For reasons unknown, the new appointed archbishop never did fulfill his beloved teacher's ambition. While Beethoven's disappointment would have been obvious, neither he nor the archbishop allowed this to affect their lifelong friendship. This little saga did lead to the composition of Missa Solemnis, an exquisite silver lining. Beethoven's last chance would be three years later and right on his own doorstep. The Austrian empire's kapellmeister, a plain composer by the name of Anton Teyber, passed away. Beethoven's hopes rose once again, and he wrote several letters to the theater's organizer, offering his services. His abilities were unparalleled, but his connections were nothing to scoff at either. Emperor Francis II was Archduke Rudolph's eldest brother.

Everything seemed like it was falling into place; no one was more qualified, no one was more connected. But in the end, the heavens played on final cruel trick on poor Ludwig. For one reason or another, the palace scrapped the position in its entirety. Beethoven's dream of becoming a kapellmeister died with the position. He was fifty-two at the time, only four years before his own death. Just like this, through what, at times, must have felt like divine intervention, the world's greatest composer did not find stable employment even once in his life, from the day he entered the workforce at eleven to his death at fifty-six. His entire life was filled with uncertainty—contract work, part-time work, minor jobs. Never once did he hold any sort of formal title.

There is a saying that the pitiful must, in some way, be despicable. Beethoven was no different. It was his character or, more accurately, his flaws in character. The problem, of course, is that every great artist is full of character flaws. Without character flaws, would you even call yourself a great artist? The Venn diagram of an artist's greatness and their character defects is a circle, and Beethoven was fortunate enough to hit the jackpot. Unless one understood him from his past to his present, from his body to his mind, from his thoughts to his feelings and unless one understood these things to their very core, they would have no hope of enduring the mental torture of dealing with Beethoven's constant, unremitting mood shifts. They say that familiarity breeds contempt and that great men are destined to be alone. In the case of Beethoven, both these tragedies came to be.

Women loved Beethoven from afar, falling for him through his music; women resented him from up close, unable to handle his strange disposition and moods. Such relationships of love and resentment are doomed to fail. In this regard, Beethoven shoulders much of the responsibility. Who would be able to suffer through his willful temperament? Who would be able to live with someone who would change like the wind without so much as a warning? Unless he could have found a partner that was a deaf mute like him, someone that could put him out of sight, out of mind, relationships were not to last. His temperament and character may forever cemented his name in the annals of musical history, but it was these same things that destroyed any chance he had of ordinary happiness. This was fate, God's will.

We could also see it in his personal ambition. In his early forties, Beethoven was hoping for a permanent union. He hoped for a woman that shared and had affinity with his passions, a woman with a kind heart that he could build a middle-class family with. Only love—yes, only that—has power to give me a happier life. Oh, God! Let me at length find her—her who destined to be mine, who shall strengthen me in virtue! This was a physical and spiritual yearning, but there were other more practical considerations. Beethoven was never a man in good health; beyond his deafness, he often struggled with many other ailments. Beethoven was often plagued with loneliness, and he held a fear of living his life an eternal bachelor. Though he considered his compositions to be his closest, his most intimate friends, the strong Beethoven would occasionally feel sad, lonely, and weak. In 1812, Beethoven wrote the unsigned Immortal Beloved, a letter mysterious to so many that, to this day, it still generates significant academic debate. It is perhaps the most famous love letter in human history. Beethoven's Immortal Beloved is both a declaration of love and a letter of farewell.

It marks the end of Beethoven's dreams of happiness in love; it represents his realization that he was not suitable for marriage or, perhaps, that marriage was not suitable for him. In order to dedicate himself completely to the pursuit of music and in order to fulfill the destiny that his talents had written for him, he had to abandon his pursuit of love in its entirety. One had to make sacrifices, and so Beethoven, alone, began searching for his absolution and eternity in music. Art is above all! You must not be a man like other men: not for yourself, only for others; for you there is no more happiness except in yourself, in your art. O God, give me strength to overcome myself, nothing must hold me to this life (from Beethoven's diary). In both love and career, Johannes Brahms would follow in Beethoven's footsteps decades later.

Beethoven spent his entire life unmarried and most of it alone. Was he happy? This is up to interpretation. I think he was. Like Prometheus stealing fire from the gods, Beethoven sacrificed his own personal happiness to advance his craft. His work would first bring spiritual happiness to millions and, eventually, to all mankind. This is what he would have wanted. Wait a moment. This sounds all too familiar, doesn't it? It sounds like a bad cliché, something that's been repeated ad nauseam. It's something you hear repeated about many great figures, even if it's not entirely unreasonable; we need not linger on this topic for too long.

In practical terms, Beethoven gave up his dreams of ordinary family happiness in order to advance his music. The lost comforts of companionship and family seem distant in comparison to the deep and profound spiritual happiness he gained from his work. This is the comedy in the tragedy. In the end, Beethoven's life wasn't so cruel; this is a life both we, as observers, and Beethoven himself could accept. Different men find happiness, contentment, and self-actualization in different ways. They need only be able to live with themselves. There is no correct way to happiness. The hen pecks at rice is happy, the eagle soars high above and is similarly so. Men are no different. Beethoven's happiness was not perfect nor was it a fairy tale, but it was grand and unparalleled in its own way.

(2013)

Birds of a Feather: Exploring Beethoven's Immortal Beloved (I)

I

Beethoven's Immortal Beloved, our eternal topic!

When Beethoven passed, the friends and family responsible for his estate found some items stashed away in his desk's hidden drawer—namely seven bonds, two ivory figurines, and several letters. Besides the Heiligenstadt Testament which was never sent, there were three other letters, all in Beethoven's own handwriting. They were love letters, but the strange thing was that none of them had the name of the recipient. Even so, it was obvious that they were all intended for the same woman. These letters are dated, but with no year. The assumption is that at least two of them were written within days of each other, one dated at a Monday of July 6 while the other a Tuesday of July 7. None of the letters have an address, and the recipient is simply written as K. The letters, while short, are full of chaotic feeling. Upon reading the letters, only