Music / Ludwig van Beethoven

"There are many princes and there will continue to be thousands more, but there is only one Beethoven."

— The man himself.

German composer (c. 17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) of Classical Music, generally considered one of the most talented and influential of all time.

Born in Bonn to a family of Flemish origin (that's why it's van Beethoven, not von, and he's not a nobleman; the Dutch "van" is no indication of nobility, although Beethoven was known to use the confusion to his social advantage), he moved to Vienna in the 1790s, at first attracting attention for his virtuoso piano performances. His earlier compositions were accomplished but derivative pieces (on the surface, at least) in the Classical Era style of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Then he started to go deaf, and everything changed. He began to compose dramatic, emotional works on a scale far larger than anything most musicians had worked on before. They eventually laid the foundation for the Romantic Era of music.

Beethoven wrote music in a wide variety of genres, including a single opera, Fidelio. He is most famous, however, for his symphonies. Symphony No. 5 in C minor is filled with spectacular moments, the whole first movement even being on the Voyager Golden Record. His epic and inspirational Symphony No. 9 in D minor, first performed in 1824 when Beethoven was almost completely deaf, has become one of the world's most famous musical works, eventually becoming the anthem of The European Union. Thanks to Pop-Cultural Osmosis, you probably know the "Ode to Joy" from the fourth movement, even if you've never heard the rest of the symphony.

Throughout the 19th century, Beethoven's works were upheld among even the greatest composers as the impossibly-high standard one should always try to strive to match, even if one could never succeed in doing so. Franz Schubert went into a kind of compositional paralysis after he heard a Beethoven symphony, believing much of his own work was no longer worth pursuing when something that great was out there. Richard Wagner, whose ego was as large as Germany itself and someone who never hesitated to tell everyone how great he was, could only bring himself to proclaim that he was the successor to Beethoven, not Beethoven's equal or better — but significantly, never attempted a symphony or a string quartet or any of the genres Beethoven was most famous for.

Beethoven may have been an alien spy. Or possibly a Time Lord. Or maybe even you!

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Tropes present in Beethoven's works:

• Affectionate Parody: The 8th Symphony exaggerates many tropes in early classical symphonies. The first movement has excessive tremolos throughout. The third movement is a pompous minuet. The finale is almost too fast to be unplayable in its proper tempo. The second movement mimics the metronome and has a sudden fortissimo like in Joseph Haydn's 94th Symphony ("Surprise").
• Avian Flute:
  • The slow movement of the 6th Symphony ("Pastoral") ends by depicting several birds calling to each other. A flute, oboe, and clarinet imitate a nightingale, quail, and cuckoo respectively.
  • Occurs during the Credo in the Missa Solemnis, specifically during the Immaculate Conception. Representing the Holy Spirit with the flute goes back to the middle ages in the Catholic Mass.
• Bathos: The 4th Symphony is famous for its dark and brooding introduction. However, the first movement proper arrives with a jubilant tone and a quirky melody. The rest of the symphony remains mostly jovial throughout. The contrasting introduction and remaining symphony shows a sense of humor and dramatic subversion similar to Haydn's practical jokes.
• Boléro Effect: Ode To Joy starts with the theme played quietly by the double basses. It gets richer and louder as other strings and horns gradually join in, up to a triumphant explosion of the main theme by a full orchestra.
• Bookends: The famous 7th Symphony slow movement begins and ends with an A minor chord from the woodwinds and horns.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • The "Eroica" Symphony, which he dedicated to Napoleon because he thought he represented all the good ideals of the French Revolution. When he got the news that Napoleon declared himself emperor, he scratched out the dedication so violently that he slashed a hole in the paper.
  • He was a HUGE fan of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and adapted many of his works to lieder and wrote incidental music for his play Egmont. When the two finally met in Bohemia in 1812, they initially got along, but disliked each other after a short period; Beethoven thought Goethe "delighted far too much in the court atmosphere"^note Beethoven was famously anti-establishment and pro-French Revolution and was too willing to kowtow to the nobility, while Goethe found Beethoven too uncontrolled and disrespectful.
• Deaf Composer: Trope Namerinvoked and at least an honorary Trope Codifier.
• Easter Egg:
  • The second movement trio of the 9th Symphony has a subject alluding to the Ode to Joy theme, which eventually appears at the finale.
  • The first movement of the 9th Symphony has a subordinate subject that alludes to Ode to Joy.
  • Even the first movement of the "Hammerklavier" sonata has a brief moment sounding like Ode to Joy early in the development section. Blink and you'll miss it.
  • "Es Ist Vollbracht", the aria from Johann Sebastian Bach's St. John Passion on the death of Jesus, shows up several times as musical quotations, including the 3rd Cello Sonata and the 31st Piano Sonata.
  • The second theme group of the "Pathetique" sonata finale is a motif paired down from the first theme group. This motif cycles through different keys and species counterpoint, a reference to Gradus Ad Parnassum and other counterpoint textbooks.
• Everything Is an Instrument: The overture "Wellington's Victory" calls for groups of muskets and cannons to exchange fire, depicting the battle rather literally.
• Everyone Knows Morse: The opening theme of the 5th Symphony ("da da da DUM") coincidentally matches the Morse Code for the letter "V", so it was popularly played by the Allies during World War II to signify "Victory."
• For Happiness: The recitative of the 9th Symphony, set to snippets of Schiller's Ode to Joy, is about happiness being the right and desire of every human being.
• Hero-Worshipper:
  • Beethoven created his 3rd Symphony with the life of Napoléon Bonaparte in mind, viewing Napoleon as a rebel hero during The French Revolution. When the Frenchman went all A God Am I and declared himself emperor, Beethoven lost it - he seized the title page of his work and crossed out Napoleon's name so violently that the paper tore - and renamed the symphony "Eroica" instead of "Bonaparte". He re-dedicated it as "[A] Heroic Symphony, written to celebrate the memory of a great man", which might be read as Beethoven declaring that Bonaparte was dead to him, but when Bonaparte actually died, Beethoven remarked, "I wrote the music for this sad event seventeen years ago," referring to the second movement of the symphony - the Funeral March.
  • Mozart had a profound impact on Beethoven. In fact, in his earliest efforts to compose, Beethoven feared he was plagiarising Mozart by mistake; he once thought he borrowed from one of Mozart's symphonies and slightly altered the passage. Also, it is said that during his years as a prodigy, Beethoven came to Vienna hoping to study under Mozart's tutelage. Beethoven soon met his musical hero, who later asked him to play something for him. Beethoven began to play the opening of one of Mozart's concertos, but Mozart stopped him and said anyone could play that. He then asked Beethoven to play something of his own and provided a theme to improvise on at the prodigy's request. When Beethoven finished performing for him, Mozart went to the next room and told his friends^note One of whom was fellow composer Antonio Salieri, who was also Beethoven's teacher: "Watch out for that boy. One day he will give the world something to talk about."
• La Résistance: The 5th Symphony first movement was likely inspired by "nous jurons tous" from Cherubini's Hymn of the Pantheon, a choral work glorifying the martyrs of the French Revolution. "Nous jurons tous" even has the same "da da da DUM" rhythm. The 5th Symphony itself could be seen as such, with a French veteran even shouting, "The Emperor lives!" when hearing the last movement.
• Let's See YOU Do Better!: Wellington's Victory is typically seen as absolutely horrible, especially by Beethoven's standards. His response to all the criticism was, "What I shit is better than anything you could think up!" He was probably right.
• Meaningful Funeral: Numerous funeral marches are in Beethoven's music though they seem to be more about death as part of the human condition than the death of any specific person. The most famous include the second movement of the Eroica Symphony, the third movement of 12th Piano Sonata, and the funeral dirge climaxing the first movement of the 9th Symphony. Also applies to Beethoven's own funeral, one of the largest and most attended funerals in Vienna at the time.
• Mundane Made Awesome: The Diabelli Variations are based on a waltz tune by Anton Diabelli that's generally agreed to be a pretty dull, conventional melody. Beethoven's variations, however, are astonishingly complex pieces of piano showmanship in a vast array of styles from serious to comical to elaborate counterpoint that rivals Johann Sebastian Bach.
• No Poker Face:
  • Averted by Beethoven himself but played straight in posthumous depictions of him. Contemporaries commented that he had an impassive face with piercing eyes. Future generations would depict Beethoven as a codifier of the wild genius Romantic trope.
  • A variation of this trope also applies to Beethoven's piano playing, which heavily emphasized substance over style. Beethoven would keep his fingers flat and simply press down on the keys to create dramatic effects, his body and hands seeming to barely move. An older observer noted how Beethoven gave each voice a clear unique sound like how Johann Sebastian Bach did. Later composers and codifiers of Romantic music like Franz Liszt would not follow Beethoven's example.
• One-Woman Song: "Für Elise" is an instrumental piano piece well known by the name of the woman it was dedicated to. ^note Ask a music scholar who exactly Elise was, though, and you'll set off a lively argument. The most widely accepted theory is that "Elise" is a nickname for Therese Malfatti, but there are several other Thereses and Elisabeths who have been suggested as the dedicatee.
• Orchestral Bombing:
  • Much of his music, especially the symphonies, has a grand and heroic sound that works very well for this trope.
  • Wellington's Victory plays it quite literally with a battery of percussion instruments and other effects meant to simulate the sound of a battlefield. The score actually calls for live cannon and musket fire not unlike Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture.
• Out-of-Genre Experience: A large set of arrangements of Irish, Scottish, and Welsh folk songs leave some critics scratching their heads, but he took a lot of time and care over them (of course the generous commission didn't hurt, either). In fact, the trope might even be inverted considering that by the numbers, he wrote more folk song arrangements than any other genre.
  • A significant amount of early works lie outside the usual symphony, concerto, sonata, quartet genres: the Creatures of Prometheus ballet, various wind ensembles, dances, serenades, and variations on popular tunes of the day.
  • Our sense of musical genres may be skewed because only the most notable works survive in popular memory. An 18th-19th century composer probably devoted much of their time writing more commonplace music, with grand orchestral works being special ventures needing large amounts of time, effort, and preparation.
• The Perfectionist: Beethoven's scores and sketches are famously filled with violently scrawled crossings-out and corrections in search of the exact right notes. Naturally, it paid off.
• Properly Paranoid: Somewhat justified. Beethoven was secretive about music he had not yet published and his creative methods overall... in an age when copyright did not exist and a place where literally thousands of musicians competed with each other. He never directly taught his students how to compose, preferring they learn from him by example. In one instance, he played for his pupil Ferdinand Reis the Andante Favori movement of the Waldstein Sonata, a slow movement that wound up on the cutting room floor but was later published separately. Reis played it for Beethoven's patron Prince Lichnowsky, who then later played it for Beethoven. Beethoven refused to ever play in front of Reis again, even when Reis was leaving for England to possibly never return to Vienna. A smaller example is when Beethoven was drafting music in Heilegenstadt with his apartment window open, and a woman would go out in the garden complex to hear him play. Once Beethoven saw her spying on him, he shut the windows, and she never heard him again.
• Quality over Quantity: Unlike his sometime teacher, Haydn, who wrote more than a hundred symphonies, and the person who he wanted to study under, Mozart, who wrote a few dozen, Beethoven only wrote nine (nobody ever counts Wellington's Victory among the canonical ones). Then again, a typical Beethoven symphony is of much greater size and complexity than anything Mozart or Haydn did. Also due in part from Beethoven's patronage situation. He worked freelance, and organizing concerts was very difficult for composers not employed under a noble family like, for example, Haydn under the Esterházys.
• Retronym: The Moonlight Sonata was given that name in 1832 five years after Beethoven's death by a music critic who compared the first movement to moonlight shining upon Lake Lucerne, a location Beethoven is not documented as having visited personally. If anything, the ''Moonlight" first movement was inspired by funeral march music, specifically the number the Commandatore in Don Giovanni sings as he is dying.
• Revised Ending:
  • The 2nd Piano Concerto major went through many revisions before it was finally published in 1795. One revision was changing the finale of the Concerto. The original finale has all the seamless grace of a Mozart Rondo, and it was indeed inspired by Mozart's 22nd Piano Concerto, but Beethoven thought another finale worked better.
  • The 13th String Quartet originally ended with the Große Fuge, which was forward-looking centuries ahead but poorly received by a bewildered early 19th century audience. Mathias Artaria, Beethoven's publisher, thought it best to publish the Fugue separately and give the Quartet an alternate ending. Beethoven surprisingly agreed for all sorts of speculated reasons; maybe he needed the money, or he wanted to satisfy the critics or thought the Fugue best worked as its own piece. Either way, the new finale resembles the style of Joseph Haydn in its rustic, relatively cheerful character. And Beethoven may have had other reasons for changing the Große Fuge finale. This trope almost became a fact with the 9th Symphony itself. Beethoven considered replacing the "Ode to Joy" with a more conventional finale while making the Ode a separate work. Beethoven tried different finales throughout his career, experimenting with how best to balance and conclude a work. Perhaps Beethoven still had mixed feelings when the Große Fuge premiered, thinking the Fugue was too large and overshadowed the rest of the Quartet, and therefore he felt another finale was more appropriate.
  • As said above, Beethoven came close to replacing Ode to Joy of the 9th Symphony for a purely orchestral D minor finale. The finale later became the Allegro Appassionato movement of the 15th String Quartet.
• Romanticism: Regarded as a Trope Codifier by contemporaries and future generations. Inverted in Beethoven's own attitude towards his later compositions. He actually went deeper into Baroque counterpoint and Classical structures during his Late Period, avoiding the program music, supernatural literary themes, nationalism, and smaller structures of Romantic music.
• Sense Loss Sadness: Described in poignant detailinvoked in his "Heiligenstadt Testament". He reveals that as he progressively lost his hearing, he was nearly Driven to Suicide, but fortunately for everyone, he finally resolved to keep composing anyway.
• Small Reference Pools: If a famous classical composer needs to make an appearance in some work, odds are pretty good it will be Beethoven, with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart a close second.
• Spiritual Antithesis:
  • Beethoven was prone to compose pieces that starkly contrast each other. The most notable example includes the 5th Symphony and 6th Symphony. Both works are built from a similar rhythmic idea, but one is compact and potent with concentrated energy emphasized over orchestral color, while the other is expansive and lyrical with programmatic elements.
  • Another is the contrast between the 5th Symphony and 4th Piano Concerto. Both more obviously derive from the same rhythmic cell, but the 4th Piano Concerto is more emotionally nuanced and narratively meandering.
  • With pieces written in succession, Beethoven often followed an ambitious and emotionally heavy piece with a more lighthearted and humorous one. The jovial 4th Symphony is very different next to the epic Eroica Symphony and imposing 5th Symphony. The composer Robert Schumann aptly described the 4th Symphony as a slender maiden in between two giants.
  • The 8th Symphony is smaller in scale and focuses on witty parodies of classical music tropes, unlike the frenzied 7th Symphony and monumental 9th Symphony.
  • The first three Piano Sonatas vary greatly in their character. The 1st Piano Sonata is dark and impassioned, Beethoven wanting to make a strong first impression. The 2nd Piano Sonata is warm, lyrical, and humorous. The 3rd Piano Sonata is brilliant, excessive, and virtuosic.
  • The 13th Piano Sonata and 14th Piano Sonata are both in the manner of fantasias, but the 13th Piano Sonata has a wider though mellower pallette of emotions while the 14th Piano Sonata is the brooding "Moonlight."
• Standard Snippet:
  • There is recent recognition that the introduction to Eroica Symphony falls under this category.
  • The 5th Symphony (Da da da DUMMM!). During World War II, the first measure was an Allied Leitmotif, its four notes matching the Morse Code for "V" (for Victory). And the irony of using Germany's greatest composer against the Germans.
  • Moonlight Piano Sonata. The first movement is probably best known to 8-bit-era gamers as "the Jet Set Willy theme". Resident Evil also featured the first movement of this piece.
  • The "Ode to Joy" from 9th Symphony is the official anthem of the European Union. Die Hard and A Clockwork Orange too.
  • "Für Elise", a short piece for solo piano (which wasn't published until after Beethoven died).
  • The Ruins of Athens finale eventually evolved into the Mexican hat dance.
• Stock Unsolved Mysteries: The identity of the "Immortal Beloved", the subject of a passionate three-part love letter written in Beethoven's hand, remains the subject of ferocious debate among music historians. It has also inspired several works of fiction, perhaps most notably the 1994 Bio Pic Immortal Beloved, in which the recipient is Beethoven's sister-in-law, the mother of his nephew. Most experts today think either Antonie Brentano or Josephine Brunsvick was the most likely intended recipient.
• Surpassed the Teacher: His teacher Joseph Haydn was one of the most celebrated composers of his day and is still very highly regarded. Nevertheless, Beethoven achieved a level of creative accomplishment and notoriety that outstripped him.
• Toilet Humor: The quirky 2nd Symphony finale has inside jokes of Beethoven's digestive problems.
• Urban Legend: The story of Beethoven defacing the title page of the Eroica Symphony in a rage over Napoleon often gets exaggerated in the retelling. Contrary to some accounts, Beethoven did not rip the score in half, stomp on it, or throw it in the fire; he did, however, cross out Bonaparte's name so violently that the pen ripped through the page. (It can be seen here◊.)
• Work Info Title: Many of his compositions have simple, straight-forward titles like "Symphony No. 9". Here's a complete list.

Portrayals:

Anime & Manga:

• Read or Die: In the OVA, one of Beethoven's symphonies drives anyone who listens to it to suicide, making it a double case of Literary Work of Magic and a literal Beethoven Was an Alien Spy. Earlier researchers who examined the music killed themselves, but the I-Jin were drama queens. Hence why their method consisted of a clone of him flying around on a massive rocket-powered steam organ.

Films — Live-Action:

• Eroica (1949). Played by Ewald Balser.
• Napoléon (1955). Played by Erich von Stroheim.
• Immortal Beloved (1994). Played by Gary Oldman.
• Copying Beethoven (2006). Played by Ed Harris.
• Louis Van Beethoven (2020). Played by Tobias Moretti (adult) and Anselm Bresgott (teenager).

Western Animation:

• In an episode of Animaniacs, the Warner Siblings are chimney sweeps and come to clean his chimney. While they're at it, they keep humming the first notes of the (not yet composed) Fifth Symphony which he's working on, annoying him to no end. By the end, he turns that humming's melody into the symphony's beginning.

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