The deafness of Beethoven: a paradigm of hearing problems

International Archives of Otorhinolaryngology, 2009

Introduction: Ludwig van Beethoven, one of the greatest composers in History, was tormented for his whole life by a progressive deafness without definitive diagnosis. Many authors published studies about the etiologic possibilities of the deafness of the music genius with different explanations about his auditory loss. In this work, the author discusses the implications of Beethoven's progressive deafness to the creation of his word, as well as etiologic assumptions of his disease. Would Beethoven have had the same ingeniousness he showed in his symphonies if he did not have hypacusis and tinnitus? What is the influence of his deafness on his work and life? Could he have had a more precise diagnosis and specially a treatment nowadays? Would we have the brilliant composer if he had deafness today? We surely could not have!

BMJ, 2012

Beethoven's deafness and his three styles Edoardo Saccenti and colleagues chart the relation between the composer's deafness and his compositions Edoardo Saccenti postdoctoral research fellow 1 2 , Age K Smilde full professor 1 2 , Wim H M Saris full professor 2 3

A translation of Andreas Wawruch's review of Beethoven's final illness which in 1842 was published in the Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunst, Literatur, Theater und Mode. This is accompanied by a detailed commentary on Wawruch's report, a short biographical sketch of Wawruch and a commentary on Beethoven's medical condition and alcohol consumption.

4open

Background: During his life, Beethoven faced a lot of personal problems and diseases that could lead to a prolonged period of serious mental disorder. The aim of this work is to study the link between the distribution of pitch frequencies observed in 101 movements of 32 sonatas and four periods of his compositional style. Methods: The 32 sonatas for piano were chosen because they were composed during the three periods usually considered to reflect Beethoven’s career. A hierarchical generalized additive model was performed to regress the frequency of pitches with Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) pitches, periods of composition, degrees, rests, and length of the sonata’s movements. Results: The median frequency of pitches was higher during Beethoven’s time of mental distress. This period appeared as transitory between the bright Promethean period and the fullness of the final Ethereal period. This change in the expression of Beethoven’s creativity could well have played the...

2017

When the piano builder André Stein persuaded Beethoven to construct a Gehörmaschine in 1820, the foundations of what is now known as the science of acoustics had yet to be fully laid. The German scientist Hermann von Helmholtz would not publish his On the Sensations of Tone until 1863, followed in England by Lord Rayleigh's The Theory of Sound in 1877. That was the era when the first electro-acoustic devices-loudspeakers, microphones and telephones-were being conceived by inventors like Alexander Graham Bell, Werner von Siemens, and Thomas Edison. Yet long before those cornerstone scientific works appeared, certain professionals must have had a good intuitive approach to the behavior of sound. Violin makers, organ and piano builders, and other musical instrument manufacturers were probably among the most knowledgeable in acoustic matters because of the hands-on experience they had acquired over the years in their workshops. While they did not yet understand that sound propagates like waves, they would certainly have realized that one can guide sound traveling in air toward a certain direction by letting it bounce off hard surfaces. Many early pianos and harpsichords

2024

Notes, 2020

Routledge Companion to Beethoven, 2006

2018

In the fall of 1802, Beethoven's anxiety over his loss of hearing reached a crisis point. Deafness would mean he could no longer play or perform in public, and also would have to withdraw from Viennese society. For a gifted composer filled with good will towards his fellow men, this was the most unjust punishment of all. While composing a ballet score in 1801, Beethoven had absorbed the legend of the Titan Prometheus. To punish him for stealing divine fire and bringing it to men, Zeus had Prometheus chained to a rock, where each day an eagle gnawed out his liver. Prometheus regenerated himself overnight, refused to buckle under to Zeus, and endured until Hercules set him free. This book documents the little-known story of how Beethoven drew inspiration from Prometheus' story, relying upon a little-known 1802-03 sketchbook ("Wielhorsky") that ended up in Moscow and was published only in 1962. Transforming the music he wrote for the ballet, Beethoven surmounted his deafness, broke free of the classical mold and composed the Eroica Symphony, a masterpiece which changed the course of music forever. Read less

Ninetenth-Century Music Review, 2021

2020 was a banner year for Beethoven, with several concerts and events (mostly online, due to Covid-19) celebrating his 250th birthday. It was also a banner year for Jeremy Yudkin, who published not one but two volumes on Beethoven, presumably on the occasion of that semiquincentennial. One volume he edited-The New Beethoven (a de facto festschrift for Lewis Lockwood 1); the other he authored-Beethoven's Beginnings. The otherwise curious omission of an essay by Yudkin in the former is made good by the latter, an expansive account of the various and sundry ways in which Beethovenand also Haydn and Mozart, from whom he took inspirationcommenced his works. Yudkin is a generous and versatile scholar, as evidenced both by his catalogue of books, which runs the gamut from Medieval music to jazz, and by Beethoven's Beginnings itself, which surveys a wealth of works by the Viennese-Classical triumvirate and which purveys many sensitive insights couched in lively prose. It is a testament to the author's enviable conversancy with this entire corpus and with a motley of scholarly disciplines in addition to historical musicologyto wit, the first chapter covers rhetoric, literature, literary theory, and cognitive science. Indeed, Yudkin's intellectual interests are as catholic as those of the composer he celebrates. 2 Since Yudkin's is a lengthy, diffuse tome, a précis of its most salient points might be welcome. 1 The New Beethoven: Evolution, Analysis, Interpretation (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2020). 2 Yudkin usefully enumerates many of the items in Beethoven's library (p. 27), the breadth of which points to Beethoven's voracious intellectual appetite.