It’s a cartoon image from my childhood: a man with wild hair, wearing a topcoat, and frantically waving a baton with a deranged look on his face. In fact, this caricature of what a composer should look like was probably inspired by the popular image of Beethoven: moody, distant, a loner… a genius lost in his own world.
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As the native city of composer Ludwig van Beethoven, Bonn seems to be an appropriate location for a meeting of the International Literary and Artistic Association (ALAI); a society dedicated to protecting the interests of creative individuals. ALAI has roots in the 19th century, when in 1878 the French writer Victor Hugo founded the society in order to promote recognition of the legal protection of authors for their intellectual work.
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Since Beethoven’s death on this day 188 years ago, debate has raged as to the cause of his deafness, generating scores of diagnoses ranging from measles to Paget’s disease. If deafness had been his only problem, diagnosing the disorder might have been easier, although his ear problem was of a strange character no longer seen. It began ever so surreptitiously and took over two decades to complete its destruction of Beethoven’s hearing.
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By William Kinderman
Our fascination with creativity is a timeless and universal phenomenon. Since Greek antiquity, its most telling embodiment has been Prometheus: that heroic benefactor of humanity who stole the fire whose vital sparks sustain science and the arts. In more modern times, it is the fire of the imagination that is understood to illuminate and guide the creative mind, transforming the conventions of culture. For Ludwig van Beethoven, at the threshold of the nineteenth century, the challenge retained its force: his first major piece for the stage was the ballet music to “The Creatures of Prometheus,” op. 43. That work in turn became the stepping-stone to a pivotal masterpiece of fiery daring: the Eroica Symphony, completed in 1804.
In the world of art, the notion of a work emerging through long toil and unfailing vision is perhaps most readily associated with sculptors such as Michelangelo or Rodin. A prolonged creative process with intermediate stages in the form of models, studies, sketches, and earlier versions, is illustrated in the work of Leonardo da Vinci and many others. Among writers, one thinks of Goethe’s long preoccupation with Wilhelm Meister or Faust, or Jean Paul Richter’s prolonged work on his novels.

Portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven by Joseph Willibrord Mähler, 1804-1805. Vienna Museum.
Beethoven’s labors on major projects could extend over many years and even decades of his life, with certain compositions serving as stepping-stones toward larger comprehensive efforts. Thus the Choral Fantasy, op. 80, from 1808, acted as a springboard in the achievement of the choral finale of the Ninth Symphony, completed in 1824. Beethoven himself pointed out the affinity, describing the finale as “a setting of the words of Schiller’s immortal ‘
Lied an die Freude’ in the same way as my pianoforte fantasia with chorus, but on a far grander scale.”
In the age of Romanticism, the emphasis on originality and the cult of genius raised the stakes of artistic creativity, and propagated the image of the suffering artist-hero. Beethoven’s reputation for defiant independence fit this heroic image and his handicapped status as a “deaf seer,” in Wagner’s words, made it stick. With Beethoven’s worsening deafness came an inevitable retreat from the concert platform as well as an increasing social isolation. His loss of hearing also impacted his composing methods. As he grew older, Beethoven relied more on written musical sketches and drafts. As a young composer who was also an active keyboard virtuoso and skilled improviser, Beethoven could immediately test ideas at the piano. Increasingly, such exploratory activity was transferred from the piano to his sketchbooks and thereby captured on paper, with the musical sketches sometimes taking on the appearance of notated improvisations.
The legacy of Beethoven’s sketchbooks offers us a rare opportunity to gaze into the workshop of one of the greatest artists. Beethoven made thousands of pages of sketches and drafts for his music in addition to the finished scores, many of which are also full of his changes and corrections. This process of writing traced both the swift arc of the imagination and the very conscious deliberation demanded by specific compositional problems. His unusual and consistent reliance on these papers and attachment to them after use have preserved a detailed record of the creative process.
Beethoven’s commitment to sketching his music was noticed and remarked upon by his contemporaries. Ignaz von Seyfried, for instance, reported that Beethoven “was never found on the street without a small note-book in which he was wont to record his passing ideas. Whenever conversation turned on the subject he would parody Joan of Arc’s words: “I dare not come without my banner!”
How can we best do justice to Beethoven’s legacy and influence in the present day? One imperative is to seek to overcome narrow or overspecialized approaches that sever history from theory, and performance from aesthetics. Such pigeonholing is often encouraged by institutional structures, but often does not help us to grasp the magnitude of Beethoven’s achievement and continuing cultural importance. Beethoven once wrote characteristically about the need for “freedom and progress. . . in the world of art as in the whole of creation.” To refer to his own artistic goal in this context he coined the term Kunstvereinigung or “artistic unification.” Today, two-hundred forty-two years after his birth, Beethoven scholarship is entering its most vigorous stage yet, influencing our contemporary musical and cultural life.
William Kinderman is Professor of Musicology at the University of Illinois – Champaign-Urbana. His books include Beethoven’s “Diabelli” Variations (OUP, 1987), ed., Beethoven’s Compositional Process (Nebraska, 1991), Beethoven (OUP and California, 1995), ed., The Second Practice of Nineteenth-Century Tonality (Nebraska, 1996), Artaria 195: Beethoven’s Sketchbook for the ‘Missa solemnis’ and the Piano Sonata in E Major, Opus 109 (Illinois, 3 vols., 2003), ed. (with Katherine Syer), A Companion to Wagner’s “Parsifal” (Camden House, 2005), ed., The String Quartets of Beethoven (Illinois, 2006), and Mozart’s Piano Music (OUP, 2006). He is also an accomplished pianist whose recordings have been met with global acclaim; his CDs of Beethoven’s last sonatas and Diabelli Variations have appeared with Arietta Records.
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James Ellroy has a portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven mounted above his bed. Inspired by the crime novelist’s love of the great composer, we’ve created a three-hour Spotify playlist collecting James Ellroy’s favorite Beethoven music.
Read more about Ellroy’s favorite classical music here. In an interview, Ellroy once explained: “Classical music brings back the awe of life to me and the essence of drama, and I grew up digging big, thunderous, important (music). And wanting to create it in my own way. Which could only be the word.”
Follow this link to get a Spotify invite for the free service. Once you have an account, check out our Haruki Murakami Spotify playlist, our Patti Smith Spotify playlist, our Geoff Dyer Spotify playlist and our new James Ellroy Spotify playlist.
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Here I am sitting at home on a rainy evening relaxing in my pajamas listening to classical music when all of a sudden a small comment about Beethoven’s last symphony turned into a short heated debate.
“Beethoven’s last symphony sounds very angry. Wow! I never heard this one.” I said.
“I can’t stand it. You put on an act to be high class. No one listens to classical music. You think you are better than everyone else.” John replied.
“What?”
“Stop it with your fantasy world of having that Park Avenue apartment and being cultured. This is what people do at eighty-five years old. Grow up!”
I felt the breath taken out of me. I wanted to yell but instead of fighting, I got up, made myself another cup of tea and went back to my listening. A year of not mentioning anything about my liking of classical music has turned into a mess that I cannot dig myself out of. If I had a choice to hide anything, this would be it. A few moments have gone by and my mind was wrapped around the idea of social classes and what the middle class thought about the upper class.
John has reminded me of how I felt about the upper class and their ignorant personalities with their designer clothing and money when I was 18 and naïve. It wasn’t that I disliked the rich; I just didn’t understand their lifestyle until I was opened up to it. Now, I can’t seem to live without. How wonderful it is to step away from the noise and start listening to cultivated music, participate in relaxing sports such as golf and gambling with the stock market. John has referred to this type of mindset as “boring and materialistic.”

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In a book that I have read many times said that “life should be abundant and beautiful” and I am sure that most of us are familiar with The Secret. What is so wrong with me transferring my thoughts onto something that I imagine and dream about? I fill my thoughts everyday with positive ones that will one day allow me to have an apartment in the city overlooking the park, and enough leisure time to enjoy my life.
What I don’t understand is that why do many Americans gamble with the possibility of winning millions everyday, yet look at the rich as if they are better than everyone else. What I believe is true is that jealousy plays a role and the ones that are ignorant are the ones that think money is the root of all evil and lack of it makes matters worse.

Image via Wikipedia
Here I am sitting at home on a rainy evening relaxing in my pajamas listening to classical music when all of a sudden a small comment about Beethoven’s last symphony turned into a short heated debate.
“Beethoven’s last symphony sounds very angry. Wow! I never heard this one.” I said.
“I can’t stand it. You put on an act to be high class. No one listens to classical music. You think you are better than everyone else.” John replied.
“What?”
“Stop it with your fantasy world of having that Park Avenue apartment and being cultured. This is what people do at eighty-five years old. Grow up!”
I felt the breath taken out of me. I wanted to yell but instead of fighting, I got up, made myself another cup of tea and went back to my listening. A year of not mentioning anything about my liking of classical music has turned into a mess that I cannot dig myself out of. If I had a choice to hide anything, this would be it. A few moments have gone by and my mind was wrapped around the idea of social classes and what the middle class thought about the upper class.
John has reminded me of how I felt about the upper class and their ignorant personalities with their designer clothing and money when I was 18 and naïve. It wasn’t that I disliked the rich; I just didn’t understand their lifestyle until I was opened up to it. Now, I can’t seem to live without. How wonderful it is to step away from the noise and start listening to cultivated music, participate in relaxing sports such as golf and gambling with the stock market. John has referred to this type of mindset as “boring and materialistic.”

Image via Wikipedia
In a book that I have read many times said that “life should be abundant and beautiful” and I am sure that most of us are familiar with The Secret. What is so wrong with me transferring my thoughts onto something that I imagine and dream about? I fill my thoughts everyday with positive ones that will one day allow me to have an apartment in the city overlooking the park, and enough leisure time to enjoy my life.
What I don’t understand is that why do many Americans gamble with the possibility of winning millions everyday, yet look at the rich as if they are better than everyone else. What I believe is true is that jealousy plays a role and the ones that are ignorant are the ones that think money is the root of all evil and lack of it makes matters worse.