BEETHOVEN, Ludwig van. — Composer, born in Bonn on 17 Dec. 1770, died in Vienna on 26 Mar. 1827. Descended from a family of musicians of Flemish origin, he first studied with his father Johann, a tenor in the electoral chapel, but his true teacher was C. G. Neefe, who introduced him to the rigorous school of J. S. Bach’s *Clavicembalo ben temprato*.
In April 1787 he went to Vienna to study with Mozart, but after only a few lessons he was recalled home because his mother’s illness had worsened and she died in June. Deprived of the comfort of her, whom he called “my best friend,” and head of the family at seventeen (his father, an alcoholic, had been legally interdicted), he found himself alone to face life’s difficulties. His unhappy solitude was somewhat eased by the sincere friendship he found in Bonn with the von Breuning family, the composer F. Ries, and Count Waldstein. In 1792 he settled in Vienna, where he studied for fourteen months with Haydn and, after Haydn’s departure for London, with Albrechtsberger and Salieri until 1802. Thereafter his activity ascended to the highest artistic summits in a marvelous crescendo of productivity and glory until 1815 (Congress of Vienna), when crowned heads of Europe bowed before his genius.
Beethoven was aided and supported by various patrons such as Prince Lichnowsky, Archduke Rudolph, and Prince Rasumovsky, but he stands apart from the character of the court musician, as Haydn and Mozart still were, because he dedicated the work of his free and independent genius solely to the service of art. His final years were particularly tragic, enveloped as they were by deafness, which began in the early 1800s and was complete by 1819, and embittered by the conduct of his nephew Karl, an ungrateful and unworthy object of his paternal care.
Among his compositions, from Op. 1, a set of trios commissioned by Prince Lichnowsky (1793–94), through variations, sonatas, piano concertos, the immortal crown of the nine symphonies, *Fidelio* (his only opera), and the overtures, to the late quartets (Opp. 127–35), in which, after an initial Haydnesque and Mozartian influence, “all the romantic pathos of his titanic genius” vibrates—one must also recall his works of sacred music. A Catholic by birth and upbringing, Beethoven remained always a believer and, for the most part, a practicing one. Faith was the loftiest and purest source of his religiously inspired works, in which, beyond the composer’s excellent technique, one senses the heart of a man who seeks, calls upon, and adores his God.
Beethoven, Ludwig van — Beethoven composing the *Missa solemnis* in D. Painting by Stieler (1819).
First chronologically is an oratorio: *Christus am Ölberge* (Op. 85), composed in 1801–02 for three soloists: Jesus, a seraph, Peter, chorus and orchestra, to a text by F. S. Huber. Though it does not reach the sublime heights of the *Missa solemnis*, it remains important, not least because it earned him, at the end of 1804, a commission from Baron von Braun, owner of the Theater an der Wien, to compose *Fidelio*. Passing over his studies for a Mass in C minor (remaining at the project stage), a funeral song, Op. 195, originally a group of three pieces for four trumpets composed in 1812 and later adapted by Seyfeld to the text of the *Miserere* (4 voices) for performance at Beethoven’s funeral, and other minor works, we shall recall in particular the two Masses: the one in C major, Op. 86 (1807), and the other in D major, Op. 123, the *Missa solemnis* (1818–22). The first, though lacking the cyclic structure of the grand construction elaborated in the Mass in D, is pervaded by a profound faith that clothes the text in inward beauty. The second, conceived for the consecration of Archduke Rudolph and composed when deafness had already completely isolated him in the melodious silence of his soul, is truly Beethoven’s masterpiece for the loftiness of its inspiration and the intensity of its expressive pathos, in the tenderness with which it surrounds the characters and accompanies the announcement of the mysteries, in the grandeur with which, echoing a suffering and troubled humanity, it succeeds in expressing with the powerful voice of its genius the yearning of all mankind for a divine, calming peace. It is the outpouring of the *Agnus Dei* that crowns, with the invocation *Dona nobis pacem*, what Beethoven himself defined as his greatest and most successful work. The purity and sublimity of art and faith, so wonderfully united, shine forth in these simple words of his, which contain an entire program and the secret of a style: “My principal aim in working on the Mass was to awaken the religious sentiment both in the singers and in the listeners, and to make that sentiment lasting.”
The complete edition of Beethoven’s works was prepared by Breitkopf & Härtel (Leipzig 1864).