Freedom is a theme that runs through the life and work of Ludwig van Beethoven. Born in 1770, he was a child prodigy, clumsily marketed as the new Mozart by his abusive, alcoholic father. In 1792, after his beloved mother’s death, he left his hometown of Bonn, Germany never to return.
Beethoven moved to Vienna, the musical capital of Europe, the city of Mozart and Haydn. He quickly made a name for himself as a keyboard virtuoso with a gift for improvisation. His talent and early compositions attracted wealthy patrons like Prince Lichnowsky, who supported and promoted him, and even let him live in his palace.
The late 18th century was a time of political unrest in Europe. When Beethoven was 19, the storming of the Bastille touched off the French Revolution. The continent had been ruled for centuries by royal families and blue bloods. When King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were executed in 1793, the thud of the guillotine struck fear into the heart of every monarch and aristocrat.
Although Beethoven sought the favor and patronage of dukes and princes, he refused to be subservient. He’s said to have written to Lichnowsky: “Prince, you are what you are through the accident of birth; what I am, I am through myself. There have been and will be thousands of princes; there is only one Beethoven.”
A Difficult Person
It’s lucky that Beethoven was a genius; he never would have got by on his personality. Moody, clumsy, slovenly, and subject to fits of rage, he managed to insult and alienate friends as well as patrons.
His messiness was legendary. Visitors were shocked at the sight of dirty clothes and manuscripts strewn on the floor, half-eaten meals on dusty chairs—even an unemptied chamber pot under the piano.
Beethoven’s love life was no better than his housekeeping. He fell for women who were socially out of his league or otherwise unavailable. He proposed marriage to three women that we know of. They all turned him down.
Even as his income and reputation rose, and his music sold like hotcakes, Beethoven’s bouts of depression grew worse. For years he’d been keeping a terrible secret, a musician’s worst nightmare: He was losing his hearing. It began with tinnitus, before he turned 30, and progressed as he aged.
A weaker man might have given in to despair, but Beethoven’s disability energized his genius and his need to achieve all he was capable of before going completely deaf.
Beethoven’s Love (and Hate) for Bonaparte
In 1799, after years of chaos and bloodshed, a coup toppled the French government. Napoleon Bonaparte, a general coming off a series of stunning military victories, came to power.Beethoven must have felt a certain kinship with Napoleon. Born a year apart, both of them rose, by means of hard work and fortitude, from humble origins to success and fame. The young composer hoped that Napoleon would spread republicanism, and Enlightenment ideals throughout Europe.
“Fidelio” has been called “a hymn to freedom and human dignity.” Beethoven, thoroughly disillusioned with revolution, Napoleon, and politics in general, created a work that celebrates liberty and justice on a personal level.
The opera’s setting is the opposite of freedom: a prison. A brave young woman, Leonore, disguises herself as a man infiltrates the dungeon where her husband is unjustly held captive, and rescues him. It’s poignant to realize that this heartfelt tribute to conjugal love and loyalty was composed by a lonely bachelor who never found a wife.
The Ninth Symphony
By 1824 Beethoven was stone-deaf, even as he finished his Ninth and final symphony. Every music lover who could get a ticket showed up for the May 7 premiere. The composer had put his heart, mind, and soul into the work, but he knew he was taking a risk. The symphony was extremely long, well over an hour. The music was complicated and avant-garde, the parts were hard to play, and the addition of singers and a full choir was unheard-of. It was all very new. Was it too new?Beethoven loved the German poet Friedrich Schiller’s “Ode to Joy,” a stirring homage to universal brotherhood and the Creator. He had tried to set it to music since his 20s. Finally he found a place for it in his Ninth Symphony.
Beethoven tried to conduct the premiere, but the musicians had privately agreed to follow the baton of another conductor who stood nearby. The composer couldn’t hear the music, but every note played in his mind, straight through to the thunderous climax where the orchestra blared and the choir belted out Schiller’s inspiring words.
The symphony came to an end and there was silence. Beethoven’s worst fears had come true. The audience didn’t get it. They hated it. All the years he’d spent writing and rewriting—wasted. He’d put every ounce of his knowledge and genius into a piece nobody would ever understand or enjoy.
A Legacy
For 200 years the ovations have continued. Beethoven’s Ninth has become a symbol of freedom and unity, played at great public occasions. The fourth movement’s “Ode to Joy” turns up everywhere, from the Olympics to TV commercials. Every December a staggering 10,000 singers gather in Japan to sing it.The “Ode to Joy” became the Rhodesian national anthem in the 1970s. In 1985, it was adopted as the official anthem of the European Union.
Leonard Bernstein conducted an especially memorable performance in Berlin in 1989. With an orchestra and choir drawn from West and East Germany, the event celebrated the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of Iron Curtain communism.
For that historic concert, Bernstein changed one word in the “Ode to Joy.” He replaced “Freude” (joy) with “Freiheit” (freedom). Hearing that huge choir exultantly sing, “Freedom! Thou beautiful spark of God!” brought viewers and listeners to tears, all over the world.
