The magic of the music of a man who lived a troubled life

Name a flower -- rose. Name a colour -- red. Name a composer -- Beethoven. Name the one thing about Beethoven -- he was deaf. There should be no mystery in the world’s enduring romance with a deaf composer: to write magical music and be unable to hear it oneself seems the saddest fate imaginable. But his childhood and later life were sadder still. Beethoven’s father, Johann, was a mediocre, insecure, alcoholic court musician under whom Beethoven learnt music but suffered an abusive childhood. Family and friends regularly saw the young boy at home standing beside the clavier and crying. Young Beethoven grew up shy and reclusive, often monosyllabic, and socially inept and maladroit. The boy had suffered and so was moved by the suffering of others; he felt called to help when he could. For the rest of his life, Beethoven was to see his music as the best kind of healing he could offer.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), the German composer and pianist, remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music, and his works amongst the most performed of the classical music repertoire. Beethoven’s heart-breaking deafness that crept upon him, underlies the entire Beethoven legend, turning his not-so-ordinary life into a journey of struggle and transcendence. He did not suddenly become deaf; rather he experienced a slow, uneven decline in his ability to hear that continued till he was near complete deaf. Beethoven’s discovery of his deafness was all the more poignant because he was young and at the time at the pinnacle of his success. Had he been able to hear, he probably would have become a great composer; his deafness made him the greatest composer.

A great part of Beethoven’s work is of permanent value. Most music aficionados would agree that Beethoven’s music is greater than any other music, ever since it appeared. Its greatness arising from what each listener, in her own way, experiences and might best describe as its spiritual (of the spirit) content; something that the listener perceives directly, although she may be entirely unable to articulate it. It is only the very greatest kind of artist who presents us with experiences that we recognise as both primordial and unlike anything we have hitherto known. With such art we make contact, even if for a moment, with what Shakespeare describes as “the prophetic soul of the wide world/Dreaming on things to come”. It is to this kind of art that Beethoven’s music belongs, and it is, perhaps, the greatest in that kind. The spiritual essence of life, as presented by Beethoven, resonates with our deepest experiences; and the solution he presents is one consistent with our loftiest aspirations. His music has the note of authenticity. Its sorrow is real, and so is its heroism.

Beethoven was a deeply troubled man, torn between his idealism about human nature and the misanthropic, spiteful nature of being human; split between the spiritual writer of the Missa Solemnis and the solitary man who wandered the streets of Vienna at night in loneliness. Yet, neurotic though he was for most of his life, he was in love with his music, answering to his true calling to fully express the gift that was his. Midway through his life, he wrote to a friend: “Before my departure for the Elysian Fields, I must leave behind what the eternal spirit has infused into my soul…”; and he truly did, by following his dharma.

It should be no surprise that Beethoven was deeply inspired by his reading of the Bhagavad Gita. In the psychological turmoil that his life had become, he scoured the world’s great literature, found the Gita and held steadfastly to its wisdom, scribbling the following quote from it in his personal diary: “Blessed is the man who, having subdued all his passions, performs with his active faculties his duty, unconcerned about the result… with equanimity”. Through his music, Beethoven discovered that his work was mightier than his suffering; and through the pursuit of his luminous music, he gave light to the world.

Read Beethoven, a masterful biography by Maynard Solomon, original in its interpretation of his life and work. As he lay dying, Beethoven momentarily opened his eyes, lifted his right hand, clenched it into a fist, and died; an exemplar of courageous struggle. Beethoven’s battleground is harmony, where music works through inner divisions and conflict, giving the world a new way of dealing with doubt and despair. Listen to his Ninth Symphony, concluding with the glorious Ode to Joy. Better still, listen to Piano Sonata Opus 110, truly the music of a seer -- wildly free, liberating, brilliant in form; and signifying ultimately, the triumph of light over darkness. It just might touch a part of you that nothing else can reach.