Ludwig van Beethoven

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A portrait by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820

Ludwig van Beethoven (baptized December 17 1770, died March 26 1827) was a German composer who lived predominantly in Vienna, Austria. He was a major musical figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras. Beethoven is widely regarded as one of history's greatest composers.

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Sourced [edit]

  • I want to seize fate by the throat.
    • Letter to F.G. Wegeler, 16 November, 1801.
  • There ought to be but one large art warehouse in the world, to which the artist could carry his art-works, and from which he could carry away whatever he needed. As it is, one must be half a tradesman.
    • Conversations (January 1801)
  • Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.
    • As reported by Elizabeth Brentano (Bettina) in a letter to Goethe, May 27, 1810.
    • Quoted in Edwin Burgum The new criticism (1930), p. 179
  • Art! Who comprehends her? With whom can one consult concerning this great goddess?
  • Don't only practise your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine.
    • Letter to Emilie, July 17, 1812.
    • Quoted in Musical news, Vol. 3 (1892), p. 627
  • Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.
    • Notebook entry of late September 1833 (as quoted in Marginalia, 2001, Volume 12, Part 2, p. 65).
  • The world is a king, and like a king, desires flattery in return for favor; but true art is selfish and perverse — it will not submit to the mold of flattery.
    • Conversations (March 1879)
  • Plaudite, amici, comedia finita est. (Applaud, my friends, the comedy is over.)
    • Said on his deathbed, 1827
  • Ich werde im Himmel hören! (I will hear in heaven!)
    • Said on his deathbed, 1827, as cited from the book Last Words.
  • The day-to-day exhausted me!
    • to Karl von Baden, August 23, 1823
  • Muß es sein? Es muß sein.
    • Must it be? It must be.
    • Epigraph to string quartet in F Major, Opus 135.
  • Music is like a dream. One that I cannot hear.
    • Conversations (January 1804)

About Beethoven [edit]

  • Another equally true saying of Schumann is that, compared with Beethoven, Schubert is as a woman to a man. For it must be confessed that one's attitudes towards him is almost always that of sympathy, attraction, and love, rarely that of embarrassment or fear. Here and there only, as in the Rosamund B minor Entr'acte, or the Finale of the 10th symphony, does he compel his listeners with an irrestistible power; and yet how different is this compulsion from the strong, fierce, merciless coercion, with which Beethoven forces you along, and bows and bends you to his will.
    • Sir George Grove in his Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn (London:Macmillan, 1951), p. 238.
  • When his friends, says Czerny, speak to him of his youthful renown, he replies: "Ah, nonsense! I have never thought of writing for renown and glory. What I have in my heart must out; that is why I write."
  • You are going to Vienna in fulfillment of your long-frustrated wishes. The Genius of Mozart is mourning and weeping over the death of her pupil. She has found a refuge but no occupation with the inexhaustible Haydn; through him she wishes to form a union with another. With the help of assiduous labor you shall receive Mozart's spirit from Haydn's hands.
  • Everything will pass, and the world will perish but the Ninth Symphony will remain.
  • A colossus beyond the grasp of most mortals, with his totally uncompromising power, his unsensual and uningratiating way with music as with people.

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