Ludwig van Beethoven is one of the most celebrated classical composers to ever have lived. His life and his music continue to attract authors who delve into hidden corners of his world in the hope of uncovering a nugget of obscure information.
Musicians the world over devote hours of study to learn to perform Beethoven’s wide catalogue of music. Simultaneously, it seems that Beethoven stands as one of the most tragic and heroic figures of his time. His achievements were monumental yet his suffering intense.
The Romanticism in Beethoven’s Music
What frequently attracts discussion and debate is the time Beethoven was born. His dates cross between two key musical periods; the Classical and the Romantic.
Beethoven was born in 1770, towards the end of WA Mozart’s life, and passed away in 1827 one year before Franz Schubert just as the Russo-Persian War ended.
Beethoven then entered a cultural world that saw Europe at the end of the Classical era. WA Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Antonio Salieri, Carl Maria von Weber, and Johann Hummel were all contemporaries of Beethoven.
Haydn was Beethoven’s mentor for a short while during what might be called his formative years, although some doubt surrounds the exact nature of their time together.
What we do know is that Beethoven dedicated his first three Piano Sonatas (1793-95; Opus 2: the F minor, A major, and the C major) to Joseph Haydn. It seems doubtful to me that Beethoven would have chosen Haydn as a dedicatee had their relationship been a thorny one.
Early Works and Influence
These three sonatas also start us on the road to understanding Beethoven’s style. The influence of Haydn seems unmistakable in these piano works.
While the Beethoven we all know and love is certainly evident, there is the presence of his mentor just in the background. Each of these sonatas shows the traits of the late Classical period.
One difference is that they each have four movements instead of the more common three. Beethoven employs familiar forms and structures in these sonatas.
What we already hear, if we listen carefully, is Beethoven beginning to stretch and flex his musical muscles, testing out the potential of these established structures.
This heritage from Haydn, Hummel, Salieri, and Albrechtsberger is Beethoven’s launch pad from where he quickly propelled himself toward cultural immortality.
This he achieved because of what he was able to do with the foundation he’d been given. It was also his facility for intricate harmony and delicious melodies alongside his astonishing gifts as a performer.
His Radicalism within Classical Framework
Beethoven did not begin from a blank canvas; similarly to JS Bach, he studied hard and worked tirelessly on his art. The Classical forms were never abandoned by Beethoven even in his final works.
Author Charles Rosen succinctly comments in his book “In The Classical Style,” that “Beethoven, indeed, here enlarged the limits of the classical style beyond all previous conceptions, but he never changed its essential structure or abandoned it.”
Where this points us towards Beethoven who was a radical not because he discarded the proverbial baby with the bathwater, but instead, his genius and Romantic leaning happened as an organic part of his development as a composer.
Again, a poignant summary by Charles Rosen, “Beethoven may be said to have remained within the classical framework, even while using it in startlingly radical and original ways.”
Beethoven is frequently felt to be the Father of Romanticism. It almost seems to imply that one day Beethoven awoke with the sole purpose of ushering in a new cultural era. Single-handedly, Beethoven forged a new style out of the ruins of Classicism.
What Beethoven achieved was radical, but this wasn’t his overarching purpose. Beethoven, simply put, was doing his job as a creative individual, looking for new avenues to explore and crafting compositions that he felt were worthy of his high expectations.
Expressive Power of Beethoven’s Music
Where Beethoven succeeds is in that he brilliantly manages to express himself through his works in a way that seems to touch humanity deeply. In this way, he shares a similarity with the music of JS Bach. Beethoven’s music speaks to us, although some works require more work on our part to fully mine the depths of his intentions.
It is this expressive power and muscularity inherent in Beethoven’s music that prompts us to feel he is a Romantic composer. How so many of his compositions reach out over the centuries and still find resonance within us.
What Beethoven’s music is not, to my mind, is a self-indulgent, virtuosic colossus whose sheer audacity and stature pound us into submission. Nothing is wasted in Beethoven’s music. Every fine detail is meticulously crafted again and again like a sculptor diligently carving an unshaped lump of stone.
Cultural and Humanistic Values
Beethoven is a product of the times and culture he was living in. So much was changing during the fifty years he stood on the earth. His beliefs and values were demolished only to be rebuilt with renewed strength.
Beethoven was, to some degree, what we might label a humanist with a firm belief in the human spirit and a passion for unification. This is nowhere better illustrated than in his final symphony; the ninth.
German Romantic painter Caspar Friedrich stated that “the artist’s feeling is his law.” If we accept even partially what Friedrich claims to be a core trait of Romanticism, then we can wrap many of Beethoven’s works in that mantle.
But that is too narrow a channel to pursue as it limits what Beethoven achieved. The characteristics of passionate emotional content and spontaneously expressed feelings are elements not untypical of Romantic literature, art, and music; however, I feel Beethoven is more than this.
Innovation and Legacy
Whilst the seeds of Romanticism can be traced throughout Beethoven’s compositions, it was not their raison d’etre. Beethoven did what he did in a highly individual way because of who he was and the almost unfathomable gifts he possessed.
At times his later works raised more than an eyebrow. Commentators of the time thought that pieces such as his Grosse Fugue, Hammerklavier Sonata, and the Cello Sonata were the rantings of a mad, deaf lunatic. They were simply too far ahead of their time to be comprehended.
In this sense, Beethoven never ceased to strive for something new in his works. The sheer strength of his determination and spirit shine through his compositions in ways that perhaps were not even obvious to him.
Romantic hallmarks litter Beethoven’s music certainly, but what is more important is that it was his incredible innovation and life force that enabled the next generation of composers to forge their pathway through one of the most fascinating eras of Western cultural history.