Composing while deaf??

[blueangelsrule]

All of you on this Beethoven site provide such wonderful support--it's much appreciated....can anyone lead me to more information regarding Beethoven composing such incredible music (the Ninth Symphony?) while he was deaf? when exactly did he go totally deaf? what music did he compose after he was deaf? was he deaf when he composed the Ninth Symphony? I think I heard it said that Beethoven could clearly hear in his mind the entire orchestra playing a tune he was developing--is this true?

[Beyond Within]

according to Maynard solomon in his book on beethoven the deafness only effected him socially. It actually made the music stronger because it was one of the few things he could focus on.

[spaceray]

Beethoven became deaf and then depressed! Have you ever read his letter "The Heiligenstadt Testament" I'm sure it is posted here on this site.Beethoven did not stay depressed for long tho' as the commissions came rolling in he had to get busy composing.Publishers fought for his works and paid any price he asked.

[melvyn]

Originally posted by blueangelsrule:
All of you on this Beethoven site provide such wonderful support--it's much appreciated....can anyone lead me to more information regarding Beethoven composing such incredible music (the Ninth Symphony?) while he was deaf? when exactly did he go totally deaf? what music did he compose after he was deaf? was he deaf when he composed the Ninth Symphony? I think I heard it said that Beethoven could clearly hear in his mind the entire orchestra playing a tune he was developing--is this true?

Yes it must be true. It would not be possible to compose the music unless he could hear it in his own mind. You don't need ears to hear your own music, of course, as it's already inside your head.

What I always found incredible is that Beethoven 'heard' all his later works in his mind only, and (fortunately for us) he was able to write down what he 'heard' in the form of sheet music, so that when those written instructions were later performed by an orchestra, we would be able to hear what he 'heard' in his mind.

But how do we know that we hear what he 'heard'? Beethoven was entombed in his own silent world and had no way of knowing that what he was writing down on paper was going to sound the same as he was 'hearing' it in his head. He had no way of checking that what he was writing down was correct. Yet I do not know of any obvious mistakes in any of his works, no wrong notes etc. That seems like quite an incredible feat to me. Does anybody know of any possible mistakes?

I would imagine that there are a lot of composers who, on hearing their work performed for the first time would say to themselves 'Hmm that's not quite how I imagined it to sound, I think I'll make a few alterations here and there'. But Beethoven never had such an opportunity to check the performance of his later works, and whether what he had written down was a faithful copy of what he intended.

We can only assume that we are hearing his works as he intended them to sound. Did he get everything right? Are there any obvious blunders that could perhaps be attributed to his deafness, or errors of transcription.

It would amaze me if he wrote all those millions of notes, and didn't make a single mistake.

Melvyn.

[Peter]

Originally posted by melvyn:

We can only assume that we are hearing his works as he intended them to sound. Did he get everything right? Are there any obvious blunders that could perhaps be attributed to his deafness, or errors of transcription.

It would amaze me if he wrote all those millions of notes, and didn't make a single mistake.

Melvyn.

Beethoven didn't make musical mistakes when composing! His publishers did and there are many letters indicating Beethoven's fury to his publishers and copyists. Every note is as he intended and heard in his head - it really isn't such an unimaginable feat as many musicians are capable of reading a score and hearing the music in their head. Beethoven wasn't a slapdash composer, despite the illegible scrawl of the sketches - he was incredibly painstaking and passage after passage would be gone over and reworked till he arrived at the desired effect, like a sculptor chiselling away.

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'Man know thyself'

[Peter]

Originally posted by blueangelsrule:
All of you on this Beethoven site provide such wonderful support--it's much appreciated....can anyone lead me to more information regarding Beethoven composing such incredible music (the Ninth Symphony?) while he was deaf? when exactly did he go totally deaf? what music did he compose after he was deaf? was he deaf when he composed the Ninth Symphony? I think I heard it said that Beethoven could clearly hear in his mind the entire orchestra playing a tune he was developing--is this true?

Beethoven first noticed signs of deafness as a young man around 1797 - the deterioration was slow but progressive. Beethoven would have been almost completely deaf whilst working on the 9th and the Missa Solemnis in 1823. After this came the great last string quartets - many found them incomprehensible and put this down to Beethoven's deafness - posterity has realised their mistake and they are now regarded as the crowning pinnacle of classical chamber music.

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'Man know thyself'

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by Peter:
Beethoven didn't make musical mistakes when composing! His publishers did and there are many letters indicating Beethoven's fury to his publishers and copyists. Every note is as he intended and heard in his head - it really isn't such an unimaginable feat as many musicians are capable of reading a score and hearing the music in their head. Beethoven wasn't a slapdash composer, despite the illegible scrawl of the sketches - he was incredibly painstaking and passage after passage would be gone over and reworked till he arrived at the desired effect, like a sculptor chiselling away.

Unless I'm wrong, I think I've read that Beethoven sometimes worked by discarding sections and replacing them with others. This would be more analogous to what a sculptor does with a clay model - by the time the marble is begun, the sculptor had better know pretty much what he intends or he'll waste a valuable piece of stone. I don't mean to nitpick here, but I think for an artist who struggles like Beethoven, the earlier stages of a work are more likely to have major changes, as opposed to the later changes, which by and large would be smaller (not all the time though). Or as opposed to someone like Mozart, who heard the whole thing in his head as it would be when written out. And I don't think this intense reworking process in Beethoven was due to his deafness, but to the conceptions he was wrestling to bring forth.



[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited August 19, 2003).]

[Amalie]

Originally posted by Chaszz:
Unless I'm wrong, I think I've read that Beethoven sometimes worked by discarding sections and replacing them with others. This would be more analogous to what a sculptor does with a clay model - by the time the marble is begun, the sculptor had better know pretty much what he intends or he'll waste a valuable piece of stone. I don't mean to nitpick here, but I think for an artist who struggles like Beethoven, the earlier stages of a work are more likely to have major changes, as opposed to the later changes, which by and large would be smaller (not all the time though). Or as opposed to someone like Mozart, who heard the whole thing in his head as it would be when written out. And I don't think this intense reworking process in Beethoven was due to his deafness, but to the conceptions he was wrestling to bring forth.

Yes, Chaszz is absolutely right, in my view this is the way Beethoven composed, or saw a work.
He wasn't like Mozart who could almost see the near perfect creation in his minds eye and then he trascribes it in musical notation.

I always think of Beethoven in sculptural terms like that fantastic sculpture, I think it was by Michelangelo, called the 'Lacoon' where there is a block of marble and in the marble is a form which is struggling to be shaped.
It can be seen in half realized form, distinct and yet still, part of the natural medium that it is wrestling to break free from. I think the musical forms and ideas that teemed in Beethoven's mind, in this fantastic cascade of notes and sound, he often had difficulty in separating out from the context or marble in 'sculptural terms' that the ideas came embedded in.
Then there was this teriffic struggle to shape the material, and after that only some later kind of polishing up. We can see this of course in the 9th Symphony, where the first movement seems to girate in the ether in different keys until the Maestro finds the shape and form he is looking for, and then we are off into this magical wonderland of sound and ideas.
Perhaps it is the well known struggle of Beethoven with fate that is the base line, and from that quarry he then fashions or forges like a miner like (Alberich!) an infinte variety of themes and melodies.


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[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited August 19, 2003).]

[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited August 19, 2003).]

[Michael]

I haven’t looked this up to check it out, but I remember reading an account of the first try-out of the string quartet opus 127, when Beethoven was in the last and worst stages of his deafness. He sat facing the players, his eyes glued to every move they made. In the coda of the last movement, the players adopted a slower tempo than that specified by B. He not only spotted the change but agreed with it (!), muttering something like “Let it be so” and marking the change in all four parts.

Michael

[Amalie]

We all know of course about the terrible effects of deafness on Beethoven's life, but I wonder whether we know of other musicians who suffered the same fate?
The only composer who comes to mind is -Bedrich Smetana, Founder of Czech National School of Music.
Yet like Beethoven, Smetana went on to compose some of his greatest works, Symphonic poems, and opera, while completely deaf. He fell ill and died from a serious nervous complaint.

[Peter]

Originally posted by Amalie:


We all know of course about the terrible effects of deafness on Beethoven's life, but I wonder whether we know of other musicians who suffered the same fate?
The only composer who comes to mind is -Bedrich Smetana, Founder of Czech National School of Music.
Yet like Beethoven, Smetana went on to compose some of his greatest works, Symphonic poems, and opera, while completely deaf. He fell ill and died from a serious nervous complaint.

Gabriel Faure suffered from increasing hearing loss in the last 20 years of his life.

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'Man know thyself'

[John Rasmussen]

If someone is born deaf, I cannot imagine him/her ever becoming a musician. They may "hear" incredibly beautiful sounds in their mind, but they have no way to convey such sounds to anyone else. But Beethoven began life with good, or at least average, hearing and was very well trained as a musician. Since he was a consummate performer, he had good instincts about what instruments could and couldn't do, and these never failed him.

Some of you who have read other posts of mine will realize that I see composing and performing as two facets of the same gift. Music written by non-performers may be intellectually fascinating, but it usually lacks that instinctive feel for what will sound good and feel good to play. On the other hand, some proficient (I refuse to use the word "great") performers without Beethoven's intellect and heart write showy music that plays well but has little depth. Liszt, for example, probably had more skill in one finger than LvB in both hands; but while Liszt's music may be showy and even intellectually challenging, it lacks Beethoven's strength and fire. There's just no substitute for genius and experience.

[Peter]

Originally posted by John Rasmussen:
If someone is born deaf, I cannot imagine him/her ever becoming a musician. They may "hear" incredibly beautiful sounds in their mind, but they have no way to convey such sounds to anyone else.

Evelyn Glennie comes to mind - see http://www.evelyn.co.uk/hearing.htm

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'Man know thyself'

[Amalie]

Originally posted by Peter:
Gabriel Faure suffered from increasing hearing loss in the last 20 years of his life.

That is interesting Peter, though I have heard Faure's Requiem, I never realized that he was deaf.
Without doubt, Chaszz will be pleased to hear that Faure was fascinated by Wagner.

[spaceray]

Originally posted by Peter:
Evelyn Glennie comes to mind - see http://www.evelyn.co.uk/hearing.htm

I have seen Ms Glennie perform ,she says that she takes her shoes off to play so she can "hear" the music better!