Who do you think had a harder life beethoven or mozart??

[sweet_blu3berry]

Just wondering ...

[spaceray]

Life is hard.
Beethoven lived a longer one than Mozart.

[Pastorali]

What can be harder for such a great musician and composer, as to get deaf!

Ok, we know now the result many years later, but for Beethoven must have been that unbelievable hard, to live with these painful doubts and sorrows.

Along with his other health problems, the love and family he never could enjoy, the sorrows with nephew Karl... that really sounds not like an easy life.

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by Pastorali:
What can be harder for such a great musician and composer, as to get deaf!

Ok, we know now the result many years later, but for Beethoven must have been that unbelievable hard, to live with these painful doubts and sorrows.

Along with his other health problems, the love and family he never could enjoy, the sorrows with nephew Karl... that really sounds not like an easy life.

Not a doubt.

But for Mozart, to know he was dying so young with so much great music unplayed and unwritten, must have been almost unbearable. I think there is a quote to this effect somewhere, about his realization on his deathbed that so much of his talent would be unfulfilled...so maybe we could say Mozart had a harder death, if not a harder life.

[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited March 11, 2004).]

[Joy]

I agree that must have been plenty difficult for Mozart but I just attended a concert on Sunday about the Life of Beethoven where an actor played Beethoven on stage and there was some pretty sad moments in it as well. His increasing deafness was portrayed in depth and at the end they performed the final mm of the 9th symphony and showed 'Beethoven' conducting where upon he kept right on conducting even after the music ended (we all know the story) and then someone had to turn him around to see the audience (us) applauding. Very touching moment indeed and done very well I might add. So, all in all, I think Beethoven's life as you go through it is the more difficult one with all the obstacles he had to face and overcome.

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'Truth and beauty joined'

[This message has been edited by Joy (edited March 11, 2004).]

[TheMarsVolta]

I think being hung is worse

[v russo]

Originally posted by TheMarsVolta:
I think being hung is worse

please go away....

[Opus131]

On a psycological level, i had an harder life then both, and i'm only 26, not sure why would anybody care thought.

On a material level, i don't think any of us would have lasted a week back then, another moot point.

Back then people thought very differently then today.

Mozart had 6 children of which only 2 survived.

By today standards his life would have been an hell of constant grief, but back then things like this were the norm, you simply can't apply modern views to this people.

I would say Beethoven had the hardest life, but only because he had such a sufferent upbringing (those were his best years of his life after all).

Once you become an adult, things like this don't matter anymore, life is sh*t for everbody...

[spaceray]

Originally posted by Opus131:

Mozart had 6 children of which only 2 survived.

In a June 18th 1783 letter to his father Mozart wrote...
"I was quite determined that whether she should be able to or not,my wife was never to feed her child.Yet I was equally determined that my child was never to take the milk of a stranger!I wanted the child to be brought up on water,like my sister and myself.However ,the midwife,my mother in law and most people have begged and implored me not to allow it,if only for the reason that most children here who are brought up on water do not survive ,as the people here do not know how to do it properly."

This child died two months later on the 11th of August.

[Cuprik]

Originally posted by sweet_blu3berry:
Just wondering ...

Just wondering too, but you have to admit, it's an odd question. And maybe a little voyeuristic of us. We have this odd way of awarding badges of honour to artists that have had miserable lives. I remember seeing a Van Gogh show once and hearing two women discussing how 'horrible he must have felt when he painted those irises'. I mean, why is it relevant? How and why does it enhance our experince of the work?

I think Beethoven's life probably was very troubled, perhaps more emotionally than physically. Some analyst might go as far as to suggest he was bi-polar. It wouldn't surprise me. But often when we choose to represent the lives of our great artists, we offer up mere slices and fool ourselves into thinking that this is a complete picture.

I'm sure that he was remarkably complex and had a great deal to offer beyond his musical compostions.

He'd definitely be on my list for 'The Ultimate Dinner Party' - at least until he threw his soup at the Countess.