Question regarding later years

[musicgirl]

Years ago I did research on 8 major composers for a Kindergarten class I was teaching. The info I found on Beethoven shared a story of how he composed some of his later works, especially the 9th Symphony, after his hearing had totally deteriorated. The story said that he sawed the legs off his piano until the piano sat on the floor. Then he would play the notes and listen to the vibration on the floor. This was said to be how he wrote his later works.

I cannot find the hard copies of that research and am questioning now whether it is true or not. Do any of you know of this story and can you validate it?

[Chris]

I would not be surprised if the legs were off his piano because he moved around a lot or for some other such purpose. I'm not sure whether he actually tried to hear his compositions that way. But in any case, he would not have had to do this to write his pieces. Beethoven was an expert composer and musician, and he certainly did not need to hear anything to know how to write his compositions down or to know how a score he was looking at would sound.

[Peter]

I agree with Chris - the legs were not sawn off, only removed to facilitate Beethoven's frequent changes of address. The story may have originated from someone assuming this was done because of Beethoven's deafness. In any case a piano is not always essential for a great composer who internally hears the sounds - Berlioz remarked that using a piano for composition purposes was the death of all originality - Stravinsky couldn't manage without it!


However Beethoven's Graf piano of 1825 was according to contemporary accounts fitted on the advice of Johann Malzel, (who had constructed hearing aids for Beethoven), with an extra sound board over the strings to which a hearing aid shaped like a shell would have been added - unfortunately both items have been lost.

[PDG]

Isn't there another story of Beethoven holding a stick in his clenched teeth and forcing it down inbetween the keys to feel the vibrations of notes he was playing? All rather sad, if true...

[Joy]

And another story of Beethoven lying his head down on the piano while playing to feel the vibrations? This may be an alteration of PDG's story.