was beethoven arrested?

[cfox]

Was Beethoven ever arrested or did he have any trouble with the law?

I'm looking for some dirt on famous composers or even a particularly dreadful event related to one of them. Any dirt on Beethoven would be helpful as it is for a school resarch project.

[cfox]

my paper is on genius and madness in case you were wondering

thx

[lysander]

When during a long walk from Baden in the Autumn of 1821, Beethoven became lost, he was arrested as a vagrant by the Wiener Neustadt police, until he was released after identification by the musical director
Herr Herzog.

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There is absolutely no grounds for the assertion that Beethoven was 'Mad'.
Wonderfully eccentric, yes, but not Mad !



[This message has been edited by lysander (edited March 12, 2003).]

[Peter]

Originally posted by cfox:
my paper is on genius and madness in case you were wondering

thx

The two composers you should consider in this context are Hugo Wolf (who thought he was the Austrian Emperor) and Robert Schumann (who claimed the angels were dictating music to him and attempted suicide by throwing himself into the Rhine).

Beethoven was not mad, but eccentric. His eccenticities were more apparent because of his deafness - a condition that leads many people even today to regard the person afflicted as somehow 'not right in the head'.

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'Man know thyself'

[Sorrano]

Originally posted by Peter:
The two composers you should consider in this context are Hugo Wolf (who thought he was the Austrian Emperor) and Robert Schumann (who claimed the angels were dictating music to him and attempted suicide by throwing himself into the Rhine).

Schumann had other associations with the paranormal, as well, after his death. Perhaps some remember hearing about Yelly d'Aryani "receiving musical dictation from Schumann" in composing a Piano Concerto.

[Gurn Blanston]

Yes, undoubtedly Schumann is your man. Wolf was mad, but Schumann was famous and mad. Brilliant composer though, perhaps the madness helped. He died in a "rest home".
Regards, Gurn

[lysander]

Originally posted by cfox:
Was Beethoven ever arrested or did he have any trouble with the law?

I'm looking for some dirt on famous composers or even a particularly dreadful event related to one of them. Any dirt on eethoven would be helpful as it is for a

school resarch project.

Is the above quote really what young students are being taught today?
Instead of aspects of Genius that makes someone like Beethoven so unutterably Great, and what we can 'learn' from him!
You seem only to seek what is cheap and mean spirited about him.
No wonder we have the social problems that we do when the schools are engaged in a criminal enterprise to deprive young students of what Matthew Arnold called, 'the best that has been written or said, and I should add composed.

Could the student question the tutor what it is you are supposed to learn from above exercise by way of insight int a Great man's Greatness?, as opposed to a depressing, pointless, muck raking exercise that will only encourage despair and disrespect in Cultural Icons.

I shall be please to enter into a discussion with your tutor if he or she has the confidence and intellect to support these baseless, asinine, pointless allegations.

I challenge your tutor or school to explain to me why they are short selling education in this way.

Madness is a totaly bogus concept in the context of Genius.

Are we, the great mass of mankind not mad, in the cultural impoverished lives that we settle for? and to the quiet despair and was not Beethoven right with other eccentric Geniuses who showed us an absolute world of clarity, beauty and truth?

Handel was also said to have been mad, because he cold shouldered George 11 when he visited on occasions, when the musical muse was upon him. Most people thought Handel was 'mad' when he turned down worldly preferment

Why is this relentless urge to bring the Great ones down to our mediocre level?

As the Bible says;- 'Without dreams and vision, people perish'!

[This message has been edited by lysander (edited March 13, 2003).]

[This message has been edited by lysander (edited March 13, 2003).]

[This message has been edited by lysander (edited March 13, 2003).]

[This message has been edited by lysander (edited March 13, 2003).]

[Peter]

Originally posted by lysander:

Is the above quote really what young students are being taught today?
Instead of aspects of Genius that makes someone like Beethoven so unutterably Great, and what we can 'learn' from him!
You seem only to seek what is cheap and mean spirited about him.
No wonder we have the social problems that we do when the schools are engaged in a criminal enterprise to deprive young students of what Matthew Arnold called, 'the best that has been written or said, and I should add composed.

Could the student question the tutor what it is you are supposed to learn from above exercise by way of insight int a Great man's Greatness?, as opposed to a depressing, pointless, muck raking exercise that will only encourage despair and disrespect in Cultural Icons.

There is much in what you say - there does appear to be a culture to discredit the great from the past - an attempt was made recently on tv about Isaac Newton. One way it is done is to pretend that anyone who stands on stage and opens their mouth is an artist, regardless of what comes out. It all stems from jealousy and mediocrity. However I do think if anyone is serious about studying they need to know the facts warts and all - Beethoven himself said as much when he instructed Schindler to tell the truth and leave nothing out. That is the right approach as you see the complete picture and are able to put things in context and understand the personality. My concern with the original question is that I don't think there is any interest in understanding and learning, just a desire for scandal.

------------------
'Man know thyself'

[Sorrano]

Originally posted by Peter:
There is much in what you say - there does appear to be a culture to discredit the great from the past - an attempt was made recently on tv about Isaac Newton. One way it is done is to pretend that anyone who stands on stage and opens their mouth is an artist, regardless of what comes out. It all stems from jealousy and mediocrity. However I do think if anyone is serious about studying they need to know the facts warts and all - Beethoven himself said as much when he instructed Schindler to tell the truth and leave nothing out. That is the right approach as you see the complete picture and are able to put things in context and understand the personality. My concern with the original question is that I don't think there is any interest in understanding and learning, just a desire for scandal.

There was a Peter Sellars movie in which he, as a "mad" man was mistaken for a genius (or something of that nature). I don't recall the name of the movie, either, sorry. Whenever people (historians--whatever) have difficulty understanding the nature of great men it is a simple task to relagate that unknown to the category of insanity. And perhaps that has something to do with a lot of the social ills that we find pervading the judicial system--criminals are virtually released because they are mad. Maybe society needs to be less lazy in dealing with issues.

[zenmaster126]

to be a true genious you have to be a little mad

(a great man with mental problems is eccentric, an idiot with mental problems is a head case )