MUSIC - A TRIBUTE TO BEETHOVEN

When we talk in terms of expressing one’s self, or an idea we always look for a medium to express it. It could be through writing, painting, music and dance or through any other means that brings you inner release and  satisfaction. We may call this mode of expression as language. One always chooses whichever language he is proficient in.

So it is natural to expect that a writer is proficient in words, a painter with his abilities to distinguish the various colours and put them down on canvas and naturally has to have good seeing abilities, a dancer has to express through bodily movements and a musician good hearing abilities as primary requirements. So it is all the more unbelievable that a musician who was deaf could express himself through the medium of music.

Beethoven started to lose his hearing at the age of twenty six. By the time he was thirty he had already conveyed to his friends describing his symptoms and the difficulties they caused both in his professional and social settings. Though thoughts of suicide did come to his mind due to his growing deafness, he resolved to continue living for and through his art. Over course of time he produced some of his greatest works. There is a well attested story that, at the end of the premiere of his Ninth Symphony, he had to be turned around to see the tumultuous applause; hearing nothing, he wept. His hearing loss did not prevent him from composing music, but his playing at concerts became increasingly difficult. He died in 1827 at the age of fifty seven.

Kierkegaard in his book ‘Either/Or’ in the chapter ‘The Immediate Erotic stages or The Musical Erotic’ says, “Music exists only in the moment of its performance, for however skilful one may be at reading notes and however lively one’s imagination, it cannot be denied that it is only in an unreal sense that the music exists when read. It exists really only when it is performed. This might seem to be an imperfection in this art as compared with the others, whose works constantly endure, because they have their existence in the sensual. Yet that is not so. Rather it is a proof that music is a higher, a more spiritual art”. He also says, “Language makes its appeal to the ear. No other medium does that. The ear is the most spiritually determined of the senses.” Kierkegaard was overwhelmed by Mozart’s music to such an extent that he considers his ‘Don Giovanni’ as one of the greatest compositions of all time and in the realm of an epic.

Having said that, one wonders as to how one can compose music when one is deaf. Beethoven did that and also performed, till he finally gave up more I feel, because he could not hear his own compositions, which had been totally internalised by that stage. It is easily said that you can compose by writing down the music through the use of the notations. Each note is to be heard before being written. So how did Beethoven write down his compositions when he could not hear them. May be that’s what happened, he heard them. Each note assumed its shape within him. His performance of the Ninth Symphony, when he was totally deaf is beyond our comprehension. Here we refer to Kierkegaard, who says that music is a higher, a more spiritual art. Beethoven must have heard his music within himself, he did’nt need an ear, his spirit heard the music and he composed. When he performed the Ninth Symphony, with his back to the audience, he was playing for his spirit and when he turned around after the performance and saw the audience standing and applauding which of course he could not hear, that was the moment perhaps when he felt the release of his spirit and he wept.