About 'Being Beethoven'

Having been exposed to the music of Beethoven from a very young age and loving it very much, I want to try to put together my thoughts about the series called, ' Being Beethoven', as I come towards the end of the final episode.

There have been many excellent contributions to the programmes, most of which, I have enjoyed tremendously, along with the filming which has, as far as I'm concerned, been brilliant.

Last night, however, I was disappointed and even upset by the views of some of the many experts called upon to shed light on his life. Yes, he made dreadful mistakes with his nephew, Karl, but is it surprising, given his background?

He lost his mother at an early age and was raised by a father who pushed him into the world of the prodigy but was, himself, an alcoholic, giving Beethoven an over-developed sense of responsibility for his two younger brothers.

Yes, his actions were truly reprehensible but his heart was full of misguided love. Was Karl's mother the 'Queen of the Night,' as he described, "Out at 3 am, displaying the bareness of her body and her mind," or words to that effect or was that picture of her a product of his paranoid personality?

Obviously, I am not in a position to judge. Certainly, a man who was unable to take proper care of himself was a hopeless candidate to care of a young boy, let alone someone who was very likely to grow into a disturbed young man himself, given his circumstances and the divided life that had been inflicted upon him.

The paranoia of Beethoven's feelings about his lack of nobility is, for me, completely understandable, given the class system of his times; with the nobility raised above the heads of all other people.

Despite the sublime majesty of his music, although accepted even in his own lifetime, as incomparable, he was relegated to the life of a composer, who, alongside Mozart and most others of the day, were seen as journeymen who spent their lives trying to make a living.

He was not to know that those selfsame Dukes and Duchesses, Counts and Countesses would largely, if not entirely, be forgotten whereas the true nobility of Beethoven as the creator of the music, he whose livelihood was dependent, to a large extent on their patronage, would be unquestioned in time to come.

The dedication, written in his own hand on the original manuscript of the Missa Solemnis, "Vom Herze, moge es weider zum Herze gehen." (Literally, 'From the heart; might it again to the heart go.') speaks to me of his universal love for all and the true nobility of his soul.