Ludwig van Beethoven was born In Bonn, Germany to the parents of Maria Severity and Johann van Beethoven. He was raised by his father who hoped he was going to become a child prodigy in music like Mozart was. Although Beethoven’s father was quite a singer, he never did match up to the music abilities that Beethoven’s grandfather had. The talent that the grandfather had, fortunately was present in Beethoven even though It was not present In his father.
That Is Just what his father was hoping for. At the same age as Mozart, Beethoven did not quite have the talent as Mozart did. Mozart had a photographic memory for music which abele him to Just be able to listen to a piece of music and go home and write all of the notes down exactly how he heard it, while Beethoven could of only partially done that, not note for note. As a young boy, Beethoven would try to throw together his own compositions on the piano, but his father did not like it when he would Just focus on that.
HIS father wanted him to focus mainly on learning to read the music and the notes how they were written which greatly helped him later on In life when he began to lose his hearing. Occasionally, Beethoven’s father would have his friend, a drinking partner, to come to the house to give lessons to young Beethoven. Sometimes it would be after midnight before they got home, causing them to have to wake up poor Beethoven from sleeping Just to practice. Soon, he started practicing with a man of the name, Christian Neff. They believe this is the man who organized for Beethoven to go audition for Mozart.
Listening to Beethoven’s piano playing. Mozart was not very Impressed on It. Although Mozart was not impressed with his music reading, when he gave Beethoven a chance to improvise upon a tune, he noticed the real compositional talent that Beethoven had and told some of the people in the room to “keep an eye on him because he will bring something important to the musical world. ” While Beethoven was in Vienna visiting Mozart, his mother became very sick causing him to have to go back home and help her and the family.
While Beethoven was back at home, Mozart died causing him to never get to see him or play with him again. After the death of Beethoven’s mother, his fathers alcoholism severed causing Beethoven to become the sole support for his family. In 1776, when Beethoven began to experience severe hearing loss, success with music seemed impossible for him. He was only able to tell his closest friends that his hearing loss had not gotten any better over the past two years.
HIS hearing loss depressed him so much that he even considered suicide and wrote a suicide letter to his brothers which talked of his hearing loss and his decision to not have to face it any longer. He explained that his hearing loss would really mess up his abilities as a musician. Beethoven started doing multiple treatments to try to fix his hearing loss such as, enemas, baths, ointments, and salves. Back then, they always thought that an enema could fix Just about anything. It was rare for Beethoven to get out any, but medical problem.
Beethoven had ear trumpets to try to help him hear better and Mould take the legs off the piano so it would lay flat against the floor. He would lay his body flat on the ground and play the keys hard so he could feel the vibrations of the music in the floor. Beethoven was not very wealthy so he always had to get one of the cheapest apartments on the top floor of the buildings which would cause him to get kicked out all of the time because of the noise and the rackets he would make, disturbing the people who lived below him.
Beethoven lived in 70 different houses and went through many housekeepers. He would do things like accuse his housekeepers for trying to poison him for leaving his food, such as macaroni and cheese, out which was not safe back in the day because they did not Pasteur their Cheese. The apartment keepers learned that they never needed to rent out the apartment below Beethoven because he was Just too noisy and distracting. Although Beethoven could not hear, he continued to be able to write songs because of his great reading skills in musical notation.