Gabrielle Q

On beethovenvoice

Beethoven died in Vienna on March 26th , 1827, at the age of 56,in this room in the house of the black robes ballads.

The very end of his life, his health got even worse then he normally was . His intestines started to swell. The condition as dropsy, and it got so bad that he had to be cut up open to let the water straight out. The water would leak out onto the bed and onto the floor. And it was a rather miserable death.

The funeral was a miraculous event even by Viennese dinners of the day . More than 20,000 people were said to attend it. It was a very special ceremony. It was very public, and very telling tribute to Beethoven’s fame and to what Beethoven meant to the people of Vienna.

If I wanted to try to find the importance of Beethoven today, I would have to start very personally. And Beethoven’s music is actually addictive, I mean he leads you on all the time and you can’t stop listening. And this kind of intensity that he demands for listening is something that you don’t want to give up.
One may resent the amount of attention that was supposed to give to the music when we like music, which one could relax to a little more. But you keep coming back to it because you have to.

For me the reason why he’s the greatest composer is that I feel that he’s prepared to share his life with you more than any other composer. He’s prepared to show all the bad parts of life as well. And because of that, I think you learn more about your own life. And it’s multi or dimensional even when it’s the saddest, there’s something about as hopeful as well. Even when its hope for something better than sad. It’s like looking through a kaleidoscope ,you can look in so many different angles.

It’s like a mirror until you are told this is you, this is me. And only a great artist can do that. Any other thing could make you dance, makes you jump, makes you laugh, makes you weep. But a great piece of music is like a mirror. Everybody sees himself.

Above all the things Beethoven that impresses me the most is the remarkable generosity that I hear in the music. It’s a matter how a stormy and difficult life with a lot of conflict in it, returns again and again with his most important pieces in the most-telling moment to a kind of deep grateful hymn-like utterance. So to say your life is good, it’s all worth it!