Moderato con amabilità (‘Moderate [tempo], with loveliness’) Op. 110 Beethoven (1770-1827)
Beethoven almost never dated his compositions. This morning’s prelude is a rare exception, dated December 25, 1821.
Much has been made of his ability to compose ‘in his head’ without having to ‘pound it out’ on a piano, but that is in fact a commonplace skill among composers. I don’t know of a composer of note (including contemporary) who can’t do this — even *I* can! It’s something like learning to write English: when you were in 1st grade you probably had to say the words out loud as you wrote them. But with time and practice you didn’t need to anymore — you could hear the words in your head. Same with composing music.
What is much more interesting to me is that he would WANT to. Sure ‘he could hear it in his head’ but I can assure you that it is not the same. Consider the difference between imagining a loved one and actually being with them — the difference is night and day. I can also say from personal experience that – sure, I ‘hear the piece in my head’ when I write it, but then to hear it for the first time played by a real orchestra is a thrilling shock, even though I know every stinkin’ note. So again – WHY did he keep composing? (The answer, of course, is that nothing could stop him.)
And Beethoven went deaf before there was sign language or lip reading. So in addition to being isolated from society by genius (obviously his brain didn’t work like ours), deafness made that isolation far worse.
And he suffered from chronic ill health. Medical diagnosis was poor at best in those days, but based on the symptoms history has recorded he seems to have suffered from colitis, rheumatism, poor resistance to infection and hepatitis. All the these overcame him six years later, age 57. The postmortem added chronic pancreatitis, degeneration of the kidneys, splenomegaly, and auditory nerves `like goose quills’. We know that gastrointestinal problems particularly plagued the latter half of his life — before there was indoor plumbing.
At his death a cast was taken of his face, so we can confirm that he also suffered from profound facial scarring — perhaps due to typhus? One contemporary described Beethoven as having ‘the `terrifying countenance of a leper.’
It was also a life-long dream of his to be married and have a family. He doesn’t seem like someone with the easy personality (or pleasing face) to be good husband material, but that didn’t stop him from wanting that deeply. He proposed numerous times, always refused.
All of this finally did get to him in his 40s. He stopped composing and crawled into the bottle. He was even arrested for being gutter-crawling drunk. He insisted to the police “I am Beethoven!” (he was famous in his day) and I can imagine the cops saying “Sure you are, and I’m Napoleon.” Friends bailed him out. But after a couple years of this, he returned to sobriety — before there was Alcoholics Anonymous or therapy.
So when I play this piece, dated Christmas day, I have to marvel at his sheer tenacity and grit, to persevere with composing, and with Life, in spite of everything. And I marvel at this piece — his second-to-last piano sonata — written during a particularly severe bout of bad health — so full of tenderness, acceptance, and hope.