Ludwig Van Beethoven

"I shall seize Fate by the throat; it shall certainly not bend and crush me completely."

-- Ludwig van Beethoven, letter to F G Wegeler, 1801

Ludwig van Beethoven had the misfortune of growing up while Mozart was a celebrated artist. Beethoven’s father decided he had another little Mozart and pushed Beethoven into performing as a youngster. Dad was also an alcoholic, so life for young Beethoven was difficult, particularly after his mother died of tuberculosis.

On top of a difficult family history, Beethoven also lived in an age when people drank wine from pewter vessels. The problem with this is that wine leaches lead from the pewter into the drink and gives the drinker a powerful case of lead poisoning. Furthermore, doctors used heavy metals in treating patients. According to an analysis of Beethoven’s hair, he had a large amount of lead in his body. Lead poisoning causes neurological damage to the body, including deafness. The irony was that one of the world’s greatest composers never got to hear some of his own great music.

Beethoven’s ninth symphony is a complete musical triumph, but by the time he composed it he was completely deaf. Deafness, chronic illness, and a bad family life never caused Beethoven to give up his music. He used ear trumpets and message pads to communicate and he even had the legs of a grand piano sawed off so it would sit on the floor and he could feel the vibrations.

This Lemonade Profile was written by Carolyn Osborne, an Artistic Lemonade contributing writer.

This article's permanent location is
http://www.artistic-lemonade.com/archive/007.htm

Links: 

• 2005 article on Beethoven and lead poisoning from the Washington Post
• San Jose State University fact sheet on the Guevara lock of
  Beethoven’s hair
• Biography on Wikipedia
• Beethoven’s department in the Artistic Lemonade Store 
  

The image used with this article is from an 1820 portrait of Beethoven by Josef Karl Steiner