Easter: Beethoven's 6th Symphony

Beethoven had been severely hearing impaired for years when he wrote this. According to wiki

Beethoven is reported to have dated his hearing loss from a fit he suffered 1798 induced by a rage at the interruption of his work—having fallen over, he got up to find himself deaf. His hearing only ever partially recovered and, during its gradual decline, was impeded by a severe form of tinnitus.^[49] As early as 1801, he wrote to friends describing his symptoms and the difficulties they caused in both professional and social settings (although it is likely some of his close friends were already aware of the problems).^[50]

Saturday March 26th will be the 189th anniversary of this giant leaving us.

Character

Beethoven's walk in the nature,Julius Schmid

Beethoven's personal life was troubled by his encroaching deafness and irritability brought on by chronic abdominal pain (beginning in his twenties) which led him to contemplate suicide (documented in his Heiligenstadt Testament). Beethoven was often irascible. It has been suggested he had bipolar disorder.^[96] Nevertheless, he had a close and devoted circle of friends all his life, thought to have been attracted by his strength of personality. Toward the end of his life, Beethoven's friends competed in their efforts to help him cope with his incapacities.^[94]

Sources show Beethoven's disdain for authority, and for social rank. He stopped performing at the piano if the audience chatted amongst themselves, or afforded him less than their full attention. At soirées, he refused to perform if suddenly called upon to do so. Eventually, after many confrontations, the Archduke Rudolph decreed that the usual rules of court etiquette did not apply to Beethoven.^[94]

Beethoven was attracted to the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment. In 1804, when Napoleon's imperial ambitions became clear, Beethoven took hold of the title page of hisThird Symphony and scratched the name Bonaparte out so violently that he made a hole in the paper. He later changed the work's title to "Sinfonia Eroica, composta per festeggiare il sovvenire d'un grand'uom" ("Heroic Symphony, composed to celebrate the memory of a great man"), and he rededicated it to his patron, Prince Joseph Franz von Lobkowitz, at whose palace it was first performed.

Would you rather have his music, or would you rather have had him slugged into a quiescent, brain damaged ward of the 'Mentally Healthy' State of today by pill pushing Quacks?