In the first part of the documentary, The Genius of Beethoven ‘The Rebel,’ the narrator reveals how Ludwig van Beethoven, who was born in Bonn, Germany, lived an unhappy childhood. He was born into a family of musicians and acquired his grandfather’s musical talents, though his father always treated him so cold and grimly. Music was the only thing that he loved more than anything else in the world despite the abuse he would receive from his own alcoholic father. I find it really depressing for any kid to go through this but I believe that this experience helped shaped him through hardships and lead him to his independence. At such a young age, he had already begun studying composition and the famous works of Joseph Haydn and Bach Mozart who were the greatest composers at the time.
The last couple of years that he spent in Bonn demonstrates his astonishing advancement when he wrote a cantata that was dedicated to the death of Emperor Joseph II, at only the age of 19. He then left Bonn to travel to Vienna and ended up studying with James Haydn. I feel as if this would’ve been a perfect dream back then; to leave your troubled past behind and have the chance to work with a famous composer. Although, when Haydn criticized Beethoven’s Piano Trio in a negative way, he quickly became dissatisfied and wanted nothing to do with him anymore, though he never forgot what he said.
As someone who can never take criticism well, I probably would’ve felt the same, especially if it was someone that a lot of people looked up to. This led him to work with other composers and realizing that he needed to follow his own path instead. I enjoyed the part where he was improvising playing the piano and he was even smirking because he knew how much better he was than the other guy. He seemed like he had a lot of confidence in him that arose from his determination and hard work. He put so much emotion into his music than most others of his time.
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Towards the end of the documentary, they had begun talking about how he started becoming deaf which surprisingly, I never knew of. In the scene where he played the sonata for Giuletta Gucciardi, I believe her reaction was negative because she realized how different they were for each other and how focused he really was on his works. Prior to that scene, she seemed more focused on the fact that he was becoming deaf and couldn’t imagine marrying a deaf musician. It’s really unfortunate that he completely lost his hearing but this created new challenges for him and lead him to create incredible new music that we still listen to almost 200 years later.
Before watching this I only knew so little of Beethoven and just knew him as one of the most famous composers and nothing more. I admire him because it takes a lot for someone to leave their life behind and start somewhere fresh. He even wrote, “A better life has done much to erase the traces of unhappy times,” which stuck to me. Vienna was the perfect place for him since it was pretty much the city of dreams for composers during that time. His music was so sophisticated and to learn to appreciate classical music, you must first understand the complexity that comes with it. He takes just a few simple themes and rewrites them in many different ways while taking the listener on a roller coaster ride of emotion. He pretty much set the blueprint for classical music for the past 200 years!
