Beethoven’s Deafness
Title When Beethoven announced his deafness
One of the most surprising facts about Beethoven is that he was deaf. How can a musician, a composer, lack what we would imagine to be his most important sense?
The first people he confided in were those who were geographically far from him, but in whom he had absolute confidence: those who lived at Bonn.
When he could no longer hide his handicap, Beethoven used notebooks in which visitors could write what they wanted him to know, or equally ask what they wanted to know. Because of this, we lack, of course, the most important part to understanding better his personality: what he replied…
Here are some extracts from two letters to his friends, dated 1801, in which we get an idea about the deaf composer talking about his increasing deafness.
“… Know that my noblest faculty, my hearing, has greatly deteriorated…”
“… How sad is my lot, I must avoid all things that are dear to me…”
“… Oh how happy I should be if my hearing were completely restored, then I would hurry to you…;”
“… Of course, I am resolved to rise above every obstacle, but how will it be possible? …”
“… I beg of you to keep the matter of my deafness a profound secret to be confided to nobody, no matter whom…”
Beyond the fact that Beethoven deafness was exaggerated and dramatized, it’s important to note that it was not complete deafness from the start. To be true, it was an infirmity that established itself slowly, and also developed itself quite erratically. What was really dramatic was the moment in which the young, successful composer and virtuoso had to accept that he was suffering from a chronic, incurable illness with which he will have to live… and it was going to get worse.
When it became clear that Beethoven was deaf, he accepted it. It was in the midst of his heroic period, and it documented in some authentic Ludwig van Beethoven quotes written in the margins of the Razoumovsky Quartets.
It could safely be stated that even to the end of his life, there were days in which he could hear a bit. Was Beethoven deaf? In many other accounts, it was believed that he was stone deaf. When the communication difficulties finally became too great, more or less around 1818, Beethoven used leafs of paper or tablets, where his friends and visitors wrote down what they wanted to tell him, or ask him. These are known now as the “Conversation Books”. Though these are some interesting facts about Beethoven, we lack the answers the Master provided to the questions written there. Except for a few cases, all we can do is guess what he might have said.