A Great Composer
German composer Ludwig Van Beethoven was one of the most talented and celebrated composers of the 18th-19th centuries. He was born into a musically talented family and received music lessons from his father starting from a very young age. Despite his father pushing him, somewhat forcefully, to follow in the footsteps of the great child prodigy, Mozart, he did not meet his father’s expectations.
Family life for the young Beethoven was at times harsh with an alcoholic, overbearing father who forced him to practice for hours every day and often woke Beethoven up at night to perform for his friends. There are even accounts of his father issuing physical punishment for mistakes he made while practicing on the piano. He was further traumatized with the loss of his mother at the age of 16 which forced him into the position of parenting his two younger siblings in the absence of his father.
Unfortunately, children learn behavior from their parents and the violence and alcoholism he experienced presented itself in Beethoven himself later in life. When his brother died, a four year battle ensued over the custody of his nephew, Karl. Although in the end he won guardianship, he took out his frustrations on the boy which led to him frequently running away.When Karl attempted suicide, Beethoven realized the error of his ways and allowed the boy to leave and join the military. Perhaps Beethoven, burdened by his chaotic family life and caring for his siblings, bottled up his frustrations and used the emotions as fuel to compose some of the greatest works of classical music known today.
After all his struggles, the latest being his ever increasing deafness, Beethoven became a bitter and disagreeable man according to many accounts. He was known for his dark and unapproachable moods. With a storm brewing in the corners of his gifted mind, he channeled the emotions, pain, and suffering he experienced into his music to transcend the physical barriers of humans and reach directly to our hearts. The composition of music was his own personal world that he could delve into to escape the harsh realities of life.
Somehow Beethoven overcame all the obstacles that threatened to destroy him. In the forty-five years of his music career he composed over 722 works. While composing one of his most famous pieces Ode to Joy (Symphony No. 9) he was losing his hearing at a rapid pace and by the time of the piece’s premiere he was totally deaf. This piece went on to be one of his most well known works serving as the European Union’s Anthem. It became a symbol of freedom for people around the world and was even played at a celebratory concert after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Rather than looking at Beethoven’s life as a tragedy, we look at it as the ultimate struggle to overcome incredible odds. Beethoven let nothing stop him – from having an abusive father, to the death of his mother, to eventually losing his hearing – he persevered through it all. We are reminded that no matter what life throws at us, we can embrace it and channel it into better and more beautiful things.
As writers, we have woven the fabric of such stories into the pages of our novels. Our main character, Adam, in the novel Adam in Taoland, begins his life with a major obstacle – living under the rule of AI controlled robots. Once he overcomes this he is met with further troubles yet he continues to overcome them. Struggle is a fact of life for every one of us. We all know there are both good times and bad times. If we promise ourselves to do whatever it takes to conquer our obstacles — we always come out on the better side.
