The emotional creativity of ludwig van beethoven
The emotional creativity of ludwig van beethovenLudwig van Beethoven has been called one of the greatest composers to ever live. His emotionally charged creations of poetry in music are world renown for their ability to spark feeling into the hearts of those listening. It is often wondered what emotional tragedy in Beethoven�s life provoked him to write such awe-inspiring music. Beethoven had many distressing things occur in his life time that could be applied to his music but a major factor has always been his abusive father. As a result of the abuse of his alcoholic father Ludwig van Beethoven became one of the greatest composers by applying the emotions he felt when his father beat him to the music that he wrote.
Ludwig van Beethoven was born on December 17th, 1770 in Bonn, Germany in a downtown alleyway(cowell). During the time of Beethoven�s birth all life in Bonn was centered around the palace of the Elector of Cologne(Burke 32). His father, Johann van Beethoven, was a court tenor there(Burke 32). Ludwig�s mother, Marie Magdalene Kerverich van Beethoven, bore two other children besides Ludwig. Kasper Anton Karl who was born on April 18th, 1774 and Nicholas Johann who was born on October 2nd, 1776 were the only other surviving children of Maria�s six births besides Ludwig(Burke 32).
Ludwig began taking music lessons from his father at a very young age. By the age of five he was playing both the clavier and the violin(Solomon 16). Beethoven had few friends and spent little time playing with other children, although he did play with his brothers from time to time(Burke 33). Young Beethoven was extremely withdrawn from the world around him. �Outside of music he understood nothing of a social life.�(Solomon 20). Besides being uninterested in friends, young Ludwig was a poor student. His grasp of spelling and arithmetic was insubstantial, but he did learn Latin for the purpose of writing masses(Burke 34).
During this time in Beethoven�s life his father was obsessed with making young Ludwig a musician. Johann Beethoven �...conducted his son�s musical education in a brutal and willful manner.�(Solomon 16). Ludwig hated his father and his lessons �hung over him like a threat.�(Burke 34). A childhood companion of Beethoven�s reported that �Beethoven�s father used violence when it came to making him start his musical studies, and...there were few days when he was not beaten in order to compel him to set himself at the piano.�(Solomon 16). �The father was not merely strict, but cruel. He treated him [Ludwig] harshly� wrote court counselor Krupp �and sometimes shut him up in the cellar.�(Solomon 16). Beethoven�s father was an alcoholic. When he wasn�t doing music he was drinking(Burke 35). �The beginnings of Ludwig�s musical education were unhappy in as much as they were stringently based on his fathers ideas of what a genius...
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