[MUSIC] This image of the disheveled, disorganized, oblivious to the world around him Beethoven, the isolated genius, was a concept created during the 19th century. The classical period in music spans the 18th and 19th centuries, and Beethoven spans the classical and romantic eras. During the first decades of the 19th century, the very notion of the genius as we think of him or her today comes into being. Isolated, misunderstood, struggling, suffering for his art. No artist or creator better represented or personified this development then Beethoven. Here is contemporary image of Beethoven composing imaginary or not. But it doesn't seem to be a happy process. On the contrary, it's wild and chaotic at least compared to the image of the creating artist of the preceding century. Namely, Beethoven's teacher, Haydn. Here's Haydn, neat and tidy, working at a keyboard. [MUSIC] And so on. And here's the image of Beethoven. [MUSIC] Again, I exaggerate, but this image of the spontaneous, disorganized Beethoven, the notion of the wild creator crying in the wilderness, raging with and against nature, well, that's part of the growing Romantic aesthetic. As we see here in this very large canvas by the English painter John Martin. The image of the isolated, struggling artist, poet, or composer became a stereotype. One fostered by Beethoven himself. Now here is Beethoven as poet, Beethoven the bard. Beethoven struggling against the forces of nature and against fate. There was also, as we'll see in our next session, a tendency to think of Beethoven as an unstable personality, a real oddball. Part of this was occasion by an unsympathetic public dealing with disability, Beethoven's growing deafness. Here on the screen is an account of Beethoven during the performance of his Ninth Symphony. Beethoven is called a madman. When Beethoven himself conducted, he stood in front of a conductor's stand and threw himself back and forth like a madman. At one point he stretched to his full height, then next he crouched down to the floor and he flailed about with his hands and feet. Well this notion of the slightly deranged but brilliant genius arrives during the early 19th and into the 20th century when it was created by figures such as Mary Shelly as you can see here with Frankenstein and Victor Hugo with the Hunchback of Notre Dame and Gaston Leroux with the Phantom of the Opera. Well in many ways, it all began with Beethoven. And here's an image of Beethoven as he looked at age 48. Again, Beethoven somewhat tidied up here. And look now, the genius of the 20th century. Well it comes to resemble Beethoven. Einstein aping Beethoven if you will. Young Beethoven, as the years went by, helped create this image of Beethoven the archetype of genius. Indeed Beethoven himself promoted it, this notion that we still have with us today of the artist as genius. As we'll see from the following quotes embedded in a couple of slides here. So this is one about how the artist suffers for his art. Quote, the undersigned Beethoven, and this is Beethoven talking. The undersigned Beethoven has been concerned not merely with earning his daily bread, but rather, with his art. With the ennoblement of taste, and the impulse of his genius, in order to rise to greater heights searching for the ideal and for perfection. Consequently he has had to sacrifice his material gains to his music to his art to his muse. The artist, again, who is something above the common herd, who's cut from a cloth different from others, Beethoven certainly held himself in very high esteem here in 1798 at the age of 28. Nobody's had ever heard of Beethoven at this time. He compares himself already to the famous von and the equally famous Frederick Handel. No lack of self confidence there. 1803 he refuses to play for the King of Prussia, a year or two later he refused an invitation to play for the empress in Vienna. He sent her a note back saying I'm busy today but I might stop by tomorrow. 1804, he says to Prince Carl Lichnowsky, Prince, what you are you are by accident of birth. What I am I am through myself. There have been and still will be thousands of princes. There's only one Beethoven. But Beethoven didn't realize, I think, that he owed his talents and his accomplishments to natural gifts. Just like the Prince, to genetics. Beethoven came from a long line of musicians. He was just as much a product of his birth as was Prince Lichnowsky. Beethoven was born with absolute pitch and exceptional musical memory. He was a child prodigy in Bonn, Germany. So let's go visit now Beethoven in Bonn in his youth.
