After being asked how he composed his music Beethoven answered: "I carry my thoughts about with me for a very long time, before writing them down. I can rely on my memory for this and can be sure that, once I have grasped a theme, I shall not forget it even years later. I change many things, discard others and try again and again until I am satisfied; then, in my head, I begin to elaborate the work in its breadth, its narrowness, its height, its depth...It rises, it grows, I hear and see the image in front of me from every angle...and only the labor of writing it down remains...I very often work on several things at the same time, yet I can always be sure that I shall not confuse one with another.
"You may ask me where I obtain my ideas. I cannot answer this with any certainty; they come unbidden, spontaneously or not. I may grasp them with my hands in the open air, while walking in the woods, in the stillness of the night, at early morning. Stimulated by those moods which poets turn into words, I turn my ideas into tones, which resound, roar and rage until at last they stand before me in the form of notes."
@Last Piano Sonata@2
On this day, Beethoven signed the last of his thirty two Piano Sonatas, Op. 111. They are the work of a man who suffered deeply in his body and soul.
Many musicians were astonished to find that the Sonata comprised only two movements, and ended with an Adagio. When asked for the third movement, Beethoven jokingly answered that he had had no time to write it.
In this masterpiece, Beethoven discovered his final answer to resolving highly contrasted movements. Here, the contrasts are complete: the fiercest of Allegros with the most serene of Adagios; fugal sonata versus variation forms; minor and major keys on the same tonic. All these culminate in the contrast between the material and spiritual worlds.
In fact, it has been said that Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier" and Beethoven's Piano Sonatas are the Old and New Testaments of the piano. And, that if all music were to perish and only these two great works were to survive, a sufficient knowledge of the music of the 18th and 19th centuries could be derived from them alone.
In his piano sonatas, Beethoven provides us with an account of his whole life, in its changing phases. He wrote his first sonata when he was 12 years old, and his last one when he was 52 years old.
@Succes Of Opera@2
The opera "Fidelio" was performed again with the greatest success. While conducting the dress rehearsal, Beethoven, who was now completely deaf, threw all the musicians into total confusion. Only Schindler dared tell him this; he asked Beethoven to stop, and promised he would explain at a later time.
Beethoven understood, and in a flash ran home. Schindler later wrote: "He threw himself upon the sofa, covered his face with his hands, and did not move until we sat at the table....His whole figure wore an image of the deepest melancholy and despondency".
In this year, Beethoven completed his famous Overture, "The Consecration of the House" ("Die Weihe Des Hauses"), Op.124, for the opening of the Josephstadter Theater, as well as many other smaller works.
