How do you write such masterpieces when you hear nothing? The Würzburg Mozart Festival on Beethoven is asking these and other questions this year. The answers are surprising.
Beethoven’s tenth symphony will soon be premiered in Bonn. Composed by the computer. Robert HP Platz’s anticipation is limited. “It is always said that computers will soon be ready. I am pleased to see what nonsense that is,” says Platz, himself a composer, conductor and professor at the Würzburg University of Music. And his interlocutors agree with him.
These are from the University Hospital Würzburg Michael Sendtner, professor of clinical neurobiology, and Rudolf Hagen, professor of ear, nose and throat medicine. And director Evelyn Meining. The occasion: The Mozart Festival discussion series “Alltime …” The place: the chapter hall in the new building of the Hotel Rebstock, very lightly furnished with a few guests. After all, the event is streamed live and can now be viewed on the Youtube channel of the Würzburg Mozart Festival be retrieved.
The title of the conversation: “Speak louder, scream because I’m deaf”. It is about Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), who was so celebrated this year, and noticed from the early 20s that something was wrong with his hearing. In his letters to the brothers and friends in Bonn, the composer described the symptoms for decades? from the sound of the instruments, which he perceived more and more dull, to the loss of understanding of language, to complete deafness.
“It is moving for the ear, nose and throat doctor to deal with such a history of suffering,” says Rudolf Hagen. “Because Beethoven suffered from progressive hearing loss, which we could have effectively tackled today using modern medicine.” Hagen brought along audio samples that make the progressive hearing loss understandable. In the first symphony, the absence of high frequencies is noticeable, the ninth is almost just a grumble.
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Two questions emerge for moderator Evelyn Meining: How is it possible to create such masterpieces if you don’t hear anything yourself? And: What does a musician do when he can no longer hear his own creations? The composer Robert HP Platz advises not to romanticize the creative process. The idea of the composer, who first played the instrument and then wrote down the sounds, was born late ?? through film and photography.
“I only know one composer in the 20th century who actually did it. Everyone else imagines what they want to write,” says Platz. For him as an artist, eyesight is far more important than hearing? to sift through and revise what has been noted, to bring threads together. Beethoven noted his ideas in sketchbooks and then, if they could be used, processed them almost in musicology.
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This is a completely normal process for the musician and an incomprehensible performance for the layperson. Just as musical talent and creative genius can hardly be explained scientifically. All of this takes place in the forebrain, says neurobiologist Michael Sendtner. “But that’s the end of it, you can’t really say more about it.”
Before switching to medicine and research, Sendtner studied classical guitar and lute at the Richard Strauss Conservatory in Munich. Sendtner says that one should not imagine Beethoven’s creative work as a tormenting struggle. On the contrary: “Beethoven was probably a very satisfied person when he composed.” He had probably enjoyed perfection, shaping and tinkering until the works corresponded to his imagination.
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As a musician, Beethoven suffered from hearing loss. But above all suffered as a human being, as a social being. In the salons he understood less and less what was said. Since he kept his disability secret in Vienna for as long as possible, so as not to lose piano students and concert assignments, the supposedly harsh behavior quickly earned him the reputation of the nerd and ruffian. Beethoven felt misunderstood, isolated, and lonely, even considering leaving life. Until his doctor Johann Adam Schmidt – born in Aub and trained in Würzburg – advised him to withdraw from people for a while.
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The 31-year-old wrote a letter to his brothers in the spa town of Heiligenstadt. Never sent, was he ?? sealed ?? Found in Beethoven’s estate in 1827 and is now known as “Heiligenstadt Testament” as one of the most important, because most personal, sources on Beethoven. In it he writes: “I have to live like an exile.” Because he did not manage to shout to people: “Speak louder, scream, because I am deaf.”
In Heiligenstadt, however, Beethoven found the strength to continue. “You have to dig fate in the throat,” he wrote to a friend. “This is something that distinguishes him very much,” Sendtner says of Beethoven. “This is not a person who gives up.”
Further tickets for the live concerts: Thanks to the easing, from June 22nd, 100 people are allowed to hold events in closed rooms. Additional tickets are therefore available for the live concerts of the Mozart Festival from June 24th to 27th: Tel (0931) 37 23 36.
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