A Short Introduction to My Favorite Composer

I have been playing piano since childhood and have had the privilege of studying with wonderful instructors for most of that time. A few years ago, I decided I would learn all 32 of Beethoven's piano sonatas. For those unfamiliar with his works, this is a rather monumental task, especially for someone who is not a professional musician, and will likely take me the better part of my life. Beethoven's piano sonatas are considered among the greatest works ever composed for the instrument and are likely the most-studied and most-recorded pieces as well. They are held in such high regard because they cover a huge range of musical and emotional territory, yet the writing remains consistently splendid from the first to the last. In my opinion, all but a handful are great, and several of them I consider absolute gems.

Now you might think I am simply jumping on the Beethoven train, since he is the most celebrated composer of our time. Indeed, I adore his piano sonatas, but I don't believe they are necessarily better than comparable works of other great composers (for example, piano sonatas by Schubert or Prokofiev). Instead, my penchant for the composer is born from intrigue with his personal experiences. Beethoven experienced particularly poignant pains during different periods of his life. And while he struggled to ever find any peace within the world, he managed to illuminate many aspects of his life through music, and in doing so, speak allegorically of the human condition. In this sense, he was the first true Romantic composer, by using music to delve more boldly and deeply into humanity than anyone before him.

My own identification with Beethoven came with the discovery of his late piano sonatas and late string quartets. By the time he composed these works, Beethoven had already been deaf for roughly two decades. These works were the culmination of years of turmoil, despair, and hopelessness followed by gradual acceptance, gratitude, and embrace. Towards the end of his life, I would like to think that he finally came to terms with his own deafness, finally embraced the opportunity to give something wonderful to the world from a position of weakness. I can only conjecture how he truly felt, but his music suggested a transcendent maturation of one who had surfaced from the darkest depths of life.

Beethoven was raised under the watch of a strict alcoholic father who beat the child regularly and forced him to practice for unreasonable lengths of time. This probably contributed to his developing paranoia and irateness with everyone around him. Beethoven grew up to be somewhat crazy and extremely difficult to get along with, both with strangers and with those who knew him. In particular, he struggled immensely to find love, both romantically and within his own family, and went through a nasty custody battle over his nephew when his brother passed that interfered with his musical output. However, his most defining battle undoubtedly came against the onset of deafness.

Throughout his late teens and twenties, Beethoven had gradually made a name for himself as a budding virtuoso with incredible improvisation skills. During this time, he studied under Haydn and composed a great number of works in the Classical style, many of which went unpublished. What I find interesting is that compared to Mozart and Schubert, who had both composed incredibly mature works before the age of 30, Beethoven's early output was more tempered. While still sophisticated, his early music was largely playful and followed traditional styles. There are some notable exceptions, such as the Cantata for the Death of Joseph II, composed when Beethoven was 19, which contains emotional depth resembling that of music from much later.

It is hard to say how Beethoven would have developed as a composer had his hearing not started to fade. He remained extremely prolific into his early thirties, as he wrestled with his encroaching deafness and the quick evaporation of his own performance aspirations. His music took a turn during this time -- some of his works were noticeably more tumultuous and somber than earlier. At the same time, Beethoven began to take more and more liberties with musical structure, often breaking away from traditional approaches. This aspect of his music, I believe, would have occurred inexorably as a result of his increasing freedom (he was the first notable composer to not be employed by a court) and musical maturation.

One of the most interesting discoveries came following Beethoven's death in 1827 of a letter he wrote in 1802, now known as the Heiligenstadt Testament. It spoke of his emotional response to his deafness: the initial embarrassment, the ensuing frustration, and ultimately the overwhelming sense of isolation, as he no longer believed he could operate normally within society. In the letter, he briefly mentioned ending his own life but decided that his "art" was too valuable to not pursue further. Here, his pride, which caused him much despair, ultimately spurned him to continue pushing onward as a composer.

This testament was a watershed moment in the composer's life. By putting down in ink the rationale for his decisions, which he intended to be read after his death, Beethoven embarked on the gradual process of allowing his own physical and emotional well-being to play second fiddle to his quest to create music. He recognized his supreme musical gifts and decided at that moment that he would endure all hardships for the sake of using those gifts. As music truly became the reason for his existence, he poured increasing amounts of personal emotion into his compositions, which became a primary means of communication with the outside world, a world that could not relate to his troubles.

The last two decades of Beethoven's life yielded some of the most inspired music we have ever heard. Slowly his writing became more complex, more innovative, and more introspective. Among his greatest compositions exist the common themes of resolution and triumph. For example, the last movement of his final piano sonata elicits images of innocence, turmoil, desolation, loneliness, yearning, and tranquility, corresponding to Beethoven's own life trajectory. The piece concludes with the simplest and purest cadence, a sigh from the composer that speaks of his own acceptance of his life. Beethoven has won the war because he has come to terms with the things he cannot change.

What I love about this story is how an extraordinarily prideful and gifted man is humbled to the lowest point and then undergoes a journey to find peace, not through conquering his condition, but through reevaluating his identity. He must constantly grapple with not having what he wants in life, in a sense becoming a never-understood hero who suffers for the world. The music that spawns from such struggles reflects upon the innermost depths of his soul and invites audiences everywhere to experience that transcendence as well. Ironically, one person who will never hear performances of such wondrous music is the composer himself. But Beethoven resigns himself to this fact, and in doing so, lets us know that choices are more important than gifts.

Our Inner Demons

A framework to address turmoil

As I’ve dealt with inner turmoil, I’ve poured through many articles and stories of how others approach their struggles. This post is largely shaped by the opinions I have gathered, and I apologize that I will not be citing where I first discovered many of the ensuing ideas.

What causes the most discord in my life? Why do I sometimes lack motivation, hope or joy? Recently I realized that instead of just pinpointing what my struggles are, I need to understand how they take effect and operate. In essence, our innermost demons work through a discrepancy between our reality and expectations.

Expectations are formed through years of experiences and exposure to stimuli. Influences from family and friends, messages from the media, and self-developed ambitions all help shape what we expect from life. For example, growing up we often hear about the glory of the American Dream (apparently, this is also the Chinese Dream because my parents told me the same thing). Over time, we may come to expect to live in a cozy two-story house with a loving family and a stable job. After continued exposure, this idea becomes an expectation and subconsciously, even a desire. The more it gets reinforced, the stronger the expectation becomes and the more difficult it is to challenge.

Unfortunately, life does not always follow our expectations, and sometimes not due to a fault of our own. If we suddenly find ourselves unable to live the American Dream for some reason, and not just at this moment but indefinitely, then our entire identity gets challenged. We are sad in the present because life is not what we want it to be. Moreover, we feel pessimistic about the future because life may never be what we want it to be. Travelling down this train of thought can lead to feelings of despair and hopelessness, depending on how important the expectation is.

How do we to mend this wound in our identity? Besides denial, we might simply choose to ignore the issue completely and focus on other, more merry aspects of life. Again, depending on how dear the issue is to us, this tactic may not work very well. Imagine working your whole life towards a goal, perhaps as an aspiring athlete or artist. In an accident you suffer an injury that effectively ends your career. How do you reconcile this new condition preventing you from fulfilling your lifelong dream? Can you simply ignore the fact that everything you worked for has come to an end?

We all have to deal with unfulfillable expectations at some point in our lives. I think one way to handle a crushed dream is to simply let it go, but this is a lot easier said than done. When an idea becomes ingrained in our minds, not only do we have to undo years of habitual thinking, but we also have to fend off the external pressures that continue to fuel the idea. How difficult must it be to come to terms with not being able to see again, or not being able to have kids, or only having a few months left to live? Especially when all around we see others live the type of life we want, or others continue to demand from us the one thing we can no longer achieve.

Shedding our old expectations in order to form new ones can be among our most difficult yet transformative experiences. So how do we let go? First, accept what we cannot change and do not allow ourselves to ruminate on the past. Second, imagine a joyous and fulfilling life with the new expectations. Eventually they’ll come to form our new sense of identity, one that matches our reality. 

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Expectations matter a lot because they help shape our outlook on life and thus our happiness. Failure to meet high expectations can lead to disappointment and fulfillment of modest but genuine expectations can bring joy. However, a warning should be made against artificially setting a low bar. Studies show that optimism in general brings many benefits whereas constant negativity or self-deprecation has many drawbacks. I won’t go into details here, but generally optimism is correlated with higher levels of resiliency and happiness.

So how do we separate the good optimistic expectations from the unfulfillable life-draining ones? At times it’s obvious, but sometimes the line is not clear-cut. Studies show that most people tend to overestimate their own situation, and thus most expectations are based as much on imagination as reality. Furthermore, we see examples of visionaries refuse to waiver from their goal to eventually accomplish the seemingly impossible. But, for each success there are many more who fall short.

Perhaps one useful metric to examine is how our expectations affect us. Do they motivate, inspire, and energize us to face our challenges? Do they provide a sense of purpose and pride with each new achievement? Or do they sap our energy, cause us to regret our past, dread our future, or even hate ourselves? At that point it may be time to let go.

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This is a great talk on how happiness can emerge through uncontrollable circumstances: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q1dgn_C0AU