At the age of 16, Ludwig van Beethoven set out for Vienna from his birthplace Bonn for the first time in 1787, where he stayed for several weeks (he permanently settled there only in 1792). The journey immediately led to the revered Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. After Beethoven introduced himself as an outstanding pianist with an improvisation, Mozart is said to have reacted with the famous words: "Watch out for that one, he will make a name for himself in the world one day." Mozart had the right intuition.
However, he could hardly have guessed what place Beethoven would actually occupy in music history and continues to occupy in the music world today. In the 19th century, the 1770-born composer was declared the prototype of artistic genius, whose nine symphonies became role models for succeeding generations of composers – at times also an overwhelming burden.
The conductor Hans von Bülow called Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas the "New Testament" of piano music (the "Old Testament" was for Bülow J. S. Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier"). Even in rock and pop history, there are monuments to Beethoven. Rock'n'Roll king Chuck Berry sang "Roll Over Beethoven" in 1956, and Miguel Ríos stormed the charts with "Song of Joy," a pop version of Beethoven's setting of Schiller's "Ode to Joy."
The fact that Beethoven ultimately rose from a million-selling artist to a billion-dollar economic factor can be traced back to the Japanese Beethoven fan Norio Ohga. In the early 1980s, it was the explicit wish of the vice president of the record label Sony that the newly developed storage medium called Compact Disc must have the capacity to record the entire Ninth Symphony by Beethoven. A performance by Wilhelm Furtwängler, lasting just under 74 minutes, was used as a reference value. However, Beethoven's Ninth not only became a reference value for storage media; it also began a career as an advertisement. A dental lab advertised with the slogan: "Beethoven's Ninth, as brilliant as our dentures."
Beethoven was able to enjoy popularity even during his lifetime, although he put the listening habits of the audience to a radically new test. He peppered the established sound language of the 18th century with dissonances and rhythmic tensions that were outrageous to ears of the time. At the same time, music for him was no longer learned machinery, nor commissioned or entertaining music.
Beethoven, who was the first independent composer of rank in music history, sought to implement human-ethical ideals in music with his works. Thus, Beethoven, influenced by the political upheavals of his time, attributed a clear function to certain harmonic turns: "They should bring about real changes in every listener."
From 1819 onwards, Beethoven could no longer perceive his audible philosophy himself, as he had become completely deaf. Yet with his late piano sonatas, he broke one last time with all traditions and ventured into sound worlds that had never been heard before, seemingly disembodied. When Beethoven finally passed away in Vienna on March 26, 1827, 20,000 people bid him farewell three days later. While eight conductors held the corners of the pall, musicians accompanied the coffin as torchbearers. One who paid his last tribute to Beethoven was Franz Schubert.
