Beethoven became deafness

[Kalista]

http://www.hearpros.com/beethove.htm



It is interesting to know. What was causing Beetheoven become deafness? It is 202 years ago !!

He became deaf in year of 1802 ( age of 22 yrs old ).

http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/beethoven.html

Amazing isn't it that dna remains active for so many years following death. I had always thought he was born deaf but the article gives me the impression it was later in life.

The years after 1812 were relatively unproductive. He seems to have been seriously depressed, by his deafness and the resulting isolation, by the failure of his marital hopes and (from 1815) by anxieties over the custodianship of the son of his late brother, which involved him in legal actions. But he came out of these trials to write his profoundest music, which surely reflects something of what he had been through.

 

[CatoCooper13]

Yeah...it's pretty old news about him. I did see a movie, can't remember the name of it, but it was based on Beetheoven's life and impending deafness late in life.

 

[The Heretic]

A classic

Yes, Beethoven's hearing loss is well represented in the movie Immortal Beloved, where the composer was fully fleshed out by Gary Oldman at the top of his game. It was an attempt to nail down the actual inspiration of his most famous symphony, which happened to be unrequited love or the forbidden fruit.

By the way, according to this link, Beethoven became deaf or suffered hearing loss at the age of 28.
From the article:

"Beginning in 1798 he experienced a continual humming and whistling in his ears that gradually grew stronger, eventually prompting the agonizing realization that he was going deaf. In 1802, in a state of desperation in which he contemplated suicide, Beethoven retired to the secluded village of Heiligenstadt and addressed to his brothers, a statement expressing his anguish"

If Beethoven was born in 1770, and his hearing degenerated in 1798... do the math.

I remember arguing with a deaf fundamentalist who thought Beethoven overcame deafness to compose music. This is palpably false, given the actual hearing experience he had during his first 28 years. After he lost his hearing, he could no longer play his music w/o making mistakes. Although he could compose, or create musical pieces, this was a result of having 28 years' worth of functional ears. Furthermore, Beethoven only began to lose his hearing at age 28, and did not become fully deaf until he was in his 50s.

 

[The Heretic]

Another link also makes the same claim:

"By the time Beethoven was 28 he began to notice a hearing loss. At first it was slight. He couldn't hear the church bells ringing in the distance. As he got older his hearing loss worsened. By the time he was 50 he was completely deaf. How sad and strange that one of the world's greatest composers could not hear his own music! Even more amazing is that he wrote some of the world's greatest music even though he could not hear a note of it."

 

[LeviathanC]

Duh....old shit news.