Titans of History полностью

Posthumous analysis of Beethoven’s hair revealed dangerously high levels of lead, certainly damaging to health, the effects of which may have contributed to his unpredictable moods. We may never know the cause of his deafness for certain; but what is beyond doubt is Beethoven’s heroism in defying his condition to create a musical world of such timeless resonance today.

Settled in Vienna, he produced a series of masterpieces. His Symphony No. 3, completed in 1803, was originally dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte, whose revolutionary zeal made him a hero to Beethoven. When Napoleon declared himself emperor in May 1804, the disillusioned composer angrily removed the dedication. Nevertheless, this dramatic, powerful symphony remained a landmark in Beethoven’s musical development and when published in 1806 was suitably re-entitled Sinfonia eroica.

Beethoven’s middle period saw a rush of compositions that included the Waldstein and Appassionata piano sonatas, the Fourth Piano Concerto, the Razumovsky Quartets and the Violin Concerto, and also his first and only opera, Fidelio. His Symphonies Nos. 4 and 5 also date from this period, with the Fifth, its opening theme recognizable the world over, being a landmark in musical originality. Just as original is his Symphony No. 6, known as the Pastoral, in which woodwind instruments imitate the birds of the local countryside. The Symphonies Nos. 7 and 8 mark the close of a period filled with orchestral masterpieces.

Composing less in his later years, as complete deafness claimed him, Beethoven’s late-period works, from around 1815 onwards, are marked by increased intimacy and emotional power. His final piano sonatas, opuses 109, 110 and 111, are extraordinary virtuoso works, in which complexity is perfectly partnered with lyricism. On the other hand, his majestic Symphony No. 9, of 1824, explodes with the final movement’s “Ode to Joy,” featuring a full choir and soloists—its soaring and exhilarating jubilance now used, somewhat absurdly, to drum up enthusiasm for the bureaucracy of the European Union. His last string quartets were completed in 1826, which coincided with the attempted suicide of Beethoven’s nephew, to whom he was guardian. This, along with a bout of pneumonia and the onset of cirrhosis of the liver, probably contributed to his death in March 1827.

Prone to black moods and periods of emotional upheaval, Beethoven had difficulty maintaining relationships, and he never married—though a letter discovered after his death, addressed to his “Immortal Beloved,” has led many to speculate on the possibility of a secret, married lover. He was buried in great pomp, his funeral in Vienna befitting a composer who had become famous throughout Europe as one of the greatest of his, or any other, time.

JANE AUSTEN

1775–1817

Like Shakespeare, she took, as it were, the common dross of humanity, and by her wonderful power of literary alchemy, turned it into pure gold. Yet she was apparently unconscious of her strength, and in the long roll of writers who have adorned our noble literature there is probably not one so devoid of pedantry or affectation, so delightfully self-repressive, or so free from egotism, as Jane Austen.

George Barnett Smith, in The Gentleman’s Magazine, No. 258 (1895)

A parson’s daughter who completed just six novels during her short life, Jane Austen emerged from deliberate anonymity to become English literature’s best-loved female writer. Her gently ironic yet profound novels of love, manners and marriage transformed the art of writing fiction.

Acutely observed and subtly incisive, Austen’s works are acknowledged as masterpieces. Her irony conceals a penetrating gaze, encapsulated in the famous opening line of Pride and Prejudice (1813): “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” This was the world she chronicled: “The Assemblies of Nottingham are, as in all other places, the resort of the young and the gay, who go to see and be seen; and also of those, who, having played their matrimonial cards well in early life, are now content to sit down to a game of sober whist or quadrille.” Thus, in 1814, was encapsulated the purpose of the endless round of entertainments that consumed the lives of England’s gentry and aristocracy: to find matches for the new generation.