I would like to present to you the enigmatic and astoundingly deaf bachelor, Ludwig Van Beethoven. The man, the myth and well... mainly the myth.
He began composing at 7 (similar to Mozart's 6:
SH Archive - Music | - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - anything strange there?) however even this is disputed as being too old in some circles.
At 14 he was appointed as the organist to the Choir of Maximilian Franz. I believe the age because I once saw Silverchair perform live when they were 14yo's playing 3, and sometimes 4, chord grunge songs.
Even so, there is no disputing that when he first began to get sick and deaf he was still pumping out the music with a bravado that is rarely, if ever heard of. In fact, during his sickness it is as if he wern't both deaf and sick as the quality, variance and complexity of his works amplified.
Putting this aside, he had a relatively easy life. Multiple on-going lawsuits, family deaths, family fights, family attempted suicides, complete failure to obtain a wife (even though he was the most famous composer in Vienna) and money problems due to inconsistent working arrangements. None, of these minor issues held him back, nor would they as he was a genius.
At 24 (1795), he had finished his studies with Haydn (left) and Albrechtsberger (right).
In the year of 1795 that he finished his studies he was at his most prolific. He composed 146 piano, violin, vocal, orchestral and symphonic pieces in this uneventful year of study, final exams, his first famous performances, intense courting and the subsequent denied marriage proposal to the semi-famous touring singer Magdalena Willmann. As if that wasn't enough, his old teacher, Haydn, visited LVB from London and finally his brother Carl visited him.
Amid the compositions that he released this year were the famed Trios for Piano (opus 1). An average of one piece every 2.5 days. Not a shabby effort at all.
There are many web pages spewing factoids about when our deaf mastermind actually went deaf but for the purpose of this thread I will go with the the year 1797 as detailed
Chronology of Beethoven's life - Ludwig van Beethoven's website.
This puts him at the tender age of 26. You can of course find that this number varies due to his desire to keep his deafness a deep dark secret. Alas, being deaf is not the kind of thing that one can keep secret for very long, especially when you are the renowned musician Ludwig Van Beethoven (LVB) who is performing in front of paying students, packed church gatherings and large orchestral settings.
At 26, he had already composed a handful of songs. 433 to be exact. These works range from singular piano/violin pieces, duo's, trio's, chamber(4 instruments), septets, vocal arrangements over chamber music , orchestral and symphonies (in excess of 30 of these). Each piece contained at minimum three parts: intro, middle and end. Many of them have non repeating melody lines in them that evolve as the piece progresses.
A surprising thing to note is that in the late 1700's, LVB didn't have access to a computer to copy/paste melody lines or to undo mistakes. Instead he used paper and ink. The paper and ink was of such high quality that it lasted nearly 250 years until now and is still perfectly legible and thus open to melodic interpretation. If he made a mistake he would have to start again.
Beethoven by the numbers
Some stats to ponder. Please note that I
massively underestimate the parts and melodies and most likely the instruments sections and variations but I would have to spend more precious time on the calculations to determine that one. It is thus better to undershoot than exaggerate. So, the numbers you are about to see are lower than the actual, so you will have to use your imagination to project.
First you should know what we are dealing with. Our bard wrote a lot of songs. 1285 to be as exact as one could be. Forgeries, variations and lost works could be argued to lower or raise this number but in the general way of our times, this is the number I calculated. The spreadsheet is linked below so you can see my methodology.
Here is a graph I complied from a thorough list of all his works and mapped them to the accepted year of completion and finally I graphed them.
Below is an example of 2 pages (p212 and p253) from his 263 page manuscript for the Orchestral Symphony, Opus.60, 1806. He had 84 of these orchestral symphonies and a further 54 slightly smaller, usually by a few pages, stage productions, operas, plays etc. You can see his attempt to scribble out a mistake or two. He really should have invented an eraser as it would have been easier than being paranoid writing out the
794,130 pages of manuscripts over his career. Yes, you did read that right. LVB, at a low estimate would have had to have scribed nearly eight hundred thousand pages of sheet music in his life time.
An Orchestral piece averages more at 270 plus pages. There are more than 10,000 individual melodies across all instruments and this is just a standard example.
I mapped it out and again I took the low ball on this.
| Songs | Average Pages | Medley's Per Sheet Music Page | Instruments |
|---|
| Vocal | 574 | 12 | 16 | 5 |
| Chamber | 372 | 26 | 16 | 5 |
| Keyboard | 96 | 28 | 2 | 2 |
| Orchestral | 84 | 270 | 16 | 100 |
| Stage | 52 | 260 | 16 | 70 |
| Keyboard/Vocal | 46 | 16 | 16 | 2 |
| Uncategorised | 0 | 6 | 16 | 4 |
| Total | 1285 | 794130 | 12706080 | |
| Year | 35.69444444 | 22059.16667 | 352946.6667 | |
| Day | 0.097792998 | 60.43607306 | 966.9771689 | |
So, every day for 36 years LVB wrote, on average and at minimum, 60 pages of musical notation and 966 melodies. Illuminati confirmed. 3, 6 and 9! This doesn't include his recently found lost manuscripts...which I discount as 100% false although they may hint at what other musicians contributed...
Now I would like to say a few points here.
1. Total songs came out at 1285 which includes variations of compositions. If not included, the number is about 100 less but I chose to include them because his variations vary so much that they would have required much effort.
2. I target his deaf age to highlight how amazing this deaf guy was. Many of his pieces have such complex interplay of vocals, instruments and movements that many orchestras require weeks to perfect a single piece.
| Pre deafness < 26 | Post Deafness > 26 |
|---|
| 433 | 852 |
| 33.69% | 66.30% |
3. Over his productive working lifetime of 36 good years before his untimely death at 56, he averaged 35.69 pieces per year.
4. He was a huge lover of Irish, Scottish, Welsh and British music. He was such a big lover that 10% of all pieces and variations were in this category. He didn't just take an old poem(although he did do that on many occasions), he created standard formats and interpretations of such songs as
St Patrick's Day,
God Save the King and
Rule Britannia. The last two had 5 and 7 variations respectively. He LOVED this style even more than any other single style or nationality (including his native Country it seems). Come to think about it, he kind of looks Irish... in a mad hatter kind of way.
Some of his 'most loved' songs grouped by his release dates.
37 Scottish songs over 2 volumes 1815-19 (45-49yo)
O! Thou Art the Lad of my Heart
Sympathy ("Why, Julia, say, that pensive mien?")
Bonnie Laddie, Highland Laddie ("Where got ye that siller moon")
Dim, Dim is my Eye
The Sweetest Lad was Jamie
Again, my Lyre
O Swiftly Glides the Bonny Boat
Could This Ill World Have Been Contriv'd
O Cruel Was My Father
O, How Can I Be Blithe and Glad
O, Had My Fate Been Join'd With Thine
The Lovely Lass of Inverness
O Mary, at Thy Window Be
Come Fill, Fill, my Good fellow!
Behold my Love how Green the Groves
The Maid of Isla ("O maid of Isla from yon cliff")
O Sweet were the Hours
Music, Love and Wine ("O let me music hear, night and day!")
Sally in Our Alley ("Of all the girls that are so smart")
The Highland Watch ("Old Scotia, wake thy mountain strain")
Jeanie's Distress ("By William late offended")
57 Irish songs over 3 volumes 1810-12 (40-42yo)
Including
Air Tirolien: “I bin a Tiroler Bua”
Air Écossais: “Bonny Laddie, Highland Laddie”
Air de la petite Russie, also known as Volkslied aus Kleinrussland
Air Écossais: “The Pulse of an Irishman” or “St. Patrick’s Day”
Air Rirolien: “A Madel, ja a Madel”
Air Écossais: “Merch Megan” or “Peggy’s Daughter”
Air Russe: “Schöne Minka”
Air Écossais: “O Mary, at thy Window Be”
Air Écossais: “Oh, Thou art the Lad of my Heart”
Air Écossais: “The Highland Watch”
26 Welsh songs over 1810-15 (40-45yo)
9 British plus "Rule Britannia" (7 variations), "God Save the King" (5 variations) 1803-17 (32-47yo)
Total: 129 Songs from Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Britain.
Conclusion
The above data shows that this is a complete impossibility considering the high quality and variance of the works.
As one of my favorite classical composers, my favorite is Bela Bartok, I was saddened to come to the following obvious conclusion but sorry Ludwig my old friend, you are nothing more than a catchall for many other musicians from a previous time. A collection of musicians works, all clustered into one potentially real composer discography. What did he write exactly? We may never know but I for one am still going to listen to him but with different ears.
Statistics and Sources
I first came across this topic of LVB on a Facebook group run a good researcher "Marcia Ramalho". He said the following which kicked me off down a two day rabbit hole.
Side note: It took nearly two days to put all of this together and there are potentially minor mistakes but with such a lot of data the same conclusion would still be reached (I hope).
Enjoy the fact that some cares because in a decade or two, yiu won’t be remembered.
