Original subtitles

Recum

don looks perpetu.

[Music]

With the death of his brother,

Beethoven's emotional life changed

forever.

The composer's final years were to be

dominated by his battle with his

sister-in-law Yahana for possession of

his young nephew.

At 45, his hearing deteriorating, he

retreated into a more exclusively

private world, which represented the one

period of creative silence in his mature

[Music]

career. The astonishing body of work

from Beethoven's last decade was still

to come. works of unsurpassed vision and

complexity like the ninth symphony, the

late string quartets and the

missnis. But for the next two years,

Europe's most famous and celebrated

composer would produce almost no new

music. The catastrophe of his deafness

had already robbed him of his life as a

performing musician.

For the moment, his creative energy and

passion, his faith and aspiration would

all be devoted to his 9-year-old nephew,

Carl Vanb.

[Music]

The piano was as mute as he was deaf.

and he was deaf to all reason but his

own regarding his nephew. But your

brother's request was that you and

Johanna should bring up the boy

together. No, she made my brother do

that when he was on his deathbed.

Stefan, the woman's morally

unfit morally unfit to be a mother. You

think you're in no position? drunk. No,

I will inspire my

nephew with industry and virtue after my

own example.

No, there's nothing more

sacred than the care of a

[Music]

child. I couldn't help remembering the

lonely little boy I'd known back in

Bond. Ludvik's mother did so little to

protect him. And now he became

absolutely possessed with the notion of

becoming a father

himself. There was something

innocent but also desperate about it.

Then when he took his case to

[Music]

court, Vienna's greatest

composer against poor Johanna,

the imperial and royal landrect of the

empire of

Austria confers sole guardianship of the

minor son Carl upon his uncle Her Ludvig

Van Beethoven.

You have won the day, my boy.

[Music]

[Music]

down. It took him years to forgive me

for not supporting him. But I knew that

his love for Carl, and he really did

love the

boy. It would demand too much. Behovven

hadn't found happiness with an adult.

And what chance did a little boy have of

living up to the expectations of a man

like Luffic?

Chattering in class when you should be

paying attention to your

lessons. Neglecting your piano practice.

What's achieved in life without

diligence? H nothing.

Nothing. What's the matter with

you? Oh, for God's sake, woman. I know.

[Music]

Why are you sad?

I make you

ashamed and I'm ashamed of myself.

[Music]

I am going to rid you of your mother's

poison.

Coffee now. For God's sakes, woman. Not

now.

My precious

boy. My trouser

[Music]

button. No,

I always

felt he wanted to be not just a father

to the boy but his everything, his whole

world. And for a while, this little

family that he had created, this father

and

son, well, it was Ludvig's whole world.

[Music]

All the creative zeal and uncompromising

commitment of Beethoven the composer was

now expressed in Beethoven the parent.

There were no half

measures. Nothing could soften his

hostility to Carl's mother or temper his

fanatical devotion to what he considered

his moral duty as loving father to a

young human spirit.

[Applause]

[Music]

Look at these figures. We must sort this

out.

[Music]

Without that woman's influence, he'll be

a better man.

We'll look at the laundry list later.

He's happier now, isn't he?

You've been out for 2 hours. Don't tell

me you've been to school. I know you

haven't been to

school. You've been to see You were

seen. You haven't been in school. You've

been to see your mother. Yes, you've

been to see your mother. Don't lie.

Don't lie to me. You're my son. You're

my son. You're not her son. You're my

son. You're my son.

[Music]

God.

God. Oh

god. Oh my god.

[Music]

Unable to recognize boundaries or the

limits of reasonable behavior, Beethoven

was on the edge of emotional breakdown.

Such a crisis might reasonably

precipitate disintegration, but in

Beethoven's case, extreme crisis led to

quantum creative

leaps. 15 years earlier, the heroica

symphony had emerged from the

devastation of his deafness. And now,

with a level of personal despair even

higher than that, Beethoven broke the

silence of the last two years with the

greatest of all his piano sonatas, the

hammer.

[Music]

This is a monster of a piece. Using

every inch of the keyboard and resting

every bit of expressive possibility out

of the

instrument. It makes technical demands

far beyond anything pianists had

encountered before. The 40 piano,

pointedly given its German name,

Hammerclavier, is no longer just an

expressive tool, but an almost

machine-like challenge to the human

performer.

[Music]

There's a rigorous intellect at work

here, a new sense of both integration

and creative freedom, hallmarks of

Beethoven's late style. And from this

astonishingly assured and ambitious

work, it becomes clear that Beethoven's

period of low production wasn't in any

way a creative slowdown. In fact, while

dealing with the intense moral and

practical demands of fatherhood,

Beethoven was concluding a spectacular

creative

metamorphosis. From now on, the

challenges that he set himself, his

musical and ideological aspirations, far

surpassed anything of his earlier years.

[Music]

[Music]

[Applause]

[Applause]

[Music]

He was in despair when Carl ran

away. I didn't think things could get

any

worse. They

did. Johanna took him back to court.

Carl,

why did you run away from your uncle?

Why has your uncle ever

mistreated you.

He has often had to punish me and I've

always deserved it.

What's interesting here, I think, is

that the more Beethoven confronts the

law, the more his music becomes about

rules, how to twist them, bend them,

break them. The last movement of the

Hammer Clavier sonata is really a huge

fugue, the most rulebound of all

compositional forms. literally a musical

straight jacket and this fugue is one of

the most ambitious and complicated ever

written. A fugue is built from a single

theme and here Beethoven's theme is so

complicated that it is in itself a

challenge to any composer. Its big leap,

trill, and series of helter skelter

notes make it very distinctive so that

every time this theme appears, it's easy

to

[Music]

recognize. As the piece develops,

Beethoven uses every conceivable fugal

device, literally every trick in the

book. He more than lives up to his great

model, JS Bach. What makes this fugue so

extraordinary is the way Beethoven

contrasts the strict discipline of the

form with an excessive almost anaric

sense of freedom. Again, there are no

borders, no limits, anything might

happen. Then when I heard she had taken

a secret lover and was displaying

herself on immodest dance floors

throughout

[Music]

Vienna, my only

concern is for my little boy's soul.

I was advised that Beethoven is greatly

neglecting my son's physical and moral

upbringing.

In this fugue, the sheer intellectual

display is astonishing. He creates more

rules than are necessary, deliberately

placing obstacles and challenges in his

own

path. At one point, he even turns his

theme backwards.

It is no

secret that my brother-in-law is

deaf. My son cannot even speak to him.

I have often asked him if he's fond of

his

mother and he's always responded in the

[Music]

negative. He fragments and disrupts it

to the point that it almost

disintegrates, but the inexraable thrust

of fugue holds it together.

[Music]

By constantly disrupting and fragmenting

the rules, Beethoven is creating a logic

of disintegration rather than

integration, which makes the music more

and more compulsive.

You can hear him trying to pull

everything together and

succeeding. I have nothing to

gain except for recognizing in

myself the man who gave my

son a better human nature.

[Music]

Her Ludvig van Beethoven is to be

appointed guardian of the said minor

Carl van

Beethoven to the complete exclusion of

the mother.

[Music]

So he finally had the

boy and Johanna went on to have another

baby, Ludovvika.

There was some question over who the

father was, and Ludvig felt that proved

his case against her once and for

all. Carl seemed not to miss her anymore

after the baby was

born, and he was soon sent back to

boarding school.

God sees into our

[Music]

hearts and our conscience.

[Music]

He knows that I I perform all of the

duties required of

me by

humanity, God and

nature. Beethoven was religious

inwardly. He didn't attend church. His

theories weren't based on any church

dogmas or

ritual. They were revealed to him by

nature herself.

He recognized God in the world and the

world in God.

From what we can see of God's

work, we can conclude that he is present

in every part of space.

Ask his girl to deal with this, will

you?

So, these powders, six times daily, and

six bowls of the tea. If the powders

don't work, we'll try another enema. One

day, this will be the end of me. Oh,

come on. We'll put that day off for a

long time yet. is a bad man who doesn't

know how to

die. I've known that since I was a boy

of

15. My only regret is that I've done so

little for

art. As far as all that's concerned,

forgive me, but you could leave us

today.

I do have some very different things in

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

mind. Beethoven's new focus on a very

personal spirituality coincided with the

elevation of his royal patron, Archduke

Rudolph, to the position of Archbishop.

Rudolph represented the old enlightened

regime of his uncle, Emperor Joseph II,

a lost golden age compared to the

repressive order of modern Vienna. And

for Beethoven, Rudolph's forthcoming

enthronement represented a profound

personal opportunity. Your Highness

Perfect.

If a mass composed by me is performed at

the

ceremony, then it'll be the most

glorious day of my

life. But I must be able to use your

library day or night.

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

True church

music. What is

[Music]

that? Not the older composers. only

Sebastian Bark and

handle what we might call

genius. But I want to go much further

back than that to the ancient music of

the

[Music]

monks. In writing what became the Mrs.

Salem Beth's intention was to create not

just an articulation of faith, not just

a glorification of the truth, but a

musical presentation of what the mass

really meant to

[Music]

him. He went on an exhaustive search to

find the right musical materials to

express the fundamental truths of the

mass text. Midway through the creed, for

example, he went back to a thoroughly

ancient musical model.

[Music]

Not only is Beethoven deliberately

conjuring up the sound of Gregorian

chant, he's also working with an ancient

musical mode. This is a D minor

[Music]

scale. Here it is again with no black

notes.

That is the Dorian mode, a language

almost totally unknown in Beethoven's

time except to a handful of scholars.

[Music]

[Applause]

For Beethoven, this sweeping away of

musical convention is almost like a

ritual purification through which he

presents an intensely personal obsession

with faith, mortality, and immortality.

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

Listen to what he does on the line homo

fatest and was made man. We leave the

archaic world of the Dorian mode

returning to a glorious D major.

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

moral law within us.

Starry heavens above us.

Emanuel

[Music]

Kant in creating the Mrs. Almnis

Beethoven knowingly I think is making a

lasting bequest to the world. It's not

arrogant or presumptuous, but it is

nonetheless a monument to himself and

his immortality. And to me, there's one

moment in his fast work which is

especially important. It's the great

fugue at the end of the Kredo section

when he sets the text, I wait for the

life of the world to come.

[Music]

[Applause]

This music is borderline unsable and

that is the

point. He creates through the nion

impossible a palpable sense of striving

beyond what any of us can afford to

give.

[Music]

[Music]

In composing this affirmation of faith,

Beethoven quite literally pushed himself

to the brink.

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Music]

night

[Music]

building.

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

Heat. Heat.

[Music]

Beethovven had such belief in the human

spirit and for the moral elevation of

every member of the human species. That

was the

thing. Now, some people complained that

uh well that he had too high an opinion

of himself and too little of his fellow

men. But those of us who counted

ourselves among his friends knew that

what he wanted was to rise above the

sortedness of life. and through his

music to bring the rest of us with him.

He was well into his 50s by then, of

course, and known throughout the city as

the most famous musician in

Europe. But much as they may deny it,

the fact is that vianese taste is

neither sophisticated nor elevated. And

during those days, the more challenging

music of my friend Beethoven was not so

much in vogue. Rosini and his cronies is

all everybody wants these days. No,

Italians. It's his paralytic regime.

It allows no freedom of expression, no

freedom of thought. What? Walls have

ears.

London's the only place to be now,

Stefan.

You see the English, they would never

tolerate

spies or sensors. Look, Vic,

please. Of course, I don't want any

wine,

Chindler. Doctor's

orders. Can't hear, can't drink, can't

Thank god poor Beethoven can

compose. Eh.

No, the problem wasn't so much that he

was loud, but that he was never

discreet, even during those dangerous

years after the wars. But somehow he

would always get away with

it. Perhaps because people started to

think that he was going a little

crazy, a benign

madman. Of course, he was nothing of the

sort. and eccentric.

Certainly he could shock people in the

street and in certain details he was

very very particular.

[Music]

[Applause]

coffee for example, his essential

nourishment he would prepare

himself. His procedure worthy of the

orientals 60 beans precisely and of

course they had to be counted

[Music]

out 502.

In 1822, Beethoven received a commission

for a new symphony from London's

Filmonic Society. It had been over a

decade since he'd written his last, the

eighth. But he was in fact already

thinking about creating two great

symphonies, each different from each

other, and each different from all my

other ones.

[Music]

I dread beginning works of this

magnitude

of once I've started

it's everything's

fine once again was thinking in terms of

a pair of

symphonies but continuing ill health

prevented him from going to England as

he'd hoped and it wasn't London that saw

the premiere of his ninth symphony

Carl's school fees are due

You,

Gindler. Listen to

this. Do not allow your latest

offspring to appear as foreigners.

appear soon among your

friends, your

admirers, your venerators.

[Music]

I think that's very

beautiful to put on a concert of my

newest works in Vienna.

No.

H. Come on,

Schindler. We're going for a

walk. Might actually be able to make

some

money. Naturally, there was an immense

amount to organize before such a concert

could take place. And in that, I

was, as always, there to assist.

Well, just tell the scribes to copy my

score exactly as I've written it

down. And we still need a hall. We

better write to Dietrich Stein. See what

he can do.

[Music]

What's really exciting about the opening

of the ninth symphony is how the music

emerges from nothing, from the dawn of

time as it were. And this sense of high

drama was enthusiastically seized upon

by many later composers. Out of the

darkness there shall be light.

Dearstein says

no. Well, then find another hole.

Shindler expenses. I mean the copious

bills alone. How many copious do we

need?

H

[Music]

five. Then Schindler, tell them that I

asked them to copy out the words and the

music as they were written, and I find

they've done almost exactly the

opposite. It's almost as though they've

done it on

purpose. Of course, they can play

it. We

must make sure they get the speed right.

[Music]

[Applause]

It's an excellent

[Music]

invention. Very useful. We've been at it

for

weeks. Day and

night, vulgar simul. I'm as roasted as

this

be. But wait till you hear it stand.

Wait till you hear it.

The premiere of Beethoven's ninth

symphony would become a milestone in

musical history. With this massive work,

Beethoven raised western music to an

unprecedented level of urgency, power,

and meaning.

In its final movement, in the most

direct and public way, he would share

his belief in humankind and a universal

brotherhood through a setting of

Schiller's Ode to Joy. For the first

time, a symphony included

[Music]

voices. Eternal

[Music]

Freder.

[Music]

drunken

[Music]

Shall we bring the

[Music]

food against

[Music]

I

[Music]

never forget

[Applause]

[Music]

My

[Applause]

[Music]

name 200 years after it was written,

this symph Symphony remains the ultimate

musical symbol of our faith in an

inclusive world. And it's an appalling

irony that the one person excluded from

that utopian moment of its premiere was

the composer himself.

[Music]

I don't think he heard a note of it.

He even needed me to tell him how often

the audience had burst into

applause, how the police commissioner

had to quieten them between

movements, how there was not the

slightest disturbance in the quietest

[Music]

passages, but I never expected him to be

so moved. moved by such a

[Applause]

[Music]

reception. I

am Heat. Heat. Heat.

[Music]

This concert closed a chapter in

Beethoven's life. It was his last public

appearance in Vienna and his last public

statement as a composer.

[Music]

Beethoven's inexhaustible genius has

shown us a new world, revealing magical

secrets of a holy art which we had never

before heard or even

imagined. But it didn't make me any

money, did it?

Shindler, your presence irritates

me. I don't want you sitting at my

table.

Go.

Yes, the concert was a

success, but he made much less money

than he had hoped.

and he thought I had cheated

him. So for a while I didn't work for

him, which was

unfortunate because he had only his

nephew to take my

[Music]

place. Of course, I'll be needing some

blotting

paper from my bowels.

Get them when you go into town. I've got

to study.

Of course you've got to study.

Gained in life without diligence.

Nothing. Nothing. You have no idea. Yes,

of course you prefer to squander the

hours or your evenings with that

nx. The billiard

table drinking probably

Keep

up. Beethovven got no better in that

respect as he grew older.

suspicious,

jealous, easily offended, easily hurt,

easily

angered, and yet still so full of warmth

and trust and generosity. You'll be

going this evening drinking or gambling.

Of course, it was much harder for Carl

than the rest of

us. After nearly 10 years of existing

between those

extremes, he couldn't possibly have

known just how much his uncle cared.

storing money from this apartment.

Must be examination time, sir. Money?

Yes, sir. In two weeks. Well, good luck.

Real poverty or course. Always always

deserves our sympathy. But that young

man, he lacks both poise and manners.

Who's always my little baby? Little

trouser

of sweet.

He's

cruel and he's common. He doesn't

deserve your friendship to go. Where are

you going? Come

back. Come back. You'll be back here at

8:00 in the morning. I've got things for

you to

do. Sure.

child. Do something for

me. Heck the boy out one evening and see

if he's any good at billiards.

[Music]

H after the huge canvases he'd used for

the mass and the ninth symphony,

Beethoven now turned back to the most

intimate musical form.

[Music]

In his final group of five string

quartets, Beethoven was determined to

take the form as far as it could go. And

I think these pieces prove that he

wasn't the first great romantic, as the

history books often term him, but rather

the last great classicist. It's as if

he's saying, "I represent the end of the

road for the classical string quartet,

and beyond me, there's only an abyss.

Anybody who wants to write a string

quartet now will have to find a new

way." He's deliberately closing a

chapter in musical history.

[Music]

[Music]

The great B flat major quartet is built

from a sequence of six movements rather

than the usual four. It focuses on

extremes of contrast both within and

between movements and extremes were

exactly what characterized his

relationship with

Carl. I mean, you don't know what it's

like. Endless demands and I'm never good

enough. His son must be

exceptional and and I'm

not. And then there's my mother. I mean,

she's my

mother. You're lying to me. Don't lie to

your father. It's just This is your

mother's poison killing

you.

What? No idea the sacrifice it takes to

become a decent human being. Just get

out. Go and get

out. Carl,

Carl, come back.

Car, don't do this to your

father. Your father that loves you.

[Music]

The absolute extreme of Beethoven's

aggressive brutality exists for me in

the last movement of this Bflat quartet.

The Gossafuga is a relentless 15-minute

assault on both the performers and the

audience. In its insanely ambitious

technical demands, it was also an

assault on the composer.

In his uncompromising

selfexpectation, we can hear Beethoven

doing to himself exactly what he did to

[Music]

Carl. Heat. Heat.

[Music]

deceitful. You're like that monster that

spawned you.

[Music]

Heat. Heat.

[Music]

I shall never forget his face when he

told

me, "My car has shut himself.

The grief he felt was

indescribable. What made it

worse was that when they found the

boy, he asked for his mother.

What reason did you have?

Tired of

[Music]

life? You are tired of life. My

[Music]

uncle tormented me too

much. He tried to make me a better

person. He only made me worse.

Tell my

uncle I want to hear nothing about my

mother. That is

[Music]

derogatory. When Carl left hospital 2

months later, Beethoven's response was

unusually well judged. He took him to

the country to recuperate and for the

first time allowed him to decide on his

own future. a career in the

army. It was during this visit that

Beethoven wrote his last piece of music,

a new final movement for the Bflat

quartet to replace the Gorsa fuga, which

had so bewildered audiences and been

pronounced unplayable by

professionals. Having gone to the

absolute extreme, Beethoven was now

ready to pull back.

[Music]

In this brilliantly witty movement, the

work finds a gentler resolution. Through

this ultimate crisis, I think Beethoven

had finally found some sense of personal

equilibrium.

Carl recovered and he was due to join

his

regiment. They arrived back in Vienna in

the middle of winter after a terrible

journey in an open carriage.

Well, I I I could see straight away how

ill Ludvig was. He'd caught

pneumonia, but he'd been ill so often

over the past 10 years, none of us

suspected, but he would hardly leave his

bed

again.

This

diabet This is the house that Hayden was

born in.

Such a great

man. Such a humble little

place. Where should I put

it? Should I put it there?

Come

get. What do you think of my car in his

uniform? From the Prussian

king. I had hoped for a

[Music]

decoration. No decoration could make you

greater than you are without

it. After Carl left, it was one thing

after another.

And there was a there was an operation

attempted to relieve a great quantity of

fluid that had collected in his

abdomen. And the

procedure only drained the fluid. It

didn't stop it from coming. So the wound

had to be kept

open. But it became infected.

[Music]

He's suffered a bow.

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

I don't think he has the strength for

another operation.

[Music]

What did you say?

Applaud my

friends. The comedy is over.

[Music]

By the 24th of March

1827, aggressively advancing liver

disease and kidney failure left

Beethoven in a

coma. 2 days later, in the middle of a

thunderstorm, he died.

[Music]

Within hours of his death, a monumental

mythology was already starting to take

shape around him. The world wanted to

take possession of

Beethoven. 2 days after he died,

souvenir hunters removed every last lock

of hair from his head. The day after

that, over 20,000 people attended his

funeral, the largest that had ever been

held in

Vienna. Carl, stationed in Moravia, did

not return for the ceremony.

[Music]

[Applause]

No one composer has had such an

overwhelming impact upon musical

history. The vast explosion of musical

development across the 19th century

simply could not have been without

Beethoven. To me, it's very clear that

he closed the chapter called classicism,

making it not just possible, but

essential that from now on, composers

must follow their own

[Music]

path. Join BBC 4 now. Hazelwood unravels

one of Beethoven's finest works, phrase

by phrase.

[Music]