The Music Within: Beethoven at the Heart of Humanity
An interview with Norman Lebrecht
“What we find in his music is a search for the meaning of the human condition... The last string quartets are voyages into the spiritual stratosphere, into the absolute unknown.”
Beethoven is a name that transcends generations and traverses borders. And yet, the man behind the music remains an enigma. Perhaps the only way to study Beethoven — to know Beethoven — is through his compositions.
Norman Lebrecht is a bestselling writer, historian, journalist and music critic. He writes a column for The Critic and The Spectator, and publishes reviews on ‘Books & Arts’ in the Wall Street Journal. Norman’s music blog, Slipped Disc, is a cultural phenomenon, attracting around 1.7 million readers every month.
During this interview, we’ll tune into his most recent book, Why Beethoven: A Phenomenon in 100 Pieces.
When you were trying to decide which topic to pick for your next book, what led you to Beethoven?
Oh, it was no struggle at all! Firstly, ‘Why Beethoven’ is not a question; it’s a statement. A few years ago, I wrote a book called Why Mahler?, in which I considered the particular phenomenon of a composer who was derided in his lifetime, neglected for half a century afterwards and then returned to the centre of our symphonic life.
With Beethoven, there was never a question. Even from his first set of piano trios, everybody realised they were in the presence of something historic. I decided to study Beethoven backwards, through 200 years of interpretation, to see what I could learn about him. He remains largely enigmatic, if not completely misleading. What do we know of Beethoven? We know that he’s deaf, at least from the middle of his life. He had lowering brows and a rather forbidding personality, preferring to hold people at arm’s length. So, was he a misanthrope who communed only with himself and his art? Or was he something else?
The more I looked at him through his music, I began to discover something else. You can write a biography of Beethoven in one paragraph, because he never went anywhere. He was born in Bonn and settled in Vienna, lacking the curiosity to ever visit the sea. What emerges from a life lived with such concentration is an almost idealistic personality — someone who thinks he can actually reach into the secrets of creation through self-emotion. I find it fascinating.
Your book blends biography with a critical discussion of 100 recordings. What is the benefit of examining Beethoven’s life alongside his work?
You can only approach Beethoven through the music. No matter how well you know it, you’ll always find unsuspected worlds in his music. He wrote 32 piano sonatas and then stopped at Opus 111. He always knew when to stop. He lived another 15–20 years, but he stopped. There’s a lot of critical discussion about why he only wrote 2 movements to Opus 111. In the second half of the second movement, if it’s played properly, you’ll hear something that will jolt you off your seat. The rhythms that Beethoven prescribes are not German or even European rhythms; they are syncopated, very much like Jazz.
So, did Beethoven actually invent Jazz while Napoleon was marching into Russia all those years ago? Does this tell us something about Beethoven’s heritage? He doesn’t look Belgian, does he? In the few authentic portraits of him, he seems to have quite dark skin, a flat nose and full lips. What does that tell us about Beethoven, and where is Beethoven leading us?
Of about 200 recordings of Opus 111, the 4 interpretations that speak to me most are by Soviet-Russian performers. These men and women all grew up in Moscow, under Soviet rule, and had the same teacher. And yet, each of them found such a different world in Beethoven’s last sonata. Ultimately, what Beethoven has left us is a roadmap that can lead in any direction we choose.
You also explore how other musicians have taken on and adapted Beethoven’s compositions. His legacy is undeniable, but what is Beethoven’s impact beyond the realm of classical music?
He is one of the cultural pillars of Western civilisation. The 4 defining artists of the past 500 years are Da Vinci, Michelangeli, Shakespeare and Beethoven. You could argue about a few others but, in terms of Beethoven’s contribution to humanity, he is right at the heart of civilisation.
What elements of Beethoven’s personality and life experience can be heard in his work?
He’s not really writing about himself; he’s writing about the human condition. We know that he was sociable yet solitary. He needed people, but he didn’t need them too much. He never formed an intimate, loving relationship and didn’t intend to get married. He fell in love with women way out of his league, whom he called ‘the distant beloved’. He needed the idea of love to inspire his music, but he never let women get any closer.
What we find in his music is a search for the meaning of the human condition. He goes through the travails of life and the difficulty of hearing loss. How does he compose without being able to hear, unless he’s drawing from a secret inner world? Sometime after Symphony №9, he gives up on what he thinks people want to hear; instead, he writes only what he hears from deep within. The last string quartets are voyages into the spiritual stratosphere, into the absolute unknown. I find that utterly compelling.
I started writing Why Beethoven around the onset of COVID-19, when everyone was suddenly confined and unable to see other people. Each of us was locked in an inner world, like Beethoven in his deafness. The resemblance was unmistakable; I listened to Beethoven and thought, ‘Oh my goodness, this man has truly discovered something about why we are here’.
The beauty of his music is that it’s timeless, remaining as relevant today as it was when he wrote it.
Exactly. What, then, can we learn from Beethoven? We wouldn’t want to live in the kind of squalor that he did, leaving an un-emptied chamber pot beneath his chair even when he had visitors — which was perhaps intended to deter people from disturbing him. However, in many ways, he was the ideal human being. He was the first musician to declare independence from patronage. Until then, musicians relied on the aristocracy for sustenance, financial support and palaces in which to perform concerts. Beethoven was utterly contemptuous of them and actually sacked his patrons. That wasn’t the done thing in an autocratic society like 1800s Vienna, but Beethoven did it anyway.
I suppose that’s what enabled him to write the music he wanted, rather than being commissioned to compose for someone else.
He possessed a strong sense of purpose alongside a kind of spirituality. Yet Beethoven never went to church — even while living in an autocratic society at the heart of the Holy Roman Empire. His conversation with God was one-on-one.
Unlike other composers of his time, Beethoven didn’t put titles on his work. His publishers named and categorised the music to help it sell: it’s pastoral, it’s pathetic, it’s this, it’s that. Beethoven didn’t do titles. He just focused on the notes.
On a more personal note, what inspired you to pursue a career in music? Is it something you’ve always been passionate about?
I had perfect pitch when I was a kid. I remember being able to harmonise with anything my sisters were singing before I could even walk. This was a mixed blessing, because it physically hurt if they sang the wrong note. So, I was immersed in music from an early age.
You can’t be a writer if you’re not in some way musical; you need to be able to hear the melody and rhythm of the words. I had this discussion with the author Graham Greene, who insisted that he never listened to music. I said, ‘That’s just impossible because there is music in what you write. I can practically notate some of your sentences!’ I found out later that he had a small record collection, which he listened to pretty intensively.
I can hear the music in your voice as you’re speaking to me: the expression, the emphasis, the way you raise and lower your voice. It’s fascinating. In listening to the world, you are also listening to what philosophers call ‘the harmony of the spheres’ (or Musica universalis). A life without music is a life half-lived, in my view.
Beethoven produced a variety of compositions — including symphonies, string quartets, chamber pieces, concertos and piano sonatas. Do you have a personal preference?
Not really, no. There are things that I will reach for in Beethoven at different times. Certain pieces express vital aspects of the way we live and relate to each other. His violin concerto sets a violin against an orchestra, almost like a parable of individuals against society. There are many such parables in Beethoven’s work.
Classical music is often considered to be quite an acquired taste. Whether you’re writing columns, blogging or researching for a new book, how do you appeal to a wider audience?
I don’t think I’m any more bothered by audience than Beethoven was. I write what I feel that I need to write. I’m not a missionary for classical music, but it’s important to me and I can express something about it that may be of interest to other people.
I’m not sure I agree that classical music is esoteric, because it’s there in every other genre we listen to. The appeal of classical music has spread all over the world. When I was in Shanghai a few years ago, I met a 5-year-old boy who had played ‘Für Elise’, a famous piece by Beethoven, in a piano competition. When I started singing it to him, he stopped me and said, ‘No, you have the wrong note’. It was incredible that a young boy from a remote part of China not only knew Beethoven, but was ready to pick me up on a wrong note! Beethoven speaks to him as much as he speaks to me. That’s not esoteric, that’s universal.
Can you offer a key takeaway from Why Beethoven?
At some point, everyone thinks, ‘Ok, this is life. Let’s just get on with it’. Beethoven is there to tell us to make more of it; to push harder, to go beyond what people expect of us, to do something different, to listen to our inner voice. This message permeates the whole of Beethoven’s work.
Any piece of Beethoven you take up is a challenge, whether you are playing it on an instrument, listening to it or reading it in school. It says to you, ‘Go higher. You can do better’.
Some of Norman Lebrecht’s non-fiction titles can be found on Perlego:
