Beethoven ― The Relentless Revolutionary

Beethoven imbibed Enlightenment and revolutionary ideas in Bonn, wherethey were fervently discussed in cafés and at the university. At the age oftwenty-one, he moved to Vienna to study with Haydn, gaining renown as amaster pianist and innovative composer. In that conservative city, capital of theHapsburg Empire, authorities were ever-watchful to curtail and punish overtdisplays of radical political views. Nevertheless, Beethoven avidly followed themeteoric rise of Napoleon and his republican reforms. As Napoleon had liberatedEurope from aristocratic oppression, Beethoven desired to liberate bothmusic and humankind itself. He broke with traditional musical forms, especiallyin the Eroica symphony, which he wrote as an enthusiastic response to theFrench Revolution and Napoleon’s achievements. Through Beethoven’s letters,portraits, and other personal papers, and by setting him alongside the majorartists of the time—Schiller, Goethe, Goya, and Byron—John Clubbe illuminatesBeethoven’s role as a lifelong revolutionary.