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Historical SummaryON March 26, 1827, there passed away one of the titanic figures in the history of the arts. A person whose volcanic moods matched his musical genius, Ludwig yon Beethoven has been venerated as the father of romanticism. On bad terms with most of the musicians of Vienna, he had, nonetheless, a host of admirers in his own lifetime, among them the critic Rellstab, who once declared: "As long as we do not have to tell of a Raphael grown blind in the vigor of his life, Beethoven will not meet his equal in happiness and misfortune, either in art or the history of the world." Beethoven was a rather meticulous reporter himself, keeping notes of such trivia as the payment he made to Haydn in the amount of eight groschen for his first lesson. (Pupil and master were soon to feud.) Yet he was notoriously absentminded. He could not understand why he should attract attention while standing in his nightshirt at an open window, and asked, with characteristic naïveté, "what those damned boys were hooting at." When the news came to Vienna that Napoleon had proclaimed himself emperor, Beethoven, who had dedicated his third symphony to Bonaparte, tore off the title page and dashed it to the ground. He would have no truck with an enemy of freedom. A number of firsthand reports have come down to us of the last days of the great man. One of those who called upon him was an unknown young composer. Though fatally ill, Beethoven looked over some of his music and exclaimed: "Truly, the divine spark dwells in Schubert!" Those who spoke to him had to write out their questions and answers. He was now stone deaf. Learning that the London Philharmonic Society had sent him a gift of money, he spoke of that organization and the whole English people, adding a fervent "God bless them!" A gift of wine was brought to his bedside. "Pity, pity—too late!" he murmured. Those were his last words. Thereafter he was unconscious. "His powerful frame, his unweakened lungs, fought like giants with approaching death," reported Gerhard yon Breuning. He lived on for another day. The only witnesses of his death were his sister-in-law and Anselm Hüttenbrenner. Beethoven’s biographer, Thayer, visited Hüttenbrenner in Gratz in 1860 and heard at first hand the story of Beethoven’s last moments. The oral recollections at some points are even more dramatic than the written ones, contained in a letter to Thayer and printed below. According to Thayer’s notebook, "at this startling, awful peal of thunder, The STORMING OF The BASTILLE, JULY 14, 1789 The Bastille, standing in the suburb of old Paris known as Faubourg St. Antoine, was a gloomy fortress and prison where political and other prisoners were sometimes confined. The edifice had a sinister reputation, and the Parisians came to regard it as a symbol of the Old Régime.On July 14, 1789, the Parisian mob, composed of hungry workingmen, the unemployed, city vagrants, and criminals, broke into the food stores and bakeries and pillaged the gunshops. Soon it converged on the Bastille, probably with the motive of securing arms. After a short defense, the commander of the Bastille agreed to capitulate, but he and several of the garrison were massacred. Bolstered by the support of the French Guard, the mob freed the small number of prisoners and razed the ancient prison.This episode was transformed into a heroic legend by revolutionary poets and authors because it symbolized the rising of the French people against tyranny. Actually, the mob found only seven prisoners in the Bastille, and all these had been sent there for good and substantial reasons. WILLIAM MORTON, DENTIST AND MEDICAL STUDENT, GIVES The FIRST DEMONSTRATION OF SURGICAL ANESTHESIA AT MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL, BOSTON, OCTOBER 16, 1846 the dying man suddenly raised his head from Hüttenbrenner’s arm, stretched out his own right arm majestically—like a general giving orders to an army. This was but for an instant; the arm sank back. He fell back. Beethoven was dead!" The fatal malady: cirrhosis of the liver.
Key Quote"Suddenly there came a flash of lightning accompanied by a violent clap of thunder."
Thayer
Beethoven in Extremis
[1827]
Frau von Beethoven and I were the only ones in the death-chamber during the last moments of Beethoven’s life. Beethoven had lain unconscious, the death-rattle in his throat from 3 o’clock in the afternoon till after 5. Suddenly there came a flash of lightning accompanied by a violent clap of thunder, which garishly illuminated the death-chamber. (Snow was piled up outside Beethoven’s dwelling). After this unexpected phenomenon of nature, which startled me greatly, Beethoven opened his eyes, lifted his right hand and clenched his fist. For several seconds his face wore an angry, defiant expression, as if he wanted to say:
"Inimical powers, I defy you! Away with you! God is with me!"
It also seemed as though, like a gallant commander, he wished to call out to his wavering troops:
"Courage, soldiers! Forward! Trust in me! Victory is assured!"
When he let the raised hand sink to the bed, his eyes closed halfway. My right hand was under his head, my left rested on his breast. Not another breath, not a heartbeat more! The genius of the great master of tones fled from this world of delusion into the realm of truth!
I pressed down the half-open eyelids of the dead man, kissed them, then his forehead, mouth, and hands. At my request Frau von Beethoven cut a lock of hair from his head and handed it to me as a sacred souvenir of Beethoven’s last hour. Thereupon I hurried, deeply moved, into the city, carrying the intelligence of Beethoven’s death to Herr Tobias Has-linger, and after a few hours returned to my home in Styria.
Chicago: Anselm Hüttenbrenner, Life of Beethoven, ed. Thayer in History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, ed. Louis Leo Snyder and Richard B. Morris (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Co., 1951), Original Sources, accessed December 3, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=HM4KTAN22AS9G9C.
MLA: Hüttenbrenner, Anselm. Life of Beethoven, edited by Thayer, in History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, edited by Louis Leo Snyder and Richard B. Morris, Harrisburg, Pa., Stackpole Co., 1951, Original Sources. 3 Dec. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=HM4KTAN22AS9G9C.
Harvard: Hüttenbrenner, A, Life of Beethoven, ed. . cited in 1951, History in the First Person: Eyewitnesses of Great Events: They Saw It Happen, ed. , Stackpole Co., Harrisburg, Pa.. Original Sources, retrieved 3 December 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=HM4KTAN22AS9G9C.
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