Vienna belongs to Beethoven, not only to Mozart

Goodbye and love each other, wrote in his will, the genius composer, deaf, suffering and lonely

Milena Dimitrova,

Vienna

Young men dressed as Louis XIV – with wigs, tailcoats, colorful socks and shoes with buckles intercept you at the center of Vienna and do not leave you alone until you buy a ticket for a concert of works by Mozart. And the orchestra is dressed as if from two centuries ago, but against 30 more euro they will serve you a tourist dinner in the same classic style.
Although Mozart is born in Salzburg, Vienna occupied his music. Chocolates and liqueur with the image of the virtuoso bombard you everywhere and you can not help but try them as there is no way not to connect Vienna with music. Because of the waltzes by Johann Strauss, and especially because of Mozart. Even the pharmacy “Golden Apple” where Salieri had bought the poison for the young composer is still open.
Vienna, however, keeps the heritage of an other geniuss of classical music – Ludwig van Beethoven. Three periods of his work happened in Vienna.
First, the father sent his gifted son “to study with Mozart” in Vienna. Historians claim that Beethoven and Mozart met, but the author of “The Magic Flute” had no time for lessons. Beethoven more often communicated with Joseph Haydn, and even with Salieri in Vienna.
Here Beethoven wrote “Eurika.”
Before the age of 30 years, he was attacked by progressive deafness and unimmaginable noise in his ears. The disease clashed with his talent. Realizing this, Beethoven dooms himself to solitude. Doctors prescribe mineral baths and rest and he rented accommodations in the resort “Hayligenshtadt”, today the last stop of the Viennese subway. Several summers after 1800 the composer comes to heal. Improvement does not occur, and his desperation grows.
“O ye people who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthrope, how unfair you are to me. You do not know the hidden reason which forces me to look like this in your eyes. Since childhood my heart and soul are filled with gentle feelings of kindness and I have always been willing to achieve great things. But just think: now six years I suffer from an incurable disease, my condition is deteriorating due to ignorant doctors, deceived every year … “
Several houses in the neighborhood today known as Grintsig wave national flags of Austria as a sign that their homes have been turned into museums, guarding the footsteps of Beethoven. There’s a museum collection even in the restaurant, where he had dinner. At the home, where he stayed, time has stopped – apple orchard, garden bench, small whitewashed chambers with creaky wooden floors. An exhibit is even the lock with a huge lock and latch, which musician opened and closed.
A lock of greyish hair from the genius, is tied in a ribbon, shown in an oval medallion. In contrast to the pastoral atmosphere, however, is his will to his two brothers Carl and Johann, which he wrote for many days here in 1802. He did not send it, it’s foundnd once he had left world. With an equally strong impression, as his music, the 32-year-old Ludwig says that only death would save him and he would be happy to end his misery of guessing by the movements on people’s mouths what is being said, to see how the singers open their mouths and to not hear anything.
“My misfortune is doubly painful for me because I am doomed to misunderstanding. For me there is no peace in the society, fine conversation, mutual exchange of ideas. I must live alone as an outcast and can communicate with people only in essential cases. And when I’m among them, I’m covered by cool horror and fear that I will be at risk to revealed my health… What is my humiliation when someone standing next to me heard a flute in the distance, but I did not hear anything or anyone listening to the song of a shepherd, and again I did not catch anything. Such cases lead me to despair. A little more and I would have ended my life – only my art detered me. ”
In the house on the little street “Probus” is stored the wax death mask of Beethoven. The tired face of the sufferer with canopy protruding eyes and orbits – the mask talks about the huge metamorphosis of the image of a young man with unruly hair disheveled, as if possessed by the heavenly harmony of music.
Tourists listen his Heiligenstadt legacy in artistic reading in German, English, French, Spanish, Russian, Japanese. Racked by loneliness and suffering, Ludwig van Beethoven was saying farewel to humanity.
“Although I have since birth a fiery, impetuous temperament, willing even to secular entertainment, I was forced to live an isolated and lonely life. If at times I tried to forget that, oh, how rawly I was returned to the sad reality! After all I was unable to tell people: “Speak louder and cry because I am deaf.” Oh, how could I admit, that I’m wounded at that sense, whuch ought to be more perfect by me than for others, the sense I used to own in the highest perfection, that a few colleagues of my own profession have ever possessed. ”
Beethoven was lonely at the end of his life, with nobody around him he could trust. He shared his experiences in letters to his “Immortal love”- with whom did not live together. He told her for example of a tiring trip at night with a post car. The horses were tired, stuck in “bottomless mud” , but the coachmen got them out.
“And yet I felt pleased with everything, as always, when successfully overcoming difficulties,” sums up the genius. “Can you change the fact that you’re not all mine and I’m not entirely yours? My thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, sometimes joyful, sometimes sad, anxious to know whether fate will hear us … ”
Beethoven lived in stark contrast to the usual idea of Vienna – ill, lonely and devoid of human happiness. However, as the music, so his mails infect with his philosophical ideas: What am I and what is He- the one we call the greatest? In this is enshrined the divine human reason argued Ludwig van Beethoven in Vienna in 1802. Despite the suffering, he composes music and lives with it, and it also says “goodbye and love each other”.

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