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|  Dhananjaya D R                   @/logs   @/software   @/resume   @/contact |
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Solitude and Symphony
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COVID-19 WFH got lonelier and lonelier I would give myself music projects to 
listen to and learn about. The first project was The Beatles, which was fun. 
After that I was thinking about how Beethoven's greatness is almost a cliche at
this point, but wouldn't it be amazing to truly know why he was so great? At 
first I decided to listen to each Piano Sonata, but soon realized I wanted to 
something even more substantial. I ended up listening to each work with on 
Opus Number, one a day and did whatever light reading was available on each 
piece. When I finished the listen through I began to read the and basically 
started the listening cycle all over again.

In our modern time we have this notion of the artist, a person who feels things
and expresses those emotions that pour out of them. prior to beethoven this 
wasn't much of a thing. Music served a purpose, but that purpose wasn't to 
express one's own emotions. to enhance worship in church, or because someone 
was paying them to write something specific. Many famous composers had patrons 
who paid them to write. They were almost never writing to express what they
felt, they were expressing other emotions (whatever the characters in the opera
were feeling, whatever their patron told them they wanted to hear, etc). Even 
Beethoven's early music reflects what came before it.

  
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Beethoven was not the very first person to express their own self through 
their music, but he was undeniably the most famous and arguably the first 
significant composer to do so. Either way, he helped kick start the Romantic 
period of music, which was a self expression free for all. The idea of "I am 
going to write this piece for no reason other than I want to express how I 
feel" became mainstream, in large part because Beethoven did it, and he did 
it incredibly well. However, when he started to go deaf, he was consumed with
anger and bitterness at the world for cursing him with the worst possible 
affliction. He even considered suicide, saying something like "I considered 
ending it all, but it is unthinkable for me to leave the world without saying
all that I have to say". He began writing music that he would never hear with
his ears, but would hear in his head through audiation. This music reflects
his own emotions, rather than something he was commissioned to write for 
whatever reason.

He was a revolutionary in the true sense. Sometimes I wonder how he managed 
to write such music, but I am thankful for whatever the reasons were. he 
used them to express what was inside him, and that's why I think he's one of 
the most important figures in the history of music. What an interesting human 
being.

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