Library of the world's best literature, ancient and modern . uches of musical allusiveness. It is not in the purpose of these prefatory paragraphs to a too-brief group of Beethovens letters to enter upon his is essentially a musicians life; albeit the life of a musicianwho, as Mr. Edward Dannreuther suggests, leaves behind him thedomain of mere art and enters upon that of the seer and theprophet. He was born in Bonn in 1770, on a day the date of which isnot certain (though we know that his baptism was December 17th).His youth was not a sunshiny period. Poverty, neglect, a drunke
Library of the world's best literature, ancient and modern . uches of musical allusiveness. It is not in the purpose of these prefatory paragraphs to a too-brief group of Beethovens letters to enter upon his is essentially a musicians life; albeit the life of a musicianwho, as Mr. Edward Dannreuther suggests, leaves behind him thedomain of mere art and enters upon that of the seer and theprophet. He was born in Bonn in 1770, on a day the date of which isnot certain (though we know that his baptism was December 17th).His youth was not a sunshiny period. Poverty, neglect, a drunkenfather, violin lessons under compvilsion, were the circumstancesushering him into his career. He was for a brief time a pupil ofMozart; just enough so to preserve that succession of royal geniusesexpressed in linking Mozart to Haydn, and in remembering that Lisztplayed for Beethoven and that Schubert stood beside Beethovens lastsick-bed. High patronage and interest gradually took the composer BEETHOVEN. Photogravure from the Original Painting by C. LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN I 75 I under its care. Austria and Germany recognized him, Englandaccepted him early, universal intelligence became enthusiastic overutterances in art that seemed as much innovations as Wagneristicwriting seemed to the next generation. In Vienna, Beethoven maybe said to have passed his life. There were the friends to whom hewrote —who understood and loved him. Afflicted early with a deaf-ness that became total,—the irony of fate,—the majority of hismaster-works were evolved from a mind shut away from the pleas-ures and disturbances of earthly sounds, and beset by invalidism andsuffering. Naturally genial, he grew morbidly sensitive. Infirmitiesof temper as well as of body marked him for their own. But under-neath all superficial shortcomings of his intensely human nature wasa Shakespearean dignity of moral and intellectual individuality. It is not necessary here even to touch on the works that foll
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