Beethoven’s hearing loss linked to lack of high notes in his music-
research
24 Dec. Daily Telegraph
Beethoven’s progressive deafness shaped his later musical style as he
switched to lower notes as he had difficulty hearing higher ones, a
study has found.
Researchers have analysed Beethoven’s music through his life as his
hearing problems are said to have progressed. It was found that his
compositions gradually included fewer high notes as he aged.
Then once total deafness overcame him, the high notes appeared again,
it was found. The analysis appears in the British Medical Journal
Christmas edition and was conducted by a team in the Netherlands. The
team found that Beethoven’s so-called three styles correspond wto the
progression of his deafness and looked at the notes he wrote in string
quartets for the violin.
His music was grouped into four time periods, 1978 to 1800, 1805/6,
1810/11 and 1824 to 1826. The number of notes above 1568Hz written for
the first violin were counted and calculated as a percentage of all the
notes.
It was found that shortly after the first document symptoms of
hearing loss in 1896 to 1898, the early quartets opus 18 comprised of
about eight per cent high notes.
By 1805, Beethoven had reported difficulty hearing woodwinds and opus
59 written at that time contained about five per cent high notes.
Quartets opus 74 and 95 comprised of less than two per cent high
notes and were written at the time Beehoven is said to have used cotton
wool in his ears because of unpleasant buzzing sounds.
Shortly after this visitors had to shout to be understood and
Beethoven started using ear trumpets.
By 1825, after it is understood Beehoven could not hear his own Ninth
Symphony, he wrote the late string quarters opus 127 to 135 and the
proportion of high notes had risen again to almost four per cent.
Lead author Edoardo Saccenti, a postdoctoral research fellow, from
the University of Amsterdam, wrote in the BMJ: “These results suggest
that, as deafness progressed, Beethoven tended to use middle and low
frequency notes, which he could hear better when music was performed,
seemingly seeking for an auditory feedback loop.
“When he came to rely completely on his inner ear he was no longer
compelled to produce music he could actually hear when performed and
slowly returned to his inner musical world and earlier composing
experiences.”
However he added: “As they encompass only a limited subset of
Beethoven’s compositions, our results, are far from being conclusive:
proving or disproving whether Beethoven’s hearing loss had a substantial
impact on shaping his musical style would require complete and
exhaustive statistical and spectral analyses of the composer’s complete
catalogue.” Dr. Ralph Holme, Head of Biomedical Research at Action on
Hearing Loss, said: ‘The type of hearing loss experienced by Beethoven
is very common and it’s not surprising that he found hearing high tones
in his music and everyday conversation increasingly difficult.
“Although Beethoven ultimately lost most of his hearing, whilst it
was declining, he could have benefited from modern day digital hearing
aids which can amplify the tones he missed so much.’ |