Member-only story
It was one of those days when I felt unwell. Sometimes it is okay to push on with your work, other days you know it is better to rest. It was the latter for me. I told my boss I was sick, logged out of my work computer and went back to bed.
A few hours later, still in my PJs, I was camped out on the sofa watching TV. I flicked through the channels and came across a documentary about the life of Beethoven. I have a music degree so I have studied his music. But, other than his deafness, I didn’t know much about his life.
The programme was looking at the period when his hearing was failing and he was having to emotionally deal with that. In 1802, when he was only 31 years old, his doctors advised him to leave the hustle, bustle and noise of Vienna and spend a few months in the countryside where he could ‘rest’ his hearing. The hope was that perhaps it would make a recovery. He still had some hearing but was losing certain frequencies of sound.
He went to stay in a place called Heiligenstadt. One day, he had been out walking with a friend. The friend heard the tune of a flute and a shepherd singing, but Beethoven heard nothing. Not noticing the sound of the flute was very distressing to him.
Following that incident he wrote something which became known as the Heiligenstadt…
