Love inspired Beethoven’s great works, but he couldn’t make music with the woman he loved

Although he was inspired to write musical masterpieces by the women he loved, leading biographers claim that Ludwig van Beethoven died a virgin.

According to composer Norman Lebrecht, he considered intimacy to be sinful, but he repeatedly fell in love with the women he met.

“We can be absolutely certain that Beethoven never had sex in a relationship,” he says.

“We can be 98% sure he never had sex at all. He needed love as a creative stimulus, but he avoided intimacy, turning it into a sin, a glorious ideal. considered an infringement.

Ludwig van Beethoven died a virgin, claims major biography

Lebrecht came to his conclusion after studying hundreds of pages of historical records and the “conversation book” used by the German composer, who was deaf from the age of 30, to communicate with visitors. bottom.

The classical music expert said there was no doubt that Beethoven “fell in love on a continual basis”, but that these frenzy never led to a physical relationship. I believe that due to my obsession with my work, my hearing loss and complex psychological factors, I have not been able to fully satisfy my passion.

The author writes, “Beethoven comes from two generations of alcoholics. His father was very brutal and violent towards both him and his mother. Beethoven felt protective of his mother. He notes that even after the death of the composer’s mother, Maria, she remained “as a woman who must be protected from male violence and, of course, that part of male violence can be sex.” He added that it continued to live in his heart as an untouchable ideal.

Lebrecht believes it speaks to an incident in the composer’s youth when he passed it on to a friend’s daughter.

He said: “Only to find traces of previous groping, nothing more. The point is, he is beyond the horror of his actions.”

The composer rejected intimacy he considered sinful, but repeatedly fell in love with the women he met

As it happens, the girl forgives him and remains his lifelong friend.

Mr. Lebrecht believes that the sensitive Beethoven also said he was appalled at the moral depravity he encountered upon his arrival in Austria at the age of 21, “repulsed by the corruption of the Viennese carnality and the rich.” This is a city where wealthy people can buy adolescent daughters from musicians and take their virginity privately.

“It was Sodom and Gomorrah. One of Beethoven’s contemporaries could only have sex with his wife if he visited a brothel. I made it clear that I didn’t mean to.

Mr. Lebrecht said earlier claims that the composer may have frequented such places were probably the result of mistranslations, saying that “Rusthaus” was a café at the time and, as the name suggests, It wasn’t a brothel.

According to Lebrecht, Beethoven tended to fall in love with unruly women. He said, “He falls in love in succession in his late twenties and then kind of forgets about it.

“Then, at 40, he needs it as a romantic stimulus for work, realizes he has no family, and begins to fall in love again. He’s alone in the world. But by this stage he’s 41 years old, shabby and stinking.

l Mr. Lebrecht’s book, Why Beethoven: A Phenomenon In 100 Pieces, was published by Oneworld on Thursday.