Did Beethoven read Shakespeare? Did he like the writer, was he inspired by his plays? Read on to find out!
Did Beethoven read and like Shakespeare?
Beethoven’s first exposure to Shakespeare had to be in his childhood, still in Bonn, at the local court theater. It is well documented that more plays from Shakespeare were on the repertoire: Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Richard III, and The Merry Wives of Windsor.
We also know that Beethoven owned a twelve-volume Shakespeare collection, translated to German by Johann Joachim Eschenburg (published in the year of Beethoven’s birth, 1770). From correspondence we also know that he recommended to friends a new and better translation by August Wilhelm Schlegel, that came out in 1798. One must be very familiar with a text in order to find differences between translations!
When Beethoven lost his hearing to a degree that he needed written form of communication, he used conversation books. These and his notebooks often contain references or quotes from Shakespeare plays.
His enthusiasm is further confirmed by his friend, Baron de Trémont, who remembered his conversations with the composer covering topics like, “philosophy, religion, politics, and especially … Shakespeare, his idol!”.
Shakespeare’s influence on Beethoven’s music
There are works by Beethoven, that scholars consider to be influenced by Shakespeare plays.
The Romeo and Juliet tomb scene, according to manuscripts, inspired the slow movement of the First String Quartet, Op. 18 No. 1, published in 1801. Here, Karl Amenda remembered a conversation with Beethoven talking about the slow movement and the picture of separated lovers, to which the composer said, “I was thinking of the burial vault scene in Romeo and Juliet.” In his sketches at this part he wrote in French:
“il prend le tombeau,” (he enters the tomb) “despoir,” (despair) “il se tue,” (he kills himself), and “les dernier soupirs,” (the last sighs)”.
Hamlet or/and Macbeth (cannot be established exactly) might have inspired the so called “Ghost-trio”, the Piano Trio, Op. 70 No. 1, and the Coriolan Overture.
Shakespeare in Beethoven’s daily communication
Beethoven was well known to joke around and often calling his friends (and enemies) names. In some of these, Shakespeare’s world and characters are easily identifiable.
A letter sent to friend and violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh with the superscription ‘To His Grace H. v. Schuppanzigh sprung from the old English noble race of Mylord Falstaff’ is one fine example. On a different occasion to Karl Amenda, when he complained about common friends, he used terms Shakespeare used to describe Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Hamlet.
These and other examples show that the characters from these plays are present and vivid in Beethoven’s mind, even in everyday situations.
Likening Beethoven to Shakespeare
Ever since Beethoven’s death his achievement and legacy is often compared to Shakespeare’s. Even in one of his very first obituaries (by Dr Wilhelm Christophe Müller, Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung May 1827), the parallel is drawn between them, saying that in “original sublimity, profundity, strength, and tenderness with humour, wit, and … constant, new fantastic variations” the two artists are similar.
Jan Swafford, a biographer, goes on to say in his book Beethoven: Anguish and triumph,
“These two creators shared power of utterance, a wisdom and wit, a prodigal invention and reinvention, an incomparable depth and breadth of creative journey, and a joining of tragedy and comedy, the old and the new, strangeness and rightness. The sense of timelessness that comes from an eternal human essence shining through the garb of period and idiom and language itself. The transcendence of self in art.”
