Ludwig van Beethoven was not born deaf, he became deaf over a period of twenty years starting from 1798, at age 27.
One day Beethoven had a tenor at his apartment. The two men argued about something, the tenor left in hurry just to return for something again a bit later. As he knocked on the door Beethoven jumped up from the piano angrily to rush to the door. His leg had got stuck and he fell face-down to the floor. This moment, although not the cause of it, but triggered the long and sad hearing loss that ended in complete silence. Beethoven was reported to say about the fall, “I found myself deaf, and have been so ever since.”.
The first written evidence that supports the date 1798 as the year experiencing hearing problems the first time is a letter Beethoven wrote to his friend, Franz Wegeler. In 1801, he wrote to Wegeler that “it started three years ago”. Also, the tone of personal letters in that year had changed. From the usual humorous, lighthearted correspondence it turned to be more factual and rather irritated.
The problem was complex and initially effected mostly the left ear. The deterioration of the hearing was accompanied with buzzing noises, sometimes continuously torturing the composer. With some stable periods the decline was continuous and by 1816, at the age of 46, Ludwig van Beethoven became completely deaf.
Initially Beethoven tried to keep his health problem a secret. He feared it would ruin his career. As a result, he withdrew from society as much as he could. To his friend Wegeler he wrote: “You would find it hard to believe what an empty, sad life I have had for the last two years. My poor hearing haunted me everywhere like a ghost; and I avoided—all human society. I seemed to be a misanthrope and yet I am far from being one.”
He sought healing at various doctors and tried many cures from health spas to herbs. All of these were useless, today many of them would be considered sorcery, some of them downright toxic.
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