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In his later years, especially after 1818, Beethoven has often been portrayed as completely deaf, an object of pity and compassion who could not hear the applause that greeted the first performance or his Ninth Symphony in May 1824. Similarly, legends tell, Beethoven could only see (but not hear) the multiple rehearsals that he attended for his String Quartet Opus 127 in March 1825. Indeed hishearinghad deteriorated significantly over the past quarter century, and a brief survey of it seems appropriate here.1
Beethovens problems with his hearing began in around 1798.2 In June and July 1801, he confided about his hearing loss to his friends Dr. Franz Wegeier in Bonn and the schoolmaster/violinist Carl Amenda in Kurland.3 By the summer of 1802, others began to perceive occasional lapses in his hearing, and the Heiligenstadt Testament of October diat year reflected the rear and contusion that he felt/· Ignaz von Seyfried, a staff conductor at the Theater an der Wien, later recalled that Beethovens most serious problem, initially, was his poor eyesight, the result of childhood smallpox.5 Therefore, in this context, we must consider Beethoven as a musician whose sight was already impaired, gradually losing his hearing.
Although Beethovens hearing slowly became weaker, it did not yet interfere with his performing in public, even with orchestra on the concert of December 22, 1808.6 Between 1812 and 1816, and occasionally into the 1820s, he tried using ear trumpets (made for him by inventor Johann Nepomuk Mälzel and his brother Leonhard) with largely disappointing degrees of success.7 Between December 8, 1813, and February 27, 1814, Beethoven conducted (or attempted to conduct) four benefit concerts with an orchestra of ca. 113 professionals, and caused considerable commentary about his exaggerated motions, some of which were inevitably due to his weakened hearing. At the performances, including the premieres of his Symphonies Nos. 7 and 8, as well as Wellington's Victory, Beethovens motions were probably shadowed much more accurately by the Kärntnertor Theaters staff conductor, Michael Umlauf (1781-1842).8
In the fall of 1814, as the Congress of Vienna assembled, Beethoven composed a cantata. Der glorreiche Augenblick, for the occasion. On October 10 and November 24, the Prague pianist Johann Wenzel Tomaschek visited him and reported that, on these days, the composer was...