So, we leave Mozart, the Genius, for Beethoven, the Colossus, who deepened and glorified music and gave it a broader path along which to travel.
After a “Portrait of a Young Man” (Mozart?) by Prud’hon, in the Louvre, Paris.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
From the head by Gourwitch.
Ludwig van Beethoven.
CHAPTER XXI
Beethoven the Colossus
1770–1827
Let us see what was happening in the world into which Beethoven was born.
The French Revolution had closed the 1700s with blood and terror, and the American Colonies were uneasy under British rule, and before Beethoven was six, the American Revolution was in full blast.
It was another time like the Renaissance, when people began to think for themselves. In other words, the individual was commencing to count more than the nation.
Slowly we see the idea die out that only the nobles and the wealthy had the right to life, liberty and happiness, and we see the ideas of freedom and equality taking the place of serfdom and slavish obedience to over-lords. All this may seem strange to appear in a book on music but art always mirrors the life and feelings of the people of its time.