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What Are Beethoven's Major Accomplishments

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Ludwig Van Beethoven was a German composer born in 1770. Through his success at combining tradition, exploration, and personal expression, he came to be regarded as the dominant musical figure of the 19th century. Beethoven’s works have inspired other musicians and has popularly been enjoyed among wider audiences. Since Beethoven never claimed the meaning behind his music, it forced those who performed his music to come up of a meaning of their own. Gradually the performers came to the conclusion that it was him expressing his personality because they were struggling to come to terms with the meaning behind his music. Now his music is understood as an autobiographical statement. It chronicles him coming to terms with his deafness gradually …show more content…

His greatest achievement was being able to raise instrumental music, previously considered inferior to vocal, to the highest degree of art. During the 18th century, music, being fundamentally original, was ranked inferior to that of literature and painting. Its highest manifestations were seen to be those in which it portrayed a text, such as an opera, oratorio, or cantata for example. A number of factors slowly came together for the purpose of enlightening a gradual change of outlook. The factors included the instrumental expertise of the Mannheim Orchestra, which contributed to the evolution of the symphony, the works of Haydn and Mozart, and superior to all, the example of Ludwig Van Beethoven made possible the late Romantic proclamation of the English essayist and critic Walter Pater stating, “All arts aspire to the condition of music.” Subsequently to Beethoven, it was no longer possible to speak of music solely as “the art of pleasing sounds.” His instrumental works integrate a forceful strength of feeling with a formerly unimagined perfection of design. Ludwig Van Beethoven conveyed the design to a further point of development than any of his predecessor. However, two characteristics single out Beethoven strongly from other composers during the time period. One of the two characteristics is a single use of differing dynamics and cheifly the device of crescendo ushering to a sudden piano. The other characteristic, most evident in the piano sonatas, is the measured infiltration of techniques obtained from improvisation, unforeseen accents, and rhythmical vagueness designed to keep the audience asking questions, and principally the use of apparently trivial, almost senseless material from which foreshadowing the ultimate goal of producing a compelling musical argument (Knapp, R. L., & Budden, J. M. Ludwig van Beethoven. Retrieved from

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