Beethoven and deafness

Maybe I should've posted this yesterday, but I was too busy, zipping off to Lancaster to visit my family for the rest of the afternoon.

In her comments yesterday, my mom ponders I just wonder is it easier to never have heard, than to hear and lose it?.

Beethoven had hearing. He was an accomplished musician at an early age, playing the piano deftly. As a young man, he began to lose his hearing. He wrote the following in 1802, when he was 32 years old. It is now known as the "Heiligenstadt Testament." In it he reflects to his brothers on his hearing, mourning and tormented by its loss. (I've highlighted certain portions in bold.) A year later, he wrote his Third Symphony, "Eroica" and five years later, Symphony No. 5. Legend has it (and I don't have the time or resources to double check at the moment; it's a nice story, at any rate) at the performance of his last symphony, the Ninth (you know, 'ode to joy'), he couldn't hear the applause and a member of the orchestra had to turn him around to see the exuberance of the audience. If he had lived now, there probably would've been help for him, but one can only imagine the great music playing inside that man's head.

Heiligenstadt Testament

For my brothers Carl and [Johann] Beethoven

Oh you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn, or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you. From childhood on, me heart and soul have been full of the tender feeling of goodwill, and I was ever inclined to accomplish great things. But, think that for six years now I have been hopelessly afflicted, made worse by senseless physicians, from year to year deceived with hopes of improvement, finally compelled to face the prospect of a lasting malady (whose cure will take years or, perhaps, be impossible). Though born with a fiery, active temperament, even susceptible to the diversions of society, I was soon compelled to withdraw myself, to live life alone. If at times I tried to forget all this, oh how harshly I was I flung back by the doubly sad experience of my bad hearing. Yet it was impossible for me to say to people, "Speak louder, shout, for I am deaf." Ah, how could I possibly admit an infirmity in the one sense which ought to be more perfect in me than others, a sense which I once possessed in the highest perfection, a perfection such as few in my profession enjoy or ever have enjoyed.--Oh I cannot do it; therefore forgive me when you see me draw back when I would have gladly mingled with you. My misfortune is doubly painful to me because I am bound to be misunderstood; for me there can be no relaxation with my fellow men, no refined conversations, no mutual exchange of ideas. I must live almost alone, like one who has been banished;