29 March,2026 11:08 AM IST | Mumbai | Ananya Tomcy
PIC/INTERLUDE.HK
Beethoven is famously known for having composed several of his masterpieces while being deaf. However, being deaf was really not the worst of his problems. He was haunted by ill health - chronic hepatitis, jaundice, colitis, various skin diseases, rheumatic fever and cirrhosis of the liver. Twenty-five pounds of water had to be drained from his abdomen before his death in 1827, but even then he kept his humour about him. He made a joke about how his doctor was
"like Moses, striking water from a rock".
Beethoven was a romantic, and hopelessly so. He often fell in love with women who eventually rejected him. He proposed to three different women, and each one of them turned him down. After his death, a passionate letter to an anonymous "Immortal Beloved" was found. Many scholars believe that this unsent letter was meant for Josephine Brunsvik, a woman he loved deeply.
Though his compositions are known to be mathematically complex, Beethoven always had a hard time with numbers. He did learn how to add and subtract, but left school before he could learn how to multiply and divide. It's no shocker that he had a hard time keeping track of his finances. In a letter, he described himself as "really an incompetent business man who is bad at arithmetic". At least he was a self-aware man!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a famous German poet and novelist. Beethoven adored poetry and poets, and he was very eager to meet Goethe. A young woman named Bettina finally made this possible. But when they met, Goethe pitied Beethoven for his social awkwardness and his hearing loss. What's funny is that they both promised to meet again but never spoke a word to each other again.
Though he seems to be scowling in almost every portrait, Beethoven was actually a big fan of humour, which is evident in his letters. In one missive to his brother Johann, Ludwig referred to his publisher as "Hr ScheiÃen" ("Mr Shitting"). His reaction to Timothée Chalamet's comments on the opera would have truly been entertaining.
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