History YMMV / LudwigVanBeethoven

** "Cavatina" from ''String Quartet No. 13'' sounds almost as if the music itself is weeping, with long notes blending into each other like raindrops. The two violins end up exchanging lines for a while before the lead violin is left alone, desperate, in a staccato ''Beklemmt''--choked--passage. Beethoven himself was so drained by the experience of writing it that he found it hard to write anything else for a while. This emotional experience led to its inclusion as the final track on the UsefulNotes/VoyagerGoldenRecord.

** The ''Große Fuge'', originally from ''String Quartet No. 13'', was profoundly different from anything else at the moment. It featured a complex syncopated melody and liberal use of dissonance on top of being very difficult to play. Even by the 20th century, its use of dissonance was still considered radical and esoteric, and was rarely performed. It wasn't until later that century that it became recognized as one of Beethoven's great works and far ahead of its time.

* OlderThanTheyThink: For all Beethoven's musical accomplishments and monumental legacy, his Fifth Symphony was not the first symphony to include trombones or piccolos. In 1807, the year before the première of Beethoven's Fifth, Swedish composer Joachim Nicolas Eggert wrote his Third Symphony which used trombones, and symphonies with piccolo parts go as far back as Michael Haydn's (younger brother of Music/JosephHaydn) Eighteenth Symphony, composed in 1773. Beethoven is incorrectly credited because he was and continues to be recognized as one of the greatest composers of all time; in contrast, M. Haydn is obscure and Eggert is almost entirely forgotten.

* GrowingTheBeard: Musical historians divide Beethoven’s career into three profoundly different periods: early, middle and late; the composer grew the beard when he went from one period to the next.

* GrowingTheBeard: Beethoven did this twice. Musical historians divide his career into three profoundly different periods: Early, middle and late, the beard-growing happening at the start of the latter two.

* GrowingTheBeard: Beethoven did this twice. Musical historians divide his career into three profoundly different periods: Early, middle and late. Transition from early to middle coincided with the death of his teacher, Haydn (whose shadow he had been trying to escape) as well as the discovery of the deterioration of his hearing, and the middle-to-late transition came about after he learned to deal with the complete loss of his hearing.

* MemeticMutation: Dun-dun-dun DUUUUNNNN!
** BAM! BAM! Naaa-na-naaa-na-na-na-na-naaaa!

* TearJerker: "Cavatina" from ''String Quartet No. 13'' sounds almost as if the music itself is weeping, with long notes blending into each other like raindrops. The two violins end up exchanging lines for a while before the lead violin is left alone, desperate, in a staccato ''Beklemmt''--choked--passage. Beethoven himself was so drained by the experience of writing it that he found it hard to write anything else for a while. This emotional experience led to its inclusion as the final track on the UsefulNotes/VoyagerGoldenRecord.

* WeirdAlEffect: His composition "Turkish March" in the incidental music Ruins of Athens is mostly known by Mexicans due to the CoveredUp take called "The Elephant Never Forgets" being used as the theme song for Series/ElChavoDelOcho. The chorus finale in the Ruins of Athens has a tune better known worldwide as El Jarabe Tapatio (The Mexican Hat Dance).

* GrowingTheBeard: Beethoven did this twice. Musical historians divide his career into three profoundly different periods: Early, middle and late. Transition from early to middle coincided with the death of his teacher, Haydn (whose shadow he had been trying to escape) as well as the discovery of the deterioration of his hearing, and middle-to-late transition came about after he learned to deal with the complete loss of his hearing.

* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments: At the end of the first performance of the ninth symphony, which Beethoven directed himself despite being completely deaf, the audience gave him five standing ovations - and they did it by waving hats and handkerchiefs in the air so he could see the applause he couldn't hear. Another story goes that Beethoven, who insisted on "conducting" (the ''real'' conducting was done by someone else but Beethoven was allowed to believe the musicians were following his lead) was several bars behind when the symphony finished and was therefore still conducting when the audience broke into applause. One of his sopranos physically turned him around to observe the audience's reaction, which of course he could not hear.

* GrowingTheBeard: Some people feel that the music he wrote while he was going (and after he had gone) deaf is more interesting.

* TearJerker: "Cavatina" from ''String Quartet No. 13'' sounds almost as if the music itself is weeping, with long notes blending into each other like raindrops. It was so disheartening that it was included as the final track on the UsefulNotes/VoyagerGoldenRecord.

** The ''Große Fuge'' was profoundly different from anything else at the moment. It featured a complex syncopated melody and liberal use of dissonance on top of being very difficult to play. Even by the 20th century, its use of dissonance was still considered radical and esoteric, and was rarely performed. It wasn't until later that century that it became recognized as one of Beethoven's great works and far ahead of its time.

* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments: At the end of the first performance of the ninth symphony, which Beethoven directed himself despite being completely deaf, the audience gave him five standing ovations - and they did it by waving hats and handkerchiefs in the air so he could see the applause he couldn't hear.

* VindicatedByHistory: The premiere of the Fifth Symphony (and the Sixth) was in a concert that lasted four hours on a cold, December night and the audience was tired. Needless to say, it was not very well accepted in its first performance. It took a review by Creator/ETAHoffmann to bring its genius to light. However, ItMakesSenseInContext - the premiere was during the Napoleonic Wars, and as a result the orchestra was only able to rehearse the piece once before the performance, and mangled it so badly that Beethoven was forced to stop and restart at one point.

* AwesomeEgo:
** When he was still able to perform, Beethoven would pointedly stop playing if he heard any of the audience members whispering. He broke a chair over the head of one of his patrons. And yet he wasn't locked up; his behaviour was taken to be evidence of his genius, and indeed his disdain for authority and social rank was so pronounced that an Archduke decreed that etiquette laws did not apply to Beethoven. He wasn't the first composer to have an Awesome Ego, just the most famous.[[note]]The first recorded case of Awesome Ego in a composer was the 15th century French composer Josquin des Prez, one of whose prospective employers was warned "he composes when he wants to, not when he is wanted" but who became so famous that dozens of works have been attributed to him that he probably didn't write; musicologists are still sorting out the mess.[[/note]]
** The composer and impresario Anton Diabelli wrote a short waltz and asked a lot of famous composers to do a variation on it which he could then publish as a joint project in aid of orphans and widows of the Napoleonic Wars. When Beethoven finally sat down with Diabelli's tune he ran amok with it. It took him four years, but the result was the famous ''Diabelli Variations'', the greatest set of keyboard variations since Music/JohannSebastianBach's ''Goldberg Variations'' 60 years earlier. Diabelli considered them so badass that he released Beethoven's contribution as an independent volume, putting all fellow composers to shame. [[CurbStompBattle Which included big names like]] Music/FranzSchubert and Music/FranzLiszt. [[note]]To be fair, Liszt's contribution was [[ChildProdigy written when he was eleven years old]].[[/note]]

* TheAlcoholic: There is speculation that Beethoven may have had a problem with alcohol.
** Some of his more bizarre behavior may have been a result of inebriation.
** Beethoven had severe and prolonged attacks of jaundice during the last six years of his life.
** The composer had problems with ascites, which is fluid collecting in the abdomen, the last few years of his life. This is a common side effect of liver failure. His doctor performed paracentesis (tapping his belly to drain off the liquid) on four occasions -- one time drawing off 22 liters of fluid.
** An autopsy was performed on Beethoven shortly after his death, and several of his organs displayed damage consistent with alcohol abuse. He likely had chronic pancreatitis given that this organ was hard and film with a greatly widened duct. His spleen was significantly enlarged. His liver was shrunken to half its normal size, greenish-blue in color, leathery in consistency, covered with bean-sized knots, and containing blood vessels that were narrowed and bloodless; this is typical of chronic macronodular cirrhosis of the liver with portal hypertension. These are all commonly occurring indicators of excessive alcohol consumption.

** An autopsy was performed on Beethoven shortly after his death, and several of his organs displayed damage consistent with alcohol abuse. He likely had chronic pancreatitis given that this organ was hard and film with a greatly widened duct. His spleen was greatly enlarged. His liver was shrunken to half its normal size, greenish-blue in color, leathery in consistency, covered with bean-sized knots, and containing blood vessels that were narrowed and bloodless; this is typical of chronic macronodular cirrhosis of the liver with portal hypertension. These are all commonly occurring indicators of excessive alcohol consumption.

** An autopsy was performed on Beethoven shortly after his death, and several of his organs displayed damage consistent with alcohol abuse. He likely had chronic pancreatitis given that this organ was hard and film with a greatly widened duct. His spleen was greatly enlarged. His liver was shrunken to half its normal size, greenish-blue in color, leathery in consistency, covered with bean-sized knots, and containing blood vessels that were narrowed and bloodless; this is typical of chronic macronodular cirrhosis of the liver with portal hypertension. These are all commonly occurring side effects of excessive alcohol consumption.

** An autopsy was performed on Beethoven shortly after his death, and several of his organs displayed damage consistent with alcohol abuse. He likely had chronic pancreatitis given that this organ was hard and film with a greatly widened duct. His spleen was greatly enlarged. His liver was shrunken to half its normal size, greenish-blue in color, leathery in consistency, covered with bean-sized knots, and containing blood vessels that were narrowed and bloodless; this is typical of chronic macronodular cirrhosis of the liver with portal hypertension.

** An autopsy was performed on Beethoven shortly after his death, and several of his organs displayed damage consistent with alcohol abuse. He likely had chronic pancreatitis given that this organ was hard and film with a greatly widened duct. His liver was shrunken to half its normal size, greenish-blue in color, leathery in consistency, covered with bean-sized knots, and containing blood vessels that were narrowed and bloodless; this is typical of chronic macronodular cirrhosis of the liver with portal hypertension.

* EnsembleDarkHorse: Symphony No. 9 is probably the favourite with the public, and Symphony No. 5 is the one with the most famous opening, but those who really know Beethoven's work tend to agree that Symphony No. 3 is the real ground-breaking game-changer, being by some distance the longest and most complex symphony that anyone had written up until that point.

* WeirdAlEffect: His composition of "Turkish March" is mostly known by Mexicans due to the CoveredUp take called "The Elephant Never Forgets" being used as the theme song for Series/ElChavoDelOcho.

* EndingFatigue: Even some professional musicians think Beethoven had a hard time bringing Symphony No. 5 in C minor to an end.
* EnsembleDarkHorse: Symphony No. 9 is probably the favourite with the public, and Symphony No. 5 is the one with the most famous opening, but those who really know Beethoven's work tend to agree that the Third Symphony is the really boundary-breaking, game-changing one, being by some distance the longest and most complex symphony that anyone had written up until that point.