Talk:Ludwig van Beethoven

According to many medical authors, Ludwig van Beethoven was autopsied in Vienna on March 27, 1827 by Karl Rokitansky, which identified a “uniformly dense skull vault and thick and shriveled auditory nerves”, consistent with Paget's disease of bone. This was the cause of Beethoven‘s deafness. 1

1 - Creativity and chronic disease Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) - West J Med. 2001 November; 175(5): 298

Moorish heritage?!

I don't have the time to fully investigate this myself, but just surprized seeing no discussion of this thing yet (from 2009, currently enjoying a ton of publicity on tumblr): http://open.salon.com/blog/ronp01/2009/09/27/the_african_heritage_of_ludwig_van_beethoven

In case this holds up (the references seem not too shabby on first glance; not sure if the article itself counts as a reliable source), this seems like a kind of important set of facts to not mention. (Not that it necessarily will. Skimming over the comments, one 'Rw005g' seems to be poking some holes in the argument…) --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 20:34, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

That is the biggest load of crock ever. There is no evidence that Beethoven had any Moorish, never mind African, heritage. The references not only are shabby but person on that blog hasn't proven any African ancestry for Beethoven, they just provided shoddy circumstantial evidence and conjecture.

His parents - http://www.madaboutbeethoven.com/pages/people_and_places/people_family/biog_maria.htm and http://www.madaboutbeethoven.com/pages/people_and_places/people_family/biog_johann.htm ... neither show to have any African ancestry. (Angar432 (talk) 16:54, 13 June 2012 (UTC))

Late Works, ¶5; re: "Late String Quartets"

Perhaps it is time to remove the unsourced quote: "we know there is something there, but we do not know what it is." -- or find a source. A Google search yielded over 1 million results. Although I didn't check them all, each entry on the first five pages began "One musician commented...". It is a great quote, but unsourced is unsourced. (It seems there might be a few copy/paste folks out there? It is interesting to note that none of the entries begin "A musician...", or "One musician remarked...", or "Somebody...", etc.) ~Eric F. 184.76.225.106 (talk) 06:51, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Willibrod wrong --> Willibrord

Willibrod wrong --> Willibrord is right; please change; Gruedo (talk) 08:40, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

...of all time

I changed "...one of the most famous and influential composers of all time" back to "...one of the most famous and influential of all composers" for several reasons. Complying with WP:BRD, here are my reasons.

• Time really has nothing to do with it.
• "...of all time" is a cliché, a stock phrase, these days almost meaningless: tabloid journalism that reduces Beethoven's fame and influence to trivia.
• I'm a scientist by inclination, and to me "all time" encompasses the distant future. How do we know it will still be true in 10,000 years time? It may be, but it's a guess. "All composers" does not similarly encompass unborn composers.

Wonder if anyone else has a view, or whether it's just me being a bit grumpy this morning? :) --RobertG ♬ talk 06:45, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Recently (2 April 2012) I made a similar correction to Claude Debussy with the comment "of all time" not encyclopedic prose. Maybe we need to search the entire Wikipedia for all occurrences of the phrase "of all time." The problem is not just temporal, but also cultural. Zyxwv99 (talk) 13:21, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

@RobertG: Thank you for your revert and the succinct edit summary. I agree with all your reasons. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 16:17, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Beethover's grandfather

Recently added material about Beethoven's grandfather appears to be correct, but is improperly referenced. Please do not use websites for inline citations if it can be avoided. In this case a brief search on Google Books shows that there are book sources for the same information. (Try search terms: Beethoven's grandfather bonn 20.) Web-links are subject to link rot. Also, for citations from Google Books I would recommend http://reftag.appspot.com/. Just copy and paste the Google Books URL into the box, and it makes a Wikipedia reference for you. Zyxwv99 (talk) 13:41, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you.--IIIraute (talk) 00:49, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Introduction

It's beyond woefully inadequate, but I'm not qualified to remedy it. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:38, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

'Romantic' Composer

It says:

In a review from 1810, he was enshrined by E. T. A. Hoffmann as one of the three great "Romantic" composers; Hoffman called Beethoven's Fifth Symphony "one of the most important works of the age."

'Romantic' here is linked to the article on Romantic music (i.e c.1830 onwards). At the time of this review, that hadn't happened. Is it really appropriate to link to the wiki article on Romantic music? It may mislead people.

Ronnie268 (talk) 18:57, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Cultural Significance - Voyager Golden Record

Under the music subheading, I added a small reference to the fact that Beethoven is the only composer to be featured twice on the Voyager Golden Record. I believe this is an appropriate, and readily understandable, way to underline his seminal importance in the cultural history of humankind.