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It was really music that came out of Beethoven’s heart: the musician’s compositions would be influenced by the arrhythmia of his heart. The rhythms of some of his most famous and touching compositions would be influenced by the cardiac arrhythmias from which the composer probably suffered. This is the hypothesis of three researchers, a musicologist, a cardiologist and a medical historian from the University of Michigan and the University of Washington.
Mysterious diseases – There has always been speculation about the many diseases from which the composer would have suffered as a young man, from asthma to irritable bowel syndrome, from kidney disease to cirrhosis of the liver. And historians have questioned how the musician’s physical illnesses may have influenced his art. One of the most well-known examples is deafness, from which Beethoven was affected at an early age and which would affect his style as he progressed. But the theory has also advanced that certain rhythmic motifs in his music are a transposition of the irregular heart rhythm he is likely to suffer in relation to other physical ailments.
The example cited by some scholars is Opus 81a, piano sonata no. 26, which contains in the opening movement significant pauses and a galloping rhythm resembling extrasystoles, when the heart has a irregular beating often followed by a pause.
Hardened breath – In a study published in the journal Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, the authors traced possible signs of cardiac arrhythmia to other compositions. First of all, the arch quartet no. 13 in B flat major, Opus 130. The fifth movement, Cavatina presents a rhythm change in the middle of the score. Beethoven marked this part with the German word “beklemmt”, which means “with a heavy heart”. The note may refer to the emotion evoked by music, but according to the authors the rhythm is evocative of a physical sensation, shortness of breath due to ischemic disease.
Heart in the ear – Also in other compositions, according to the authors, sudden changes in rhythm and key coincide with specific heart rhythm disturbances, for example the third movement of the Opus 110, with a melody reminiscent of shortness of breath associated with a tachycardic arrhythmia . “When the heart beats erratically from an illness, it does so in predictable patterns. “We seem to hear some of these same patterns in Beethoven’s music,” said Joel Howell, one of the study’s authors. Also according to the authors, the gradual decline of the sense of hearing may have left the composer even more aware of the inner rhythm of his heart, from which he would allow himself to be guided. As is said to have happened to Gustav Mahler, another great musician, whose severe heart disease would appear in compositions.
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