Talk:Ludwig van Beethoven

Trouble finding reliable sources

I'm trying to add information to Beethoven's legacy section, however I'm having trouble finding reliable sources which give good information. When I use google I run into articles which aren't reliable and when I use google scholar all of the sources are locked behind a paywall. And, yes, I tried looking into the sources section of the wikipedia guides. What can I do? Wikieditor662 (talk) 09:15, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps if you explain specifically what are you seeking to source, other editors will offer suggestions. - kosboot (talk) 10:39, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Well, I would like to have his legacy section be of similar quality to that of Josquin. I would probably need information on how he influenced the romantic era (and how significant he was to it), how he inspired other composers, and how influential he is today. Wikieditor662 (talk) 11:46, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

JSTOR will let you access some things for free. Older surveys than Taruskin's are often of good quality and won't be terribly dated if they were written in the 1980s. And on a figure as continuously and widely celebrated as Beethoven, even older material has likely aged well. Some would be available on the Internet Archive. Libraries are great, especially if you can use them electronically.

I would probably look at the top of what turned up in this search, especially the Cambridge Companion articles and what they cite: https://archive.org/search?query=Beethoven+reception

This article may be helpful: https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~repercus/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/repercussions-Vol.-2-No.-2-Pederson-Sanna-On-the-Task-of-the-Music-Historian.pdf

Most of what Pederson cited is probably available on internetarchive.org if you wanted to dig deeper. It might be challenging to be navigate and describe the changing historiographical perspectives. MONTENSEM (talk) 22:54, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

For this sort of thing books are probably better than articles. I'd suggest seeing what you can access from those in the Further reading or References at Romantic music, or here. Johnbod (talk) 17:54, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Definitely books. The thing is, in a sense, Beethoven influenced all of music after him, so it's going to be a bit of work to find "the most reliable" sources. I would start with Grove, and then branch out to the most well-known books of music history (e.g. Taruskin). Once you start such a section, lots of editors will probably love to add lots of trivia ("the first 4 notes of symphony no. 5 appear in ....") so I would try to place limits on a legacy section to the most reliable sources (e.g. no articles, blog posts or other ephemera) and perhaps only books from recognized scholars. - kosboot (talk) 20:02, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

"In a sense, Beethoven influenced all of music after him"

The problem is that single statements like this are sometimes difficult to find in a book, as there is so much material covered. Wikieditor662 (talk) 16:53, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

There's some Wikipedia policy or guidance about not having to cite a source for the sky being blue (not sure where to find it, but I've come across it). Rarely will anyone publish things as boring or in as flat a way as "the sky is blue", because what does it really tell you ...

These kinds of statements are both strong (general) and weak (vague). The task then is to specify or to get particular about what they are summarizing. That usually means balancing multiple perspectives and finding whatever underlying or shared consensus there is ... MONTENSEM (talk) 23:04, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

WP:SKYISBLUE - just an essay I think, & not really relevant here. Johnbod (talk) 22:31, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, thanks! That and the opposing essay (Wikipedia:You do need to cite that the sky is blue) can be helpful in prioritizing work and in considering things like this. MONTENSEM (talk) 22:47, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree with this. Unless it's quite specific, any such statement is likely the kind of program-note babble that's true of dozens of other composers. SPECIFICO talk 21:48, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Try Oxford Bibliographies via the WP:TWL Aza24 (talk) 20:16, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

• The thing is, there is no major composer after Beethoven (or even during his lifetime) who was NOT directly or indirectly influenced by him, so there is probably little point in trying to reference individual composers. He did not undergo a period of obscurity and then reconsideration like Josquin; Beethoven lived at a time when music was easily and prolifically published, disseminated, and performed nationally and internationally, and he was a noted soloist performer as well (generally of his own works). What is more important, and easier to cite, is that Beethoven was (is nearly universally considered) the beginning of the Romantic era in music, in fact, he is seen to have virtually invented it and to bridge the Classical and Romantic eras. That is much easier to cite. Softlavender (talk) 00:02, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

  Referencing individual composers is still valuable; the connection Brahms or Mahler felt to Beethoven is a crucial theme in music historiography, much more so than say Beethoven's influence on Grieg or Tchaikovsky. Aza24 (talk) 01:45, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

  Mentioning two major composers out of hundreds implies that those other hundreds were not influenced by Beethoven, which would be entirely false. Those (carefully and authoritatively cited) mentions belong in the wiki articles on Brahms or Mahler, not as trivia in the article on the arguably most influential composer of all time. Softlavender (talk) 02:10, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

  Trivia, really? Rather dismissive for no particular reason.

  A quick read through Beethoven's legacy section in Grove mentions numerous individuals. Direct influence ≠ indirect influence. Yes, he indirectly influenced everyone, as you say. Beethoven's direct influence on Brahms, Schumann, Wagner etc. is infinitely more important than his direct influence on Chopin, Tchaikovsky etc. These last two had vastly more influence from other composers (e.g. Mozart, Schumann), which is not comparable to the central place Beethoven placed in the works of Brahms/Schumann/Bruckner etc. Aza24 (talk) 03:42, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

  Unless we are quoting tertiary sources, this quickly devolves into WP:CHERRYPICKING and WP:COATRACK. When someone is the most major paradigm shifter in their field, there is no one that follows that is not affected by them. It's like trying to identify which scientists were influenced by Darwin, Newton, or Einstein. What is more important is WHAT changed, not WHOM it changed. Softlavender (talk) 23:15, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

  At this point, I feel that we are reading past each other's comments and I doubt this particular topic can remain productive :) Aza24 (talk) 23:25, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

  I have no idea what you mean by "reading past each other's comments". I am reading and responding to your replies to me as they occur. Softlavender (talk) 23:54, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

  It sounds like you both agree, at least, that is probably better to be pluralistic and to do both what and whom (or, I would say, to be both general and specific), not either/or, and that you both further recommend using tertiary sources to help balance the two (Aza24 referred to Grove). This is a very old historiographical problem (and reception history is even more complex and recursive). Even tertiary sources contend with it, and it is continued debated in the literature about music history surveys. For what it's worth, I think it's probably best not to be too doctrinaire about it. MONTENSEM (talk) 00:36, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

  No, read my posts again. I do not agree to listing any specific composers, which in my view would of necessity be cherrypicked and would eventually grow into a random coatrack of trivia that any passing inexperienced editor would add to. What Beethoven changed is far more important than the trivial/immediate effects that can be specifically noted about specific composers. (The sole exception to my statement is if the community insists on it and we limit mention of composers to only what is mentioned in the Grove entry on Beethoven or any other authoritative tertiary source. But even if we currently limit the mentions to Grove [e.g.], there would always be a temptation for various other editors in the future to look at it as a coatrack and add their own preferred bit of [cited somewhere] random trivia. Which is why I am against mentioning composers on principle.) Softlavender (talk) 01:45, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

  Well, for the record, I tend to disagree with this type of (maybe overly principled or dogmatic) thinking, chiefly because I think it is less helpful to the reader for the article to try to abstractly, generally define what Beethoven may be said to represent or to have changed (e.g., cultural and often national or even universal icon; the Romantic ideal of the artist as genius with emotional and often intellectual depth; his music's formal expansion, structural coherence, emotional range, innovative harmonic practices, narrative elements; topics of freedom, heroism, and nature related to broader cultural currents) without reference to concrete and specific musical trends and cases around which much literature has risen.

  Beyond the streams Aza24 mentioned, the problem with excluding influence on later composers as "trivia", especially in art or culture, is that what is trivial becomes difficult to define as here. Which does not merit a blanket or strict exclusion, in my view. Often the matter can be treated in a concise, encyclopedic manner simply by generalizing under a limiting rubric or frame and giving specific examples. For example, under the frame or rubric of the first general sentence: "Beethoven was highly regarded by subsequent Romantic composers for whom his music was a point of departure. Schumann's music often featured sustained or cyclic thematic or motivic development as an integrating force, especially his First Symphony and even in his song cycles. Brahms continued and further developed this, and his music has been compared Beethoven's in its rhythmic character, assertive themes, and motivic development, as in the comparison between Brahms's First and Beethoven's symphonies. Wagner's enharmonic modulations owed much to what Cherubini described as the "brusque" modulations of Beethoven's late music (in addition to Liszt's, Berlioz's, and Schubert's), which contributed to their music's emotional intensity. Their music shared in a dramatic use of musical narrative, with the use of motives or themes as structurally unifying elements (as in the Wagnerian Leitmotiv).

  Even the "immediate" details are important, connecting historical ones, as in the parenthetical elements in the case of the Wagner example. And it's true that this might be expanded almost endlessly in Beethoven's case with either those immediate connecting details or later iterations of the same (as in later composers' reception of Beethoven). One could show that even Chopin was influenced, to your point about "who wasn't". I don't think the article would be the worse for that necessarily but rather will always be worse for the lack of it, suffering from too little cultural and historical context. Influence, both received and exerted, is an integral and expected part of almost any musician's reception and legacy. (Ideally, it should be well organized and concise, but that should not be an absolute barrier to content that can then be adapted and improved.) MONTENSEM (talk) 19:31, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

• For a source for a summary statement, a sweeping overview, I'd suggest using the New Grove, because that's what it does. See for example Scott G. Burnham's summary in section 19 of the Beethoven article in the 2001 NG, from which this is a small extract: "The Beethoven we know today cannot be separated from the history of his critical and popular reception. No other Western composer has been amplified to the same degree by posterity; and none has come to embody musical art the way Beethoven has. More than a composer, he remains one of the pre-eminent cultural heroes of the modern West." And so forth. There's lots there. And then go to the major books about him. Antandrus (talk) 00:44, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks, I'll make a sandbox and add this there Wikieditor662 (talk) 17:12, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Adding information about Beethoven's legacy section

Should I add what I have written down right now, and add any new information to Beethoven's page, or should I wait until the notes are complete before adding it?

The problem is that right now there is very little information regarding his influence and legacy, despite him being by far one of the most significant composers. Even though much more information could be added to what I wrote, I think including it would be far better than leaving only what we have now. With exceptions for some opinions, I believe Everything I wrote is supported by highly reliable sources including Taruskin and other musicologists and books. Wikieditor662 (talk) 21:53, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Wikieditor, I'm afraid your current sandbox doesn't seem ready for the mainspace. It is primarily just a series of quote, with no overarching context. You said you were basing it off what I did at Josquin des Prez#Legacy, but I can't see the resemblance. Yes there are quotes there, but there is only three, and they are by prominent Josquin scholars. The rest of the section is carefully cited reception analysis which creates a fully-formed narrative.

You are citing a journalist and some rather niche musicologists and seemingly random composers. Instead, you should be quoting much less, and exclusively to important Beethoven scholars like like Cooper, Kerman, Lockwood and Solomon (otherwise, deciding who to quote becomes too arbitrary). There is a whole "Reception studies" section of the Grove bibliography which is not touched at all here. There are also some major formatting issues throughout, in the text and sources.

I would gently suggest that perhaps you direct your efforts towards other places at the moment, these kinds of big topics take much time and experience to get right. Beethoven has plenty of individual compositions with poor Wikipedia pages, and they could better benefit from your efforts. Aza24 (talk) 22:05, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

@Aza24 Thank you for your opinion and being gentle. Beethoven's article is probably read by many more people than even his most famous compositions, and I find it very unfortunate that the article does not mention his influence on other composers, the romantic era, and music today.

With that being said, I realize that this is a very difficult task and that I cannot do it on my own. Could adding in the future be possible if the sandbox were to also be worked on by you and / or other editors as well? Some of the stuff on there could be useful, and I don't see why other experienced editors wouldn't want to improve Beethoven's legacy section. Wikieditor662 (talk) 22:31, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Well it's tricky, most editors (including me) often have big to-do-lists in mind. You're quite right that this biography is read more than most of his compositions, and perhaps more than most composers, but in reality, I would tentatively assume that the vast majority of readers don't scroll past the lead. That's not to say it isn't a priority, but in the time it takes me to write a fully-fleshed, sourced and comprehensive legacy section, I could improve 10 women composer bios (which no one would touch otherwise), or write the entire article for an ancient empire's musical tradition—all information which might be very difficult for readers to access, were it not on Wikipedia. Is information on Beethoven difficult to access? Not particularly. This is of course a big oversimplification and I will certainly put this section on my radar—I'm just hesitant to commit to anything right now.

If you want to touch base on this in December, we could plan to take a crack at it then, when some of my other projects have wrapped up. Aza24 (talk) 23:37, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

I see what you're saying. While most people will only look at the lead, people interested in learning about Beethoven may read the whole article. Since there is no proper legacy section here, they will resort to other places online such as reddit, which are completely unsourced and likely contain misinformation.

I understand that writing the entire legacy section by yourself will prevent you from doing other things. What if a large number of people each do a little to contribute to it? It won't be very time consuming for the individuals and I bet a lot could get done. Wikieditor662 (talk) 00:42, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

The problematic pretty picture

This picture:

was appearing in this Beethoven article and on numerous places on the world's Wikipedias ([1]). But I have had a lot of trouble trying to find out its origin and authenticity.

It is not a plausible portrayal of Beethoven, since it depicts a strikingly handsome young man with a glowing complexion. However, biographies of Beethoven (right now I'm reading the very thoughtful one by Jan Swafford) tell us that Beethoven, sadly for him, was pretty darn ugly. Some other portraits give a hint:.

If I can offer a conjecture, I think that the origin of the "beautiful Beethoven" portrait is this engraving by Neidl, after Stainhauser (caption appears in current version of article):

The earliest known portrait of Beethoven; 1801 engraving by Johann Joseph Neidl after a now-lost portrait by Gandolph Ernst Stainhauser von Treuberg, ca. 1800

This seems to be authentic, and only modestly sentimentalizing. Somebody then made a prettier version :

which beautifies the engraving quite a bit (wide eyes, neater eyebrows, little smile). Then someone took this portrayal and colorized it, yielding the version seen above.

There is quite a bit of activity in creating sentimentalized phony portraits of the great composers (see this outrageous one of Haydn: [2], or this one of Mozart: [3]). We may have been the unwitting victims of this activity.

If it turns out I am wrong, and you have seen some evidence of authenticity for the color portrait, do please feel free to revert my edit, explaining your rationale on this talk page. Opus33 (talk) 22:10, 11 September 2024 (UTC) Opus33 (talk) 22:10, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you Opus (and good to see you around!) - for what it's worth I agree with the swap. I strongly suspect we will see even more prettification and other varieties of fanciful but nonsensical portraiture, given the abundance of artificial intelligence tools. I could provide some amusing suggestions, but, um, WP:BEANS. Antandrus (talk) 22:34, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Same: good to see you around, and good arguments for a change! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:45, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Opus33, perhaps you belong on TV. I'm wholly convinced. I've always imagined Beethoven as more grizzly/ ugly /scowlly, and less like Robert Schumann on a date night. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:33, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

How nice to point at Schumann on his anniversary ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:01, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for friendly greetings! It would be fun to work on that TV show. Opus33 (talk) 03:11, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Change in infobox

Birth place: Bonn
Change: Bonn, Electorate of Cologne

Death place: Vienna
Change: Vienna, Austrian Empire. FCBWanderer (talk) 11:47, 14 November 2024 (UTC)