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From Wondery, I'm Andrew Mayer, and this is Who's Amazing Life?
You've heard of people who changed the course of history, but before they made their mark on the world, they were people like you and me still figuring out what they wanted to do with their lives.
On this episode, you will be that person everyone knows.
You might be a musician, or an athlete, a scientist, or a painter.
You may know what the person accomplished later in life, but now you can experience everything they faced along the way.
From challenges and heartbreak to triumphs and excitement.
All the moments that built this person into someone who would change the world.
There will be clues, so pay attention, but only at the end will you find out who you are.
So sit back and imagine your amazing life as the composer.
Imagine you're seven years old.
You're standing with your parents in a small room backstage.
The three of you are wearing your finest clothes.
You may look nice, but you feel really uncomfortable.
You try to adjust your shirt, but your dad stops you.
Don't fiddle with your clothing.
Stand up straight.
Yes, father.
You've been traveling all day to get here, and you feel pretty tired.
But mostly, you feel nervous.
You're about to do something you've never done before.
Play piano in front of an audience.
Your dad straightens your collar.
Only a child, and already the greatest musician in the world!
You gulp.
Your dad has such high expectations for you, and you don't know if you can live up to them.
Your dad is a musician as well.
A few years ago, he started teaching you how to play the piano.
At first, piano lessons were a lot of fun.
You loved making up little melodies in your head and playing them.
But your dad makes you practice all the time, even in the middle of the night, and now he thinks you're the greatest musician in the world.
Sometimes it feels like too much pressure.
You hear the murmur of the audience taking their seats and your stomach twists into knots.
But then your mom kneels in front of you.
She holds your hands and smiles.
Remember, I love you no matter what.
Just enjoy making music.
You nod and take a deep breath.
You can do this.
You've been practicing for this recital all year.
As you walk on stage, you feel your heart pounding in your ears.
You face the audience and take a small bow.
You sit in front of the piano.
You take a deep breath, relax your shoulders and feel the smooth black and white keys under your fingertips.
Then you start to play.
As you perform, your nerves melt away and you smile.
You love music.
The piano responds to your touch like it understands you.
But as you keep playing, your smile fades.
Sure, you may be good at playing piano, but this music is missing something.
You want to play pieces that race with happiness, like you do when you chase your little brother along the river.
You want something that rages with frustration, the way you do when your dad asks you to keep practicing.
But this music just feels sort of... clean.
It sounds really... nice.
Nothing like the big, messy, complicated feelings you have inside.
You take a bow as the audience applauds.
You're flattered that they liked it and relieved that it went well.
But as you leave the stage, you know it's not enough to just play elegant music.
You want to find a way to express all of the things you're feeling.
After your recital, you return home to your small town in Germany and continue to study music.
When you're 11, you start composing your own pieces for the piano.
The style of music you know is a formal style, like that piece you played in your recital.
But when you compose, you try to infuse your music with more emotion.
It's a challenge.
You don't quite feel like you have it yet, but it feels good trying to figure out how to turn your feelings into musical ideas.
You can hear out loud.
But sometimes your feelings are really big, so big that it feels impossible to translate them into your music.
Your dad still puts a lot of pressure on you to be the best musician you can be.
And you love music, but you spend so much time with your piano that you don't have a lot of time to make friends.
Even worse, your parents have been arguing with each other, and sometimes with you, which can make you feel anxious and alone.
Sometimes, it feels like no one understands you.
You just wish you knew what to do with all of these big, overwhelming feelings.
You're 15 years old, sitting at a piano in a music studio.
Your skills as a musician have grown so advanced that you've stopped taking lessons from your dad and started studying with a new music teacher.
You're at the studio early to practice before your lesson, but you notice a magazine on your teacher's chair.
To your surprise, it's full of poetry.
You flip through the pages and a poem catches your eye.
It describes a beautiful world full of peace and joy.
As you read you feel butterflies in your stomach.
This poem is amazing.
You've never read anything like this before, but somehow it feels like the writer is talking to you.
It feels like someone finally understands you and all of your big feelings.
I thought you might like that.
You jump.
You were so engrossed in the poem you didn't notice your teacher arrive.
I never read a poem that made me feel like this.
You face the piano, your mind buzzing with inspiration.
I want to write music that makes people feel this way.
I want it to be big and exciting and full of powerful emotions and big ideas.
Your teacher puts his hand on your shoulder.
I don't know anyone who's written music like that.
You slouch, discouraged.
But your teacher isn't done yet.
But I have no doubt that you're going to figure it out.
You give him a determined smile.
Musical ideas float through your mind.
You're not sure what you're going to write yet, or how you're even going to write it.
But you can't wait to get started.
You continue to compose, working for hours every day.
The more you play, the more your skills and your confidence grow.
You write pieces that are bigger and more complicated.
Now, your music has multiple instruments like piano, violins, flutes, and cellos.
But your music career comes to a halt when your mom gets very sick and passes away.
The grief is overwhelming.
Your mom was your best friend.
Even though you're only 16 and you're still mourning, it falls on you to take care of your family.
With this new responsibility you don't have much time for composing anymore, but you still try to write your feelings down in your musical sketchbook.
Sometimes you remember that poem about peace and joy, and you think about setting it to music.
Someday.
When your siblings are old enough to live on their own, you move to Vienna Austria, and turn your focus back to your music.
You perform the compositions you've been writing in your sketchbook for the last few years.
Some critics say your work is too wild and confusing, which is hard to hear.
But then, you learn that other people really connect with the big ideas and feelings in your music.
This inspires you to keep composing.
You want to write music that's even bigger, even more expressive.
And you're ready to try it in the biggest form you can think of.
A symphony.
You are 29.
You're hurrying down the busy streets of Vienna with a friend.
Under your arm is a draft of your first symphony, which is a huge piece of music written for a full orchestra.
You're in a rush to show the music to your mentor, but your friend stops you.
My goodness, what a beautiful flute!
You look around, but you don't see a flute.
You can't hear any flute either.
All you hear is a faint buzzing.
Maybe it's a fly near your ear.
You brush the side of your head, but the buzzing doesn't stop.
It only gets louder.
Your friend looks up to the window of a building.
It's coming from up there.
Someone must be practicing.
Isn't it beautiful?
Oh, up there.
Yes, it is beautiful, I think.
I wish we could stay and listen.
But let's go.
Don't want you to be late.
Your friend keeps walking.
You follow, confused.
Why couldn't you hear the flute?
Your ears keep buzzing, and you notice that now you can also hear a faint ringing.
Maybe you're sick, or you need to get some sleep.
Hopefully this is just temporary and will go away soon.
But as the days pass, your ears keep ringing.
You notice that it's harder to hear certain things, like the high notes of your piano.
You're worried that something may be wrong, so you see a doctor who confirms your worst fears.
You're losing your hearing.
You begin to panic.
If you can't hear, how will you be able to make music?
You do everything you can to keep your hearing from getting any worse.
Doctors have you try almond oil and cold baths.
You wear a hearing aid called an ear trumpet.
But as years pass, your hearing keeps changing.
Until eventually you can only hear the lowest notes of the piano.
It's so frustrating.
You try to stay involved in the music scene, but being around other musicians who can hear like you used to be able to only makes you feel worse.
People try to talk to you, but you can't hear what they're saying, so you don't know how to respond.
Eventually, you start to keep to yourself, and you stop performing your music.
You feel all alone again, just like when you were a teenager.
But music is the best way you know how to express your deepest feelings.
So you keep composing.
You may not be able to hear well, but you can feel the vibrations of your piano and you can imagine the sounds when you write the notes.
It's challenging, but you push yourself to keep writing.
In your compositions, you express how hopeless and angry you feel.
As you explore these emotions, it strikes you that you've been feeling heavy, dark feelings for a long time, and perhaps you're ready for a change.
You want to feel joy.
You want to create joy.
You can barely hear anything anymore, but you're composing more music than ever before.
After years of writing, composition after composition, you complete a symphony that you're especially proud of.
You know how your music should sound, but since you can't hear it out loud, you worry.
Will audiences understand what you're trying to say?
You are 53 years old, and you're walking onto a huge stage in a large theater.
There are over 150 musicians on stage with you, and even more people in the audience.
Your heart pounds in your chest, and your legs shake as you walk towards your position center stage.
It's been over ten years since you've been in front of an audience and you're about to conduct the biggest piece of music you've ever written.
Your new piece is inspired by that poem about joy you read as a teenager.
You finally worked out how you wanted to sound as music.
The thing is, you've never heard a note of it, because now you are completely deaf.
Your hand trembles as you lift your conducting baton.
The orchestra lifts their instruments, ready to play.
The choir stands at attention.
You take a deep breath, relax your shoulders, and begin.
You can't hear what the musicians are doing, but as you watch them respond to your baton, calm washes over you.
It doesn't matter if you can't hear the music, because you know what it sounds like in your head.
In your mind, your music is a message about people supporting each other in a world full of joy.
It captures that inspiring emotion you felt decades ago when you first read that poem.
As you conduct, you get so lost in the joyous music in your mind that you close your eyes.
The ending grows bigger and bigger.
Until a singer taps you on the shoulder.
You open your eyes.
The musicians stare at you.
They aren't playing.
You feel a rumble under your feet.
Did something go wrong?
Then, the singer points to the audience, and you turn around to face them.
You gasp in shock.
The audience is on their feet.
You see tear-stained faces and clapping hands.
You did it!
You conducted your symphony.
Even better.
You were able to convey all of your feelings of joy peace, freedom and inspiration in your music.
And the audience understood it.
They understood you.
You smile and take a bow as the audience claps even harder.
Your feelings might be big, even overwhelming sometimes.
And not being able to hear your work is challenging.
But as long as you have music, you know you'll be able to share what's in your heart with the world.
With this piece, your Ninth Symphony, you are the first composer to write music for vocal soloists, a choir and an orchestra to be performed together in a symphony.
Your Symphony is inspired by Friedrich Schiller's poem Ode to Joy, and it becomes one of the most well-known pieces of music ever written.
It's later chosen to be the official anthem of Europe because of its ability to bring people together.
Your new style of music ends the classical era of music history and kicks off a new one, one based on emotion.
You write over 700 pieces of music, including Fur Elise and the Moonlight Sonata and giant orchestral works like your well-known Fifth Symphony.
Generations of people around the world connect with your music's honest feelings and celebration of the human spirit.
Many consider you one of the greatest composers of all time.
You are Ludwig van Beethoven.
If you like, Whose Amazing Life.
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From Wondery, this is Who's Amazing Life?
This episode contains reenactments and dramatized details.
While we can't know exactly what was said, we use many sources when researching our stories.
Some that were particularly helpful include Beethoven, The Music and the Life by Lewis Lockwood and The New York Times.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Megan Begala and Ginny Bloom are our senior producers.
Executive producers are Jenny Lauer-Beckman, Marshall Louis, and Erin O'Flaherty for Wondery.
