Beethoven’s Health and Death

Perhaps no other composer in history has been so associated with his medical health. The seeming contradiction of a “deaf composer” continues to amaze people, even though Beethoven was only functionally deaf the last ten years of his life. The first signs of his deafness, according to the composer himself, appeared when he was 27 or 28. The composer’s doctor during the years of his crisis over his hearing was Dr. Johann Adam Schmidt (1759-1809), who counseled Beethoven to move to small suburb of Vienna called Heiligenstadt in the summer of 1802 to rest his ears. Over the following years, Beethoven suffered from a number of ailments, including eye problems, headaches, abdominal complaints, depression, fevers, abscesses, lung infections, and nose bleeds. Though medical researchers do not agree on the exact cause of his death, the autopsy report reveals that he died from kidney and liver failure. Lead poisoning during the last few months of his life may have hastened his demise. By the time of Beethoven’s death at the age of 56 on March 26, 1827, he had become the most famous composer of Vienna. More than 20,000 Viennese attended his funeral. A comparison of the life mask made in 1812 and the death mask made in 1827 reveals the heavy toll the final illnesses took on the composer.

Treasure 5

Invitation to Beethoven’s funeral, March 1827

Gift of Ira F. Brilliant, 1994

 “Beethoven's death in the late afternoon of March 26, 1827 started an intense sequence of events which culminated in the burial service at 3:00 p.m. on March 29. The elapsed time between these two events was approximately sixty-nine hours. Church services were arranged, a burial site selected, a procession with torchbearers was organized, an obituary was written by Franz Grillparzer and recited by the well-known actor Heinrich Anschütz, appropriate funeral music was performed, and invitations (Einladungen) were printed.”

—Ira Brilliant, 1998

“Invitation / to / Ludwig van Beethoven’s / Funeral, / which will take place on March 29 at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. /Mourners should gather in the apartment of the deceased in the Schwarzspanier-Haus Nr. 200, / on the glacis in frontof the Schottenthor. / The procession will move from there to the Trinity-Church next to the P. P. Minoriten in the Alsergasse. / The musical world suffered the irreplaceable loss of the famous composer on March 26, 1827, in the eveningaround 6 o’clock. / Beethoven died from the effects of dropsy, at the age of 56, / after receiving the Holy Sacraments. /The day of the Funeral Mass will be announced at a later date by / L. van Beethoven’s / admirers and friends. / (This card will be distributed in Tob. Haslinger’s music shop.) Printed by Anton Strauß.” (Translation by William Meredith)

See entry with more details and downloadable image in the Beethoven Gateway

Also on display:

Engraving of Dr. Johann Adam Schmidt by Carl Heinrich Rahl after a painting by Josef Kapeller , 1801 (from the collection of Dr. Romeo Seligmann)

Gift of ABS members Paul and Joan Kaufmann in honor of William Meredith, 2009
See entry with more details and downloadable image in the Beethoven Gateway

“Bey Ludwig van Beethoven’s Leichenbegängnisse am 29. März 1827,” (Ludwig van Beethoven’s funeral on March 29 1827) poem by Ignaz Franz Castelli printed for distribution at Beethoven’s funeral.

Gift of the American Beethoven Society, 1999
See entry with more details and downloadable image in the Beethoven Gateway

Hand-colored copper engraving of the Trinity Church by Johann August Corvinus based on a drawing by S. Kleiner, printed by Pfeffel between 1730-37

Gift of the American Beethoven Society, 2009
See entry with more details and downloadable image in the Beethoven Gateway

 

“Beethoven on his Deathbed,” based on a drawing by Carl Danhauser,
printed in Berlin by the Music-Verlag Carl Simon, 1881

Gift of the American Beethoven Society, 2010
See entry with more details and downloadable image in the Beethoven Gateway

Death mask of Beethoven by Danhauser, plaster reproduction
by Gebrüder Micheli, Berlin, for the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, ca. 1920

Gift of the American Beethoven Society, 2008

Bronze reproduction of the life mask of Beethoven by Franz Klein, 1812
The life mask is displayed at Beethoven’s actual height,
around five feet, six inches.

On long term loan from the UC Berkeley Music Library, 1986