Beethoven

Famous people with Hearing Impairment

Beethoven was as we know a great source of confidence for himself and for others, being able to create music and play music even after being completely deaf is by itself quite a miracle. He conquered his disability and led himself to being one of the greatest musicians of all time. By the time Beethoven was 28 he began to notice a hearing loss. At first it was slight. He couldn't hear the church bells ringing in the distance. As he got older his hearing loss worsened. By the time he was 50 he was completely deaf. If there was one thing that was affecting his struggle to succeed it was not only being deaf, but having to fight all the emotions that he felt inside when he had to turn around to look at the audience applause because he could not hear. How strange that one of the world's greatest composers could not hear his own music! Even more amazing is that he wrote some of the world's greatest music even though he could not hear a note of it. Beethoven was determined not to be ruined by his deafness, and by 1812 he had completed symphonies 2, 3 'Eroica', 4, 5, 6 'Pastoral', 7 and 8, Piano Concertos 4 and 5 'Emperor', the Violin Concerto, piano sonatas, the three Rasumovsky String Quartets, the opera Fidelio, and many other works.