229 Romance No.2
Beethoven

After 2 Beethoven re-entries, here's a climber: up 6. 3rd of 18 entries overall.

Beethoven composed his Romance No.2 in 1803 and the sweet, innocent melodies belie the altogether more tumultuous events of the composer's personal life at the time. His ability to create astonishing music throughout this period can all too easily lead us to forget the cruel experience of his suffering from gradual deafness. At the same time as writing the Romance in F, Beethoven was forced to come to terms with his condition, probably for the first time.

Here, all angst is absent from the page. In its place, we find music that suggests that all is well. As Beethoven knew all too clearly, though, this was far from the case.

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'Woman with Violin' (a portrait of Rene Druet) by Theo van Rysselberghe (1910).