If any single composer deserves a special chapter in the history of music, that composer is Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827). Probably no other figure in the arts meets with such a strong universal response. People may pity van Gogh, respect Michelangelo and Shakespeare, and admire Leonardo da Vinci, but Beethoven instantly summons up a powerful, positive image: that of the tough, ugly, angry genius staring down adversity and delivering one deeply expressive masterpiece after another. Beethoven’s music has enjoyed broad-based, uninterrupted popularity from his own day to the present. Today its place is equally secure with casual listeners and with the most learned musicians.

There is a sense, furthermore, in which music may be said to have come of age with Beethoven. For despite the great music that came before him — by Bach, Mozart, and many other composers we know — the art of music was never taken so seriously until Beethoven’s symphonies and sonatas struck listeners of his time as a revelation. They were almost equally impressed by the facts of his life, in particular his deafness, the affliction that caused him to retire from a career as a performing musician and become solely a composer.

A new concept of artistic genius was evolving at the time, and Beethoven crystallized this concept powerfully for his own age. No longer a mere craftsman, the artist suffers and creates; endowed not just with greater talent but with a greater soul than ordinary mortals, the artist creates for humanity. Music is no longer merely a product of bodily parts like the ear or the fingers. It flows from the highest reaches of the artist’s spirit.