Thayer added that he agreed with Schindler if what the earlier writer meant by deism was that Beethoven “rejected the Trinitarian dogma that the Deity of his faith is a personal God, a universal Father, to whom his human children may hopefully appeal for mercy in time of temptation, for aid in time of need, for consolation in time of sorrow.” It may be said with considerable certainty, however, that his religious views rested less upon the creed of the church, than that they had their origin in deism.”Īlexander Thayer, the American author of the first scholarly biography of Beethoven, noted that readers who dissent from Schindler’s view because Beethoven wrote religious works might consider whether the “words of the Mass were simply a text on which he could lavish all the resources of his art in the expression of his religious feelings.”
Noting that his employer was “brought up in the Catholic religion,” Schindler adds the comment: “It was one of peculiarities that he never spoke on religious topics or concerning the dogmas of the various Christian churches in order to give his opinion about them. Reading for EvidenceĪlthough much of the 1840 account of Beethoven’s life by his former secretary, Anton Schindler, has been disputed, certain passages ring true. Yet the biographical facts appear to contradict some of these assumptions. Musicologists also look to six songs by Beethoven, set to poems by the German moral philosopher Christian Gellert, as indicators of the composer’s piety. However, he wrote two Masses, an early “Mass in C” (1807) and the imposing “Missa Solemnis” (1824), as well as an oratorio, “Christ on the Mount of Olives” (1803), about the Agony in the Garden, when Jesus prayed late at night in the Garden of Gethsemane before his arrest, as three disciples whom he had asked to pray with him slept nearby. Yet they also assert that he became a deist. Yet they also assert that he became a deist, who rejected revelation as a source of religious knowledge, believing that reason and observation of the natural world were enough to establish the existence of a Supreme Being or creator of the universe.Įarly biographers confirm that Beethoven was baptized and brought up in a German Catholic family. But there is one question that has yet to be answered: To what degree was Beethoven inspired by Catholicism?Įarly biographers confirm that Beethoven was baptized and brought up in a German Catholic family originally from Flanders. As the music-loving world celebrates this year the 250th birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), every detail of his life has been scoured and studied.
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