导言：贝多芬曾经说过，“涓滴之水可磨损大石，不是由于他力量强大，而是由于昼夜不舍地滴坠。只有勤奋不懈地努力，才能够获得那些技巧。”我们所了解的贝多芬只是他伟大人生中的一些支离破碎的片段。今天这篇文章带我们真正走入贝多芬生活的各个侧面。他的音乐追求，政治倾向，还有生活中的点滴细节。
17 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Beethoven
关于贝多芬你所不知道的17件事 
by Gili Malinsky
原文：Ludwig van Beethoven was born in December of 1770 in Bonn to parents Johann and Maria, who were excited and scared about the future of their newborn son. Stubborn and self-involved, dramatic yet loving of his friends, Beethoven would become a virtuoso pianist and canonical composer of dozens of symphonies, concertos for piano, piano sonatas, and string quartets. Having performed brilliantly for much of his youth and into his early thirties, the musician would slowly lose his hearing and ultimately focus his efforts on composing alone. Even after he’d lost his most precious sense, Beethoven would create some of the most moving works of all time.
贝多芬于1770年12月出生在波恩，这个新生儿的父母约翰和玛丽亚都在为他们刚出生的儿子的未来感到既兴奋又担忧。他将是个固执而又自我，拥有戏剧化的人格但是对待友谊却又全心全意的人，在他未来的人生中，将会成为一位技艺精湛的钢琴演奏家，并且也是数十首交响乐、钢琴协奏曲、钢琴奏鸣曲和弦乐四重奏的权威作曲家。这位音乐家在青年时期和三十岁出头的时候人生光彩无限，但好景不长随着这位音乐家的听力的逐渐丧失，他最终把精力集中在独自创作上了。不过即使贝多芬失去了他的最宝贵的听觉，他却将创造出他一生中最为动人的作品。
原文：Jan Swafford’s Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph chronicles the life of the master musician, painting the picture of a character who loved and hated ferociously, of a Europe wrought with revolution and enlightenment, and of a Vienna housing some of the foremost icons of history (Mozart and Haydn would predate Beethoven there). Below is a list of things you might not know about this beloved artist.
简·斯瓦福特眼中的贝多芬：这位作家将同苦难斗争的痛苦和永不屈服的胜利精神攒写进贝多芬作为音乐大师的一生中，塑造出一位真实鲜明令人爱恨难辨的人物形象，描绘了欧洲革命与启蒙运动的图景，介绍了维也纳的居住条件，点明了一些历史上的关键节点（诸如莫扎特海顿早于贝多芬一段时间）。下面列出了一些这位广受欢迎艺术家你可能不知道的事情。
第一：Beethoven was actually the third Ludwig van Beethoven in his family. The first was his grandfather, a noted musician in Bonn, and the second was Beethoven’s older brother, who passed six days after his birth.passed six days after his birth。
贝多芬实际上是他家里的第三个全名叫“路德维希·凡·贝多芬”的人。第一个是他的祖父，他是波恩著名的音乐家，第二个是贝多芬的哥哥，在他出生六天后去世。
第二：Beethoven’s father noticed early on the boy’s penchant for playing. He set his sights on creating a prodigy as Mozart was just years before, and Johann beat music into Ludwig, forcing him to practice day and night to reach the same level of genius. Neighbors of Beethoven remembered the small boy standing on a bench to reach the keyboard, crying, his father looming over him.
贝多芬的父亲很早就注意到了这个男孩对演奏的爱好。他的目标是要创造一个像几年前出现的音乐神童莫扎特一样的天才，约翰把音乐灌输给贝多芬，迫使他日夜不停地练习才能达到天才的水平。贝多芬的邻居记得那个小男孩站在长凳上，伸手去够键盘，哭着，他的父亲阴森森站在贝多芬旁边盯着他练琴。
《纪录片：贝多芬》

第三：Having left school at age 11 to help with household income, Beethoven never learned how to multiply or divide. To his last day if he had to multiply, say, 60 x 52, he’d lay out 60 52 times over and add them up.
贝多芬11岁时离开学校去帮助解决家庭收入问题，但他从未学会如何进行乘法或除法运算。例如，如果他生命中的最后一天必须进行乘法运算，比如60乘52，贝多芬只会用加法把60加上个52次。
第四：Among his friends, Beethoven was a notorious spacecadet. Once, while speaking to family friend Cacilie, she noticed him zoning out. When she demanded a reply to what she’d said, his answer was, “I was just occupied with such a lovely, deep thought, I couldn’t bear to be disturbed.”
在他的朋友中，贝多芬是个出了名的散漫而健忘的怪人。一次，贝多芬和他的一位世交卡瑟利（Cacilie）在谈话时她注意到了他的跑神。当她要求回答她所说的话时，他的回答是：“我只是被脑海里了跑出来一个迷人而深邃的想法所困扰，我不能忍受我的思路被打断。”
第五：On his first visit to Vienna, 17-year-old Beethoven was scheduled to perform for Mozart. The latter was generally unimpressed with other musicians, having been so far ahead of his peers in talent and accomplishments. No one really knows what happened in that fateful meeting, but myth has it that Mozart walked out of the room saying, “Keep your eyes on him—someday he’ll give the world something to talk about.”
17岁的贝多芬第一次访问维也纳时，他被安排为莫扎特演奏。贝多芬对其他音乐家普遍不以为然，因为贝多芬才华和成就上远远领先于同行。没有人真正知道在那次历史性的会面上发生了什么，但是传说莫扎特走出房间时曾言，“盯着他（贝多芬）——总有一天他会给后世留下一些值得谈论的东西。”
第六：Beethoven was known for his improvising (before he lost his hearing). One contemporary of his, composer Johann Baptist Cramer, told his students that if you haven’t heard Beethoven improvise, you haven’t heard improvisation.
贝多芬以即兴创作而出名（在他失去听觉之前）。他同时代的作曲家克雷默（Johann Baptist Cramer）告诉他的学生，如果你没有听过贝多芬的即兴演奏，你就没有听过即兴演奏。
第七：After moving to Vienna in his early 20s, Beethoven took lessons from Joseph Haydn, father of the symphony. As per Beethoven’s habit with teachers, the two often got frustrated and ultimately didn’t like each other very much.
20岁出头搬到维也纳后，贝多芬曾在交响乐之父约瑟夫·海顿那里学习。依照贝多芬与老师相处的习惯，他们两人经常感到沮丧，即使到最后都不是很喜欢对方。
第八：When Beethoven had been composing for some years, the piano began to come into its own. Whereas his predecessors had composed for harpsichord, Beethoven decided he would focus his efforts on the instrument no one had yet written comprehensive work for.
贝多芬已经写了好几年的曲子，钢琴也开始有了自己的风格。鉴于贝多芬的前辈曾为大键琴谱写过曲子，但他决定将他的努力集中在尚未有人为之广泛而深入地谱写过作品的乐器上。
第九：Beethoven had varying luck with women. Some admired him for his genius while others found him repulsive. A woman he courted once called him “ugly and half crazy.”
贝多芬在女性中的遭际各有不同。一些女人钦佩他的天才，而另一些女人则认为他令人厌恶。他追求过的一个女人曾说他“丑陋，是半个疯子。”
第十：Beethoven was a sick kid to his dying day. Throughout his life he would suffer from deafness, colitis, rheumatism, rheumatic fever, typhus, skin disorders, abscesses, a variety of infections, ophthalmia, inflammatory degeneration of the arteries, jaundice, chronic hepatitis, and cirrhosis of the liver.
贝多芬在临终的时候是个病恹恹的孩子。在他的一生中，他患上过耳聋、结肠炎、风湿、风湿热、斑疹伤寒、皮肤病、脓肿、各种感染、眼炎、动脉炎性变性、黄疸、慢性肝炎和肝硬化等疾病。
第十一：Though he attributed the beginning of his deafness to an instance in which he was startled and fell, the foundation would have probably been a disease he had suffered from as a child like typhus, smallpox, etc. He began to hear constant buzzing at age 27.
虽然他把他的耳聋的开始归因于他曾经惊吓和跌倒的经历，但病根很可能是他小时候患的一种疾病，像伤寒、天花等。他27岁时就开始不断听到嗡嗡的声音。
第十二：The Moonlight Sonata was a hit from the start, dedicated to Beethoven’s pupil and love interest Julie Guicciardi.
《月光奏鸣曲》从一开始就一炮而红，献给贝多芬心爱的意中人朱莉·吉奇亚蒂。
第十三：Beethoven hated giving piano lessons unless they were for exceptionally talented students or attractive young women of whatever talent.
贝多芬不喜欢上钢琴课，除非是给那些才华横溢的学生或有魅力的年轻女性上钢琴课。
第十四：He was instrumental in setting the tone of critiques of his work in the leading music journal of the day, AMZ, telling the editor to back off with negative comments if he wanted to receive copies of the musician’s work.
他在当时著名的音乐杂志AMZ上为他的作品定下了评论的基调。如果编辑想收到这位音乐家的作品的副本，就告诉他不要发表负面评论。
第十五：His Symphony no. 3, called Eroica, was dedicated to Napoleon (before he’d disappointed Beethoven and crowned himself absolute monarch, as opposed to being a symbol of revolution and new era in Europe) and written at a time when Beethoven considered moving to Paris. The move never happened, but the symphony would be a defining artistic work of the German enlightenment.
他的第三交响曲叫做《英雄》，是献给拿破仑的（在他让贝多芬失望之前，他为自己加冕为绝对君主，而不是作为革命和欧洲新时代的象征），写于贝多芬考虑移居巴黎的时候。这一举动从未发生过，但这部交响乐将是德国启蒙运动的一部决定性的艺术作品。
第十六：One of the major inspirations of Beethoven’s famed Ninth Symphony was poet Friedrich Schiller’s poem “Ode to Joy,” which he’d been meaning to put to music since his youth.
贝多芬著名的第九交响乐的主要灵感之一是诗人弗里德里希·席勒的诗《欢乐颂》，他年轻的时候就打算把它谱成音乐。
第十七：Despite his acclaim, Beethoven always had to work hard to ensure a comfortable living by giving piano lessons, writing work commissioned by wealthy Viennese residents, and, of course, publishing his own music.
尽管受到赞誉，贝多芬还是必须努力工作，通过上钢琴课，以及创作富有的维也纳当地人委托的作品，当然，还要出版他自己的音乐，来保证自己的舒适生活。这位广受欢迎艺术家, “BEETHOVEN.”数千人参加了他的葬礼。他的墓志铭很简单，“贝多芬”。
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