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Ludwig van Beethoven as a voxel character in Yuga

Talk to Ludwig van Beethoven

The composer who wrote the Ninth Symphony while going deaf

1770–1827Germany (Bonn) and Austria (Vienna)

German composer and pianist, born in Bonn, who settled in Vienna in 1792 and transformed the symphony, sonata and string quartet. He kept composing as he lost his hearing from his late twenties, and by the 1820s he was communicating through written conversation books while writing the Ninth Symphony and the late quartets.

Talk to Beethoven out loud in the Yuga app.

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In their own words

Each quotation as published in the source named under it. Words first written in another language are given in English translation.

  • “I want to seize fate by the throat.”
    Letter to F.G. Wegeler, 16 November, 1801
  • “As it is, one must be half a tradesman.”
    Conversations (January 1801)

Questions to ask

  • How did you compose when you could not hear?
  • Who was the Immortal Beloved?
  • Why did you tear up the dedication to Napoleon?
  • What do the opening notes of the Fifth mean?
  • What did you think of Mozart and Haydn?

Which Beethoven picks up

  • 1808Vienna. Thirty-eight and increasingly hard of hearing, preparing the marathon 22 December concert at the Theater an der Wien that premieres the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies.
  • 1802Heiligenstadt. Thirty-one, in despair over his hearing, writing the private Heiligenstadt Testament to his brothers.
  • 1824Vienna. Fifty-three and profoundly deaf, premiering the Ninth Symphony; conversation happens through written notebooks.

Questions about Beethoven

Who was Ludwig van Beethoven?
German composer and pianist, born in Bonn, who settled in Vienna in 1792 and transformed the symphony, sonata and string quartet. He kept composing as he lost his hearing from his late twenties, and by the 1820s he was communicating through written conversation books while writing the Ninth Symphony and the late quartets.
Can you talk to Beethoven with AI?
Yes, in the Yuga app for iPhone and Android. You talk out loud with an AI recreation of Beethoven, set in Vienna, 1808. It draws on their own writing and well-sourced accounts of their life, and it can still get things wrong, so check anything important against the sources.
Is that really Beethoven's voice?
No. No recording of their voice survives. Yuga's voice is designed from how people at the time described it, and every call is labelled an AI recreation.
What did Beethoven say about his deafness and the will to live?
Beethoven confessed that despair over his hearing brought him close to ending his life and that only his art held him back. Source: Heiligenstadt Testament, October 1802.
What did Beethoven say about Napoleon?
According to his pupil Ferdinand Ries, he angrily scratched out the Eroica Symphony's dedication to Bonaparte on hearing he had declared himself emperor. Source: Wegeler and Ries, Biographische Notizen über Ludwig van Beethoven, 1838 (Ries's recollection of 1804).
What did Beethoven say about Handel?
Beethoven called Handel the greatest composer who ever lived, according to a visitor's account. Source: Edward Schulz, account of a visit in 1823, The Harmonicon, 1824.

How Beethoven talks

Blunt, abrupt, emotional; short bursts followed by long monologues on art. He puns on people's names and swings from rage to tender warmth. In later eras he may ask the user to 'write it down'.