AGE 31 THROUGH AGE 32 - [1802]

HEROIC YEARS [1802 - 1812]

WORKS CREATED (Clear advance of composition with heroic pathos. Nearing the end of high classic style.)

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES (Beethoven's music was influenced by French heroic style during these years.
                                               (A 4 note motto was often used, e.g.: Harp quartet, 4th piano conc., Appassionata, 5th symph.)
                                               (Key of c was now used to express the heroic rather than pathos (eg 5th sym). The 4 notes are never
                                                used in the same way twice however.) 

     A police state existed at this time and Love for the Kaiser was mixed with dread of the secret police. There was a sense of
     fear and uncertainly following the Habsburg submission to Napoleon (following the defeats of 1797-1809) along with a
     sense of national impotence since the death of Joseph II.  With Joseph II's death came diminished hopes of enlightened
     despotism he had espoused. 

     In this era of failed political nerve and a decrease in outward    concern for the human condition, music became an
     expression of these uncensorable statements.  The High Classic style was not trivial but expressed a utopian ideal.

    Womanhood was Idealized and a commercialized view of sex and marriage obtained. 

    The greater works of Mozart, Haydn and early Beethoven contradicted Viennese life where gaiety disguised a sense of loss,
     courtly grace was penetrated by brusque and dissonant elements. Fantasy was mixed with profound expression.  Boneparte's
     image actually replaced Christ's in many homes in Europe.  Beethoven rejected hierarchial orthodoxy in liturgical and in
     secular life and so had conflicts with Bonaparte in terms of his image as a hero and the reality of his brutality and repression.
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    Beethoven became aware that his progressive deafness was likely a permanent condition 
    [Encyclopedia Brittannicca "approaching deafness"]