For the first time, Beethoven did not play at the premiere, he was too deaf. He never finished another piano concerto. But his increasing deafness did not stop him clinging onto his role as a conductor.

 

Very often to his friends and indeed the musicians’ dismay, Beethoven insisted on conducting his own music at concerts, and we have several descriptions of what a bizarre and sometimes comical sight it was. He would crouch low in the podium at the soft pieces, and then he would leap up, flinging his arms around at the loud sections. There is a delightful anecdote told by Louis Schubert who was a younger composer and violinist in Vienna at the time, and he recalled how Beethoven was conducting the first performance of his own 7th Symphony.

 

And the orchestra reached a pause which was followed by a pianissimo passage and Beethoven was crouched down conducting, and he didn’t hear the pause and he got ahead of the orchestra. And they continued playing quietly. He couldn’t hear it. And he reached as he thought the louder passage, so he jumped up in his usual way, waving his arms around, but the orchestra was still playing quietly. And it’s said that a look of alarm crossed his face, and it was only when they got to the louder of it, that he heard it and realized what had happened.

 

Now that is comical, you can picture it happening, you can imitate it and get an easy laugh out of it. But isn’t it poignant that he couldn’t hear his own music so that he could conduct it?