Linda Shaver-Gleason on Beethoven’s Deafness

In recent days, we've recommended two essays posted to the publisher's blog The Avid Listener. Here is another: "Beethoven’s Deafness and the Myth of the Isolated Artist" by Linda Shaver-Gleason: link.  [link updated on 3-08-2024]   Where the two previous recommendations offer material  very suitable for use in a class session, Shaver-Gleason's essay—both longer and more complex in its argument—might serve better as research material for a course paper. The two films Shaver-Gleason mentions at the beginning—Mr. Holland's Opus and The King's Speech—could form the basis for a compare and contrast paper (Hearing the Movies, second edition, chapter 10). Or, Shaver-Gleason's overall argument about inaccuracies in the common understanding of Beethoven's hearing in later life as they relate to ideas (myths) about the isolated artist could very well be folded into the final critical paper (Chapter 15).