Everyone loved Beethoven at first. He was all the rage. His piano concertos and sonatas, his early symphonies, everyone wanted to hear them. At first. But he grew out of fashion. The crowds didn’t understand what he did. They didn’t understand those long, complex development sections, and just when they thought they came to the recapitulation, they found Beethoven had only began a second development section. The horrors! He sat on the cusp of that new Romantic age. Ushered it in, actually. But it wasn’t quite there. Not yet. They still wanted the Classical music of Hadyn they all enjoyed so much.
Give us something nice. Give us something like him!
So Beethoven did. As a joke. He thought, I’ll write something they ask for, and they’ll see how inferior it is to what I’m doing now. The piece is called Wellington’s Overture. Legend has it, Beethoven told the musicians to switch instruments just before the performance. I guess he thought it would tip the audience off to the farce. It didn’t. The applauded. A standing ovation. Disgusted by the audience’s idiocy and frustrated by his loss of hearing, Beethoven receded into dark corners behind curtains. He died a pauper.
Why do I tell you this? I’m not exactly Beethoven. The music I have composed and the books I have written cannot be in the same room as Beethoven. Nay, not even the same house. I see Beethoven and I see someone committed to his art, no matter what everyone else said. Sometimes he held popularity. Sometimes he faced rejection. But he never stopped working hard.
I will never be successful in the way of Stephen King and John Grisham and all the other bestsellers crowding the front tables of Barnes and Noble and Walden Bookstore. But Beethoven died a pauper. Jesus died betrayed by one of his closest friends and abandoned by almost all, including his Father. Those are some pretty darn large footsteps to walk in.