Exhibit: Beethoven and the Creative Process

• Event Date: Saturday, March 29, 2003–Sunday, May 4, 2003
• Location: Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana, IL
• Cost: Free

• Exhibit
• Exhibit-Related tag

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) is an outstanding example of a committed artist whose creative development has continued to inspire people the world over. Building on the achievements of his predecessors Haydn and Mozart in Vienna, Beethoven strove to make his mark in all of the main musical forms of his age: the piano sonata, the string quartet, the symphony, and opera. At the age of twenty-eight he was horrified to discover that he was losing his hearing, and twenty years later he was virtually deaf. Yet Beethoven's most profound and moving music was written after he had lost his ability to hear. It was devised within his imagination, with a keen inner sense of hearing.

This exhibit illuminates this extraordinary creative process through first edition scores and sketches from a major work, the Missa solemnis. A lock of the composer's hair is also on display.