1. Overall grasp
As a "music saint", Beethoven's musical status and musical achievements are unmatched; as a representative of the struggle against suffering fate, Beethoven also made people People revere. No matter in every aspect, Beethoven was an extraordinary person. The uniqueness of this article is that it restores a great man like Beethoven to a living person in real life, focusing on expressing his inner pain and tenacious struggle against his unfortunate fate.
Beethoven had the same emotions as ordinary people: when someone came to visit him and wanted to know him, he would be moved to tears; when he was disturbed for no reason, he would also show impatience; Facing the blow of deafness, he couldn't help but sigh and feel weak. But the reason why Beethoven is great is that he has a strong will that is beyond ordinary people and does not give in to misfortune: As a musician, the biggest blow is that the ears cannot hear music. But he did not sink under the blow of deafness. Instead, he faced this cruel fact. On the one hand, he handled daily chores as independently as possible. On the other hand, he calmly faced the loneliness and quietness brought by deafness and listened to his inner needs. and impulse, observe and think about life with the "heart", and then put this thinking into music, turning music from a tool of entertainment into a language of expression, expressing the complex and changeable emotions in the soul and self-beliefs, will, and even It is the concept of the world that conveys the mysterious and indescribable perception of oneself or nature, thus greatly enriching the expressive power of music and making music the carrier of thoughts and the destination of the soul.
The author of this article shows superb portrait description skills. Not only is it described from far to near, from top to bottom, in an orderly manner, but also vividly expressed in form. From the portrait description of Beethoven, his life experiences, personality temperament and unique spiritual world are shown: his "very "Old, even untidy" clothes, "long-defunct" hearing aids "lagging behind the clothes," "sad" faces, and disheveled hair all bear witness to the embarrassment of life and the pressure of suffering. However, at the same time, his broad shoulders, "strong hands", "deep eyes" with "a dignified light that cannot be looked at", "tight and tight eyes" that "seem to bear the burden of the entire life and destiny", Shut your mouth", all showing his uncompromising and unyielding will to fight against the unfortunate encounters.
This article has clear layers and context. According to the order of interviews, it first explains Beethoven’s basic living conditions and current mental state from the perspective of the maid, a witness of Beethoven’s daily life. Then, the image of Beethoven is reproduced through the eyes of a stranger who visits Beethoven for the first time. Finally, the author lets the protagonist speak for himself and reveal his inner world. Focusing on Beethoven's attitude towards misfortune, it gradually penetrates from the appearance to Beethoven's inner world, successfully showing Beethoven's unique temperament and strong personality.
2. Problem Research
1. What does "How dare you go into the den to catch the old lion's hair" mean?
This is a metaphor. What Beethoven meant was that most people thought he was scary and difficult to approach, but "guests" came to visit him, and the maid let the guests in without his permission. He was surprised by their behavior.
2. Why did Beethoven say "A tree is better than a person"?
This needs to be analyzed in relation to Beethoven’s psychology after his deafness. On the one hand, deafness caused communication barriers for Beethoven, and he was often misunderstood. His social interactions were greatly restricted. He was not as deaf as a tree, because a tree can still listen to the sounds of nature; On the other hand, after being deafened, Beethoven stayed away from the hustle and bustle of the world and gained the purity and tranquility of his soul. In terms of the purity of his soul, people in society are not as good as trees.
3. "You may think of me - a fallen volcano, my head burning in the lava, desperately trying to struggle out." How to understand the meaning of this sentence?
Beethoven compared his deafness to a "falling volcano", and "lava" refers to his creative passion. What he means is that just when his understanding of music was getting further and his desire to create was strong, he was hit by deafness. He was unwilling to give up his music career and "desperately" and "desired" to show his struggle against his unfortunate fate. Determination.
4． "He is indeed lonely, but he is accompanied by 'eternity'." What does "eternity" here refer to?
"Eternal" refers to the music art as the carrier of the soul. This sentence means that although Beethoven had difficulty communicating with others because of his deafness, this limitation allowed him to transcend the body and words, directly perceive the human spiritual world, and then understand the true meaning of music. Music became his loyal friend, soothing his soul and conveying his inner voice. Friends would leave and misunderstand him, but music would not. Music would always accompany him.
5. "Please take a look at Romain Rolland's "Johan Christophe". In that big book, a big river flows. That big river flows from Beethoven and is extended." This sentence How should it be understood?
The basic content of "John Christophe" is to express Christophe's life experiences and life pursuits. What runs through the novel is Christophe's love for art and life, and his love for life. The unremitting pursuit of ideals.
Christophe's experience and character are similar to Beethoven. Romain Rolland's "Beethoven Biography" completed before is the most famous biography of Beethoven. "Johan Christophe" was originally inspired by Beethoven's spirit. Created. Zweig's biography "Romain Rolland" explains this in detail.
6． "Listen to the music in my heart! You don't know how I feel in my heart! A band can only play the music I hope to write in one minute!" What does this sentence mean?
Beethoven devoted his entire life and enthusiasm to music creation. Music has become a symbol of life in Beethoven’s writings and heart. However, the orchestra can only play sound notes, but cannot perfectly convey the soul. The rhythm of music and life is Beethoven's "music in his heart".
Exercise instructions
1. Read the full text and complete the following questions.
1. Sort out the whole process of the "guest"'s visit to Beethoven, and talk about what he wrote during the visit.
2. In a few words, summarize the author's image of Beethoven.
3. Which of Beethoven's words in the article deeply touched you? How do you understand these words?
The purpose of setting the topic is to guide students to clarify the author's ideas, grasp the important content of the article, and understand the main purpose of the text.
Reference answers:
1. The process of the "guest" visiting Beethoven: the maid opens the door - the maid introduces Beethoven - visits Beethoven's studio - Beethoven goes downstairs and starts talking to the "guest" - Beethoven and the "guest" ***Dinner - Beethoven recalls the past. Main events: The "guest" visits Beethoven's studio, Beethoven meets the "guest", and Beethoven recalls the last concert he conducted.
2. Beethoven's image: independent and proud, melancholy and strong, serious and kind, loving nature, pursuing freedom, and dedicating himself to music.
You can let students express their own opinions, either based on Beethoven's situation or based on their own life experience.
2. Pay attention to the sentences that describe Beethoven’s clothing and appearance. Imitate this writing method and use a few sentences to describe the appearance of a classmate you are most familiar with. Communicate and see who writes the most vividly.
The purpose of setting this topic is to guide students to master the writing skills of the author of this article to show the personality characteristics and spiritual temperament of the character through portrait description.
3. Listen to Beethoven's "Symphony of Destiny" outside class, and talk about what you heard from the music based on the ideological content of the text.
The purpose of setting this topic is to guide students to further understand Beethoven's spiritual world and the profound connotation of what he called "music in the heart".
Teaching suggestions
1. Understand the excellent portrait description in the text. The author is not just a simple description of appearance and appearance, but shows Beethoven's life experiences, personality temperament and spiritual outlook from the portrait description. Students should be guided to learn this writing method of character creation.
2. Guide students to compare and read this article with the first two texts - "Deng Jiaxian" and "Mr. Wen Yiduo's Sayings and Doings", and compare the angles of character description and narrative focus of these three texts. The similarities and differences, and then learn the method of character description in comparative reading.
3. Teaching steps
It is recommended that *** use two classes to complete the teaching task.
The first lesson
1. Arrange pre-class preview: require students to check Beethoven's relevant information outside class.
2. Students can enjoy the recording of Beethoven's "Symphony of Destiny" and import it into the text.
3. Check the preview.
First, let students share their impressions of Beethoven obtained from reviewing Beethoven’s information and summarize Beethoven’s main character traits.
The teacher gave some advice and attributed it to his struggle against his unfortunate fate.
4． Compare the preview and ask students to find sentences and paragraphs in the text that reflect Beethoven's attitude and feelings towards misfortune.
5. Organize students into groups to discuss the meaning of several difficult sentences in the article (see "Problem Research" for difficult sentences).
6． Assignment: Ask students to choose their classmates for portrait description.
Second Lesson
1. Assign students to read paragraphs 6, 7, and 8 of the text.
2. Organize students to discuss the benefits of portrait description in this article.
3. The teacher summarizes.
4． Students exchange portrait description practice assignments and exchange comments.
5. Assignment: Modify the portrait description assignment from the previous class based on class discussions and classmates’ comments.
Relevant information
1. Introduction to the author
He Wei, formerly known as He Jingye, was born in Dinghai, Zhejiang in 1922. He has served as a newspaper reporter, magazine editor and film and literature editor. , began publishing literary works in 1937. He has written poems, novels and essays. After 1956, he mainly engaged in prose creation. He has written prose collections such as "The Second Examination", "Bamboo Collection" and "Linchuang Collection".
He Wei's prose is good at grasping typical events in life for in-depth excavation. At the same time, he also pays attention to the vividness of characters and stories. He has more sophisticated conception and profound artistic conception, and his language is concise and beautiful.
2. Introduction to Beethoven
Beethoven (1770-1827) was a German composer and pianist. One of the representatives of the Viennese classical music school. Born into a family of singers at the court of the Elector of Cologne. He studied music from his father since he was a child. At the age of 19, he attended philosophy at the University of Bonn and was exposed to bourgeois revolutionary enlightenment thought. He became a music teacher in 1787. He settled in Vienna in 1792 and published his first work three years later. This was the beginning of his creative career. He became deaf in both ears in 1820, but never stopped writing. He pursued the ideals of "freedom, equality, and fraternity" throughout his life. His main works reflected the revolutionary enthusiasm of the bourgeoisie at that time to fight against feudalism and fight for democracy, and showed the heroic spirit of mankind. In his later years, he was in the period of Metternich's reactionary rule and the restoration of feudal forces. Some of his works revealed negative emotions, but he still maintained his eager yearning for the bourgeois democratic revolution. His creations inherit the traditions of Haydn and Mozart, and absorb the tones of the French Revolution, inspiring people and inspiring fighting spirit. In order to make the music express dramatic opposition, various innovations were carried out in the creative techniques: the use of widely developed contrasting themes and dynamic harmonious progressions; the sonata structure was expanded to adapt to conflicts, and the introduction, reproduction and ending were deepened. expressive meaning. In the suites, he is good at replacing elegant minuets with dynamic scherzos, giving orchestral pieces symphonic orchestrations, and quoting human voices in symphonies. His creative achievements have greatly deepened the ideological and expressive power of music art and have a profound impact on future generations. His major works include nine symphonies (the third "Hero", the fifth "Destiny", the sixth "Pastoral" and the ninth "Chorus" are the most famous), the opera "Fidelio", and the drama "Egmont" The soundtrack of "The Ruins of Athens" includes five piano concertos, one violin concerto, sixteen string quartets, ten violin sonatas and two masses.
(Excerpted from "Cihai", Shanghai Dictionary Publishing House, 1999 edition)
3. About Beethoven (Feng Zikai)
1. The heroic Beethoven
Beethoven's greatness lies not only in being a musician. He has a beautiful soul that is deeply troubled and refined in life. He is a hero of the heart. His music is the expression of this heroic heart.
In the era before Beethoven, the great sage in the European music scene was Mozart. However, the value of Mozart's music is, after all, limited to a kind of "sound architecture", that is, it only has the meaning of existence because of the "beauty" of the music. As for Beethoven, it is even more brilliant. His music is a symbol of his great soul. Mozart's music is the art of feeling, and Beethoven's music is the sound of the soul.
The greatest work in his career, the Ninth Symphony, was composed after he became completely deaf. It is a wonderful idea that a deaf man can compose music; what is more, what he has done is the greatest masterpiece in the world! It can be seen that these are all the products of the transcendent spirit, and only heroes with a spiritual spirit who can transcend the great depression of life can obtain it. We also know that fate can only control the weak and cowardly humans, but it can do nothing to the heroes with great spirit. Beethoven's ear disease began when he was 28 years old (1798). From then until his death at the age of 57 (1827), the more than 20 years during which he was suffering from deafness and disease. However, most of the works were produced during this period. Until he entered the stage of total deafness and could not hear the applause of the audience while standing on the band stage, he continued to compose music, and finally composed the greatest "Ninth Symphony" and stopped writing. When he was dying, he still exclaimed:
"Alas! I only wrote a few notes!"
In this sentence, we can see the greatness of his ambition.
Beethoven's "Fifth Symphony" is titled "Symphony of Destiny". Beethoven himself once said of the first theme of the first movement of this piece:
“The sound of fate knocking on the door is exactly like this.”
2. The Beethoven of the Madman
Beethoven was very negligent of the world's human feelings, and was often arbitrary and contemptuous of the world. On the surface, he looks like a madman. Therefore, Beethoven had no close friends except those who could fully understand him and forgive him. And there are often conflicts with the owner of the inn where he lives, which is so fierce that he must move several times a year. Critics described his violent character as follows:
"Beethoven was a man who lived alone on an uninhabited desert island and was suddenly brought to the civilized society of Europe."
These words explain Beethoven’s side very thoroughly. Artists often have romantic and informal behaviors, and Beethoven is an extreme example. Czerny, a famous European pianist at that time, went to visit him one day and saw him crouching indoors with heavy gauze wrapped around his ears. Czerny came out and said to people:
"This man is not like the greatest musician in Europe, but rather like Robinson Crusoe drifting on a desert island."
He often Dip cotton in yellow liquid, put it in your ear, and wrap it with gauze. The whiskers on his jaws often grow to over half an inch long. The hair never seems to have touched the comb. It stands like a sheaf of wheat above its head. He once got so angry over a pot of soup that was not cooked well that he picked up the pot and threw it at the host of the inn. He often pulled out the cores of candles and used them as toothpicks. Another morning, when the street was busy, I put on my pajamas and shaved my beard at the window facing the street, regardless of people's attention and surprise. One time, just to get angry, he picked up an open ink bottle and threw it on the piano keyboard.
When he played the piano, his fingers would get hot after a long time, so he would often put a basin of cold water next to the piano. When his fingers got hot while playing, he would dip his hands in the cold water and continue playing. However, his movements were very violent. Every time he played the piano, he would sprinkle a lot of cold water on the floor. The cold water flowed down from the cracks in the floor and dripped into the beds of the people below. The owner downstairs questioned the owner of the hotel. The owner said a few words to Beethoven, and Beethoven became angry and immediately moved out of the hotel.
Beethoven's posture is extremely ugly. The head is big, the body is short, there is no smile on the face, and the movements are extremely clumsy. Once he wanted to learn to dance, but he couldn't move in time. According to biographers, the expression of his appearance was often cold and depressed. He is five feet four inches long, with extremely broad shoulders. His face is riddled with acne scars, his skin is reddish-brown and rough, and his nose is hard and straight. The fingers are short and roughly equal in length, and the backs of the hands have very long hair. His hair is long and dark, and he never combs it or wears a hat. He often goes out for walks with his hair unkempt. On windy days, his hair was blown like flames. When people meet him in the wilderness, they almost suspect him to be a demon from hell.
......
All these stubborn and angry habits are caused by the great depression in his heart. The source of his depression lies entirely in his deafness.
3. Troubled Beethoven
Beethoven recorded this in his diary in the winter of 1797:
“No matter how weak my body is, my heart must conquer him. I am 25 this year. I must try my best to fulfill all my wishes."
After writing this diary, he soon experienced great physical pain that deprived him of happiness for the rest of his life. His deafness occurred in the summer of 1798.
Beethoven’s artistic life underwent a major change in the transitional period of the 18th and 19th centuries. The past was an era of influence from Haydn and Mozart, and the future is an era of independent musical style. For several years at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, Beethoven was immersed in composing music and paid almost no attention to his health. For this reason, the ear disease is getting worse. By 1801, he had to sit in the first row of chairs in the theater to hear the singers.
He wrote this in a letter to a close friend:
“Your dear Beethoven is a completely unfortunate man. He is already in contact with nature and God. Conflict! I have often cursed God, because God is sacrificing his creation to the smallest accidents of nature, and my most precious ears can no longer hear it. Most of the sound is gone. What a sad life! Everything I love has left me now. How happy I am to be as hearing as before! I will rush to tell you immediately. However, I will never get this joy! My youth has passed away, and the realization of the hopes of my youth and the completion of my artistic memory are impossible for me. I have to give up in despair. My whole life...
In the following year, in 1802, his ear disease became more serious and he often suffered from tinnitus. Walking in the wild was his greatest comfort. When he went to the wild and couldn't hear the sound of the farmer's flute, he suddenly became pessimistic and wrote "last words" to send to his friends. However, he finally became a strong man and used an unyielding attitude to fight against this deafness. Say to people:
“I must control my fate. ”
From then on, his life was all a hard battle against deafness. In 1809, when Napoleon’s army invaded Vienna and the cannonballs flew into the air, Beethoven was afraid that the sound of the cannonballs would aggravate his ear disease, so he used two He plugged his ears tightly with his fingers and lay on the bed filled with sadness.
Deafness is a great tragedy in Beethoven's life. His works are often a reflection of his life in the dark. Therefore, for Beethoven, music is both a place to complain and an escape from distress.
(Excerpted from "Stories of Top Ten Western Musicians in Modern Times", Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House, 2001. Year Edition)
4. Romain Rolland and "Beethoven's Biography" (Fu Lei)
There are hundreds of Beethoven's biographies in existence, and Romain Rolland is the most widely circulated. ·This thin book written by Roland is unique and stands out as a book of its own. It does not indulge in complicated details but conveys the main spirit in a grand way. Living conditions are becoming more and more comfortable, and Beethoven's spirit of "holding the throat of fate" and resisting suffering as his way of survival has become a little looser now. However, life will not always be smooth sailing, and setbacks and sorrows still need to be faced in life. topic, so Beethoven’s example can still be enlightened by us.
Literary historian Mr. Zhu Dongrun recommends Romain Rolland’s “The Biography of Beethoven” as one of the three major biographies in the world, and it is a good book worth reading. .
Secluded in his inner life, isolated from the rest of mankind, he can only find some comfort in nature. Therese de Brunswick said: "Nature is him. The only confidant. "It became his refuge. Charles Nader, who met him in 1815, said that he had never seen anyone who loved flowers, trees, clouds, and nature like him... He seemed to live by nature.
Beethoven wrote: "No one in the world loves the fields as much as I do... I love a tree more than a person..." When in Vienna, he walked around the city wall in a circle every day. In the countryside, from dawn to night, he walked alone, without a hat, in the sun, wind and rain. "Almighty God! - I am happy in the forest, - I am happy in the forest, - every tree carries your voice. - My God! How wonderful! - In these woods , on these hills, - a piece of tranquility, - tranquility for you to serve.
”