Beethoven und der Fortschrittsgedanke

Abstract

The bourgeois/middle-class Modernity chose music for its art-as-religion and made Beethoven the key figure of its ideals. As a consequence, the “romantic
image of Beethoven” (Arnold Schmitz) idealizes the composer as being freed of all earthly restrains. The notion of progress was one of the main ideas of this social movement and it was projected on Beethoven and totalized with his music. This process is demonstrated and explained with selected examples.