When Beethoven’s music first echoed through the concert halls of Vienna, the reactions were anything but unanimous. His early symphonies, bold and dramatic, stunned audiences—but not always in a good way. Some found them too intense, too disruptive compared to the polished elegance of the time. His later works, like the Late String Quartets and the Ninth Symphony, were even more divisive. Critics called them chaotic, incomprehensible, and nearly impossible to perform.
And yet, fast forward a few decades into the Romantic era, and suddenly Beethoven was the undisputed hero of Romantic music—the prophet of emotion, the master of the sublime. How did this happen? How did a composer criticized for his radical style become the very symbol of Romanticism?
E.T.A. Hoffmann: Rebranding Beethoven as a Romantic Hero
The answer lies in a surprising twist: Beethoven wasn’t writing for the Romantics at all—his music was rooted in 18th-century ideals of order and balance.1 It took a visionary critic with a flair for the dramatic to rebrand Beethoven’s music as something far bigger than life: a bridge to the infinite, a gateway to the sublime. That critic’s name? E.T.A. Hoffmann.
E.T.A. Hoffmann was a writer and composer, and one of the earliest critics to recognize Beethoven’s music as something transcendent. In his famous 1810 review of Symphony No. 5, Hoffmann didn’t just praise Beethoven—he reframed him as a musical prophet of the sublime.
Hoffmann’s Visionary Praise:
- He described Beethoven’s music as expressing infinite longing and metaphysical truth, something that reached beyond mere sound into the spiritual and sublime.
- To Hoffmann, Beethoven’s symphonies weren’t just beautiful; they were journeys into the unknown, capable of evoking terror, awe, and spiritual elevation.
- He famously called Beethoven’s music a gateway to the monstrous and immeasurable, a direct connection to the Romantic idea of the sublime—vast, overwhelming, and emotionally transformative.
The review was quite influential right from its publication. However, the larger myth of Beethoven as a “musical prophet” only truly emerged in the mid-19th century, after both Hoffmann (d. 1822) and Beethoven (d. 1827) had passed away. Romantic composers and critics, inspired by Hoffmann’s vision, elevated Beethoven’s music to near-mystical status, solidifying his legacy as a transcendent genius.
The Legacy: Shaping Beethoven’s Myth
Hoffmann’s poetic praise did more than just flatter Beethoven; it transformed his legacy. Through Hoffmann’s lens, Beethoven became the symbol of Romantic music, inspiring later composers like Schumann, Liszt, and Wagner to view him as the origin of Romantic expression. Works that were once criticized as chaotic, like the Late String Quartetsand Symphony No. 9, were rebranded as masterpieces of emotional depth and spiritual longing.
Thanks to Hoffmann, Beethoven was no longer seen as just a talented composer—he was immortalized as the prophet of Romanticism, the artist who captured the infinite and the sublime in every note.
- Quick Breakdown:
* 18th-Century Aesthetics (Pre-Romantic): Focused on order, clarity, and balance, with powerful emotions kept within strict boundaries of structure and reason. Even the sublime—a sense of awe and terror inspired by vastness—was controlled and logical.
* Romantic Ideology (19th Century): Valued raw emotion, mystery, and individuality, embracing dramatic contrasts and the idea of infinite longing. Music was seen as a gateway to the spiritual and sublime, unbound by rigid form. ↩︎
Reference
Cassedy, Steven. 2010. “Beethoven the Romantic: How E.T.A. Hoffmann Got It Right.” Journal of the History of Ideas71 (1): 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1353/jhi.0.0071.
Dahlhaus, Carl. 1981. “E. T. A. Hoffmanns Beethoven-Kritik Und Die Ästhetik Des Erhabenen.” Archiv Für Musikwissenschaft 38 (2): 79–92. https://doi.org/10.2307/930602.
Locke, Arthur Ware, and E. T. A. Hoffmann. 1917. “Beethoven’s Instrumental Music: Translated from E. T. A. Hoffmann’s ‘Kreisleriana’ with an Introductory Note.” The Musical Quarterly 3 (1): 123–33.
