# Was Beethoven a Catholic?



## Clouds Weep Snowflakes

Mozart and Haydn were both practising Catholics; what about Beethoven?


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## Larkenfield

Beethoven and the Catholic Church:
https://www.crisismagazine.com/2016/beethoven-catholic-church


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## Barbebleu

I refer to my Tchaikovsky reply - who cares?


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## Larkenfield

Barbebleu said:


> I refer to my Tchaikovsky reply - who cares?


Because if his history is accurate, it probably mattered from Beethoven's perspective and meant something significant as part of his creative life. But it probably won't matter if one is looking at his life only from one's own personal perspective. I find it rather significant that Beethoven was a Catholic but his Ninth Symphony was essentially a secular work and he didn't expect everyone to be a religious Catholic to appreciate it. I doubt if any of the great composers were religious in a conventional sense and yet they would sometimes write religious works, like Brahms and his German Requiem , or like Bach be a Lutheran with profound religious convictions and write secular works like his Goldberg Variations or the Well-Tempered Clavier.


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## SixFootScowl

Larkenfield said:


> Because if his history is accurate, it probably mattered from Beethoven's perspective and meant something significant as part of his creative life. But it probably won't matter if one is looking at his life only from one's own personal perspective. I find it rather significant that Beethoven was a Catholic but his Ninth Symphony was essentially a secular work and he didn't expect everyone to be a religious Catholic to appreciate it. I doubt if any of the great composers were religious in a conventional sense and yet they would sometimes write religious works, like Brahms and his German Requiem , or like Bach be a Lutheran with profound religious convictions and write secular works like his Goldberg Variations or the Well-Tempered Clavier.


Not a challenge, just curious: What would be considered "religious in a conventional sense"? Would Bach fit that description? Google says conventional is "what is generally done or believed" so today's conventional would be quite different from conventional in Bach's day. Perhaps Lutheran was conventional then, or was Roman Catholic the conventional religion.


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## flamencosketches

I don't think "religious in a conventional sense" was meant to signify "adhering to a conventional religion" (whatever that might mean, anyway). One can practice either Lutheranism or Catholicism in a conventional manner or in an unconventional manner, conventional being going to church, saying your prayers, etc.; unconventional being something more along the lines of witchcraft or human sacrifice (in the name of Martin Luther or the Pope, respectively, of course).

By the same token, Beethoven may not have been religious in a conventional sense -- or he might have been, I really don't know. Is there record of him going to church regularly? Did he carry around a rosary? In any case, he wrote one of the greatest pieces of Catholic liturgical music of all time.


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## KenOC

In middle age, Beethoven was not particularly religious but had an interest in Eastern religions, as did many in those times. Later on he became quite a more "traditional" Catholic possibly from the conservatism of older age, possibly due to his relationship with the Archduke Rudolph, and/or possibly because of his search for "moral education" for nephew Carl. I have never read anything, though, about his church-going habits.

It's been noted that his treatment of the Credo in the Missa Solemnis, a section passed over quickly by many composers, is attentive to every line of this statement of belief and contains some of the work's most striking ideas.


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## Larkenfield

Fritz Kobus said:


> Not a challenge, just curious: What would be considered "religious in a conventional sense"? Would Bach fit that description? Google says conventional is "what is generally done or believed" so today's conventional would be quite different from conventional in Bach's day. Perhaps Lutheran was conventional then or was Roman Catholic the conventional religion.


OK. The following is based upon my own familiarity with some of their lives and this is not intended as an anti-religious statement at all. Religion in the conventional sense?-such as going to church every Sunday because it's expected. There can be a belief in God, which Beethoven often espoused, but it wasn't about an outer show of conventional devotion. It was more private, inner, personal with regard to his beliefs about the sacred. If that wasn't true there wouldn't be so much conjecture about what certain composers believed, not only Beethoven but Brahms, who wrote his German Requiem after the death of his beloved friend Robert Schumann and his mother that has no reference to the name of Jesus. If he'd been writing a conventional requiem, he would have included that. (Compare the texts.) There's even conjecture about whether he was an agnostic or not because he had his religious doubts... The religious views or lack of them is something that can only be studied individually in the lives of the composers because they didn't necessarily follow an outer show of religious practices or proclaim conventional religious beliefs or dogmas but may have still had deep convictions about God or spirituality. So it can be completely inaccurate to say that they blindly followed the religious dogma of any religion in the conventional sense or try to pigeonhole them as being conventional in their religious views. I believe that many of the truly inspired and memorable composers experienced the sacred through their powerful connection with the music that they felt was inspired by God or that came from a higher dimension. Bach dedicated virtually everything to the Gory of God but he also wrote secular works as well. So this is what I mean that not all composers were conventional in their religious beliefs or practices, but may have still deeply believed in God. Verdi was not a religious man but he wrote his Requiem and some consider him an agnostic or atheist. Well, I would hardly consider that conventional but what true agnostic or atheist would ever think of writing a Requiem? It's important to look beneath the surface with regard to the religious beliefs of most composers and not all of them seemed to follow a conventional pattern. Mozart was Catholic but he was also a member of the Freemasons.


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