英语听力：Beethoven 贝多芬 - 17

 Money was also the motivation for writing the late string quartets. Prince Gelatin Commission Wattznard regarded it as the greatest music Beethoven ever wrote. To many contemporaries, this strange music was a definite proof that the composer had lost his sanity¹.

 

This case, for example, when he writes something which nobody really knows what he means, he says player and note with a sort of emotion on it. And I’m playing note. The second time you know, that’s swing. Because he puts us to play two notes together, one after the other, without separating them. So it’s very. Nobody really knows what he means for the idea by this sort of as it was his hope.

Beethoven had finally won the long battle for custody² of his nephew Karl. In 1826, at the age of 19, Karl became desperate to break the bond with his uncle.

 

Beethoven became somewhat obsessed³ with Karl’s sexuality. But then again, think about it at the time, there were no effective cures for syphilis or gonorrhea. So one false move much like AIDS today, and that can be the end of your life , and in fact he would contract with syphilis and die within a very few years after having it. So Beethoven was obsessed about sort of keeping Karl alive, and making sure that he didn’t sort of fall into his traps. But the result, the end result was that Karl tried to commit suicide. And he went up into the hills of the Herlene Valley, which was one of Beethoven’s favorite places to compose ,and went up to this room and he went to the very particular spot that he must had gone with Beethoven several times, and shot himself in the head. For this was one missed and one graze to skull⁴. He was not coy about saying why he did it when the police came. He said “Beethoven drove me to death.” So he had a tremendous influence on Beethoven when the year before Beethoven died, actually.

1 sanity   

n.心智健全，神智正常，判断正确

参考例句：

• I doubt the sanity of such a plan.我怀疑这个计划是否明智。
• She managed to keep her sanity throughout the ordeal.在那场磨难中她始终保持神志正常。

2 custody   

n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留

参考例句：

• He spent a week in custody on remand awaiting sentence.等候判决期间他被还押候审一个星期。
• He was taken into custody immediately after the robbery.抢劫案发生后，他立即被押了起来。

3 obsessed   

adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的

参考例句：

• He's obsessed by computers. 他迷上了电脑。
• The fear of death obsessed him throughout his old life. 他晚年一直受着死亡恐惧的困扰。

4 skull   

n.头骨；颅骨

参考例句：

• The skull bones fuse between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.头骨在15至25岁之间长合。
• He fell out of the window and cracked his skull.他从窗子摔了出去，跌裂了颅骨。