The very end of his life, his health got even worse than it normally was . His intestines started to swell, the condition was dropsy, and it got so bad that he had to be cut up and to let the waters drain out and the water would leak out onto the bed and onto the floor. And it was a rather miserable death. 

 

The funeral was a miraculous event even by Viennese standards of the day . More than 20,000 people were said to have attended it. There was a very special ceremony. It was very public, and very telling tribute to Beethoven’s fame and to what Beethoven meant to the people of Vienna.

 

If I wanted to try and define the importance of Beethoven today, I would have to start very personally. And Beethoven’s music is actually addictive, I mean he leads you on all the time and you can’t stop listening. And this kind of intensity that he demands for listening is something that you don’t want to give up. One may resent the amount of attention which one is supposed to give to the music when we like music, which one could relax a little more. But you keep coming back to it because you have to.

 

For me the reason why he’s the greatest composer is that I feel that he’s prepared to share his life with you more than any other composer. He’s prepared to show all the bad parts of life as well. And because of that, I think you learn more about your own life. And it’s multidimensional even when it’s the saddest, there’s something about it as hopeful as well. Even when its hopeful is something better than sad. It’s like looking through a kaleidoscope, you can look at it in so many different angles.

 

It’s like a mirror until you are told this is you, this is me. And only a great artist can do that. Any other thing that makes you dance, makes you jump, makes you laugh, makes you weep. But a great piece of music is like a mirror. Everybody sees himself.

 

Of all the things in Beethoven that impresses me the most is the remarkable generosity that I hear in the music. It's a matter of how a stormy and difficult life with a lot of conflict in it, returns again and again with his most important pieces and with the most telling moments to a kind of deep grateful hymn-like utterance. So to say your life is good, it’s all worth it!