In the fall of 1802, Beethoven wrote a letter known as the Heiligenstadt Testament, in which he describes a continuing physical malady that has driven him to consider suicide. Indeed, the letter, written to his brothers, Karl and Johann, reads like a suicide note. Note the extreme emotional outpouring. There is no question of Beethoven’s emotional state here:

"But think that for six years now I have been hopelessly afflicted finally compelled to face the prospect of a lasting malady (whose cure will take years or, perhaps, be impossible). Thus it has been during the last six months, which I have spent in the country. By ordering me to spare my hearing as much as possible, my intelligent doctor almost fell in with my own frame of mind. But what a humiliation for me when someone standing next to me heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing, or someone heard a shepherd singing and again I heard nothing. Such incidents drove me almost to despair; a little more of that and I would have ended my life."

"Thus I bid thee farewell and indeed sadly. Yes, that fond hope which I brought here with me, to be cured to a degree at least this now I must wholly abandon. Oh Providence grant me at last one day of pure joy it is so long since real joy echoed in my heart - Oh when, Oh Divine One shall I feel it again in the temple of nature and of mankind Never? No Oh that would be too hard."

As an interesting aside about this letter, biographer Maynard Solomon has observed that Beethoven omits his brother Johann’s name everywhere it would normally occur. He surmises that it may be because Johann was also his father’s name, and that Beethoven may not have been able to bring himself to write it down.

The physical malady that had tortured Beethoven for at least five years was the onset of deafness. The deafness would become more profound as he grew older. It actually caused him to become almost a hermit by the time he was 50.

It is incredible to imagine that Beethoven wrote some of the world’s most powerful music, and yet was unable to hear performances of some of his greatest compositions. This is even more astonishing when you consider his compositional style. While Mozart was able to complete scores for even his largest works without sketches, Beethoven filled reams of sketchbooks with ideas for compositions that he crossed out, rewrote, tinkered with, or destroyed entirely. For Beethoven, the process of composition was never easy, as is evidenced by the fact that he wrote only 9 symphonies compared to Mozart’s 41 or Haydn’s 100.

With this background we enter one of the most fruitful periods any composer has ever experienced. Emerging from his depression with the determination to fight on through the deafness, Beethoven found a new strength that is mirrored in his music of the Heroic period. At times profoundly sad, at other times gloriously proud, the music of this period is at all times powerfully moving. The music from this period includes the Symphonies 3 to 8, the opera Fidelio, two piano concertos, a violin concerto, and numerous chamber works and piano pieces.

The 20th century writer H. L. Mencken has called the premiere of the Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major (begun in May, 1803) "the greatest single event in the history of music." For starters, the Eroica was longer and more complex than any other symphony written before. No piece of music so succinctly sums up the work of generations before or so profoundly affects the generations after. This monumental work was originally conceived as a tribute to Napoleon Bonaparte, whose politics Beethoven admired. (At first, much of Europe felt that Napoleon would prove to be the savior of democratic ideals on the continent). When Napoleon declared himself emperor of Europe and began a military campaign against Austria, Beethoven scratched out his original title for the symphony, Bonaparte, and opted instead for Eroica, a term that generically describes a heroic ideal.

In the Symphony No. 5 in C Minor (1806), Beethoven finally achieves the thematic cohesion that his earlier works had begun to exhibit. The famous opening motive of the first movement is remarkable for a variety of reasons. First, it sounds, as many writers have observed, like “fate knocking at the door.” Second, it acts as a seed that grows into all of the material of the first movement, as well as some of the material in later movements. Also noteworthy in the first movement is the poignant oboe solo in the recapitulation. Here Beethoven departs from classical form by adding material to the recapitulation, while providing a moving plea against the inexorable onslaught of his powerful musical material.

Among the concertos, the Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major, subtitled the Emperor, provides a partner to the Symphony No. 5. The syncopation of the finale, which flows directly from the second movement, reveals Beethoven’s infatuation with rhythmic energy.

During this period Beethoven also returned to the composition of string quartets. In particular, the three quartets dedicated to Count Rasumovsky (and thus known as the Rasumovsky Quartets, Op. 59) are some of the finest ever written. His contemporaries originally considered the first of the set, in F major (the final movement presented here) to be too wild or crazy to be taken seriously. It took some time before musicians realized that Beethoven’s genius lay in the fact that he was stretching the accepted forms and concepts.

Of the remaining works from the heroic period, the piano sonatas also deserve attention. During this period he wrote the famous Moonlight Sonata, Op.27, No. 2 (first-movement). Another brilliant sonata first movement comes from the Waldstein Sonata, Op. 53. This work exhibits all the qualities of Beethoven’s heroic style: the setting of powerful primary motives, the contrast of beautiful melodic ideas, dramatic key changes, and rhythmic drive.