Did Cardiac Arrhythmia Influence Beethoven’s Music?
Image: U-M Health SystemCould it be that, when Ludwig van Beethoven composed some of the greatest masterpieces of all time, he was quite literally following his heart? The striking rhythms found in some of Beethoven’s most famous works may have been inspired by his own heartbeat, says a team of researchers from the Univ. of Michigan and Univ. of Washington that includes a cardiologist, medical historian and musicologist.
Authors of an essay that appears in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine analyzed several of Beethoven’s compositions for clues of a heart condition some have speculated he had. The rhythms of certain parts of renowned works, researchers say, may in fact reflect the irregular rhythms of Beethoven’s own heart caused by cardiac arrhythmia.
