Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 54, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1911 — Contemporary Opinion of Beethoven. [ARTICLE]

Contemporary Opinion of Beethoven.

When the First Trios and the First Symphony appeared, the conservative critics declared that they were “the confused explosions of a talented young man’s overweening conceit.”

The Second Symphony was called a monster, a dragon wounded to death and unable to die, threshing around * with its tail in impotent rage!” Later, Von Weber declared of the sublime Seventh Symphony, that “the extravagances of this genius have reached their ne plus ultra, and Beethoven is quite ripe for the madhouse." —Dole, “Famous Composers.”