Ludwig van Beethoven and Klemens von Metternich

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. He is considered to be one of the greatest composers in human history and his music is still incredibly famous today. He was important to this age of revolution and new ideologies because his music was the greatest example of the Romantic movement in music at the time. The romantic movement focused on nature and its awe, and it offered a contrast to the ideas presented in the Enlightenment. Romantics believed in great emotional power and unrestrained imagination, which paralleled the ideas of revolution and the emotions that came with them. In its purest essence, the Romantic movement was to art and music as the revolutions were to the empires of Europe. Beethoven's music was breathtaking and brought forth great human emotion, something radically different from the music before him. His most famous works were his Symphony No. 5 and Symphony No. 9, and both are still extremely popular with musicians today. Towards the end of his career, he began to go deaf, and in the last few years of his life he was completely deaf, yet he continued to write incredible and powerful music; a testament to how rare and incredible of a composer he truly was.


Klemens von Metternich (1773-1859)

Klemens von Metternich was an Austrian politician who served as Austria's foreign minister during the Congress of Vienna and the years following as part of the Holy Alliance. Metternich's policies were so effective and powerful that this time period is called the Age of Metternich after him. Metternich was extremely conservative, and was against revolution of any kind. In the years following the French Revolution, Metternich and his forces put down multiple revolutions within the Austrian Empire. His policies dominated Austria, the Italian peninsula, and the German Confederation. Within the German States he issued the infamous Carlsbad Decrees which censored speech and the press, and gave authorities the right to crush any liberal organization within the states. He believed that strong governments were necessary to protect society from revolution, and the nobility should be at the head of this government. He had to be against revolution politically as well, as Austria was made up of many ethnic groups that would threaten to split his empire if they were to revolt. He was important to this time period as his politics were the dominating force in Europe for many years after the French Revolution. However, his politics also were one of the leading causes of the 1848 revolution within Austria that split it, and made Hungary and Croatia (along with various other states) their own nation.