Soon after finishing it, the composer hitched a ride on a milk cart from his brother\u2019s country residence to his home in Vienna. Overnighting in an unheated inn room in freezing weather, he contracted a hacking cough with pains in his side, and a doctor was immediately summoned when he arrived back at his apartment in Schwarzspanierstrasse.<\/p>
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The illness that finally killed off the great composer<\/h2>
Though concerning, news of Beethoven\u2019s indisposition would not necessarily have alarmed his friends and associates \u2013 he had prevailed over numerous illnesses in the past three decades, many of them abdominal. But this new one quickly became more serious, with lung inflammation, spitting blood, jaundice, vomiting and diarrhoea among the symptoms.<\/p>
By March 1827, the doctors despaired of a recovery and Beethoven himself knew that the end was near. \u2018Pity, pity, too late,\u2019 he whispered, when a case of his favourite wine arrived belatedly from his publisher Schott. <\/p>
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When and how did Beethoven die?<\/h2>
Beethoven died on 26 March 1827, aged 56, by one account raising his clenched fist skyward in a final defiant gesture. Speculation about the cause of death has proliferated since his passing, the most recent medical evidence identifying liver disease and hepatitis B as likely culprits.<\/p>
Crowds of Beethoven fans paid their respects<\/h2>
Although in life Beethoven had railed angrily about a lack of support for himself and for his music, his death produced an outpouring of grief and respectful recognition. A steady stream of visitors arrived at the Schwarzspanierstrasse apartment to view Beethoven in an oak coffin flanked by burning candles, his head crowned by a garland of white roses, his hands clasping a cross and a white lily.<\/p>
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Candles and flowers decorate the grave of Ludwig van Beethoven at Vienna’s Central Cemetery (Zentralfriedhof) on the eve of All Saints Day (Credit: Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure> Beethoven’s funeral<\/h2>
Beethoven’s funeral took place on the afternoon of 29 March 1827 and was, according to one Beethoven biographer, \u2018one of the grandest Vienna ever put on for a commoner\u2019. When the coffin was shifted to the courtyard of Beethoven\u2019s building, crowds thronged around it, making progress difficult. Beethoven\u2019s fellow composers Czerny<\/a><\/strong>, Hummel and Schubert<\/a><\/strong> (a torchbearer) were among the official mourners, and it\u2019s estimated that anything from 10,000 to 30,000 people attended the funeral procession. The route to the nearby Church of the Holy Trinity in Alsergasse (the Alserkirche), normally a ten-minute stroll, took a strenuous hour to negotiate.\u00a0<\/p>
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An invitation to Beethoven’s funeral (credit: Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure> - Best funeral songs<\/a><\/strong><\/li><\/ul>
From the Alserkirche the cort\u00e8ge wound its way to the cemetery at W\u00e4hring, a suburb of Vienna about one-and-a-half miles away. At its gates, an actor delivered a grandiose oration penned by the dramatist Franz Grillparzer \u2013 \u2018As Behemoth storms through the sea, so he flew over and across the borders of his art\u2019 \u2013 and at the graveside Hummel dropped three laurel wreaths on to the coffin.\u00a0<\/p>
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The music of Beethoven’s funeral<\/h2>
On the way, a group of singers and four trombonists performed a \u2018Miserere<\/a><\/strong>\u2019 arranged by the composer Ignaz von Seyfried from two Equale<\/em> for four trombones Beethoven had written 15 years previously. At the service of blessing in the Alserkirche another choral piece was sung \u2013 Seyfried\u2019s own setting of \u2018Libera me Domine\u2019, originally composed \u2018in continuation of Mozart\u2019s Requiem\u2019 (which we named as one of the best requiems of all time<\/a><\/strong>). Beethoven himself had seemingly left no indications of what should be played at his own funeral.<\/p>
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- Best funeral songs<\/a><\/strong><\/li><\/ul>
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