In his late twenties, already a celebrated composer and pianist in Vienna, Ludwig van Beethoven began noticing a persistent ringing in his ears that slowly, over years, developed into serious hearing loss. For a musician, it was close to the worst possible disability — the very sense his entire career depended on was disappearing.
He kept the extent of his deafness hidden for years, terrified it would end his career and his reputation, withdrawing from social life and even, in a private letter to his brothers, admitting he had considered ending his life over it. He chose, instead, to keep composing.
As his hearing worsened further, he adapted — sawing the legs off his piano so he could feel the vibrations of the notes through the floor, and composing increasingly by internal ear, hearing the music entirely in his imagination rather than through his actual ears. By the time he wrote his Ninth Symphony, he was almost completely deaf.
At its 1824 premiere, witnesses say Beethoven, standing near the orchestra, kept conducting after the piece had already ended, unable to hear the audience's roaring applause behind him, until a singer gently turned him around to see it for himself.