Sonification of cardiac arrhythmias in the Beethoven’s music, or «The heartfelt music of Ludwig van Beethoven»-2
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Researchers S. Vaisrub, B. Lüderitz, T.O. Cheng, Z.D. Goldberger et al. in different years (1980–2014) discovered the similarity of the rhythmic figure of the fragment of Ludwig van Beethoven’s piano sonata op. 81a «Les adieux» with an auscultative and electrocardiographic picture of ventricular premature beats. This allowed them to assume that the composer expressed in music his own irregular heartbeat. The hypothesis is very relevant, since sonification (the use of non-speech audio to convey information) of biological signals has a long history and is actively developing both in music and in medicine. This article is devoted to testing the hypothesis of sonification of cardiac arrhythmias in Beethoven’s music. An analysis of numerous musicological studies has shown that a variety of rhythmic figures, similar to the electrocardiographic signs of all known disorders of the cardiac rhythm, are found in many Beethoven’s works throughout 1799–1826. It is established that each of the revealed musical equivalents of cardiac arrhythmias is a certain means of musical expressiveness (musical language), the meaning and origin of which is known. Pathographic analysis showed the absence of a chronological link between «arrhythmic» music and the diseases of the composer. Any indication of the cardiac disease in Beethoven has not been found. Such results allow us to connect the music of Beethoven with his heart only in a some romantic sense.
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