Immortal Beethoven

Harvey Sachs on how printing made Beethoven immortal:

Not until Beethoven's day, however, did winning a place in posterity become a major goal - the greatest goal, for many composers. With the rise, in his lifetime, of the bourgeoisie, middle-class families were able to give their children music lessons, and Hausmusik - music in the home became the home entertainment system of the 1800s. The equipment required for making it comprised a piano, one or more other instruments and/or voices, and printed music, the demand for which increased almost exponentially. This phenomenon occurred just as the figure of the Romantic genius - the artist as a being unhampered by normal constraints - was taking hold. The music of the brilliant, eccentric Beethoven circulated widely, and the conviction that this music would become "deathless" was a logical consequence of both his persona and the diffusion of his works. In the letter from his Viennese admirers, the reference to "the many who joyfully acknowledge your worth and what you have become for the present as well as the future" is an exceptionally significant sign of the times: The arts were no longer to be considered mere "means and objects of pastime." Composers were becoming the high priests, perhaps even the gods, of a secular religion; the best among them were expected to create works that would endure, ..