He wanted to conduct. His conducting style, however, was idiosyncratic. During soft passages he'd crouch extremely low. For loud sections, he'd often leap into the air, even shouting to the orchestra.
His memory was poor. Once he forgot that he had instructed the orchestra not to repeat a section of music. During the performance, when he went back to repeat that section, they went forward, so he stopped the piece, hollering, "Stop! Wrong! That will not do! Again! Again!"
For his own piano concerto, he tried conducting from the piano. At one point he jumped from the bench, bumping the candles off the piano. At another concert he knocked over a choir boy.
During one long, delicate passage, he jumped high to cue a loud entrance, but nothing happened because he had lost count and signaled the orchestra too soon.
As his hearing worsened, musicians tried to ignore his conducting and get their cues from the first violinist.
Finally the musicians pled with him to go home and give up conducting, which he did.
He was Ludwig van Beethoven.
As the man whom many consider to be the greatest composer of all time learned, no one is a genius of all trades.
David Sacks
Fresh Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching /Baker
