How did Beethoven compose music if he was deaf?

Ludwig was still pumping out the masterpieces - even when he was completely deaf. Here's how he did it. ... Beethoven would have seen from Ries's face that there was beautiful music playing, but he couldn't hear it. It's said that Beethoven was .... If he couldn't hear, how did he write music? read more

After watching Beethoven in a rehearsal in 1814 for the Archduke Trio, the composer Louis Spohr said: "In forte passages the poor deaf man pounded on the keys until the strings jangled, and in piano he played so softly that whole groups of notes were omitted, so that the music was unintelligible unless one could look into the pianoforte part. read more

Deafness did not affect Beethoven as a composer quite as extensively as some might imagine, or at least not in the crippling sense some might imagine, because even as a fully-hearing young man Beethoven's inner ear for music was extraordinarily well-developed, and he was quite capable of composing beautiful music without being able to actually hear the product, as are many skilled composers. read more