[jancsika]

> It is demoralizing to give a young person role models of Beethoven, Einstein, and Feynman, presented as saintly figures who moved from insight to insight without a misstep.

There isn't a single Beethoven scholar I can think of who seriously entertains the idea of Beethoven being a "self-generating" genius who never made mistakes.

Also, the Beethoven pieces that today's composers most admire-- the late string quartets-- were almost universally shunned by actual Romantic period commentators.

Perhaps the Romantic Age stereotype is demoralizing to students because professors with a narrow domain expertise don't actively seek out music history experts to revise their outdated views about the Romantic Age.

[Klauster]

Yes, scholars. Maybe it's a generational thing. Young people have too many people they have to compare to. You have to be great at everything! I'm hearing that high schoolers don't have confidence anymore.

[jancsika]

> Yes, scholars.

As well as anyone who has played a piece by Beethoven or read a children's book about him. The Beethoven stereotype is the impassioned if erratic genius who literally ripped through the paper correcting his own errors in a quest for perfection, persisting in his struggle to write masterworks even after going deaf.

The author is almost certainly confusing Beethoven's myth with the Mozart myth-- the child musical prodigy through whom Christ's perfection sounded.

This matters because the author is attempting to make a causal relationship between Romantic-era genius myth-making and higher education in the U.S. at present. If he can't even match the myth with the right composer I think I'm right to be skeptical of his theory.