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.
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.
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.