【摘要】
Directions: In this section, you will hear a passage three times. When the passage is read for the first time, you should listen carefully for its general idea. When the passage is read for the second time, you are required to fill in the blanks numbered from 36 to 43 with the exact words you have just heard. For blanks numbered from 44 to 46 you are required to fill in the missing information. For these blanks, you can either use the exact words you have just heard or write down the main points in your own words. Finally, when the passage is read for the third time, you should check what you have written.
Although Beethoven could sit down and make up music easily, his really great (36)compositions did not come easily at all. They took him a great deal of hard work. We can tell how often he rewrote and (37) corrected his work from his notebooks kept in museums and libraries.
When he was 28, the worst difficulty of all came to him. He began to notice a strange humming in his ears. After (38) consulting the doctor, he got the worst news any musician can hear: he was gradually going (39) deaf. Beethoven was in despair. He went away to the country. In his long farewell letter to his brothers, he expressed how (40) depressed and lonely his deafness had made him. He longed to die.
However, Beethoven did something braver than dying. He (41) gathered his courage and went on writing music. Instead of the (42) elegant and (43) stately music that earlier musicians had written for their wealthy listeners, (44) Beethoven wrote stormy, exciting, revolutionary music, which reminds us of his troubled and courageous life. He called one of his symphonies the “Eroica” or heroic symphony, “to celebrate the memory of a great man.” (45) Describing the dramatic opening notes of his famous Fifth Symphony, he said, “Thus fate knocks on the door.”
Later, Beethoven went completely deaf, so deaf that he could not hear even the stormiest parts of his exciting music. In those years, he wrote more gloriously than ever. He could “hear” his music with his mind, if not with his ears. In his last symphony, the Ninth, a choir sings a wonderful hymn, “Ode to Joy.” (46) Because of his courage and determination to overcome his terrible disaster, his music has given joy and inspiration to millions of people.