Beethoven was very specific about his metronome markings. Now it is not a large jump to assume that if the composer took such care to be specific concerning his conceptions that he must, to some degree, have been able to hear them. Recent scholarship has shown that Beethoven may not have been as muddled as my comic book led me to believe for all those years. Frederick Wieck saw Beethoven mounting his ear-trumpet on the resonance plate and then making music. This was in 1826, just before the composer's death.
Art is a repository of truth and light.
Its greatness lies in its universality and its ability to reach into the soul of any man or woman who bothers to look or listen. Symphonies, opera companies and theatres are holding out their hats to a blase populace. Music education in the public schools is virtually non-existent. Falling back on the claptrap legends of Beethoven's deafness and pretending that these stories add to the objective content of creativity just adds to the fog that keeps the light from breaking through. There will always be great myths and archetypal stories that describe such mystical events as the creation of the world and its purpose.