In the Fall of 2000, my parents purchased a new Compaq Presario desktop (HP hadn’t bought Compaq then) to stay in touch with my older brother who moved States for his higher studies. Perhaps I first heard a particular Beethoven’s Symphony, which came in the pre-installed Windows Millennium Home Edition, on that desktop. Somehow in my own imagination, I associated that name with a popular film of yesteryears on a family dog called Beethoven.
Later during college days, I once read about Beethoven, the greatest musical maestro, and came to know who he was, what he contributed and heard one of his compositions.
But all this became visual and interesting when, earlier this year, I visited Bonn, the city where Beethoven was born.
Born in 1770, Ludwig van Beethoven, one of the world's most celebrated and influential composers of classical music, is regarded as 'Bonn's Greatest Son'.
[A bronze monument stands in the centre of the city's Munsterplatz].
The former West German capital takes great pride in being the birth place of the musical maestro. The captivating life-stories of Beethoven in the musical city of Bonn still linger in my mind. The Beethoven-House (Beethoven-Haus as Germans call it) is a museum and contains the largest Beethoven collection in the world. Its impressive authentic documents bear witness to Beethoven's life, and to his music compositions.
In total, Beethoven wrote 9 symphonies, 7 concertos, 17 string quartets, 32 piano sonatas, and 10 sonatas for violin and piano. Even though Beethoven wrote only nine symphonies (compared that to Haydn and Mozart, who in total wrote more than 150 symphonies), he is still regarded as the most famous composer of all time. He popularized instrumental music in a European culture that had a preference for vocal music. His endeavors to experiment outside the complexity of structured and refined rules of classical period composition brought him fame and recognition. Historians state that Beethoven bridged the classical period and the romantic period.
While his earlier compositions have roots in the classical mozartic style, Beethoven later branched out with the emotional power of the romantic period.
In all this excitement, what was most saddening was the fact that Beethoven began having hearing problems around 1802 and it worsened till the time he was totally deaf by 1816. During my audio-tour inside the museum, I heard his Ninth Symphony and later heard the same piece only this time how Beethoven might have heard it with his hearing problem. It was heart-breaking to learn that Beethoven could not hear his own masterpieces. It must have been so tragic.
In fact, at the premier performance of his final masterpiece, the Ninth Symphony, Beethoven had to turn around to see the audience’s reaction: he was too deaf to hear even the thunderous applause. Beethoven’s hearing loss did not stop him from making the greatest compositions. His symphonies, concertos, and sonatas, though 184 years old, are still performed in concert programs all over the world.
Despite his short-temper, rude and angry character, Beethoven had immense popularity, following and fame in his time in Europe: perhaps similar to what Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson enjoyed in their’s. More than 20,000 people attended his funeral when he died in 1827 in Vienna.
I think that my visit to Bonn and specially to Beethoven-House is a beautiful memory.
Symphonically yours
Nalin Chakoo
Tailpiece:
Michael Jackson started performing at the age of 6~7. Guess what age Beethoven did his first performance?
Ditto. At 7 years of age!
