On the German maestro’s death anniversary, here’s our curated tribute to celebrate his rich musical legacy
Paul Whitaker (centre) from the documentary, Beethoven’s Ninth: Sympony for the World. Pic Courtesy/YouTube
Today marks the 197th death anniversary of one of the greatest, and perhaps most influential, composers of all time, Ludwig van Beethoven. He was playing and writing music at the time of European romanticism when emotions, feelings, and intuition were at the centre of all art, replacing rationalism and reason of the early 18th century. It’s a well-known fact that Beethoven had begun losing his hearing in his late twenties. He wrote, in a melancholic letter to his brothers, about the difficulty of admitting to an infirmity in “the one sense… which I once possessed in the highest perfection”. He added, “Therefore forgive me when you see me draw back.” However, he continued to make music that would change the way musicians, composers and listeners would think about the art form for years.
READ
Beethoven: A Life in Nine Pieces by Laura Tunbridge: Among the books written on the composer, Tunbridge’s work is one that immediately engages both a musician and a non-musician alike. It’s neither dreary nor excessively academic. Tunbridge balances the details of the movements within Beethoven’s music and the biographical aspects of his life — his relationship with his family, his travel to Vienna, the business of making money in music, the spirit of Europe in the late 19th century, his friendships with poets and musicians — that shaped his work.
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Ludwig van Beethoven. Pic Courtesy/Wikimedia Commons
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WATCH
Beethoven’s Ninth: Symphony for the World: This music documentary shows the impact of his Ninth Symphony on musicians and composers across the world, as we get to witness their own interpretations of it and discover it anew. Two of the most fascinating stories were of the Chinese composer Tan Dun in Shanghai, who found Beethoven in the rhythm of its people, machines, and vehicles, and of Paul Whitaker, who, himself born deaf, brought the glorious symphony to a community of deaf people.
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LISTEN
The Beethoven 9 Podcast: We are familiar with his beautiful Ode to Joy (Symphony No 9) or the “four indelible notes” of Symphony No 5. But in the nine episodes of The Beethoven 9, Colorado Public Radio host Monika Vischer and one of the biographers of the composer, Jan Swafford, explore what the times were like and what Beethoven had set out to do while writing each of his nine symphonies. These 15-minute-long episodes can be easily consumed by all listeners.
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