The Economist - USA (2020-11-21)

76 TheEconomistNovember 21st 2020

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n december 1808Ludwig van Beethoven

amazed Vienna with a four-hour, self-

promoted concert. It included premieres of

his Fifth and Sixth symphonies, and of his

Fourth Piano Concerto. Shortly afterwards

the gruff maestro seemed to have crowned

his long search for a stable income with an

annuity worth 4,000 florins from Arch-

duke Rudolph of Austria and two other

aristocrats. He contemplated marriage and

set to work on his next concerto.

Then Napoleon Bonaparte’s forces at-

tacked and occupied the city for the second

time in four years. Beethoven, who lived in

the line of fire, cowered in his brother’s

basement as he tried to protect his already

damaged hearing from the din. Worse, his

patrons failed to pay up. Distraught and

anxious, he wrote of the “destructive, dis-

orderly life” around him, “nothing but

drums, cannons and human misery”.

Beethoven was born 250 years ago (his

exact birthday is uncertain). Almost from

the time he left his native Bonn for Vienna

in 1792, setbacks disrupted the keyboard

virtuoso’s promising career. Hearing loss

struck in 1798, not a quiet slide into silence

but an incessant “squealing, buzzing and

humming” in the ears. In 1802 he consid-

ered suicide, writing that “it was only my

art that held me back”.

Yet that art quickly mastered the formal

beauty and decorum of Haydn and Mozart

before moving into an entirely new realm

of innovation and unshackled self-expres-

sion. Completed in 1804, his Third Sym-

phony, the “Eroica”, broadcast this leap to a

thunderstruck public, alarming some lis-

teners (“strident and bizarre”), transfixing

others (“true genius”). By 1810 the Fifth

Symphony was being hailed as a landmark

in world culture—a gospel of Romantic

feeling that “opens up to us the kingdom of

the gigantic and the immeasurable”.

Knock him down, and Beethoven would

bounce back with another stupendous

coup. By 1824 the critic Adolph Marx could

write that the composer’s style bore wit-

ness to “the struggle of a strong being

against an almost overwhelming fate”. It is

fitting, then, that the global celebrations of

his jubilee have been marked by dismay, re-

silience and resurrection.

The festivities began before the pan-

demic struck. Based in Bonn, the

bthvn250 programme scheduled hun-

dreds of events in Germany. Vienna, where

Beethoven lived without much affection

for 35 years—“From the emperor to the

bootblack, all the Viennese are worth-

less”—forgave the slights to offer exhibi-

tions and concerts galore. In Brazil Marin

Alsop, an American conductor, launched

her “Global Ode to Joy” project, planned

performances of the heaven-storming

Ninth Symphony on six continents. Opera

houses prepared to raise the curtain on “Fi-

delio”, Beethoven’s only opera and an ever-

green hymn to freedom. “Oh what bliss, to

breathe freely in the open air,” sing a

chorus of prisoners, in a scene to melt the

iciest heart. Then they return to their cells.

This spring, the whole world followed

them. Lockdowns forced the anniversary

ringmasters to tear up their plans. “Beetho-

ven had to reinvent himself again and

again,” notes Malte Boecker, director of

bthvn250. His acolytes followed suit.

Events were postponed; performances

Beethoven at 250

Ninth lives

Like the pandemic-hit celebrations of his jubilee, Beethoven’s career

was a struggle against adversity

Books & arts

77 Anthropomorphicfiction

78 A soloEverestmission

78 Globalisationinthesteamage

79 In search of the Antichrist

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