The Economist - USA (2020-11-21)

(Antfer) #1

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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