Beethoven 250

The 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birthday is next December. He was baptized on December 17, 1770, and so his undocumented birthday is likely December 16, or perhaps December 15, given the fact that babies were usually baptized when they were a day or two old.

When I was little, I loved the Peanuts comics and enjoyed getting paperback collections of the strips. Nearly every December 16, the story concerned Beethoven’s birthday and Schroeder’s celebration of it. Of course, Schroeder also performed Beethoven sonatas and other works on his toy piano.

Thus inspired by a favorite comic strip, I liked certain Beethoven compositions when I was young. In those days, the Huntley-Brinkley evening news on NBC concluded with the scherzo from Beethoven’s Ninth. I wrote NBC to find out the title and got a letter back! Subsequently, I found a used recording of the symphony at our hometown library’s annual book sale. Eventually, I also found LPs of the fifth and seventh symphonies and some of his named sonatas. I took piano lessons, but somehow never managed the spontaneous, unpracticed skill of Schroeder.

Our library acquired a copy of George R. Marek’s Beethoven: Biography of a Genius (Funk & Wagnall’s, 1969) when it was published or perhaps the following year. I didn't read the whole book but I enjoyed checking it out. I was 12 in 1969, and at 13 and 14 I had unrequited crushes on a couple of girls, which unfortunately aggravated some childhood depression I’d had even earlier. Feeling scarily hopeless at such a young age, I found comfort in the fact that, as Marek discussed, Beethoven struggled for acceptance, too!

Marek’s chapter on “The Immortal Beloved” is interesting. Beethoven's letter to his “Unsterbliche Geliebte,” dated July 6-7 and later analyzed to be 1812, was found among his effects after he died. But who was the woman, to whom Beethoven wrote with such passion? Was the letter returned to him, or did he never send it? Reviewing the numerous women important to Beethoven---like Josephine Brunsvik, Guilietta Guicciardi, Antonie Brentano,, Amalie Sebald, Bettina Brentano, Dorothea Ertmann, and Therese Brunsvik---many scholars argue for Josephine Brunsvik. Marek builds an interesting circumstantial case for Dorothea Ertmann. From time to time I still leaf through my own copy of Marek's thick book, which gives an excellent sense of the composer’s era and life.

In a funny way, Beethoven sticks to my childhood Christmas memories, I suppose because of the
Peanuts paperback collections, some of which I received as presents. I still have them. And, of course, December 16 was, at least for the prodigy Schroeder, a significant day just nine days from Christmas, with a gladness all its own.

All this is to say: I decided to listen to all of Beethoven's words during this 250th anniversary time. Deutsche Gramophone, Warner Classics, and Naxos have all issued collections of the complete works of Beethoven. I wanted to order the Warner Classics because of its beautiful red box, but I couldn't figure out if it has been released or not, and how long it would ship. The DG set has over 120 CDs, with duplicates of classic performances (the nine symphonies conducted by Karajan and also by John Eliot Gardiner), and I decided that was more than I'd realistically listen to. So the Naxos set, with its 90 CDs and ready availability, was the one I ordered. I've quite a few Naxos CDs of other artists.

I'll share some informal notes about Beethoven's works during the upcoming year, concluding (Lord willing) on December 16th. So far I've listened to the first CD, which is Symphony No. 1, in C major, op. 21 (1799-1800), and Symphony No. 2, in D major, op. 36 (1802). As critics point out, these first two continue the Viennese symphonic tradition, while #3, the Eroica, is a bolder work.