The 250th birthday of Ludwig Van Beethoven falls only at the end of the year 2020, namely on 16 December. The choice was made to celebrate the whole year 2020 and the last weeks of December 2019, from 16 December, his 249th birthday, as it should and will be celebrated: the emperor of music has a birthday.
"Entschuldigung, mein lieber Ludwig, aber ja, Du bist Kaiser, du bist Adlich. Soviel mehr als unheimlich viel Adlichen zusammen." Yes, I must apologize to him for the title I bestow on Ludwig Van Beethoven, and best in his language. Is it not the case that he is the true emperor of music? Did he not present himself that way perhaps? Certainly he did. He was the one who literally forced the highest Viennese nobility to step aside for him on the public street. Where all other people made the deepest of deep bows, hurrying to the side of the street. Think of the famous incident where Van Beethoven was with Goethe just as the emperor with his retinue walked through the broad lanes. Goethe bowed as deeply as he could and the composer? He just walked right through… The rebellious Ludwig was disgusted by servility, but he also had no great respect for the nobility and thus he showed who was really an emperor. The one who was because he was born in a golden aristocratic bed, or he who had made it himself and strung together genial compositions, who was a creator of Beauty? Honestly? I would much rather make the deepest of deep bows to a Lord like Ludwig Van Beethoven, even if his coat was dirty and tattered, than to the first aristocrat with an empty head…
Bonn welcomes you! The Beethoven-Haus
It can only be that the city of Bonn celebrates for a whole year. The starting shot was fired on 16 December with the reopening of the birthplace, the Beethoven-Haus, which has been set up as a museum and where concert halls are located. Several adjacent buildings were purchased and prepared for this purpose earlier.
The house where the child Ludwig was born and lived until his sixth year was a narrow back building with low ceilings and small rooms. The family was poor and not so much because there was no work, but because Ludwig's father did not use the money he earned for his family, and all the more for everything containing alcohol. It would later cost the singer his job. Too drunk, too brutal, too mean. Son Ludwig would not travel from Vienna to Bonn to attend his father's funeral. The relationship was, for understandable reasons, very poor, but his mother? She was not only his mother to him, but also his best friend. Unfortunately, she died when Ludwig was 16 years old. He wrote a touching letter about it.
Until his final departure to Vienna, the young musical prodigy was already an organist for the Jesuits from the age of 13, and from the age of 16 he was permanently associated with the music chapel of the court in Bonn. You learn all this and much more, tremendously much more, when you visit the Beethoven House. With the renovation and the renewed exhibition, it is particularly accessible for everyone from 5 to 105 years old. There is no requirement to know anything about Ludwig Van Beethoven. The various themes around which the collection is built provide a very broad insight into the life of the young musician, but also into his later development. The living museum is very educational with many listening examples, and by the time you leave the house, you can call yourself a little Beethoven expert. Not necessarily about his music, if you don't know it yet, but it is perfectly clear that on the day of your museum visit you will listen to his music. Whether it's via YouTube or Spotify or whatever, you will have gotten so into his life that it simply cannot be otherwise. The greatest specialist and the child who first learns something about Beethoven: they will experience Beethoven on the day of their visit and continue to think about this man who speaks to the imagination more than any other composer. More information can be found here: Beethoven-Haus. You will also get plenty of information about all the activities of 'Beethoven 2020'.
Bonn welcomes you! The major overview exhibition
After a visit to the Beethoven House, you must go to the major overview exhibition in the same Beethoven city. You must. Yes, you really must. It is not only worthwhile because of all the collected pieces with original manuscripts of his famous and less famous works, not only because of the portraits we know from books and the internet or from the busts that appear here and there in living rooms and even cafés, not only because of the numerous listening excerpts, but because of all of that, because of the whole life of Ludwig Van Beethoven, the 'deaf' composer who had his hearing problem (tinnitus - who knew what that was because nobody knew it in his time) treated by pouring hot oil in his ears! Imagine that! Doctors and quacks, they all bent over the man who was often sick with pneumonia and so much more. The man who found no woman who wanted to share her life with him, the man who amazed the world with his revolutionary compositions, with his humor and volatility, with his chaos and brilliant ideas. The exhibition also takes you into Beethoven's living world and shows you the fashion of the time, the disasters that struck Bonn with fires and floods. And then that frequent moving, even from his childhood and youth. Father was always too drunk to have any money left to live normally, and so the family kept moving to smaller places. Later in Vienna, Ludwig Van Beethoven would move 72 times. You read that right.
Letters, Beethoven didn't like to write them, but there are stacks of them. Oh yes, full of spelling mistakes and sometimes indecipherable. We still don't know if the title of the little work Für Elise is actually so. It was later distilled from the scribbles and accepted as fact, but in reality to this day no one has been able to decipher that title above that love-struck piano piece. Hey, could dr. Antoon Vollemaere perhaps do it? He deciphered the script of the Maya's…
Much, really much and much more can still be written about that exhibition itself, but it is so much better to note at least a day or two days Bonn in your agenda.
The exhibition that is an absolute must-see is open until 26 April 2020. Surf quickly to Beethoven – Welt.Bürger.Musik and book your ticket(s).
- WHAT: Beethoven 2020
- PHOTOS: Beethoven-Haus: © Beethoven-Haus, © David Ertl - exhibition: Beethoven – Welt.Bürger.Musik © Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland Gmbh
- WHERE: Bonn (Germany)
- WHEN: exhibition Beethoven – Welt.Bürger.Musik until 26 April 2020, Beethovenhaus open daily