Every once in a while there comes a person who castes a shadow so large that we can’t help but feel its shade, and Ludwig van Beethoven was one of them.
It's impossible to over-emphasize Beethoven’s impact on Western culture. He single-handedly moved classical music into the modern age with works that today still sound new. And what’s even more astonishing is that his achievements were in spite of huge adversities throughout his life from the debilitating deafness that plagued him from early adulthood to unrequited love and the critics and audiences who simply weren’t able to understand his work. But by the time of his death Beethoven had defined a new cultural age and inspired such extraordinary fervor that his funeral was attended by more than 20,000 people. His music and personality have captured the imagination of successive generations of composers and listeners to an extent unmatched by any other composer.
Over 252 years since his birth, his music still speaks from his heart to our hearts. His 9th Symphony was played during the fall of the Berlin Wall. It has been sung by a chorus of 10,000 in Japan. It is the anthem of the European Union. And Beethoven’s 9th Symphony is the most requested piece in the annual poll taken of listeners of local radio station KUSC. There is even a statue of him in Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles.
The year 2020 marked the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth. Sadly many celebrations had to be canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the publication of several important new books on his life and works moved forward. Among them was our core book by Oxford University professor Laura Tunbridge. Meant for a general readership, the book takes the novel approach of exploring his adult life by a different topic in each chapter which the author associates with a non-technical analysis of one of his compositions, using a different genre in which he composed in each chapter. Since the book does not address the first 30 years of Beethoven’s life, there will be a second core book, a biography by music critic John Suchet along with several of Beethoven’s early compositions.
This sdg is meant to be an introduction to Beethoven and only a sampling of his many works can be included. Participants will be provided with YouTube links to each of the compositions that we will study so that they can listen to them at home. Excerpts may be played in class to enhance the discussions.
Both Tunbridge and Suchet only briefly touch upon the magnificent 9th Symphony in their books, but we will be spending a whole session on this masterpiece using mostly online references as a guide. The Wikipedia article alone is 30 pages. Written while he was profoundly deaf, the message of hope for worldwide friendship that is contained in the choral 4th movement, the Ode to Joy, is emotionally uplifting to all who understand its message.
