Credit: jiosaavn.com
The world is presently dealing with a COVID-19 pandemic but alas, people have been fighting contagions for centuries including those in the performing and visual arts. At the moment, concerts and opera performances are being postponed despite an occasional serenade from the balcony of musicians living in Italy. Cancellations include the 16th International Beethoven Piano Competition in Vienna scheduled for May and events at the Beethoven Center at San Jose State University.
Although MIROIRS CA can’t offer concert reviews during the challenging time, please enjoy this piece about Ludwig van Beethoven the incomparable composer who was born in Bonn, spent most of his life in Vienna and is 250 years old this year (1770-1827). It is based on sources that are considered to be as accurate as possible even though podcasts, websites or apps were not available in those days. With continued best wishes, The Editor.
For over 300 years pianos have come in all different shapes, sizes and colors but none of them ever talked even when wunderkinds like Mozart sat and played. Then one Saturday afternoon at the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest something magical happened. An old piano called Broadwood that had been sitting there for a very long time twisted its pearly keys into a smile as wide as a lion’s yawn and started to talk about Ludwig van Beethoven, who celebrates a 250th birthday this year. After keeping the lid on for decades words poured out of the old piano like fizz squirting from a freshly opened can of sparkling soda – so here is Broadwood’s story.
I want to tell you how awesome it was to be Beethoven’s significant other for nine years. As one of classical music’s greatest composers his works are always in style - like who hasn’t heard Fuer Elise or that catchy Ode to Joy tune from the 9th symphony. He was a trendsetter and nature lover - all this despite having a major hearing impairment that made him virtually deaf.
The story begins in December, 1817 when I was sent by the John Broadwood & Sons piano factory in London to Vienna as a gift for Beethoven. The journey took seven months and I felt a little woozy on the boat ride through the Mediterranean then bored from waiting on the docks in Italy for the land journey to start – by horse and cart not FedEx. When I arrived at Beethoven’s place in the village of Moedling where he was staying during that summer he just fell in love with my Spanish mahogany complexion and tone that if whipped in a blender would taste like a creamy mocha mousse. Although we weren’t exclusive because he had another piano called Graf you might say from that moment on we bonded.
Beethoven hung out in Vienna for a while before we met and developed a following as musician and virtual apartment dweller – as he had a habit of moving throughout the city quite often. This almost wore me out because I had to be carried up and down winding staircases at least eleven times which often made each trip seem like a bumpy roller coaster ride. After we settled in he sometimes played me 24/7 and although this bummed out a few neighbors who wanted to catch up on their sleep I loved the attention because these were up close and personal moments.
Beethoven’s last apartment was my comfort zone for two years and from what I heard it was his, too. All I can say about the building is location, location. The spacious second floor pad had six rooms including a kitchen and five windows with a view onto a garden, tree lined courtyard and city center with its nearby neighborhoods. I stayed in his bedroom next to the other piano and when sunshine streamed into the windows it felt like I was getting a Viennese beach tan, without the sand. The place also had a room for a cleaning crew and that devoted person should have received a gift certificate – because Beethoven was absent minded when it came to tidying up.
No matter where we lived it seemed like every day an assortment of things would end up on the floor of his music study or all over me, which did a job on my wood dust allergy. From my vantage point there were piles of manuscript paper, sheet music, books by Shakespeare, Greek authors, poets of the day, local newspapers, clothes, empty glasses and even coins laying near my legs. Sometimes he forgot to close the door on the way out and a wandering cat would climb on me and leave fur balls in the hammers. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a cat lover but a short hair Chihuahua would have been more doable.
Before Beethoven’s hearing reached a point of no return he gave piano lessons and did gigs as pianist and conductor at theaters and palaces where he ate fancy food with nobility types like Archduke Rudolph, who was a big fan and patron. If you ask me his piano playing was much like his personality: exciting, sensitive, noble, temperamental, flowing, instinctive, volcanic and gushing with emotion.
When Beethoven wasn’t writing music he had to deal with stuff like publishers and family matters that included being a backup father to nephew Karl (now that’s a whole other story). But when friends, musicians, former students or groupies stopped by he also gabbed a lot about music and trending events. And wow did he hook up with some amazing high-profile musicians like Haydn, Salieri (the fictionalized character in the movie Amadeus), Ries (he helped publicize Beethoven’s works in England), Cherubini, Rossini and Schubert who visited us and brought over some songs he composed instead of a box of chocolates.
Of course Beethoven always had a notebook and slate ready for people to write down comments which he would read and then either scribble down or vocalize answers. I still can’t wrap my strings around the fact that he couldn’t hear much of the music he composed unless it was in his head - and what an imagination he had, from unforgettable melodies to pinpoint rhythms like the opening of his 5th symphony. When he composed I have fond memories of him gently touching an ear trumpet onto my strings to better hear the vibrations of pitch that buzzed through me like bees to a honeycomb. I almost cried during these moments which would have caused a wood peel.
Beethoven never married but in the last years of his life developed a really cool friendship with Gerhard, a twelve year-old boy who was a neighbor and best friend’s son – and stopped by almost every day to help with chores, correspondence and receive tips on some little pieces he composed. I nearly cracked up when Gerhard gave Beethoven a crash course in math and multiplication which helped him tally up bills, receipts and this even brushed up my counting skills if he happened to turn on the metronome – although I never got used to the clicking noise it made. By the way, Gerhard grew up and became one of Vienna’s leading doctors.
I also remember that a famous professor from Germany (Clara Wieck Schumann’s dad) visited us and listened to Beethoven’s amazing improvisations for three hours which seemed to linger in the air like a kaleidoscope of notes. But there were times I wanted to duck when he dove into my keys with such force that strings would break and lay in tangled ribbons next to my legs. During these musical workouts he would sometimes shake his hair like a shaggy dog and cause strands to fall in between my strings. Does the move series Beethoven come to mind?
Although he wrote the dreamy Moonlight Sonata before we met he used me for pieces like the last piano sonata, sketches for a 10th symphony and the outrageous Great Fugue quartet he told friends was written for future generations. It seems old schoolers and critics just couldn’t understand the work’s new-age approach and some of them became totally unstrung after hearing it – although this never happened to me.
I heard Beethoven say that his eco-friendly Pastoral symphony was inspired by treks through parks and the more rustic areas surrounding the city like the Vienna Woods. In fact, his fitness routine consisted of long afternoon walks, sometimes with Gerhard and his dad, where he would leave me alone for hours every day – often rushing out with hair dripping with water, wearing crinkled outerwear, a partially squashed top hat and pockets bulging with manuscript paper, note books and pencils. He was definitely into the natural look.
After spending long hours of sitting on my bench and composing Beethoven snacked on soup, bread and soft boiled eggs, his usual in house meal that was prepared in the attached kitchen - where fragrant aromas filled the air depending on who was doing the cooking. He enjoyed a daily coffee break solo or with friends where he counted sixty beans to a cup of java. Fortunately the grinds didn’t get into my soundboard but sometimes I did hum some of Bach’s so-called Coffee Cantata when he was brewing. During the evening he often stopped off at local restaurants and judging from the stains on his jacket and sleeves I can tell you that his favorite dishes at local eateries included macaroni and cheese and grilled fish with potatoes which he washed down with spring water or a sip or two of vino from local vineyards.
When Beethoven’s health started to go south you might say I became his artistic caregiver and was there for him until March 26, 1827. Three days later I looked out the windows to see a procession of nearly 20,000 people walking through the streets of Vienna to honor his memory. After that I moved into a music publisher’s house then lived with celebrity pianist-composer Franz Liszt for almost thirty years before he donated me to the museum in Budapest in 1874.
It wasn’t by chance that Liszt and I became roommates. I would call it a déjà vu happening because of his studies with Carl Czerny, one of Beethoven’s pupils. When Liszt was eleven years old Czerny brought him over to our apartment and although Beethoven was skeptical about meeting prodigies Liszt changed his mind – so much so that he predicted the kid would make a big splash in the world of music. He was right on.
I’m the luckiest piano in the world to have known Ludwig van Beethoven. Stop by the Budapest museum sometime and say Hello. I might even give you some more scoop about him and Liszt who revolutionized piano playing and is considered by many to have created the Tristan motive elucidated by Wagner.
Then Broadwood’s pearly keys flashed a jumbo yawn and the old piano was ready for some down time.