February 26 - Beethoven Haus

Sunday, Feb 26 dawned cool and cloudy; there had even been a little rain overnight. Undaunted, I toddled into town and went to the Tourist Information centre. The rain became progressively heavier as I walked in and the lady behind the desk and I agreed that today was not a great day to hire the iPod and do the 90 minute walking tour of Bonn. That can wait for a more congenial Sonntag for that experience.

I thought I'd compromise, keep it mainly inside and make it a Beethoven in Bonn day.

So, armed with a pamphlet on notable Beethoven sites in Bonn, I hit the road beginning with the Beethoven Haus in Bongasse. This is the actual house where Ludwig was born way back in December 1770; the actual date is the 16th or 17th apparently. Given that Beethoven's father, when advertising the young lad's upcoming concert, was claiming he was six when he was actually seven, I guess one or two days difference is nothing compared to a reducing the count by a whole year. Apparently, Daddy Beethoven (Johann by name) seemed to think young Ludwig might be a budding Mozart and Mozart made his debut at (you guessed it) age six. Ludwig lived his entire life thinking he was a year younger than he actually was.

From the street, this is what the house looks like. The only surviving residence of the Beethovens during his time in Bonn. He moved to Vienna at age 21 and, for a variety of causes and reasons, just never came home again.

From there, I waked round the corner to Brüdergasse to the Parish Church of St. Religious. It was here that LvB started playing organ for the early morning mass at the ripe old age of 10. As deputy organist, he only got the early gigs and wasn't paid until he turned 13 and started school at the Minster school as well as playing organ for services at the Minster.

 There's been a church on this site since the Romans in the 3rd Century.

In this picture, are two sculptures representing the original rationale for the church. These guys were Roman martyrs, Cassius and Florentinus. They were buried on the site and the original church was built over their bodies back in the 3rd Century.

Just beside the Minster, we have a huge open square and this where we find the Beethoven monument. Most impressive; the pose of Ludwig is meant to suggest him looking forward and seeking inspiration. The statue was unveiled in 1845 to commemorate his 75th birthday.

Finally, I battled the rain (ok more of a persistent drizzle really but it was only 2C and kind of miserable) out to the Beethoven Hall to see the concrete statue of LvB. Amazing work really; from the side it loses its effect. The concrete is designed in waves, about 1 metre long, so it looks a little weird from the side.

But, get directly in front of the piece and there's our boy in that classic image we know from all of those tee-shirts. Check it out

The effect is quite smart. Given that the German word for concrete is 'beton', the piece is called 'Beethon'. In the background you can see the Beethoven Auditorium. I'm going to have to get a ticket to a concert or two there as the locals like to skite about how good the acoustics in this hall are.

So back to Bonn Zentrum and grab a bite of lunch and a coffee. Have I mentioned the coffee yet? It's great, seemingly from every outlet.

Then back to the Beethoven Haus which is set up as a museum to the great man. Amazingly, his friends made this call not long after Beethoven's death. And they've been seriously gathering documentation, instruments and any other artifacts they can get their hands on since the the mid-1850's. So you can imagine their horde is to die for.

But I brought no expectations to this visit as the people at work I spoke to basically said, sure you have to go to the Beethoven museum in Bonn but you know, it's not that cool. I guess being dragged there when you're a primary school kid puts a bit of a dampener on excitement level.

The trick is to make sure you pay the extra €2 and get the audio guide. This is a 12 room place and some folks wobbled thru in 30minutes but the audio gadget brings the whole thing alive and I was there for almost 2 hours. The device is a little clunky (it feels like a late 1980's mobile phone) and would be better served if you could use your iPod headphones because there is so much cool information and wonderful music that's being played, it would be better if the sound quality was ramped up a little.

Sorry, but there are no photos allowed in the museum but more than 150 years of collecting time has allowed them to acquire some neat stuff. With more than a 1000 of Beethoven's documents in storage on site this is a place for real Beethoven research as well as general interest.

So here you will find pianos he played, laid out in the format he preferred in his house in Vienna. There's a princely gift of a quartet of stringed instruments given as appreciation for the string quartet he wrote; a princely gift as it was given by a Prince. Sadly, there's even a display of his ear trumpets; everyone knows Beethoven's deafness but I never really understood how early it set in. Again, the audio guide really helped here. They had some playback to simulate what they figured his hearing would have been like at ages 34, 52 and just before his death at 56. The progression of his deafness was steady and dramatic and was a source of great embarrassment and frustration to the maestro. Even at 34, his deafness was so bad that he could not hear the high notes. He'd be told how beautifully a flute was being played and he would be unable to hear anything. Next to the ear trumpets, there were a series of 'Conversation Books'. Basically, these were note books that his friends would write questions in so he could have some semblance of conversations. There's something incredibly moving about being here and viewing these items, having audibly gained an appreciation for the profoundness of his deafness.

20,000 people came to stand outside his house the day he died. This was around half the population of Vienna at the time, so a pretty good turn out in anyone's language. Even though he'd acquired a reputation as bit of a recluse (and given that he couldn't hear anyone, maybe that was understandable) the majesty of his music still drew people to him.

This is the outside of his house. The front of the house belonged to his landlord and this doorway was the doorway the Beethovens would have used. That's kind of neat in itself; 'I'm using the same doorway Beethoven used'.

But from there, you can move to a computer studio where you can place head phones on, listens to his music and read a little more of his documentation on the computer screen.

From there, you move into the museum shop and can buy everything Beethoven from mugs to DVDs to tee-shirts to chocolates to books to, believe it or not, a replica of Beethoven's death mask. There's a conversation starter if ever there was one!

Never married, he seemed to have access to a lot of women. They all came to him for piano lessons and it got to the point where I thought the audio guide was using the expression 'came to Beethoven for piano lessons' as a euphemism for less salubrious activities.

The other thing that saved him financially was the publishing of his work. The company started by Herr Simrock became the premier printing house from music in Bonn, then in Germany and then across Europe. The only reason I can remember his name is that Simrockstraße is the street I walk up when coming back to the hotel from the local supermarket. I'm assuming it's named after the publisher. So Herr Simrock would approach Beethoven and pay him for the rights to publish his work. The growing interest from the burgeoning middle class in music meant there was a huge market for sheet music, especially music for the new fangled pianoforte device. Although copyright was nothing like it is today, there were enough good folks who would make sure to look after the artist. The public also came to follow those who had done a deal with the artist as there were less mistakes in the manuscripts. What it meant for the artist was a steady income stream meaning the days of patronage from the church or local royalty were coming to an end. Then, like now, a successful artist could survive, even live well and maintain some artistic control.

So what looked like being a washout turned into an absolute belter of a day. His music was as wonderful as his life was tragic.

I'd recommend the museum to anyone with even a vague interest in music or history. If its both, then you'll have a lovely day.

One last image. This was on a wall in one of the subways. In spite of the crude graffiti, this image encapsulates Beethoven and Bonn. They are intertwined with the German, English and French words for Joy living with Bonn. This is the town's motto and so far it is delivering.

Talk to you next week.