I sit in a
cafe, casually sipping my coffee mooching on my mobile phone, and in the
background are the strains of old remembered tunes being played over the
system. Most public watering holes and eateries play tunes to keep us from
uncomfortable silence. Most people can’t bear the quiet. It makes them antsy. Other
places belt out a little ‘katze’ music, irritating
those of us seeking peace and quiet or just some soothing notes to drown out
the street sounds – a matter of taste - which promptly drives me to down my
beverage in one and exit the establishment with alacrity. It’s done
intentionally I think, to get the customers moving. Today though, I find the
music appealing. So I stick around (seems I’m welcome here) and watch the world
go by. It got me thinking about our relationship with music. Something we take
for granted usually. It’s available to us all the time.
Music! We
all know it, we all listen to it and chances are you will favourite a genre, an
artist/s and will never have known a world without music unless you were born
profoundly deaf. So name your tune...pop, rock, metal, folk, soul, classical,
world, rap, jazz, blues, hip-hop...you get my drift. There will be a tune out
there that will make you want to dance, sing, hum, cry and laugh. Or puke, rant,
snort or raise your eyebrows until they disappear into your hairline. It’s even
therapeutic, soothing and healing. It’s done wonders for me when I’ve wanted to
shut out other people’s noise. It’s better than hitting them with a shoe, isn’t
it? Saves you from all that unpleasant interaction with fellow simians.
It is said
that without music there is no culture. I would go further and say that our
expression would be stunted without it. Music goes back to our prehistory, it
has grown and evolved over time and become humankinds ultimate and most exalted
achievement in my opinion, simply because it is the one thing that every single
human-being can relate to in this world. It doesn’t matter what you’re into, music
transcends barriers. Ever listened to a song or a musical piece and felt moved
by it? Something resonates, right? Well, depending on where I am in life,
different things will appeal to me. I will come across something that suddenly
fits my particular state of mind at that point, or simply grabs my attention
because for some reason it sparks my interest in that given moment. I’m a tart
like that. I have interests, but I’m not always loyal to them because I don’t usually
devote 100% to any given topic, hobby or pastime. My musical promiscuousness
is no less different. I’ll casually meander through some random media and
suddenly a tune will sound that is completely different from my usual aural
fare, and I’m smitten. That’s what music does; it infects your soul like a
virus when the recipe is right.
I listen to
all sorts of music and recently I have been educating myself with regard to
classical music. I don't play any instruments (more fool me) and I don't read music, but I realise that its influence permeates much of our modern
music today, so I figure it’s time I learnt a little on the subject. Some things
I am familiar with. I know who Mozart is. I think of the film ‘Amadeus’ and
remember the actor’s maniacal laugh. Not sure Mozart was that imbecilic outside
of his musical genius, but who’s to say? I wasn’t there. Bach has a rather
robust face like perhaps he raided the larder one too many times, and also
sports a curly wig that would make a barber jealous. Vivaldi looks like the
Mona Lisa with a violin and then we have the unruly haired, scowling Ludwig.
Beethoven is
my current beau, and I’m a little in love with him, even though he’s been dead
since 1827. His music has lasted over
the centuries and influenced a whole generation of new composers to leave Classicism
behind and embark on their own unique, personal vision instead. Thus
Romanticism was born and Beethoven lead the way in turning the usual into the unusual. His early influences were Haydn and Mozart but he soon evolved towards a more mature distinctive style until eventually he became the master of the sublime. Don’t get me wrong,
there have been other genius composers on this earth, each with something
extraordinarily talented to offer the world. But Ludwig gave us his soul so
very completely - the bombastic, thunderous, celebratory Ode to Joy, for
example – his final Ninth Symphony that sealed his fate as an ‘immortal’. He
overcame a difficult childhood, ill-health and a hearing impairment to give us
some of the most passionate classical music ever written. He paved the way for
the future form of music in the western world.
Beethoven
was said to be a difficult, irascible man at times, and who can blame him
considering his terrible abdominal afflictions, nagging depression (it is
thought he was bi-polar), migraines (hell I know what those feel like) and his
encroaching hearing loss – a devastating prognosis for a composer. And yet it
stirred him into a new found resolve. His intensity, his passion and his
indomitable spirit won over and from there he gave us his best music yet. He
was almost completely deaf when he wrote his Ninth Symphony. When it premiered
in Vienna on the 7th May 1824 it was well received:
“When the
audience applauded—testimonies differ over whether at the end of the scherzo
or the whole symphony—Beethoven was several measures off and still conducting.
Because of that, the contralto Caroline Unger walked over and turned Beethoven
around to accept the audience's cheers and applause. According to one witness,
"the public received the musical hero with the utmost respect and
sympathy, listened to his wonderful, gigantic creations with the most absorbed
attention and broke out in jubilant applause, often during sections, and
repeatedly at the end of them." The whole audience acclaimed him through standing
ovations five times; there were handkerchiefs in the air, hats,
raised hands, so that Beethoven, who could not hear the applause, could at
least see the ovation gestures.” (Wiki)
His hearing
problems unfortunately compelled him to live a solitary, lonely existence and thus
he never married. One mystery woman did manage to attain the grandeur of
becoming his ‘immortal beloved’. The jury is still out as to who she was, but
it proves that he did fall ‘in love’ as much as any other human-being but it
was rarely reciprocated. I guess the fantasy of love was more potent than the
reality. He was distinctly unlucky in
that respect. Underneath the gruff, proud almost cruel looking demeanour,
dwelled a deeply passionate man whose music was his life essentially: a lonely
man who felt misunderstood at best and was riddled with ailments.
“Oh you men who think
or say that I am malevolent, stubborn, or misanthropic, how greatly do you
wrong me? You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you.”
He had a
mercurial nature: he could be demonic in his rage, unreasonable, paranoid and yet also be kind and excessively
generous according to friends. He was a man of contradictions and a talented genius. How can one not
be intrigued by such a person? I often wonder if his personality might have
been less dark had his father not been the drunken, abusive man that he was, or
if his health were not quite so awful. Then again, this is part of what made
him so indomitable and strong. It pushed him to his limits. Every piece of music
reveals Beethoven’s inner life. His soul permeates every note of his music. Foremost
a pianist then a true composer he sits at the top of my pyramid of musical
composers. Ludwig Van Beethoven a flawed, tortured soul granted the gift of
music, knocking the world for six. A good tune will call you into being. Beethoven does just that. His gift to
humanity.
