Sheer heroism lit Beethoven's career

Auckland is about to host a Beethoven extravaganza.
HEATH LEES considers what has made him classical music's Guv'nor.

A tidal wave of Beethoven will break over Auckland audiences this week.

On Thursday, the Auckland Philharmonia opens the programme with one of the mighty Ludwig's overtures and closes it with his Fourth Symphony.

The next day the NZSO begins a two-night barrage of Beethoven that includes his famous Fifth "Emperor" piano concerto and Seventh Symphony.

On Saturday there's the massive Choral Symphony, as well as the Fourth Piano Concerto, a work that's almost as famous as the Fifth (concerto that is, not the fifth symphony, which is classical music's most famous mega-hit of all time).

What's Beethoven's appeal? What has made him classical music's Guv'nor, able to fill halls and magically reverse the fortunes of financially hard-pressed orchestras?

Part of it has to do with the sheer heroism of the man's career. The son of a boozy singer who saw his boy's talents as the yellow brick road to fame and fortune, Beethoven was frequently pulled out of bed at dawn to practise under his father's bleary but ruthless eye.

Encouraged by wealthy friends (one of whom had his name immortalised in the "Waldstein" piano sonata), he went from his home town of Bonn to Vienna, only to be called back when his mother died suddenly and he had to take charge of the family duties.

A few years later, back in Vienna, at last becoming known as its most famous pianist/composer, he was struck by an incurable deafness that would become progressively worse. It was as though Fate was barring his path at every step. Any career but music, you would think.

Yet Beethoven put his own struggle and fury into the music he wrote and created a vast world for himself - and us - through sounds he could no longer hear, but could still imagine.

It was this power of human imagination to overcome enormous physical limitations that made Beethoven great, and allowed his most heroic music to ring true.

Even in his time, Beethoven's stature was recognised. When he reached middle age, the Viennese, who have a habit of acknowledging their best composers only when they are dead, knew that someone special was living among them.

When a self-styled "King of Westphalia" set up court in a neighbouring town he set out to make Beethoven his court composer, with an offer he couldn't refuse. But the wealthy Viennese banded together and came up with an even better offer for him to stay.

Now, Beethoven is an icon that draws old and young audiences everywhere. Cartoons, toys, and busts have poured out from the Beethoven-business and transformed his forbidding glare, huge brow and long, straggly hair into something cuddly and personable - a fierce uncle with a heart of gold.

Here in Auckland, the record shops parade his instantly recognisable head as a logo, with trendy earphones plugged in. Like the best icons, Beethoven belongs to everyone and his message is universal.

But aside from good old-fashioned heroism and the marketing razzmatazz of today, there's something that never loses its effect - his music. Somehow it manages to survive everything we do to it.

How could the film Picnic at Hanging Rock have projected its aura of unreality had it not been for the dreamlike sounds of the fifth piano concerto's slow movement?

Thousands of soap-powder adverts continue to flow gently over the musical bed of his "Pastoral" symphony, and the unforgettable opening "Da-da-da-DAH" of his fifth symphony has become the unique symbol in sound for any dramatic event, from war to court scenes and even supermarkets.

Yet remarkably, back in the concert hall, without the distractions of film, adverts or TV, the music still works. It has something to do with the satisfaction level.

Classical music demands effort from its listeners. They get satisfaction from putting their energy into the music, while rock audiences get their energy out of the music.

For the classical music fans, the energy is worth it when the grasp of the music's pattern and its emotional effect seems to click magically, and you feel transported.

Through his own hard and refining experience, Beethoven found the key to making the musical idea and the musical effect come together perfectly. No matter how carried away you become, there's always a part of you that admires the way his musical material keeps spinning itself out of itself, opening new horizons, shaping the musical world in a way that unites drama with beauty.

Beethoven is the Guv'nor because his marvellous music continues to be powerful and memorable, even when it has stopped and the orchestras have left. It reaches parts of us that other music can't reach, and it stays around until the next time. No one quite knows why.