A Present for Prof dbrk for Beethoven's B'Day [Archive]

dbrk

12-16-2003, 09:00 AM

Apparently dnovo knows about my near-obsessive interest in the Maestro and I want to thank him for the "gift". All I can say is that it's a good thing I don't know where you live and that I am as scared of lawyers as I am of the current Attorney General's policies regarding his view of patriots such as myself. Perhaps I share Beethoven's paranoia but I'm nearly as certain that he too would have found Banana Guy to be MORE THAN A LITTLE ANNOYING. (I am tempted to figure out how to send Mr Ashcroft an email with thousands of them everyday from now until, say, forever. Never miss an opportunity to do another a good turn, I say.) At this point I would actually pay cash money to Todd or Alyson to have BananaGuy removed PERMANENTLY. I would not pay dnovo to represent me not on this matter but may have to enlist Counselor Brynes to persuade me that I not send him a Howler (see Rowling) nor devolve into an apoplectic rage that would casue me to fire live ammunition at my own computer screen hoping to give BananaGuy (his actual name, just put your cursor over his STUPID dancing body...) a CharltonHeston right between the eyes. The as-paranoid-as-Beethoven-me thinks that Serotta's Forum moderators are delighted that I am so tweaked by this BananaBAS***D!!

As for the Maestro, you may know that he disputed the year of his birth with all the typical invective and insistence that characterized much of his correspondence, even with people he liked. December 17th is his proper baptismal date (suggesting the birth on the 16th), see Maynard Soloman's article, "Beethoven's Birth Year," MQ 56 (1970), 702-710, for the details of Beethoven's strange preoccupation with his own misconstrued ideas about his birth date. A propo of musical genius, a story: A few semester's back I team taught a graduate seminar at the Eastman School of Music with my colleague Robert Morris, Chair of Composition. We were studying the complexities of south Indian classical music. One evening, listening to a piece with more notes than Beethoven arpeggio, Bob walks up to the blackboard and, as the piece is playing, begins to write it down in musical notation. He listens, then writes down what he hears. (This same fellow composed his last symphonic piece while sitting on park benches, just listening to matters inside.) I say, "Bob, now _how_ do you do that?" He says, "You hear words and write them down. I hear music. It's no big deal." NO BIG DEAL? Okay, that's genius. It reminds me of the fact that Beethoven "heard" most of his great works only inside. None of this was particularly revelent to anything bicycle, but if you can put Beethoven in your head as well as these fellas "hear" the music then riding a bike would have a whole'nother dimension. I settle for verses in Sanskrit, when I'm not swearing in German (in deference to the Maestro) at dnovo for his kindness.

dbrk