(#7221 Cont'd) According to the eminent musicologist, Manfred von Schildkr”ten, we have not the slightest chance of understanding Beethoven's ouevre without a meticulous study of his underlying character. The truth is, trends of modern punditry to the contrary, that the "real" Beethoven was quite a cut-up, an inveterate quipster and diabolical practical joker.
History traces back first evidence of this to his formative years in Bonn. According to one of his early companions, one Hugo Gewitterschutz, Beethoven was constantly coining jokes and riddles and guffawing uproariously at his own tortuous humor. His early work regrettably inclined to the sophomoric and even tedious; for example, we can convincingly attribute to him the invention of the Handquasselstrippe, (or "joy buzzer"), his early tutor Salieri apparently being the first noteworthy victim. Dinner hosts were wont to encounter a perfectly crafted synthetic dogmerde of truly gargantuan proportions on their kitchen floor. A new acquaintance would invariably be greeted with "Hi! Call me Ludwig! Klopf Klopf!" (being in English, "Knock Knock").
Interestingly, Beethoven would for his entire life pose his intimate acquaintances a particularly vexing riddle: "Warum hat das Hhnchen die Straáe gekreuzt?" or, approximately, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" Sadly, Beethoven took a fiendish delight in never telling anyone the answer. Thus, the solution has most likely been lost to posterity, and has spawned more than two hundred PhD theses speculating upon this arcane bit of Beethoven trivia. We may indeed be grateful that the lightbulb had not yet been invented.
It is to his later tutor and mentor, Haydn, that we can most likely attribute the dour outward demeanor of his adulthood. Admonishing him that no one would ever take him seriously as a musician, Haydn forced Beethoven to spend endless hours glowering, grimacing and snarling in front of a mirror, perfecting the weighty scowl and deeply furrowed brow which characterize all known portraits of the great composer. At even the slightest hint of a grin, Haydn would bash him repeatedly in the head with his metronome.
The scholar Manschettenknopf also notes that it was about this time that Beethoven's hairline began to recede severely, the unfortunate result of Beethoven's lavish use of an apparently lye-based haircream. His whole young life, Beethoven was said to have been stricken with a cowlick of utterly promethean proportions, and this caustic tonic was apparently the only thing he had ever found that would keep it from springing up like a jack-in-the-box under the most embarrassing of circumstances. This dire hairloss affliction caused him lifelong anguish (see the later "šberunterdorf Testament"), and certainly must have contributed to his disagreeable countenance going forward.
In order to maintain his new and eminently grouchy persona, Beethoven was forced to resort largely to more clandestine practical jokes, in the main perpetrated on luckless adversaries in the musical world. There is, for example, the infamous "Heiáfuá" or so-called "hotfoot" episode, indeed as far as we know the first documented execution of this diabolical prank.
In this instance, Beethoven had invited the world-renowned violinist, Fritz Ziegekopf, to perform the Vienna premiere of his Violin concerto. Over one too many beers one night before the premiere, the virtuoso bragged contemptuously to someone at the bar, Hach!! Ich k”nnte dieses Stck Abfall auf einem Fuá auf und ab hopfend spielen!!, or, approximately, "Hah!! I could play this piece of offal hopping up and down on one foot!!" Fatefully, that someone happened to be Beethoven's barber, who conveyed word of this shocking slight to the great composer. Beethoven was mortified, and vowed to Heaven to obtain redress. So it was that during the premiere, in the last movement, shortly before a particularly taxing glissando passage, one of the violinists deviously placed a lit match under Ziegekopf's boot. He thereupon took off on a frenzied impromptu one-footed jig back and forth the length of the stage that lasted a good five or six bars. To his credit, Ziegekopf apparently did not miss a note, at least making good on his boast. Beethoven thereafter referred to the famous violinist as "Herr Pogostck."
Incidentally, while we cannot here possibly begin to address the issue of Beethoven's barber (a certain Jochem Purzelbaum) and the seminal role he played in Beethoven's life in later years, it is noteworthy that the man was apparently afflicted his whole adult life with severe cataracts. But Beethoven insisted even to his deathbed that "he's the only one who can make my hair look like this!"
However, Beethoven's most notorious act of mischief was saved for the eminent soprano of the day, Amalie Taubezehe, whom he had invited to sing the role of the heroine Leonore in his first and, thankfully, only opera, Fidelio. Beethoven was smitten with her down to his stockings, and was heard to make various rude remarks to her regarding his Dirigentsstock (or "conductor's baton") during the rehearsals. However, she spurned the great man contemptuously to his face and even went as far as to make fun of his sadly denuded and glistening pate, thus inadvertently sealing her dark fate.
Beethoven bided his time until the premiere to exact his horrific revenge. So it was that just prior to the the showstopping soprano aria in Act II, O Floristan, Ihr Waschraum ist leider auáer Papier ("Oh Floristan, your Water Closet is sadly out of Paper"), he serruptitiously handed out an entirely new score to the orchestra, identical to the old one except in a key a third of an octave higher than the old one. This had the unfortunate effect of converting Amalie's easily made final high note of a high "B" into an impossible high "E". Amalie realized something very big was amiss, and began furiously gesticulating into the orchestra pit at Beethoven throughout the entire aria. But she attempted to stay the course rather than suffer the ultimate humiliation of having to leave the stage. Alas, her desperate shot at the final high note came to be known ever after in musical circles as Das groáe Todesr”cheln or "the Great Deathrattle," and in fact the note was so hideous that the audience commenced to pelt her with rotten vegetables that Beethoven had conveniently arranged to be left in the aisles for just such an occasion. She was never able to rid herself of the nicknameDer Schreieuhudame, or roughly, "the screech owl woman," and her career was in ruins ever after. She became a recluse and ever more obsessed with hitting a high "E," until, sadly, she was finally murdered by a neighbor at the behest of his wife, who had recently had triplets. |
