As the maestro's 250th birth anniversary is celebrated today by the world for an extended double year, a daughter remembers her family's personal dedication to this colossus
Beethoven mulled over every measure, sitting for long periods over his notations. Pics courtesy/Musical Journeys By Homi Dastoor
Never have global gigs paying tribute to a musician been planned with as much grandeur and gusto. If anyone deserves a birthday bash stretching strong over two years, it is Ludwig van Beethoven, believe his worshippers.
A celebratory series of concerts, exhibitions and artistic reappraisals struck up from January, until the pandemic scuppered them. Instead of being trimmed, they have already reaped fine adaptations—innovative digital versions, reinterpreted rooftop performances, online Hope at Home shows and even World Environment Day greeted with fresh versions of the Pastoral Symphony. The Beethoven-Haus in his birthplace Bonn, Germany, reopened in compliance with social distancing and the city's self-guided "On the trail of Ludwig van Beethoven" walking tour marks halts at 11 key stops.
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Beethoven composing the visionary last quartets, isolated by deafness and ill health. This illustration by Oswald Barrett (The Oxford Companion to Music, edited by Percy A Scholes) shows the piano shattered by his effort to hear his written music
An extension of events takes off tomorrow with Daniel Barenboim at Bonn Opera House. Highlights till September 2021 include open-air concerts fronting the University of Bonn, where young Beethoven played, simultaneous performances by the Beethoven Orchester Bonn and Vienna Symphony Orchestra. The programmes will sign off staging his hometown's signature Beethoven Festival.
"Beethoven reinvented himself many times. He created wonderful music when he could barely hear. He would certainly have approved of making the best of this situation," said Malte Boecker, Beethoven Anniversary Society artistic director, in The Telegraph, UK. The sentiment must be rapturously applauded by Beethoven buffs like my Dad, declaring their shock-headed hero, supreme composer to stride the earth, wrote not for an age, but for eternity.
An imperious and exacting conductor, he used sharp gesticulation to impress his will on the orchestra
Avowed lover of Western Classical scores, my father authored the book Musical Journeys when he was 90. Its foreword by Zubin Mehta began: "I salute Homi Dastoor wholeheartedly, for introducing not only young people, but the general public at large, to this most painstakingly detailed introduction to Europe's great composers."
The compilation traced the life and work of 34 legendary composers (from Palestrina's birth in 1525 to Stravinsky's death in 1971), each bringing novelty of notation to his times. We watched this labour of love take shape. Referenced from yellowed ledgers with pages he handwrote in libraries, copying passages from books he couldn't afford buying as a 1940s Sydenham College student.
British edition of Beethoven's sonatas. Speaking of the British on his death-bed, he concluded: "God bless them"
Music was everywhere in our home, booming from a Garrard player I still have. The volume upped for listening pleasure ensured the strains reached each room. Whatever corner of the house you were at, there they were. Bach to Brahms, Schubert to Sibelius, Mozart to Mendelssohn, their brilliance second breath to us.
That happened literally from the cradle. After my mother got over some slight initial alarm, my pram was blithely parked in the living room below stacked records rocking me to sleep. Dad recommended the loud bedtime routine to friends with kids, proud his baby daughter scrunched shut her eyes within a minute of the Merry Widow waltz's melodic opening bars.
Homi Dastoor authored the book Musical Journeys at the age of 90, in homage to the life and works of his favourite composers, led by Beethoven. Pic/Sooni Taraporevala
Not a day went without the beautiful sound of music. Composers and musicians became family members. Dad had clear favourites. Beethoven and Jascha Heifetz. Unabashed in his devotion to these virtuosos, he fervently wished his children shared birthdays with them. My brother came close, a day after wizard-of-the-violin Heifetz. Disappointing him, I greeted the world two whole weeks before Beethoven had a couple of centuries ago.
Their birthdates—Heifetz's on February 2, Beethoven's December 16— stay stamped in our minds. Not only were the maestros' photographs and marble busts nestled benignly beside our ancestral portraits, but their birthdays also had to be properly observed. We tucked into festive breakfast treats of sev and ravo, sweet dishes Parsis typically prepare on auspicious occasions.
Homi Dastoor authored the book Musical Journeys at the age of 90, in homage to the life and works of his favourite composers, led by Beethoven. Pic/Sooni Taraporevala
Remembering those red-letter days way before they dawned was an amazingly supportive wife. Ticking a checklist of ingredients, flurried mum worried—"Enough almonds? What about rava? And raisins?" I joked she more carefully stocked up for Beethoven's birthday than mine a fortnight before. Gamely she encouraged what we thought was madness then, knowing better now.
We marvelled how he could demystify an intimidating genre. From adagio rising to allegro, he explained music as metaphor, remarkably linking everyday episodes and contemporary scenes to an appreciation of Beethoven. If a full moon shimmered on the Arabian Sea waters, he hummed the first movement of the "Moonlight" piano sonata in C-sharp Minor, telling us the poet-critic Ludwig Rellstab likened its effect to the moon shining on Lake Lucerne. When I returned from spending the summer of 1989 in a Berlin journalism school, the historic Wall dismantled that November. To honour the triumph, he informed me, Christmas Day was witnessing Leonard Bernstein conduct the Ninth Symphony's exultant rendition of Schiller's Ode to Joy.
On retiring, Dad decided to pick up the violin. At 75, he was tutored by 25-year-old Kenneth D'Souza of the Bombay Philharmonic. Never too late to learn, he'd say, smiling as he touched bow to strings. Nor to write books. Solitarily, slowly, writing chapters of neat manuscript in firm longhand. With neither a computer nor dictating text, he researched passionately till late night, eyes fatigued yet mind fired.
It was Beethoven he lay so gently with in his last hours. Lighting the traditional diya near his head, I tried to think which Avesta verses needed chanting till the priest arrived. My good friend Himanshu resolved things, simply saying, "Music was prayer for Homi Uncle. Let him have his Beethoven."
He did. From the richly sonorous Appassionata piano sonata to the magisterial single violin concerto Beethoven wrote in D Major. The situation confounded neighbours receiving news of his passing. Evenings were when Mr Dastoor listened to music daily and it was blaring as usual. Puzzled, they gingerly asked, was what they'd heard true?
The cadenced calm and abiding grace of that night will always remain with me. As warm condolence messages poured in, wishing Dad rest in peace, I just knew he would.
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