Today is the anniversary of Beethoven's birth, it is also the beginning of the Christmas novena which in the Mexican culture is marked by a series of posadas that are supposed to mark the pilgrimage of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem.
Several years ago I sang in the choir of the Methodist church in Puebla, Mexico. Protestants don't observe Posadas but it is hard to compete against them so they had Noches Invernales, winter nights, which were bland except for the fact that the choir usually rehearsed before the party. I remember learning Beethoven's Alleluia which made the trek to Bethlehem more solemn than any posada.
Ludwig van Beethoven wrote some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard, one of my favorites is a string quartet he wrote after he almost died. Another is the Kreutzer violin sonata which was originally written for a mulatto violinist who was quite the performer. Sonata Mullattica is a book of poetry by Ria Dove that tells about that sonata which the mullatto George August Polgreen Bridgetower did play, but Kreutzer pronounced unplayable. But for most people Beethoven and the Ode to Joy are synonimous. That piece is, of course, part of the 9th Symphony which Beethoven composed but never heard.
The Christmas story is beautiful and inspiring, but so are the life stories of people like Beethoven and Bridgetower who overcame incredible odds and left a legacy of beauty and musical complexity that continue to inspire, and I dare say, will go on enlivening spirits for many years to come.
Ignacio Castuera
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