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| Warhol/Beethoven |
Tuesday April 5: We started the second German work book today after taking up homework. I was starting to get worried because I really didn’t want to just bike right home again. So after class I just biked down the Museumalle . I was thinking of going into the Museum Konig but it’s eco museum so I thought I ‘d save that for a trip with Elke. The road led me past the Bonn University, and then I decided I’d finally do The Beethoven-Haus; It was a gloomy day anyhow. I was very excited because I’ve been wanting to do it for a while. I took an audio guide because thats the only real way you can get your money and full interest out of it. 20 Bonngasse, where I was, was Beethoven’s birth place (1770), and one of the many homes he lived in around the area (the others have not survived). The house itself is small and in fact, the Beethoven family had shared it with another family because they were not a wealthy family. Beethoven’s father, a member of a choir had pushed his son’s talent at a very young age and had many strict teachers and lots of other famous composers he would befriend include Hayden and Shubert. He had even advertised his son as a wunderkind like Mozart, and presented him as a 6 year old composer. If fact, Beethoven, did not know himself until later in his life that he was actually a year older than he thought. There were many incredible original instruments own and played by Beethoven, even as a boy, including violas, pianos, wood wind instruments, oboes, flutes, and even the last remnants of a great organ with young Beethoven had performed regularely as a boy on at Church masses (the rest had been destroyed during WWII). It was great that the audio guides provided many pieces of his music as examples. A really interesting thing I noticed was a few original drawings of settings which I knew of including the Bonn Center and of Schloss Augustusberg in Brühl (where I have been already), where he had performed for the Elector there and had dedicated at least three sonatas (as a boy) to the Elector. The Haus had vast amounts of manuscripts and portraits and artefacts of Beethoven’s. Beethoven had actually lived most of his life in Vienna, but he had still regarded highly of his birthplace. There was this one bust/sculpture there which is the most accurate portrait of Beethoven because it was actually made from a life mask of him and you could even see a scar on his face which he had. Another really interesting artefact (I think the most) was his ear trumpets. Beethoven’s hearing problems were already a problem for him at 30, and it grew worse quickly, for he was almost/completely deaf by the end. There were a variety of his ear trumpets from smaller to very long and odd shaped. His Conversation books were also on display, which were used when his hearing was so poor, any sort of hearing aid would not help. The audio guide also gave me an interesting surprise. It gave examples of muffled songs of his music portraying of what he would have heard as his deafness worsened. That was very sad to hear; how could you compose such beautiful music and not hear it?! I guess that makes him even more amazing. There was a sculpture and painting of a woman and I found out that Beethoven had actually dedicated his breath-taking piano “Moonlight Sonata” to this girl Giulietta Guicciardi, who was around 18 when Beethoven gave her piano lessons at 30. As Beethoven had never married he had had a few close relationships with a few women, but music was his one true love. At the end of the rooms were his deathmask with was very irksome to look at. He died in 1827 in Vienna and about 20,000 mourners took part in his funeral.
Fidelio Opera: The characters
After I had finished looking through the museum I was interested in the Digital Beethoven Haus musical visualisation so I had to wait around for an hour for it to start. I went into the Digital Archives Studio, a computer room and looked and listen on stuff provided on Beethoven. I was thinking of buying an Andy Warhol/Beethoven Poster but realized I didn’t really need to buy it. Finally it was time and in the end, I was the only one going so I was escorted to the basement where it was. It was so amazing, I was in awe. The room was surrounded by speakers with played Beethoven’s opera “Fidelio, 21st Century”. Instead of having real life characters, you put on 3-D glasses and see the experimental visual interpretation of Beethoven’s works. With the help of 3-D graphics, these shapes were the characters in the opera and they moved around the room. They moved around with the intensity with the music, but the most incredible thing about it was you could be the one moving out the objects/characters, by pilling ropes, rolling a glass ball, moving your hand across a Column etc. So you could make the objects move closer to your face, farther away, and to the sides! They put on the English subtitles so I could also see what the characters were saying. The plot itself was a struggle between the protagonist Florestan, his wife Leonore, and antagonists Rocco and Pizarro. That was just incredible and exhilarating. I am so glad I waited! Still in awe, I left and almost had a heart attack because I couldn’t find my bike amongst all the other ones. I had circled around many times, and had almost given up thinking someone had stolen it or something even though I locked it but I did find it! So I biked home along the trail along the Rhein. See if interested: (http://www.beethoven-haus-bonn.de/sixcms/detail.php?template=portal_en)
The 3D Effect: Fidelio Opera
Wednesday April 6: We started talking about another different tense called Dativ but do not understand it. I asked the teacher after class but he said we will talk about it more in the next days. I would try to explain it to you but I don’t really understand it myself; it deals with der (masculine), die (feminine), das (neutral) again but everything we learned about t is switched around...The woman from UK and I were discussing that the only way to attempt to remember which tense the word gets is the be very sexist to remember. (ie: Only women do the washing, so waschmaschine is feminine, so it’s die waschmaschine).I got a postcard from my mother and my two beautiful nieces. It was a picture of Anne of Green Gables; oh how I miss the books and the movies and the kindred spirits! I was craving to stopping somewhere for lunch but told myself no, it’s a waste of money and I can make something at home that’s cheaper. So that sucked.
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| Beethoven Haus |
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| Beethoven |
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