My newsfeed exploded this week with posts about Ludwig van Beethoven‘s 250 birthday.

trigger warning: If you love Beethoven, be prepared to hate me.
2nd trigger warning: I’m about to mention abortion, but this post has nothing to do with the being pro-life or pro-choice. So for goodness sake, don’t comment on it. If you must send me a hate-comment, do so because I am throwing shade at Beethoven.

There’s a pro-life meme that’s been travelling around for some time – there are variations, but it goes something like this:

“A syphilic mother of eight handicapped children becomes pregnant. Should she have an abortion? If you said yes, you just killed Beethoven!”

Just for the record, this is incorrect. Ludwig was the 2nd born, and the oldest surviving child in his family, and I won’t get into the logic issues of the argument.

So it’s Beethoven’s 250th birthyear. That means that musicians all around the world will be programming MORE Beethoven on their concerts this year. I can’t say I’m particularly excited.

To be clear: I love the music of the great composers of the past. There is a reason that masterpieces stand the test of time – their message is enduring, they are crafted perfectly, or they evoke a sublime reaction. If I didn’t think it was worth keeping these pieces alive, this blog wouldn’t exist.

So here’s my Beefoven with Beethoven. You can hear his symphonies performed live every year – at least the best six of the nine. If you look at orchestra repertoire in general, the composers are overwhelmingly dead. This chart from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra takes into account thousands of concerts and shows living composers represent 12.3% of pieces performed (and I get a sense that the chart is bragging about how high that number is). A rough estimation based on this chart suggests that Beethoven is performed 25% of the time – one composer, getting twice the amount of performances as ALL living composers combined.

Ok, so his music is great. It’s hard to argue against that. But let’s go back to the “would you abort Beethoven” meme. Today, a syphilic mother of eight handicapped children needn’t worry that she might abort the next Beethoven; nobody will perform the child’s music anyway, because they’re too occupied with overplaying the first Beethoven’s music.

Now throw in the concerns that orchestras are failing to attract young or diverse audiences. Living composers are far more likely to bring musical ideas to the stage that would attract new audiences – not only with new sounds and styles, but also by addressing current issues or events. And using living composers would allow orchestras to actually diversify their repertoire and include more women and non-white composers. (go back to the chart from the Baltimore Symphony. A whopping 1.3% of music performed is by women composers. The chart doesn’t even mention race; I’m willing to bet it’s because the percentage of black composers would be even lower than women.)

But no, no, no, let’s not change anything. Let’s play Beethoven’s 5th for the birthday boy for the 5,555,555th time.

Which is more valuable: being able to read music or being able to play by ear?

Maybe you’ve had some good armchair arguments on this subject. Team Aural (ear) will point at the multitude of musicians who couldn’t read a note (and no, not all of the musically illiterate were popular or jazz musicians), and were unhindered by this supposed deficiency. Team Literacy*** usually concedes to this, but points out how foolish it is to purposefully not learn something that would be hugely beneficial. The negative stereotypes would be the ear-only rock musician who can only play three chords and a handful of tunes, or the stuffy, classical music reader who merely translates dots on a page into notes, playing without any feeling, and not connecting with the audience.

The truth, naturally, is that both literacy and ear are hugely important. A child can learn stories and life lessons aurally, but it would be ridiculous to use that as an excuse to not teach reading and writing; it is equally ridiculous to reject musical literacy. And just as we teach reading comprehension, musicians must learn to do more than reproduce the printed dots into sound. I need not go into any more detail here – you get the idea.

So when you think about it, the legend of Beethoven‘s Third Piano Concerto isn’t as amazing as it may seem. When it was first performed, the composer himself performed the solo piano part – which had yet to be written down! We have this tidbit from his page turner:

*** I say “Literacy” as opposed to “Eye” because there are many blind musicians who are musically literate – just as braille text books exist, so do braille scores!

When I was a wee lad, my father gave me a CD of Bach’s harpsichord concertos as a birthday present. Yes, I was a nerd.

Fast-forward 25+ years to my middle-aged self, over-educated, and packed with esoteric tidbits of musical knowledge. I pull out the aforementioned CD for a birthday listen. Only there is something quite wrong about what I hear.

… this harpsichord is playing with sensitive dynamics!

You might have heard that the piano used to be called the pianoforte – literally, “soft-loud.” This is because before the piano’s keyboard predecessors (the organ and harpsichord) didn’t have velocity-sensitive keys (to oversimplify the matter). No matter how hard you hit the key, the resulting note will always be the same volume.

Now, those of us who play the harpsichord are used to creating the illusion of dynamics by altering our articulation and shortening/elongating notes, among other things. But this recording is not an illusion … there is some witchcraft here! If you listen carefully at 6:40-6:55, you can hear the harpsichord get gradually softer – it sounds as if someone is silently closing the lid of the instrument, muffling the sound. Or, perhaps the recording engineer just turned down a volume know to make the upcoming crescendo more effective. (***NOTE: this recording is no longer on YouTube, so you won’t hear the dynamic changes in this video.)

The big question is, is this morally right? Ok, so this is not exactly a life-and-death situation here, but it does make you think. Possible arguments (in no particular order):

1. Historic Authenticity: Bach certainly didn’t have a volume knob to turn down, and it’s unlikely he had someone standing next to the harpsichord to slowly close the lid in order to create a decrescendo. So this performance is “wrong”?
2. Musicality trumps Historic Authenticity: If Bach could have turned a volume knob, he would have. This performance sounds better with the added dynamics. So this performance is “right”?
3. Musicality trumps Historic Authenticity, part 2: If Bach had access to a 13-foot Steinway, this would be a piano concerto instead. So it is equally “right” and arguably better to play this on the piano?
4. There are hundreds of factors that go into every performance according to the resources available and needs of the performers/audience, blurring the lines of “right” and “wrong” into a big smeary gray area.
5. Who gives a care anyway?

As for me, I’m with #4. I’m not sure a pure historically authentic performance (#1) can be achieved because we cannot help but look at the past through our present selves. Assuming a dead composer would agree with our ideals (#2 & #3) is dangerous, pretentious, and stupid. And as for #5 – I do in fact give a care!