Beethoven in My Hood

After I dropped Mimi and Pop off on their cruise Sunday, I walked to the nearby Beethoven House to learn a little more about this famous musician's life in Vienna. (I saved some of the less exciting museums for my solo sightseeing. Not everyone is into one-room living histories of the places famous musicians slept.) I am, however, extremely interested in such things, and I was excited to learn that Beethoven was my neighbor! That's right, in 1815, Ludwig himself lived right next door to where I'm housesitting! I walk by his former abode each morning on my way to the tram. What could be cooler than that!

This is also very near the spot where Beethoven wrote the famous Heiligenstadt Testiment, his anguished cry against oncoming deafness and unrealized future brilliance. I bought a book of his letters at the Spui bookshop street in Amsterdam last month. His literary voice alternated between haughtiness and righteousness, but then most geniuses aren't out to win popularity contests with their peers.

Since the discovery of my proximity to historical greatness, I have been pumping the classical music on borrowed CDs in my borrowed setting. I took Music 100 while at Augustana, and amazingly, I remember almost nothing of the course. I actually earned an A+, which means I must have read my text (and probably was a brownnoser and did extra credit), but this would also lead one to believe I know something about classical music. I mean, I do, I know the names of composers and I can tell you their famous works, but I remember disconcertingly little from a semester-long course, other than a rather disturbing lecture my professor gave in full 17th century dress.

But there's no time like the present to hone my classical music knowledge. I am surrounded by its history and living embodiment, and I still have six other famous composers' houses to visit!