Classical Music Forum banner

Beethoven and Race

29K views 69 replies 26 participants last post by  BiscuityBoyle 
G
#1 ·
I've searched but I haven't seen a thread on this. I feel if TC is to touch all the bases of classical music then this needs to be discussed.

Going through my sizable book collection, I came upon a series I had bought many years ago--"Sex and Race" by J. A. Rogers in three volumes. I remember reading these and finding them interesting although I didn't agree with a lot of the conjecture. For example, the black Madonna-and-child statues are not depicting Mary and Jesus as "Negro" as Rogers seems to think. Some of the other conjecture I cannot pass any judgment on as I am not an expert in these areas (or any areas to be painfully honest). One instance concerns Beethoven whom Rogers asserts had some African ancestry. Turns out it has quite a bit of presence on the internet both pro and con but Rogers was the first to raise the issue as far as I know.

Rogers presents some intriguing evidence (anecdotal though it is) of people who knew the composer or his biographers describing his complexion and facial traits:

"Rounded nose, black-brownish complexion." From Fischer's Beethoven The Man, Vol. 1, p. 1, 1929

"His beard--he had not shaved for several days--made the lower part of his already brown face still darker."--Carl Czerny from Beethoven: Impressions of his contemporaries, arranged by Oscar Sonneck, p. 26, 1926

From this same book, Beethoven is described as "dark" (Grillparzer, p. 154), "brown" (Bettina von Arnim, p.77), "brownish" (Rellstab, p. 180).

Gelinek describes him as "Short, ugly, dark" from Nohl's Beethoven Depicted By His Contemporaries, p. 37, 1880)

Fanny Giannatasio del Rio, who was in love with Beethoven, wrote in the biography, An Unrequited Love: An Episode in the Life of Beethoven, p.60, 1876: "Beethoven could not possibly be called a handsome man. His somewhat flat broad nose and wide mouth, his small piercing eyes and swarthy complexion, pockmarked into the bargain, gave him a strong resemblance to a mulatto."

According to Rogers, Beethoven's teacher, Haydn could also have been black and relates an incident of Beethoven biographer Thayer who heard from Andre de Hevesy who heard it from Carpani that when Prince Esterhazy first heard a new symphony he asked the name of the composer who was brought before him. "What!" exclaimed Esterhazy upon seeing Haydn for the first time, "the music is by this blackamoor? Well, my fine blackamoor, henceforward thou art in my service!" Carpani also stated that Haydn was after that frequently referred to as "the Moor." Rogers, though, does bring up the possibility that Haydn may actually have had a Turkish ancestry although he presents nothing concrete to back up the assertion.

Thayer brings up the incident in order to point that Beethoven "had even more of the Moor in his features than his master [Haydn]."

It should be an easy enough issue to settle, we have Beethoven's death mask:





Based on this alone, Beethoven could very well indeed have an African ancestry. I think all of us have seen black people that look like this. The real test is not so much that we study his ancestry or split hairs over whether he was Portuguese or Moorish as opposed to true "Negro." You can rationalize your way out of anything if you are determined enough. I agree with Rogers that the real test would be simply to dress him in American street clothes, stand him on any street corner in some city like Detroit or DC or Chicago or Compton and see how many people would immediately assume him to be just another black man.
 
See less See more
2
G
#6 ·
Now we might ask, what difference does it make? Maybe he was of African ancestry, so what? His music was beautiful and he is one of the most important people in the history of music. And I agree with that. But I also have to admit that part of me cares. Part of me says it does make a difference. Not because it bothers me that Beethoven was or wasn't black or mulatto or whatever but because if we don't care, we run the risk of becoming historically inaccurate and inaccurate history is worthless and, in fact, is not history but propaganda.
 
#32 ·
I thought I heard some African rhythms in the final movement of his 7th Symphony. It's all coming together now.
Not to mention the Boogie-woogie in his last piano sonata ...
 
#7 ·
Blacks were hardly unknown in classical-period Vienna. Besides the Chevalier de St. Georges, there was George Bridgetower, a virtuoso violinist and friend of Beethoven. Beethoven wrote his Kreutzer Sonata for Bridgetower and dedicated it to him as the "Mulatto Sonata composed for the mulatto Bridgetower, big wild mulatto composer," probably a bit tongue in cheek.

Of course Beethoven and Bridgetower had a falling out, as was typical with Beethoven, and he changed the dedication to Rodolphe Kreutzer, who disliked Beethoven's music and never played the piece.
 
G
#8 ·
Beethoven fell out with Haydn also but nevertheless spoke highly of him later in life. He was a very interesting fellow (I was going to say a very colorful fellow but decided for this thread it would not be a good choice of words).
 
#11 · (Edited)
Jesus was divine. He could have looked any way.
And since Europeans gave him to the world ...........................
In any event he wouldn't have looked mean or stupid like the pictures you chose :rolleyes:
 
G
#15 ·
Jesus was divine. He could have looked any way.
And since Europeans gave him to the world ...........................
Archaeologist John Romer gives a somewhat amusing explanation of how the standard Jesus portrait came to be: When Alexander conquered part of the world, like all rulers, his subjects often imitated or even lampooned his mannerisms. Alexander was hard of hearing and when someone spoke to him, he would cock his head, cup his hand to his ear, knit his brow in concentration and let his jaw kind of hang slack. This mannerism became very famous throughout his empire.

When artists sculpted statuary of Alexander, they incorporated this famous trait but idealized it into what became known as "the Dying Alexander" where his knit brow and slack jaw was made to look like he was yelling orders to his men while mortally wounded or ready to breathlessly make an exclamation of undying love--whatever the observer chose.



When artists in Europe painted portraits of the crucified Christ, they borrowed the Dying Alexander:



And this pose became the Western standard of male beauty designed to make ladies swoon:

 
G
#19 ·
This is more the response I was hoping for. Want it done right, you have to do it yourself, I suppose

http://www.academia.edu/4074689/Black_Beethoven_and_the_Racial_Politics_of_Music_History

I would also offer that were Beethoven to any degree provably black, we would know. Alexandre Dumas was part-black and his life and Beethoven's overlapped and nobody tries to hide it. Indeed it can't be hidden. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was part-black and he is hailed as one of the England's greatest composers although he lived a few decades later. So, if Beethoven was black to any meaningful degree of the word, we would simply know it.
 
#23 ·
If Beethoven has any African heritage at all then it's probably very distant - the only possible connection I can see is that his father's family originated from Flanders, most of which was part of the Spanish Netherlands for a long time, so maybe some folk of African origin (possibly via South America or the Caribbean) found themselves working for Spanish families in Flanders and eventually settled there. Still a very long shot, but possible.
 
#24 ·
"Rounded nose, black-brownish complexion." From Fischer's Beethoven The Man, Vol. 1, p. 1, 1929

"His beard--he had not shaved for several days--made the lower part of his already brown face still darker."--Carl Czerny from Beethoven: Impressions of his contemporaries, arranged by Oscar Sonneck, p. 26, 1926

From this same book, Beethoven is described as "dark" (Grillparzer, p. 154), "brown" (Bettina von Arnim, p.77), "brownish" (Rellstab, p. 180).

Gelinek describes him as "Short, ugly, dark" from Nohl's Beethoven Depicted By His Contemporaries, p. 37, 1880)

.
I'd always thought his brown complexion was because he didn't wash.

Did you know that Thelonius Monk was actually white?
 
#25 ·
I agree with Rogers that the real test would be simply to dress him in American street clothes, stand him on any street corner in some city like Detroit or DC or Chicago or Compton and see how many people would immediately assume him to be just another black man.
Well, Beethoven would be in utter shock, having just been resurrected and finding himself in an alien world. The real test of his race would occur when this angry deaf man approached a cop to look for help... :eek:
 
#27 ·
'Black' etc was often used just about swarthy dark-haired Europeans, so 'blackamoor' in the OP is probably a sort of joke. The Elizabethan satirist, Joseph Hall, says about aspiring poets -
Then can he term his dirty ill-fac'd bride
Lady & queen & virgin deified;
Be she all sooty-black or berry-brown,
She's white as morrow's milk or flakes new-blown;
And though she be some dunghill drudge at home,
Yet can he her resign some refuse room
Amidst the well-known stars; or if not there,
Sure will he saint her in his calendar.

In 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', Helena makes fun of Hermia (small & dark, but European) by calling her a tawny tartar.

It wouldn't make any difference to Beethoven's music or the way he is esteemed, but I feel sure we'd have heard more about it from reports or diary entries of the time if he did have black ancestry - we wouldn't just be going on a hunch based on facial features that are common to most races, in fact.
 
#28 ·
Exactly. A similar joke seems to have been current in this country in relatively recent times in the form of the pub name 'The Black Boy': in some cases the sign actually shows a black boy, in some cases a white Victorian chimney sweep, his face streaked with dirt. I'm sure I can remember from my childhood a pub called something like 'The Impossible Task' in which a white couple are scrubbing a black child in a bathtub. That always seemed a bit much, even though the joke is definitely on the white couple: 'Stupid bumpkins, they can't even tell the difference between a black person and someone who just needs a bath'. The Telegraph ran this 'political correctness gone mad' article about a similarly-named pub (the 'Labour in Vain') which had a makeover and changed its sign:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...y-being-scrubbed-in-bath-by-white-couple.html

So I would agree with those who point out that apparently racial epithets used of Beethoven were probably humorous in nature. I was hoping that this thread was about some 'Black Athena' style revisionist historiography in which western classical music is revealed to be an African invention!

But at least we have learned that Elvis and Jesus were just shamelessly copying Alexander the Great... :)
 
#39 ·
I think any notion that Beethoven had any African ancestry is pure fantasy and it is well documented his looks were swarthy giving vent to this fable. The nearest Beethoven got to any connection with Africa was giving a violinist called George Bridgetower (1779-1860) the chance to première the "Kreutzer" sonata. Bridgetower was one of the greatest violinists in Vienna and his mother was said to be an African princess who married a native German. Maybe the author who suggested Beethoven was black has become confused with this esteemed gentleman.
 
G
#45 ·
That's my feeling. No one noticed he was black until some guy in 1915? And some of the bloggers pull the old "white man white-washing history and erasing the contributions of blacks" stuff. That assumes that EVERY white historian and biographer either independently or in an amazing collusion that spanned many decades conspired to hide Beethoven's black heritage. It's simply improbable to the point of absurdity. SOMEONE would have pointed it out before 1915.

As for Beethoven's music sounding black, here's an excerpt from a guy who really believes Beethoven is black:

Beethoven was one of the most innovative and amazing musical geniuses, ever. His deafness made that amazing genius even more so. his music reveals a cultural connection to his African ancestry. In the Blom edition of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, p. 20, is stated, "A rhythmic or time-active cast of thought was inherent in his nature," and "(n)umerous examples could be given from familiar music in which an off-beat accent converts an ordinary into an extraordinary passage." The distinctive characteristic of off-beat accents, or syncopation, is intrinsic and integral to Black people's music making, which gives it a unique vitality and kinetic energy.

Examples of this rhythmic trait are his mammoth string quartet known as "The Great Fugue," which sounds "way ahead of its time" and foretells 20th century atonality. Also, the second movement of the last Piano Sonata he wrote, Op. 111 in C minor, sounds like the genesis of jazz. He had exquisite foresight as to how music would evolve in the future. He was an astounding piano improvisateur, which moved Mozart to prophesy, "He will give the world something worth listening to." The last movement of the "Waldstein" Sonata, op. 53, has a syncopated bass, which might inspire gospel music clapping. It is also the same off-beat pattern used in reggae and Hip- Hop music.

Beethoven makes prolific use of the syncopating kettle drum in much of his orchestral music, such as the dramatic Symphony No. 5, which contains one of the world's most famous themes, and the majestic "Emperor" Piano Concerto No. 5.

He was the first composer to invigorate European Classical Music with prodigious use of this decidedly inherent African rhythmic trait.

He was also one of the first composers to deviate from the musical template of eighteenth-century rules and regulations.

In his Fourth Piano Concerto No. 4, the piano begins the opening, as opposed to traditionally beginning with the orchestra. The "Waldstein" Sonata begins in G major, even though it is written in C major.

He was the first composer to include a chorus in a symphony, which became known as the "Choral" Symphony No. 9, the theme of the hymn "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee."

He was also one of the first composers to inject his personal thunderous temperament in his music, as evidenced in such piano works as the "Appassionata" Sonata, Op. 57 and the fittingly named "Tempest" Sonata, op.31, no.2.

He was the first composer to explore and exploit the virtuosic possibilities of the piano, which necessitated piano makers' building stronger, more durable instruments.

His was the first piano music to require the pianist to play the trill and the melody with one hand, as in the "Hammerklavier" Sonata where he took piano music where it had never gone before. With his daring musical innovations, formidable piano technique, the injection of deep musical subjectivity as opposed to abstract musical objectivity, he rendered the composer free from stilted, restrictive dogma and ushered in the Romantic Period. He gave inspiration to Liszt, Schumann, and Chopin.


While it isn't a bad critique of Beethoven's music, I find an underlying racism in it. If he offered this critique not disputing that Beethoven was white, I might have thought him brilliant. But he resorts to using the music to reinforce his belief that Beethoven is black because we hear elements of jazz and syncopation as though blacks have a "jazz gene" that whites lack. As though a brilliant white composer could never have thought up syncopating a rhythm. We may as well take every white composer or musician that ever demonstrated a good sense of rhythm and declare them black on that count alone. Heck, Al Jolson didn't need to wear blackface--his ability to swing must mean he was already black!

And who is to say that Beethoven might not have encountered African music somewhere and decided to incorporate some of it into his music? He didn't have to be black to do that.
 
#46 ·
I was surprised to hear this argument pop up online before. It seems to be people trying to point out racism and imperialism in Europe during the century where Nationalism began to form. The hypotheses is that Beethoven was a black man, or at least had some kind of African ancestry, from his mother's side because she came from an area with Spanish people, and since there were African Moors in Spain...idk I'm losing track.

They also try to show that the rhythmic drive is similar to that in African music. If you ask me, that's kind of a disgusting way of saying "He's black cuz he got rhythm", but whatever.

Anyway, they say he was black, but artistic depictions make him look more European because THE great German composer of the time of Nationalism had to be German in order to give German people pride.

All this is unfounded, as already mentioned. It's nothing more than a sensationalist 'scoop' on some great conspiracy of white-washing iconic figures.

While this is not true for everyone who believes this theory, from my experience, the people who believe this story is true are also the people who insist that white people have no culture [which is true, since there is no such thing as "white culture", there's American, British, French, etc. cultures], and that white people stole literally everything from people of color [again, there is no such thing as "people of color culture", there's Ethiopian, Indian, Korean, etc. cultures, and if anything, lumping a majority of the world in one group and paring them as "opposite" to white people is very racist. This "us vs. them" mentality is very anti-productive]
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top