The Thammasat University Libraries have newly acquired Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph: a Biography. Written by the music historian and composer Jan Swafford, it helps explain why Ludwig van Beethoven’s music is so widely loved. The TU Libraries own many recordings of such famous works by Beethoven as the Ninth Symphony. This work, which takes around one hour to perform, is much appreciated in Japan, where it is often played at the end of each year. Typically, there are dozens of versions of the Ninth symphony in Japan to attend each December. One of these events is Suntory Presents Beethoven’s 9th with a Cast of 10,000 in Osaka’s Castle Hall. The amateur chorus of 10,000 people prepares for about four months, since it is not easy to sing the vocal part of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony. The ticket buyers are also invited to join in, all 7,000 of them. The Japanese word for the Ninth Symphony is Daiku, or Big Nine. Why do the Japanese love Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony so much? There are many reasons, but one may be that the text that is sung speaks of brotherhood among different countries, and so this idea is especially appreciated. In 1990, the Japanese music director Naoyuki Miura told The New York Times:

For Japanese, listening to Beethoven’s Ninth at the end of the year is a semi-religious experience. People feel they have not completed the year spiritually until they hear it.

Some observers compare this to karaoke. Others say that the Japanese people sympathize with the story of Beethoven, who famously went deaf, was poor, and had an unhappy personal life. Still others say that the fact that the Ninth Symphony is Beethoven’s biggest symphony makes it of highest interest for Japanese listeners. Many people enjoy other works by Beethoven as well, such as the lighter, more dance-inspired Seventh Symphony and Eighth Symphony. Both of these works may be listened to at the TU Libraries Rewat Buddhinan Media Center.

Musical drama

Some of Beethoven’s music is passionate and dramatic, such as the Violin Sonata No. 9, known as the Kreutzer Sonata. It was named in honor of Rodolphe Kreutzer, a French violinist. The composer hoped he would agree to perform the work, but Kreutzer refused, claiming it was impossible to understand. Referring to Beethoven’s work, Leo Tolstoy’s novella The Kreutzer Sonata describes how a Russian man becomes jealous of his wife, a pianist. He gets especially angry when she performs Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata with a male violinist, and finally he murders her. Almost as dramatic is Beethoven’s opera Fidelio, about the importance of freedom and married love. There is a DVD of this work in the Rewat Buddhinan Center. For those who prefer more soothing sounds, Beethoven also wrote many chamber works, such as the Piano quartet in E-flat major, op. 47 and solo works for piano. The TU Libraries also own books explaining about Beethoven’s life, his political activity, his performances as a pianist, and why he is considered a universal composer. This term may be a mistake, since to say something is universal means everyone can appreciate it. There are many people who do not care for Beethoven, but he created so much music, it is likely anyone who tries can find something to like about his work. Much of it is easy to remember and hum, because he often wrote long works based on variations of just a few notes. By repeating these notes, he made tunes that stay in the mind.

Beethoven in Thailand

Last year, the Goethe-Institut Thailand announced on its website that due to the renovation of its auditorium, the Ninth Beethoven Competition in Thailand 2015 for Young Pianists would be postponed to this year, when it will be held together with the 10th Beethoven Competition in Thailand 2016 for Young String Players. Since 2007, the Beethoven Competition has revealed talented young musicians in the Kingdom. Beethoven himself was a pianist, and competition winners are invited to perform live at Beethovenfest Bonn, a classical music festival in the city in northwestern Germany where he was born. Among the many Thai creative artists who are inspired by Beethoven is Thanapol Virulhakul, a graduate of Thammasat University, where he studied film and photography. A director and choreographer, Khun Thanapol works with the Democrazy Theatre Studio, an alternative art space located on Soi Saphankhu, between Lumpini Tower and Soi Ngamduplee. Last year at the Goethe-Institut, Khun Thanapol created a dance to movements from Beethoven’s “Appassionata” Piano Sonata No. 23. The Italian word means impassioned, and listeners can decide for themselves if this is an accurate description.

Beethoven as therapy.

In 2014, ViralNova.com explained how the British pianist Paul Barton, now based in Thailand, played works by Beethoven to soothe old elephants at Elephantstay Thailand. Elephantstay is an elephant village in Thailand, intended to educate tourists about the animals. Located at Royal Elephant Kraal and Village, 74/1 Moo 3, Tumbol Suanpik, it shelters many injured, blind elephants. To these, Beethoven’s “Pathétique” sonata must have sounded sympathetic and kindly. In an online interview for Yourstory.com, the pianist explained:

I came to Thailand in 1996 to teach at the Thai Piano School. I thought it would be an interesting opportunity to spend three months in Asia, a place I had always been curious about. But I met my (then) future wife here and stayed on. We have been married now for eighteen years. She has always been interested in animal conservation and activism and my influence stemmed from there. In Thailand deforestation was made illegal sometime back, thankfully. But with that the elephants that used to work in the forests became unemployed, along with their mahouts. This became a big problem. Some new elephant sanctuaries were formed, including the Elephant’s World in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. They look after old, injured handicapped street elephants who have nowhere else to go. They give them sanctuary by the banks of the river Kwai so they never have to work again. One elephant Plara was blinded while working in the forest by the twigs and branches that constantly scratched her eyes as she moved… Plara was taken to a field full of juicy bamboo shoots and she began eating with a single minded dedication. I started to play Beethoven and she stopped eating. There was this half eaten bamboo shoot sticking out of her trunk while she stared at me. That was a reaction never seen before. An elephant stopped eating because of music… If you play classical music to an elephant, something soft and beautiful, something that human beings have been listening to for hundreds for hundreds of years, something that is timeless- and you play that to an elephant that is blind and they’ve never heard music before- the reaction is priceless. There is a special bond between you and the elephant. You are communicating with them in a different language. That language is neither our nor theirs. There is something infinitesimally wonderful in a piece of Beethoven that connects me to that elephant and that feeling is otherworldly.

Among the other outstanding performers of Beethoven for human audiences in Thailand in recent years is the Lithuanian pianist Artas Balakauskas who gave ten recitals of Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas – there are 32 of them – at the Siam Music Yamaha Concert Salon on the 4th floor of Siam Motors Building on Rama I Road, near BTS National Stadium station. Married to the Thai pianist Indhuon Srikaranonda, with whom he sometimes performs as a duo, Balakauskas graduated from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and later studied at Yale University. His Beethoven recitals were co-presented by Siam Music Yamaha and Bösendorfer Thailand and were held once every three months.  

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)