Major Beethoven exhibit to open in Bonn

The most famous oil painting of Ludwig van Beethoven is a work by Joseph Stieler dating from 1819 and showing the composer at work on his Missa solemnis. The portrait is currently put on display at the exhibition "Beethoven. Welt. Bürger. Musik" (Beethoven. World. Citizens. Music). It's taking place at the Bundeskunsthalle (National Art Gallery) in Bonn.

The exhibits include this exquisitely bound autograph copy, in Beethoven's handwriting, of the song cycle "An die entfernte Geliebte" (To the distant loved one). Scholars are still debating who that mysterious person might have been.

The composer met Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany's most famous man of letters, in 1812. "I have never experienced a more concentrated, energetic and ardent artist," Goethe later wrote. Beethoven, for his part, was less impressed: "Goethe feels more comfortable in courtly society than befits an artist."

The composer was very famous during his lifetime. This glass, on loan from Vienna, dates from Beethoven's time and shows the notes to the "Ode to Joy" from the choral finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Sightreading the song goes along with the risk of spilling the contents, however.

After three years of restoration and renewal at a price of €3.8 million ($4.23 million), the museum at Beethoven's birthplace has attractive exhibits in a historic setting. This is one of the plaster casts with which the composer preserved his likeness in the days before the invention of photography.

Every room in the house where Ludwig van Beethoven was born is dedicated to a particular theme. One room on the upper floor illustrates his struggle with his art and his work methods. It also houses his last piano.

After all the visual stimulation, visitors at the Beethoven House can step back and experience the composer in his medium of choice, through music.

This room brings Beethoven down to earth and gives an impression of what his everyday life was like. He moved from Bonn to Vienna at age 22 and lived in scores of apartments. But despite his many moves, he had a structured, if mostly lonesome, life and stuck to a routine.

In those days, ear trumpets were used as amplifiers. This specimen was personally crafted for Beethoven in 1813 by Johann Nepomuk Mälzel, the inventor of the metronom. That was another innovation Beethoven appreciated, as it enabled him to convey his idea of his music's tempos to performers.