I love getting your questions about classical music, and I’ve answered quite a broad range of them so far.
For example: how do time signatures work? Why does Bach matter so much? Can music describe other things? But this one has to be the most profound, intellectual, "chin-scratchy" question I’ve had so far.
What are some great Beethoven souvenirs?
Yes – it's time to get serious.
My piano teacher used to have a bust of Beethoven gathering dust among his fake antique candle sticks and (real) whisky bottles. And he always said, "that’s worth a bit of money you know." That’s as I’m looking at the ugly casting rim on it, the burr, going all the way round. It was probably made in a factory a long, long way from Bonn. So you could say that me and Beethoven kitsch — we go a long way back.
And so does the idea of having Beethoven souvenirs.
Even during his lifetime, fans were clamouring to own pieces of sheet music in the composer’s handwriting, original copies of his letters or even tickets or playbills from the first performances of his works were rare and desired commodities.
Other souvenirs are altogether more macabre. At the moment of Beethoven’s death, there were various friends and family members in the house. And as they paid their respects to the departed composer, more than one of them whipped out a pair of scissors and took a lock of his hair. There’s dignity.
Last year one of those luscious locks sold in London for GBP 35,000 — or 64,000 Aussie dollars.
Today, if you hop online and search for "Beethoven souvenirs" or "Beethoven gifts," some juicy morsels pop up. Beethoven soap, anyone? Or a T shirt with Beethoven, but made to look like The Joker?
The real Mecca of Beethoven kitsch, Beethoven tat, is the Beethoven Museum in Bonn where you can find Beethoven bottle openers, Beethoven umbrellas, Beethoven 9th symphony mouse mats, Beethoven Moonlight Sonata glasses cases, and Beethoven Drip Mats.
There are also Beethoven dolls with hair and moulded plastic eyebrows that remind me of the action man I used to have as a kid. Remember them?
You can also buy a box of Beethoven chocolates and a bag of Beethoven coffee. Well he did enjoy a cup or two.
The number one Beethoven souvenir has got to be the bust. Like my piano teacher all those years ago, some people have just got have a funny little statue of the man at home. It’s a tradition that started in the 19th century when music lovers began to see the great composers as gods, and venerate them accordingly.
The busts of Beethoven vary massively in terms of price, size and — ahem — taste.
At the Beethoven Museum in Bonn alone, the range starts with a small, white plastic bust at a fiver. Some of them are bronze, or can be wound up to play Für Elise or the Moonlight Sonata. Or, if you’ve brought your credit card, a huge, hand-hewn image of the man is available, almost a thousand Euros. Plus postage and packaging, presumably.
So the choices for the discerning Beethoven souvenir hunter are massive. Grab that massive, hand-made statue! Or fork out the price of a luxury car for a lock of hair that you’ll put — I don’t know — in the pool room.
Or just listen to the best souvenir of all — Beethoven's music.