Title:
BEETHOVEN IN LOVE; OPUS 139
Author: Howard Jay Smith
Publisher: SYQ
Pages: 385
Genre: Literary Fiction/Biographical Fiction
Author: Howard Jay Smith
Publisher: SYQ
Pages: 385
Genre: Literary Fiction/Biographical Fiction
At the moment of his death, Ludwig van
Beethoven pleads with Providence to grant him a final wish—one day, just a single day of
pure joy. But first he must confront the many failings in his life, so the
great composer and exceedingly complex man begins an odyssey into the netherworld
of his past life led by a spirit guide who certainly seems to
be Napoleon, who died six years before. This ghost of the former emperor, whom
the historical Beethoven both revered and despised, struggles to compel the
composer to confront the ugliness as well as the beauty and accomplishments of
his past.
As Beethoven ultimately faces the realities of his just-ended
life, we encounter the women who loved and inspired him. In their own
voices, we discover their Beethoven—a lover with whom they savor
the profound beauty and passion of his creations. And it’s in the arms of
his beloveds that he comes to terms with the meaning of his life and
experiences the moment of true joy he has always sought.
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By all accounts my funeral was a grand
success.
Despite
the snow and slush soaking through their shoes, all Vienna turns out. Twenty thousand mourners or more, accompanied
by the Imperial Guards, guide the grieving to my grave. Streets crowded,
impassable. My coffin, lined with silk, covered in flowers, rolls through the
chaos on a horse drawn bier. Paupers and princes; merchants and mendicants;
menials and musicians; clerics and commoners; they all come for this, their
Beethoven’s final concerto.
As if
they ever owned me or my music…
Plaudite,
Amici, Comoedia Finite Est. Applaud my friends, the comedy is over.
Inscribed herein rests my final opus.
Ja. Yes, they
are all patrons and lovers… Lovers of my music, the very music the gods have
forbidden me to hear. How cruel. To suffer my last decade without sound –
any sound except the incessant surge of blood pounding through my veins - an
eternity inscribed on the calendar pages of my life.
And so
it is, these celebrants, anxious for one last encore, crowd the alleys and
streets of the Hapsburgs capital in throngs not seen since the defeat of
Napoleon Bonaparte and the French Grande Armee oh so many years ago.
The
cortege rolls on past the taverns and cafés of this fair city where dark beer,
schnitzel and sausages reward the day. Ah, the saints and sinners of Vienna have always loved a good party, never mind the
excuse.
Are they
singing? Alle Menschen werden Brüder. All men will become brothers.
They must be, yet I hear nothing.
I wonder
if she is among them. My muse; my love; my passion; my sacred fire; will
she be there to safeguard my voyage through Elysium?
Or is
she too denied me as was the sweet sighs of love and the embrace of family stolen
by gods capricious and uncaring? Are they so vengeful? So embittered by
spite? Like Prometheus, have I dared too close to revelations reserved
for them alone?
The clouds
grow ever darker, ominous.
Must I
embrace death silently ere my last symphony suffuses the stage? Is this my
end? To be cast out as by our Creator as history’s cruel joke, a deaf
musician? A composer unable to know the vibrancy of his own scores?
Tell me why
your Beethoven, your servant whose hearing once surpassed all others in
sensitivity and degree, must suffer such humiliation and torment?
Are the
crowds laughing? Ja oder nein? Yes or no. I know not. Am I such a failure, such
a disgrace to be shoved off the stage without your mercy or compassion?
As surely as
the warmth of summer vanishes and the leaves of autumn crumble beneath the
crush of winter, has all hope been stolen? Can I escape this fate? What path
must I travel? What tasks of redemption are to be mine and mine alone?
Come death;
am I to meet your shadow with courage? Must I depart in this winter of anguish
before the renewal of spring?
Can I not
find release from this cycle of sufferings like a saint or a Hindoo holy man
following the dance of Shiva or a Bodhisattva, back bent upon the path of the
great
Buddha?
The last
echoes of joy inside my heart are already fading. Will I never hear or feel
those vibrations again? Never? Nein. Forever. Lost for
eternity in the fog on the road to Elysium; that is too hard, too harsh.
But surely a
loving father must dwell in the starry canopy above. Are you there, oh sweet
Isis, my goddess of compassion? Help me, help guide me.
Please Providence; grant me this, my final wish… Grant but one day, just one
day, one day of pure joy to your poor Beethoven.
Is this
too much to ask before I embrace darkness forever? Oh, to be in her arms once
again.
Interview:
Welcome Howard Jay Smith. Can you tell us what your book is about?
At the moment of his death, Beethoven
pleads with Providence to grant him a final wish—one day, just a single day of
pure joy. But first he must confront the many failings in his life, so the
great composer and exceedingly complex man begins an odyssey into the
netherworld of his past life led by a spirit guide who certainly seems to
be Napoleon, who died six years before. This ghost of the former emperor, whom
the historical Beethoven both revered and despised, struggles to compel the
composer to confront the ugliness as well as the beauty and accomplishments of
his past.
As Beethoven ultimately faces the
realities of his just-ended life, we encounter the women who loved and
inspired him. In their own voices, we discover their Beethoven—a
lover with whom they savor the profound beauty and passion of his
creations. And it’s in the arms of his beloveds that he comes to terms
with the meaning of his life and experiences the moment of true joy he has
always sought.
“By all accounts my funeral was a grand success.” This line was in my head as the opening of the novel long before I ever started writing. Even during the two full years I spent on researching Beethoven, I knew that the novel in a metaphorical sense would take place in the moment of Beethoven’s death. True story: He is in a coma, there’s a thunder and snow storm outside his house. A bolt of lightning strikes his window. His eyes open, he sits upright, shakes his fist at the heavens, and is gone.
To set the stage for the novel, I wanted an opening line that announced quite clearly that we are “not in Kansas anymore.” In fact the prologue and epilogue for the novel capture that moment described above, the only difference being the perspective from which that incident is told and the level of understanding and transformation that occurs because of what happens in the novel.
In the opening page Beethoven rails about his life at the moment of his death and realizes that if he wants the one day of joy and love he has always sought, he must first come to grips with all of the failings and disaster of that life. In so doing, the first page serves as a literary table of contents for what will follow in the next 375 pages.
In the course of writing your book, how many times would you say that first page changed and for what reasons?
As I noted previously, the first line was in my head from day one and the rest of the page came quickly as soon as I started writing many months later. It remained intact with only minor editing through the remaining three years of work. But those minor edits were primarily concerned with the use of a single word, “Ja,” the German word for yes.
The hardest challenge about writing a first person narrative about someone as famous as Beethoven was finding his voice inside myself. I know German, having studied it for years in high school and college and from having traveled there. In early drafts I must have used “Ja,” thirty or forty times on that first page alone. It was a device, a cheat, so that I could in fact do what Beethoven himself could not do, which is to hear his voice. Once I was a half dozen chapters into the first draft, I knew I had his voice in my own head and I deleted almost every use of that word, “Ja.”
Was there ever a time after the book was published that you wished you had changed something on the first page?
No. I have been writing and teaching writing for over three decades. My focus has always been to hear the words I write, to revel in their sound, their impact and the exactitude of what they express within the overall structure of the story I am telling.
What advice can you give to aspiring authors to stress how important the first page is?
In the end, all we have as writers
is the voice we use to tell our stories.
That voice must be purposeful, advance the narrative, never be boring or
redundant and ultimately pull the reader into a dream state so powerful and
all-encompassing that the next thing he or she knows is that someone is calling
them to dinner. Anything we write that
breaks that dream, no matter how wonderful or brilliant it might be, anything
that breaks that dream is no good. We
must throw it out. That dream begins on page one with the first line and should
not ever be broken until the last word on the last page. If you fail to hook a
reader at the onset, you are doomed.
About the Author:
Howard Jay Smith is an
award-winning writer from Santa
Barbara, California. BEETHOVEN IN LOVE; OPUS 139 is his third book. A former Washington, D.C. Commission for the Arts Fellow, & Bread Loaf Writers
Conference Scholar, he taught for many years in the UCLA Extension Writers’
Program and has lectured nationally. His short stories, articles and
photographs have appeared in the Washington Post, Horizon Magazine, the Journal
of the Writers Guild of America, the Ojai Quarterly, and numerous literary and
trade publications. While an executive at ABC Television, Embassy TV, and
Academy Home Entertainment, he worked on numerous film, television, radio, and
commercial projects. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Santa Barbara
Symphony - "The Best Small City Symphony in America" - and is a member of the American Beethoven
Society.
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