Elaine Fitz Gibbon
Elaine Fitz Gibbon »Beethoven und Goethe blieben die Embleme des kunstliebenden Deutschlands, für jede politische Richtung unantastbar und ebenso als Chiffren manipulierbar« (Klüppelholz 2001, 25-26). “Beethoven and Goethe remained the emblems of art-loving Germany: untouchable for every political persuasion, and likewise, as ciphers, just as easily manipulated.”1 The year 2020 brought with it much more than collective attempts to process what we thought were the uniquely tumultuous 2010s. In addition to causing the deaths of over two million people worldwide, the Covid-19 pandemic has further exposed the extraordinary inequities of U.S.-American society, forcing a long- overdue reckoning with the entrenched racism that suffuses every aspect of American life. Within the realm of classical music, institutions have begun conversations about the ways in which BIPOC, and in particular Black Americans, have been systematically excluded as performers, audience members, administrators and composers: a stark contrast with the manner in which 2020 was anticipated by those same institutions before the pandemic began. Prior to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, they looked to 2020 with eager anticipation, provoking a flurry of activity around a singular individual: Ludwig van Beethoven. For on December 16th of that year, Beethoven turned 250. The banners went up early. In 2019 on Instagram, Beethoven accounts like @bthvn_2020, the “official account of the Beethoven Anniversary Year,” sprang up. The Twitter hashtags #beethoven2020 and #beethoven250 were (more or less) trending. Prior to the spread of the virus, passengers flying in and out of Chicago’s O’Hare airport found themselves confronted with a huge banner that featured an iconic image of Beethoven’s brooding face, an advertisement for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s upcoming complete cycle Current Musicology 107 (Fall 2020) ©2020 Fitz Gibbon.
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