Today on Anything Interesting... And I heard that he was exhumed in 1863. Is that true? We're in San Jose, California to take a walk through the Ira F. Brilliant Beethoven Center.
I have this private collector who has this amazing Beethoven collection. Where should it go? He's got a couple thousand pieces here.
Do you think he might have gone a little overboard? I was not aware of its existence until our director walked in the center one day with it. Oh, babe, why not?
You know, maybe. That's awesome. I like to think so, yeah. Hey folks, we're here today at the Martin Luther King Jr.
Memorial Library at San Jose State University. And up on the fifth floor, along with the California Room and the John Steinbeck Center, there's the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies. And in there, they've got the largest collection of first editions of Beethoven's work in North America, along with some busts, recordings of his music, and everything in between. Let's go check it out.
My name is Patricia Stroh and I'm the curator at the Beethoven Center and also currently the interim director. I've been here for almost 31 years. 31 years and what brought you to the center in the first place? It was just very much of lucky situation. I had just finished school and this job came up.
It was a new position, new library, they were looking for a curator and it was in the Bay Area. So I just snapped it up because I just love Beethoven so it was a wonderful. opportunity for me.
And obviously I love the job because I've been here for a long time. I would hope so. It certainly makes 31 years fly by a little faster.
What got Mr. Billion started collecting all these amazing things? Because looking around from the sculptures to the original works, the instruments, there's so much amazing work here. What got him started? He started out because he discovered Beethoven's music. I mean, he wasn't a musician himself, but he started to listen to the music.
It was a period of his time when he was rather ill and he was in the hospital or just sick at home and he was listening to music all the time. And that's how he discovered Beethoven and he just became totally hooked. So he started looking for original manuscript letters of Beethoven. But after a while he realized that they were pretty expensive so he wasn't going to be able to continue that for a long time.
So then he switched over to purchasing the first editions of the music. So these are... These are very special too because they're the very first printings of the music. One of the ways Beethoven made his living was to sell his work to publishers.
He would then print them. After he had a collection of 80 or so, he decided he didn't want them to sit in his home gathering dust. He wanted to share them with people. They ended up here because he had connections through a friend who was on the faculty of the university at that time.
He then, on his behalf, approached the administration at San Jose and said, I have this private collector who has this amazing Beethoven collection. Where should it go? And they said, we'll take it. So that's how it came about. Well, yeah, what a neat collection, too, because I mean, from the busts and the original works, I mean, he's got a couple thousand pieces here.
Do you think he might have gone a little overboard? Well, no, because he was very focused on the original letters that he was able to buy. and the first editions.
And after we opened the Beethoven Center, then we started building the collection around that. So Mr. Brilliant still acquired first editions for us, but then it was us working here in the Beethoven Center that started building the other collections. So we got the books and started getting the artworks and the musical instruments.
Fantastic, and here at the Brilliant Center, you guys have the largest collection of first editions in the United States. States or in North America, is that right? Yeah, that is correct.
Yeah, and you guys have first editions of, or at least pieces if not the whole thing, of each one of his nine symphonies too. All the nine symphonies, we have most of the piano sonatas, the spring quartets, and many, many other works. Well, can you tell me about the piece we have behind us? This is not something you see pretty often in a museum.
Yeah, well this is a reproduction of Beethoven's Life Mask. There was an artist who was commissioned to have a... bust of Beethoven made for an art museum in Vienna. And so, you know, at this time in his life, Beethoven was in his early 40s. He was quite famous in Vienna, so people wanted to depict him in art.
So Beethoven did agree to sit for this artist who then put this gooey plaster mold on his face. So the idea was that that would then be a mold that can be used to cast a bust. But But Beethoven didn't really like that experience too well.
You can imagine he was impatient with it. It was uncomfortable. So he tore it off his face before it really got the chance to set.
And it did crack down the middle. But the artist was able to put it together and from that make the bust. So this is just a reproduction of that life mask.
And we put it on this post so you could see about how tall he was. But this way you really get to get a sense of what he looked like. My name is Eric Jovag.
I'm the events coordinator and public services coordinator at the Dayton Center. And Eric, behind us we have a couple original documents, don't we? Can you kind of take us through what's hidden in this cabinet here? Yes, the original document is in the... bottom drawer.
So I'll pull this out. Oh wow. And this is a sketch leaf. So Beethoven wrote many sketch leaves.
It's like a rough draft or a note if you will. And this particular sketch leaf The top part, he's working on some horn parts to one of his Leonore Overtures. Some what we call voice leading. And on the bottom of the sketch, there's some words. So he's working on a song or a beat.
So it's like his notepad. As he's going through the day, thinks up different things, sketches it out. So he would have a pocket full of this stuff and a pen or a pencil or something.
Possibly, yeah. Could be a napkin. It could be anything. We still don't know why he went deaf, right? No, we do not, unfortunately.
Absolutely. the first autopsy, unfortunately, they kind of botched the job. They destroyed very important parts of the inner ear that possibly could have shed some light on that.
But as it stands now, we'll never know. Oh my gosh, and I heard that he was exhumed in 1863. They wanted to kind of study that more. Is that true?
Yes, I believe he was exhumed twice. Yeah, and it's not often you get... get to be buried three times, right? Yeah, well, as I understand it, the cemetery in which he was originally buried was falling under disrepair, which was a cause for some embarrassment for the Viennese because he was a celebrity.
Right. He wanted to honor the guy. Now he's in a very nice place right next to Schubert and Mozart. Mozart is a memorial, and right around the corner from Brahms, so I don't think that... It's a good group.
Do you think they get together and play? Hey, why not? You know, maybe.
That's awesome. But yeah, going back to the when he was exhumed, so they did, you know, further work and you know, to see if they could figure out anything and I believe they could. Wow. So I gotta ask you something weird. Can you show me your Zagara scope?
Oh yes. This is an invention that I guess was during the day Tovan's time I was not aware of its existence until our director walked in the center one day with it I like it was like what is what's a cigar a scope right so these images are for specifically for the Zolder scope in that you're able when you look through this device at these images you get a certain depth to them I've always hesitant on calling it 3d but it does give the image of as I said a certain depth the sense The center also has a recital hall that holds lessons, lectures, and concerts where you can see these historical pianos in action. Is that what you were telling the children who were here in your class on the board?
Uh, boy, it's tempting. I've had some classes like that. No, I didn't like that.
I don't know what was going on there. That's pretty silly. Most people are interested in Beethoven's musical history, but he also had quite the mysterious love life.
I have to ask you, you guys have two... two of your older works that were actually written by Beethoven, and one of them, I believe, is called Description of a Girl. Now, that's not the German. That's not the original German. But they talk about a young woman in there.
Who is this young woman? We don't know. I mean, it's just poetry that he was writing of this name, and whether there was a young girl he knew when he was young.
I mean, he wrote this when he was still quite a child himself. How old? I don't know. I think maybe this goes back to when he was...
12 or 13. But I know the word, the name Elise means something to people of his famous piano piece that we call For Elise. But that adds a story behind it too, because for a long time, people couldn't really know why he called it For Elise, because they couldn't really track who Elise was in his life. And then later it was suggested that, well, it wasn't really Elise he was writing to, it was a woman named Teresa. So the piece should really should be called for Teresa Not only is Patricia a fountain of knowledge she's also quite the talented musician I have to ask before we go could you play us something short on one of these wonderful instruments?
We've got such a collection. You said Bill's favorite was alley cat We won't do alley cat. It's not Beethoven.
I can play a little bit. Oh, I would love to please pick your favorite Taylor, on the other hand, who edits and films the show, doesn't quite have the same skills. We just went to see the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies and what an amazing collection. They've got over 5,000 pieces and once you go in there you can check out some of Beethoven's notes in his own hand, you can listen to recordings performed by a variety of artists, you can even try your hand at a historical harpsichord, pianoforte, or a clavichord, but you never heard of a clavichord before.
The Brilliant Center is open six days a week so you've got no excuse not to come down and check it out. Hey Taylor, what's something you've learned while filming? We can always film more no matter how much we think we did. How about you?
I learned how time consuming and expensive it is to film one of these episodes. This isn't our full-time job and we are far from rich. I work in admin. I drive for lit- And if you like our videos and you want us to keep checking out neat locations, inspiring people, and exciting events, visit us on Patreon and toss us a few bucks each month.
It'll help us do more videos, go to cooler places, and improve our equipment. That means we don't have to build any more equipment out of- PVC pipe. Just a dollar each month will go a long long way.
We're bored. So we can go where you want us to. Like the Roswell Alien Museum?
Sure. Or how about the only diamond mine in North America? Well we've actually been there before we didn't have a show at the time.
Or even the Panama Canal. That's a bit of a longer drive but yeah we can go there. And we've always talked about going to South Korea.
Okay bring it back to reality. Alright what about...