The Beethoven Boomerang: A Megan Crespi Mystery Series Novel

By Alessandra Comini

A black student is shot dead during a demonstration claiming “Beethoven Was Black” in Bonn’s historic Münsterplatz with its majestic monument to the Bonn-born composer. Attending a Beethoven jubilee conference in the city is retired professor turned art crimes detective Megan Crespi with her American colleague and Beethoven expert, Will Meridian. During their symposium on the composer one of the participants is also killed. Who is the assassin or assassins and why do the murders continue? The cast of characters and suspects Megan is confronted with include Bettina Brentano, ambitious conductor of the Bonn Classical Philharmonic, Oskar van der Fresser, founder of the Beethoven und Du Museum in Vienna, Dr. Seide Sammlerin, over-protective director of the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, Tobias Neidisch, Beethovenhalle night guard with a chip on his shoulder, Dr. Li Shutong, with a singular background relating to Beethoven in China, Leopold Weissknab, white supremacist student studying at Bonn University, Louis van Hoven, a self-declared direct descendant of Ludwig van Beethoven, Clemens Karl von Masuren, beloved conductor of the Beethoven Orchester Bonn, and Takuto Nisemono, conductor and composer once considered “the Beethoven of Japan,” now disgraced but defiant and scheming a come-back. Megan’s pursuit of Beethoven-related criminal activity extends to a cruise ship bound for China and additional deaths. Can justice prevail?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sunstone Press
• Release date: Aug 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781611396034

Alessandra Comini

Distinguished Professor of Art History Emerita at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, Alessandra Comini was awarded Austria’s Grand Medal of Honor for her books on Viennese artists Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. Her Egon Schiele’s Portraits was nominated for the National Book Award and her The Changing Image of Beethoven is used in classrooms around the country. Both books in new editions are now available from Sunstone Press as well as The Fantastic Art of Vienna, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Schiele in Prison. Comini’s travels, recorded in her memoir, In Passionate Pursuit, extend from Europe to Antarctica to China and are reflected in her Megan Crespi Mystery Series: Killing for Klimt, The Schiele Slaughters, The Kokoschka Capers, The Munch Murders, The Kollwitz Calamities, The Kandinsky Conundrum, and The Mahler Mayhem. All Comini’s scholarly books are available in new editions from Sunstone Press as is the entire Megan Crespi Mystery Series.

Book preview

9781611396034gif.gif

The Beethoven Boomerang

A Megan Crespi Mystery Series Novel

Alessandra Comini

Also by Alessandra Comini from Sunstone Press

Schiele in Prison

Egon Schiele’s Portraits

Gustav Klimt

Egon Schiele

Egon Schiele: Nudes

The Fantastic Art of Vienna

The Changing Image of Beethoven

In Passionate Pursuit: A Memoir

The Megan Crespi Mystery Series

Killing for Klimt

The Schiele Slaughters

The Kokoschka Capers

The Munch Murders

The Kollwitz Calamities

The Kandinsky Conundrum

The Mahler Mayhem

This book is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

On the Cover:

Joseph Karl Stieler, Ludwig van Beethoven, oil, 1820, Beethoven-Haus, Bonn

To my stalwart Beethoven buddy and Director Emeritus of the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies, William Meredith; and to the memory of Maestro Kurt Masur (1927–2015), superb interpreter of Beethoven, and cherished comrade of our Leipzig Gewandhaus Symposia days.

q.jpg

Monument to Beethoven, stone, 2000, Music Park, Qingdao, China. Photograph by the author.

b.jpg

Beethoven Birth House (left), adjacent House Im Mohren (right) with St. Regimius Church (far right). Bonngasse 20, in Bonn, Germany.

List of Major Characters

Theodor Zimmerbau: building engineer in Leipzig and uncle of Ernst Zimmerbau

Ernst Zimmerbau: violist in the Bonn Classical Philharmonic and nephew of Hans Zimmerbau

Bettina Brentano: ambitious conductor of the Bonn Classical Philharmonic, she is also a piano virtuoso

Megan Crespi: retired professor of art history and enthusiastic musicologist, she is an expert on early twentieth-century European culture and is now active in solving crimes in the art world

William Meridian: founding director emeritus of the American Beethoven Center in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey

Oskar van der Fresser: controversial musicologist and founder of the Beethoven und Du Museum in Vienna

Miro Hernandez: based in Bonn, a specialist in handling delicate assignments

Nikolaus Schlau: husband of Bettina Brentano, man of many trades and resident piano tuner at the Bonn Classical Philharmonic

Clemens Karl von Masuren: popular conductor of the Beethoven Orchester Bonn

Dr. Seide Sammlerin: over-protective director of the Beethoven-Haus Bonn

Balthasar Bridgetower: direct descendant of Beethoven’s black violinist friend George Bridgetower and former minister who maintains Beethoven was black and takes action accordingly

Dr. Li Shutong: distinguished otologist and discreet billionaire with a singular background relating to Beethoven in China

Takuto Nisemono: conductor and composer once considered the Beethoven of Japan, now disgraced but defiant and scheming a come-back

Leo Weissknab: white supremacist student studying piano and musicology at Bonn University

Hannah Hahn: wife of Andrey Hahn and longtime invaluable housekeeper for the conductor Clemens Karl von Masuren

Andrey Hahn: husband of Hannah Hahn and custodian at the Von Zwengen Auktionshaus in Bonn

Tobias Neidisch: night guard with a chip on his shoulder at the Bonn Beethovenhalle

Louis van Hoven: from New Haven, Connecticut and a self-declared direct descendant of Ludwig van Beethoven

Police Officer Hans Jäger: a burly redhead with a pleasing manner and dedication to his job

Elise Ansel: first viola stand partner with Ernst Zimmerbau at the Bonn Classical Philharmonic

Annemarie Weil-Carr: historical musicologist who teaches at Leipzig University and is famous for her study of Beethoven’s music sketchbooks

Michael Sims: British authority on Beethoven’s 139 surviving conversation books as put forth in his new book: Beethoven, Book by Book

Dr. Otto Hartnäckig: Hamburg cardiologist who maintains that Beethoven died from a hitherto undiagnosed health problem

1

"Ha! Here’s a package that never reached its destination. And this composer’s been dead for almost two centuries!"

Engineer Theodor Zimmerbau was examining the thick parcel his workman Horst had brought to him. It was a warm April day and the two men were standing at the demolition site of a dilapidated eighteenth-century building on Schillerstrasse in Leipzig’s busy inner city.

The packet sender’s address was Breitkopf & Härtel, 121 Schillerstrasse, Leipzig, and the addressee was Ludwig van Beethoven, Schwarzspanierstrasse 15, Wien, Österreich. Hand printed in large capital letters across the Vienna address were the words:

UNZUSTELLBAR: ZURÜCK AN DEN ABSENDER.

So, it was ‘undeliverable’ and marked ‘return to sender,’ Zimmerbau mused out loud.

I guess it’s been in this building’s cellar ever since it got sent back to Leipzig, said Horst. Kind of like a boomerang.

Yes, a Beethoven Boomerang, Zimmerbau smiled at his own alliteration.

Want to open it up?

Umm, I think not. At least not here outdoors where it’s windy.

Then I’ll be getting back to work. Horst turned and walked toward the excavation site. This was a big rush job and the work week had already extended into Saturday.

Zimmerbau continued to stare at the package. He was beginning to feel a sense of awe. The nineteenth-century Leipzig music publishing firm Breitkopf & Härtel was legendary. Even he knew the name. Perhaps it would be wise to contact them if they still existed. Or, an even better idea, he could open the package with his musician nephew Ernst, who played viola with the Bonn Classical Philharmonic. Maybe, depending on the packet’s contents, they should even contact the Beethoven-Haus Museum in Bonn. Or an auction house. The package contents could be worth a fortune!

Yes, Ernst would know what to do. Theodor knew his nephew was playing in an important concert the next evening. Perhaps he would call him after he got home, even bring the packet to Bonn for him to look at tomorrow, Sunday.

2

Bettina Brentano was ambitious. A tall, muscular woman with assessing ice blue eyes and abundant raven black hair captured in an impossible-to-ignore protruding bun, she wore her forty-seven years well. Her new, easily won post as conductor of the Bonn Classical Philharmonic with its orchestra of some sixty members and core repertoire of works by the First Viennese School of the Classical period—Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven—was the penultimate step. A penultimate step toward securing the position she had coveted for many years: director of the renowned Beethoven Orchester Bonn with its one-hundred and six instrumentalists and its celebrated CD recordings.

Bettina, who despite an early marriage maintained her maiden name, had never openly boasted about her famous ancestor. But neither had she denied it. And somehow anyone who met her, worked with her, or even corresponded with her soon knew her illustrious ancestor on her mother’s side was Bettina Brentano von Arnim, friend of the great cultural figures of her time, including the kings of literature and music, Goethe and Beethoven. Of course it helped that, before adoption of the euro, the historical Bettina’s portrait had appeared on the German 5-DM bill.

And an authenticated letter to an unknown woman from Beethoven using the intimate "Du form of address found in his desk after his death, had suggested for some scholars that she was Beethoven’s Immortal Beloved." All this had brought the present-day Bettina gratuitous fame, making her appointment as conductor of Bonn’s second largest orchestra seem preordained.

Certainly the modern-day Bettina had the credentials. A child prodigy as well as an early feminist, she had conducted and performed Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto inserting the cadenza by Clara Wieck Schumann for a most appreciative audience—after all, both Clara and Robert Schumann were buried in Bonn. Encouraged by this success, Brentano announced that her next performances of the concerto would feature the cadenzas composed for it by Johannes Brahms and Camille Saint-Saëns on alternative evenings. Ultimately she began performing a five evening offering consisting, alternatively, of one or the other of Beethoven’s own two cadenzas, then those of Schumann, Brahms, and Saint-Saëns. The result was that each night the participating concert venue was filled to overflow, with so many devoted listeners returning every evening. The zenith was reached when Bettina Brentano offered her own, very twenty-first-century-sounding cadenza.

Nothing like this had ever been done before, and audiences loved it. Yes, the city elders had reasoned, after a hit and run motorcycle accident had permanently disabled their elderly conductor, Bettina Brentano’s fame would bring new blood to the Classical Philharmonic and attract new listeners to its declining audience attendance. Bonn now had two illustrious conductors: Bettina Brentano and Clemens Karl von Masuren, reigning adored director of the Beethoven Orchester Bonn. Both conducted various performances at the city’s fabulous newly reconstructed home on the Rhine: the huge low domed Beethovenhalle with its majestic performance area. For decades it had seemed that completion of the Beethovenhalle would never take place due to a lack of funds. In fact the city had finally cancelled further construction. But then, most unexpectedly, an anonymous Chinese mogul, who wished to remain anonymous, had stepped in and the Hall was finished just in time for the 250th jubilee year of Beethoven’s birth.

If she played her cards right, Bettina Brentano would soon be director of both orchestras and the city of Bonn would be forever grateful.

3

One would never know the professor was in her mid-eighties from the way she sprinted ahead of her companion across the Münsterplatz in Bonn, the city where Ludwig van Beethoven was born. Since her retirement from teaching art history, if not from lecturing and writing, Megan Crespi had found a challenging new profession, solving art crimes in collaboration with international police. The work usually plucked her away from her home and her beloved Maltese dog Button in Dallas and plunked her down in a European country. A perpetual brunette with sparkling chestnut-brown eyes, she maintained a strenuous daily exercise routine that kept her limber if not as slim as she would have liked.

Her travel-companion this time, younger than Megan by twenty years, was a treasured colleague and friend, Will Meridian, founding director emeritus of the American Beethoven Center in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. With kindly blue eyes and distinguished white hair, his affable personality and scholarly expertise had attracted a number of donations and scholars to the Center. He and Megan were both in Bonn to partake in a symposium and roundtable discussion featuring five Beethoven scholars of various expertise. She, on the changing image of Beethoven through three centuries—a mythmaking process that was the central topic of a long, richly illustrated book Megan had written several decades previously. The roundtable chat promised to be lively, as more than half of its participants were stridently horrified by the images of Beethoven produced so far in the twenty-first century. On the whole, Megan was one of them, although she did entertain a few commanding or clever exceptions, realizing reluctantly that historic likeness was apparently a thing of the past. Nevertheless, she would be firing off a few choice pellets in defense of reality.

Will’s participation would focus on two topics, one announced, the other unindicated. Up for examination was the latest supposed lock of Beethoven’s hair to come into the Center’s temporary possession. At last the renowned institution had an on-loan lock of hair with the root still attached. That could make all the difference. Might DNA testing benefit the mysterious lender—a Louis van Hoven of New Haven, Connecticut, who claimed to be a direct descendant of the bachelor Beethoven? Surely, he had already had the hair strand tested in Bonn, in Vienna, and elsewhere in continental Europe. Perhaps he was unhappy with what very likely must have been negative answers. He had presented the Center not only with the loaned lock of hair but also with the names of a few of Vienna’s best-known prostitutes of the composer’s time. This last apparently gratuitous data was fortified by a reference to Beethoven’s longtime friend Nikolaus Zmeskall, whose letter exchange with the composer indicates the lovelorn composer frequented prostitutes.

It’s crazy of course about that lender’s ancestry claims, but we’re going to do the DNA testing nevertheless, Will was saying as he caught up with Megan. Her sprint had awarded them a choice corner table at the outdoor Café Midi with its large blue umbrellas facing the square’s imposing effigy of Beethoven in mid-stride, quill in hand, by a young nineteenth-century sculptor named Ernst Julius Hähnel. Thanks to Franz Liszt’s generosity, the life-size bronze statue, as well as the speedy construction of a Beethovenhalle to house three days of concerts for the unveiling occasion, had been funded. Hähnel’s statue was presented to Bonn on a Tuesday in August of 1845. Typically procrastinating, the city of Vienna, where Beethoven spent most of his life and died in 1827 at the age of fifty-six, did not get around to honoring its world-famous citizen with a statue until 1880.

And what do you guess was the most unexpected moment of the entire unveiling here? Megan asked Will as they sipped cappuccinos and observed the tourists milling around the statue on its tall, bas-relief decorated bronze plinth. He looked at her suspiciously, aware of his friend’s love of small, hilarious details.

Hmm. I’m not going to guess. You tell me.

Okay. You know that young Queen Victoria and her beloved consort Prince Albert attended the ceremony, right?

If you say so. Wait, yes. Now I remember. Along with Victoria’s cousin King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia and Archduke Friedrich of Austria, yes?

Correct. Now look over to your right a bit. What do you see behind the statue?

"Behind the statue? Well, that large yellow building. Post office, it says on the façade."

That’s what it is nowadays. But in eighteen-forty-five it was the house of an accommodating Count von Fürstenberg and the balcony you see across the building’s façade is where the royal visitors stood for the unveiling.

Megan waited and watched for what she knew would be a convulsing laugh. It came almost immediately.

"Ha! I see what you mean. When the statue of Beethoven was unveiled, Victoria and Albert and the other royalties were staring at his back!" Amused chuckling overtook them both.

But wasn’t Victoria insulted? Will finally asked.

We actually have her diary entry for the event. Here, let me pull it up. Megan reached for her iPhone, easily findable in its red silicon case. She was in her element in the cyber world’s age of information. In fact, she often wondered how she had ever written her still relevant tome on Beethovenian imagery using only books as her research tools.

The point is that Victoria did not find the faux pas insulting, as some of her party did, but merely unlucky. Ah, here’s what I’m looking for. The queen wrote, quote: ‘We stepped onto the balcony to see the unveiling of Beethoven’s statue...but unfortunately, when the statue was uncovered, its back was turned to us.’

And that’s it? That’s all she wrote?

Yep. That’s it. No further comment.

"Well, speaking of comments, what do you, as an art historian, think of the statue?" Will asked, genuinely interested in his friend’s judgement of the bronze figure before them atop its great plinth and tall concrete base.

I like it. Very much. There was, after all, a huge compromise to be handled: conveying contemporary accuracy of countenance and clothing while radiating the heroic. And I think Hähnel was successful. The cravat and buttons are there, of course, but the, literally, pedestrian composer has been transformed by the full-length, classical cloak wrapped around him as he strides. Transformed into a demi-god whose gaze is not toward the cathedral beyond him there off to the right, but fixed upon eternity. Just as Beethoven’s music is deemed eternal.

Before Will could comment on his friend’s enthusiastic approval of the bronze Beethoven, she changed the subject, her eyes sparkling with anticipation.

"But, hey, pal, let’s talk China!"

Megan was referring to the Viking cruise along the China coast they had booked several months earlier, and which began later that very week. Their air route would take them from the small Cologne/Bonn airport to the busy international one in Frankfurt where they would connect with an Air China flight leaving at midnight, bringing them into Beijing a little past seven the next morning. It was Will who had suggested the trip, hoping his colleague might be as interested as he in seeing the two major Beethoven sites in that vast country. One was from the twentieth century in the city of Tianjin, the main maritime gateway to Beijing and its Forbidden City, and the other, from the first year of the twenty-first century, was in the port city of Qingdao where their ship would also dock. Will happily revisited in his mind the information that had first enticed Megan to accompany him to China. The earlier Beethoven monument was a life-size bronze image of the composer dressed and seated in almost exact replication of Vienna’s famous 1880 homage by the noted sculptor Caspar von Zumbusch. Photographs showed that only the composer’s hair was different, with long curling locks that seemed to ripple in an unseen wind.

As for the Qingdao monument... Will’s mental image of it was dissolved by the thunderous blast of a trombone nearby. The A minor melody it was pumping out was hardly characteristic of the brass instrument. It was Beethoven’s well-known 1810 piano bagatelle, Für Elise. The trombone was getting closer and as Will and Megan turned toward it, the spectacle of a marching crowd greeted their eyes. It was a small crowd but a noisy one. The members all appeared to be students, one with a pair of bongo drums under her arm. An older, dignified black man with a large mustache wearing a cleric’s collar and a black beanie seemed to be their leader. Not until they began shouting their repetitious slogan did Will or Megan notice that most of the marching crowd was black. Their chant grew louder as they surrounded Hähnel’s silent statue.

"Beethoven Was Black!" they shouted. A few students were holding up banners with the same phrase scrawled on them. One poster had an enlarged image of the composer’s face with emphasis on his legendary swarthy, saturnine features.

A tall young man with dreadlocks abruptly stepped out from the group and faced the gathering Sunday crowd of curious onlookers. He was dressed ostentatiously in the Biedermeier style of Beethoven’s age. Holding a megaphone to his lips he began a harangue the key words of which, as far as Megan and Will could ascertain, were polyrhythms, left hand, best friend, and violinist. The last word apparently triggered the trombonist who stepped forward and with a four-note ascending arpeggio began blaring what cumbersomely resembled the first four measures of Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata. But that was impossible. Or was it? Megan and Will looked at each other, bemused suspense written on their faces. The trombone’s next notes provided the answer. Its owner had jumped fifteen measures forward and was actually playing the first Presto melody of the famous sonata for violin and piano. And then another surprise. The girl with the bongo drums squatted on the ground next to the trombonist and began banging away with cascading abrupt blows, then lingering three-finger slides.

I guess this is the ‘polyrhythms’ accompaniment the students were shouting about, Megan said, laughing.

"Yes. I think they’re referring to something contended by those who insist Beethoven had African roots. That there are African polyrhythms discernable in the left-hand parts of his piano music—that is, if the pianist plays the left hand louder than is customary. Supposedly, if this is done, one can identify African chant, dance, and music patterns," said Will, unconvinced by the claim.

That’s quite a stretch! Actually, I vividly recall that during the time I was researching for my Beethoven book there was a fad, with T-shirts to match, proclaiming ‘Beethoven Was Black.’

Right! Part of the Black Pride movement of the nineteen-sixties. I remember that too. The ‘BWB’ theory seems to crop up every thirty years or so. This is apparently the newest outbreak. Will almost had to shout, for the musical din now made conversation difficult.

What do you think is the cause? Raising her voice to be heard, Megan was serious, and she pressed her point. We know Beethoven’s surname name is Flemish in origin and that the name can be translated as ‘beet field.’ And that, unlike the German ‘von,’ the ‘van’ did not denote nobility, as Beethoven allowed people to think in Vienna, but simply meant ‘of—of beet field.’ So what’s the case for his being of African descent?

Popularization of a claim that at some point in his ancestry Moorish blood entered his genome—either on the mother’s or father’s side, Will answered.

But there’s no evidence for that! Megan had extensively researched both parents’ heritage, and the possibility of Maria Magdalena Keverich being of Moorish extraction was particularly outlandish.

She was the daughter of the head chef at the court of the Archbishopric of Trier and there is absolutely no record of her or either one of her parents being black.

"Tell that to this crowd," Will suggested.

Have you figured out why they are also shouting the phrase ‘best friend’? asked Megan.

"I think so. They’re probably referring to Beethoven’s friendship with the young black virtuoso violinist George Bridgetower. Beethoven composed that technically grueling violin sonata for him, and they premiered it together. On the first autograph for the first movement the composer jokingly titled it ‘Sonata mulattica composta per il mulatto Brischdauer’—comma—‘gran pazzo e compositore mulattico.’ How would you translate that, Dotoressa Crespi?"

Mm, I think the best translation of that would be. ‘Sonata mulattica composed for the mulatto Bridgetower,’ and then after that comma, ‘great crazy and mulatto composer.’

Exactly. But soon after they then had a fallout over a young woman they were both infatuated with, and Beethoven changed the title to ‘Kreutzer Sonata’ in honor of the French violinist, Rodolphe Kreutzer. The irony is that Kreutzer apparently never played the sonata; found it too difficult. Called it ‘outrageously unintelligible.’

Just then, on a signal from the boy with dreadlocks, the chanting and bongo drumming ceased. The poster portrait of Beethoven bordering on caricature was held aloft for all to see. Megan immediately identified the original as an 1814 black and white engraving by Blasius Höfel. The image had been greatly enlarged and color had been added: a yellowish brown for the complexion and a glistening black for the wavy locks of hair. The curious crowd was growing by the minute and a hush fell when the boy with dreadlocks brandished his megaphone again and began shouting as he pointed to the image.

Every feature confirms Beethoven was black! Just see for yourselves: thick, black, curly hair, dark complexion, flat, broad nose, and wide mouth! His skin was so dark contemporaries called him the ‘Spaniard’ or the ‘mulatto.’ What more do you . . .

The 116-decibels-loud bullet, shot upward from underneath a jacket at chest level, hit the boy with dreadlocks in the throat, and killed him on the spot. Only the 22-caliber pistol’s tip extended beyond the shooter’s jacket, and that merely for a second, as the owner, affecting the same shock as his horrified neighbors, disappeared into the scattering crowd.

4

One could say he adored Beethoven to excess. As a child Oskar van der Fresser, who grew up in a wealthy Viennese family of professional musicians, had enjoyed being able to immediately identify which of the composer’s nine symphonies was broadcast on their radio’s classical music station. Although he was adept at both piano and violin, he had made a name for himself at the age of twenty-three as a feisty musicologist. His first article had stunned and angered the musical world with its thesis that Richard Wagner owed much of his musical form and inspiration to Beethoven. The article was impertinently titled Wagner: Beethoven’s Best and Worst Pupil. A howl was heard in the musical world and Oskar’s name and controversial reputation were secured. His physical appearance was as feisty as his article. A blond buzz cut gave him an aggressive look and his prominent nose looked permanently out of joint.

Since the article’s appearance, during the next seventeen years all Oskar’s efforts had been on behalf of a unique virtual reality museum he had created in the city where the composer spent his last thirty-five years. Named Beethoven und Du—Beethoven and You—the fourteen-room gallery was situated, thanks to fortuitous family inheritance, literally next to Probusgasse 6 in Vienna’s Heiligenstadt district. It was there, at the now famous Heiligenstadt address, that the thirty-two-year-old composer had confronted and announced his deafness to his two brothers in an agonized letter that remained unmailed and which today is known as the Heiligenstadt Testament. An entire room had been devoted to a greatly enlarged facsimile of the letter spread across three walls with translations in six major world languages including Mandarin, English, and Arabic. The fourth wall was devoted to three life-size shadow figure silhouettes dressed in the style of the time. Beethoven was shown seated at a writing desk while in front of him his brothers Karl and Johann stood facing each other.

The judgement of the local press had been equally divided between rave praise and sanctimonious condemnation—a decisive factor in attracting hordes of curious visitors to the museum. A period desk and chair placed in front of the wall silhouette enticed visitors to use the quill pen and ink provided to write down their theories as to why Beethoven curiously never mentioned his brother Johann by name in the Heiligenstadt Testament. Each week the most interesting explanation was affixed to the desk, guaranteeing return visits.

Other rooms were devoted to replicas of items owned by the composer, including an array of ear pipes and trumpets one could try out, as well as replicas of Beethoven’s portraits along with images of his male and female contemporaries. Several of the latter were identified as the composer’s possible Immortal Beloved. The biggest attraction was a life-size cardboard cutout of Hähnel’s standing Beethoven statue in Bonn complete with a cut-out hole through which visitors could place their own faces and pose for photographs. Photography, even with flash, was allowed throughout the museum.

By far the most novel and most popular room was a large soundproof multi-windowed chamber containing exact replicas of two of Beethoven’s pianos. There was the robust British Broadwood with the name BEETHOVEN inlaid in ebony on the fallboard above the keys. By 1823, however, the original instrument had become a tangle of mute keys, cracked hammers, and broken strings. The other piano was a replica of the Viennese Conrad Graf rescue piano of the same year with its speedy light action and clear, sharp tone. It had been outfitted with most of the strings quadruple-strung instead of the traditional triple-strung in order to enhance the upper notes for the deaf composer. For twenty-four euros one could rent the room for five minutes and try out the two pianos. There was always a long line of patient enthusiasts eager to compare the two pianos’ action and sound. The same musical score was on each music rack and it was, predictably, Beethoven’s rule-breaking fourteenth piano sonata, with its three movements progressing atypically from slow to medium to fast. The world knew it as the Moonlight Sonata after the critic Ludwig Rellstab’s descriptive words. Needless to say, Oskar’s museum drew part of its sizeable income from the irresistible draw of the piano chamber. For those who could not play, recordings were available at the flip of a switch on both pianos for rendering the popular piece. Sitting at the pianos, visitors could play at playing Beethoven.

In addition, the museum boasted a fascinating document room with enlargements on the walls of previously unknown musical sheets in the composer’s hand. How the important autographs had come into the museum’s possession was a tightly kept secret but there were rumors of cooperation with avid Asian Beethoven collectors and specialists. One Chinese visitor, however, had mailed Oskar a stinging criticism after visiting the museum. It seemed he took umbrage at the standing cardboard Beethoven with cutout visitors could poke their faces though to be photographed. The letter read simply: You have turned your museum into a kindergarten. The letter was signed simply a Beethoven lover and the postmark read Qingdao, a port city in China.

Each of the nine separate rooms was devoted in chronological sequence to one of Beethoven’s nine symphonies. The wall colors of each room attempted to convey the general character, and sometimes message, of its respective symphony. The First with its classical roots, rated a peaceful porcelain-blue and crisp white; the joyous nature of the Second exhibited an aura of sunshine yellows, while the Third, titled Eroica by the composer himself, employed oozing blood reds to convey the musical anxiety and devastation ultimately conquered by heroic musical forays symbolized by silver on the ceiling. The lesser known Fourth, with its nod to classicism and the perpetual motion of its engaging Finale, inspired a pictorial repetition of all the hues of blues around the walls, whereas the uplifting and viscerally powerful Fifth, defined by its initial eight notes, conjured eight color wheel explosions in the ceiling-sky above. For the Sixth, in keeping with Beethoven’s title Pastoral, a slowly rising ring of nature’s greens reached the sky-blue ceiling while live birds chirped in cages hung aloft. The joyous Seventh, completed three years after Napoleon’s second occupation of Vienna and filled with a sense of celebration and rhythmic dance elements, was paralleled with silver and gold on both walls and ceiling. The short Eighth, with its changing orchestral colors and rhythmic obsessions inspired spiraling multi-colored comets shooting across the ceiling and landing on the walls. And for the huge, climaxing Ninth, designated by Beethoven as the Choral Symphony, the room displayed all the colors of the rainbow in salutation of pure Joy.

The museum’s largest room functioned as a modest-sized, but acoustically superb auditorium where weekly concerts of Beethoven works were performed, bringing in even more revenue as the institution’s reputation grew.

There was one irony about the success of Oskar’s Beethoven und Du museum at Probusgasse No. 4. An irony that gave its founder great secret pleasure. The museum’s physical neighbor, No. 6, where Beethoven wrote his Heiligenstadt Testament, had been refurbished and expanded two years earlier and was now open as a competing Beethoven museum. Its attendance so far was a mere one quarter that of Beethoven und Du.

Still and all, Oskar enjoyed musing, wouldn’t it be a tragedy if a fire were to break out in the rival museum at Probusgasse 6?

5

Arriving uncharacteristically several hours early to check a few details before the Sunday evening concert in which she would perform both as piano soloist and conductor of Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto, Bettina Brentano almost collided with one of her violists. Ernst Zimmerbau was rounding the corner next to the musicians lounge and was so deeply engaged in conversation with an older man that he did not notice the conductor when she abruptly stopped in front of him. Behind her was her tall, brawny husband, Nikolaus Schlau, an unsmiling man of many trades, known to orchestra members as the resident piano tuner.

Oh, Maestra! Pardon me! Something so fantastic has just happened that I wasn’t watching where we were going. Maestra, this is my uncle, Theodor Zimmerbau, who just this minute arrived here from Leipzig; Uncle, this is our beloved conductor Maestra Bettina Brentano.

They shook hands as Bettina smiled. Her husband was ignored, much to his satisfaction.

And what is this ‘fantastic thing’ that just happened? Bettina looked at Ernst curiously. He glanced questioningly at his uncle who nodded in return.

See that package in my uncle’s hands? Look at the address! Bettina looked and her eyes opened wide.

It must have been sent some days after Beethoven died if the Schwarzspanierstrasse address was already invalid, she said, eying the package with an interest that was quickly turning into envy.

How on earth did this come into your possession? Bettina asked the older Zimmerbau. Her look was speculative, and her mind was racing.

Madame, I am a structural engineer and we were in the process of razing an old structure in Leipzig’s inner city when one of my workers brought me something he had discovered in the basement of the partially demolished building. It was this thick packet. I thought I should bring it in person to the only musical authority I know, my nephew. You see he’s not only a violist but also a published musicologist and I thought . . .

"And have you opened it?" Bettina’s voice was razor sharp as it cut through Zimmerbau’s sentence. Her husband Nikolaus discreetly took up a stance next to her.

Not yet, Ernst answered for them both. My uncle came here directly from the airport. I thought we could open it down here in the lounge before our concert and before he has to fly back to . . .

"Open it here in the lounge where so many people will be arriving shortly? Bettina interrupted again. Surely not. I will take you to my office where the packet can be opened in private."

The Zimmerbaus looked at each other and nodded. Yes, it would be far better to open the package in the privacy of the Maestra’s office. As an expert on Beethoven herself, she could be helpful in identifying what the contents of the package might be. Before they could answer, the dynamic conductor, who was just as dynamic in private, abruptly turned away from the lounge.

There we will have seclusion. Follow me, she commanded, turning and shooting a meaningful look at her husband. He fell into silent step close behind the two Zimmerbaus.

6

No. I’ve been glued to my desk all day. Fund-raising emergency. It was one of our guards who ran in and told me about the murder!

Dr. Seide Sammlerin, longtime respected director of the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, was quietly conversing with Megan and Will just inside the small courtyard before the side entrance to the modest yellow house where Beethoven was born. The two Americans had decided to try to locate their colleague after the nearby demonstration in the Münsterplatz that had ended in a horrible shooting death. Fortunately, even though it was a Sunday, Sammlerin was at her museum and available.

We had our own version of the ‘Beethoven Was Black’ protest at our museum just yesterday, Sammlerin told them with irritation. She was a small woman in her early sixties with a mass of unkempt white hair, a long face, and a lantern jaw that gave her speech an unusual emphasis, something she had learned to use to her advantage when dealing with potential donors to the museum.

Was it as noisy and dramatic as the one we just left? asked Megan.

"No. Definitely not. We had the usual Saturday afternoon crowds and suddenly a rather distinguished looking black man wearing a Roman collar stepped onto the grassy strip before the hedge there, placed his hand on Naoum Aronson’s Beethoven bust in front of it and announced loudly to whoever was within hearing distance that Beethoven was black. He repeated this statement for quite a while to a growing, grinning audience until one of our guards—Peter Schubs—conducted him out of the museum. The man did not resist, just kept repeating his claim, and we didn’t bother to call the police or anything like that. But really!" Seide Sammlerin raised her palms in exasperation.

I wonder why he claims that Beethoven was black, Will mused.

"Oh, now that I can answer," Sammlerin replied in her resounding tone.

"At the end of the day when the staff was closing down the museum, one of them, Maria Weber, glanced at the guest book where visitors write their names, addresses, and comments, and she noticed an entry with a British address printed with a black felt marker. It read: ‘Beethoven was black. I should know. I am the direct descendant of his great violinist friend George Bridgetower.’ The entry was signed ‘Balthasar Bridgetower.’"

Why that’s insane! Megan expostulated. "Just because Bridgetower was black doesn’t mean his friend