Stamp review: Ludwig van Beethoven, 250 Years (2020-12-15)

The "Ludwig van Beethoven, 250 Years" stamp was issued by Israel Post on 15 December 2020 to mark the semiquincentennial of Ludwig van Beethoven's birth. Face valued at ₪11.80, corresponding to the postage rate for domestic priority 100-300g mail, the stamp depicts an image of Beethoven based on a portrait of him by Joseph Karl Stieler and the iconic opening notes of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67. The tab below the stamp proper illustrates the opening notes of Symphony No. 5's second subject and features a "Philately Day" inscription indicating that proceeds from the stamp's sale go to the Philately Promotion Foundation. Gray is the stamp's dominant color. It was designed by Zvika Roitman (צביקה רויטמן), who has been a stamp designer with Israel Post since 2003.

בולים של מוצארט, באך
J.S. Bach, W.A. Mozart stamps
Israel Post (2000, 1991)

Beethoven was born on 17 December 1770 and, along with Bach (1685-1750) and Mozart (1756-1791), forms part of classical music's Big Three. Israel Post issued a Mozart stamp, designed by Naomi and Meir Eshel, in 1991 and a Bach stamp, designed by Daniel Goldberg, in 2000. Unlike the Beethoven stamp, the stamps of his predecessors depicted real-life sculptures as their main focus; "Beethoven" opted for a heavily stylized, cartoonish representation of its subject, exaggerating the ruddiness of his cheeks, the smoothness of his skin, and the fullness of his hair.

בול בטהובן
"Ludwig van Beethoven 1770-1827" stamp
Magyar Posta (2020)
(Promotional image based on the Stieler portrait)

"Cartoonish" is one way to describe Beethoven's appearance on Israel's stamp. "Reimagined" is another. The fact is, whether or not the designer intended it, the youthful-looking Beethoven design resembles more closely what the composer might have looked like when he wrote his Fifth Symphony than when he portrait-posed for Joseph Karl Stieler twelve years later. To wit, at the time Symphony No. 5 was completed, in 1808, Beethoven was still a man in his mid-thirties; he was already approaching fifty when, in 1820, Joseph Karl Stieler undertook to oil-paint a portrait of the composer.

בול לואי שפור
"Louis Spohr" stamp
Deutsche Bundespost (1959)
Image source: German-Stamps.org

The Stieler portrait is notable for being the only one Beethoven posed for in his lifetime.¹ Upon completion, the portrait was presented at Vienna's Academy of Fine Arts, where Stieler had been a student a decade and a half prior. Shortly thereafter, it was acquired by Wilhelm Spohr, brother of acclaimed composer and violin chinrest inventor Louis Spohr, at a raffle held by the Kunstverein Braunschweig in Germany. When Wilhelm Spohr died, in 1860, the portrait was inherited by his daughter Rosalie Spohr.² She retained possession of it until 1909, when it was bought by Henri Hinrichsen, the son of a Jewish manufacturer from Hamburg and a prominent figure in the German music industry.^3,4

בולי מוזיאון כלי הנגינה של לייפציג
Musikinstrumenten-Museum Leipzig stamps
Deutsche Post der DDR (1979)
Image source: Deutsche Briefmarken

Henri Hinrichsen has been called "a cultural lion of Leipzig" and "one of the most respected citizens and businessmen of Leipzig."^5,6 Born in Hamburg in 1868, it was in Leipzig that Hinrichsen made a name for himself, both professionally and as a patron of the arts. In 1900 he inherited C.F. Peters, a major Leipzig-based music publishing company, from his uncle after the latter committed suicide due to illness.⁷ Subsequently, he played instrumental roles in the establishment of the Hochschule für Frauen zu Leipzig, which was Germany's first women's college, and the Musikinstrumentenmuseum der Universität Leipzig, the Museum of Musical Instruments of Leipzig University. In 1929 Leipzig University awarded Hinrichsen an honorary doctorate for his oustanding generosity.⁸

בול וציור של קרל שפיצווג
Carl Spitzweg (1808-1885)
Left: Der Hagestolz
Image source: Sotheby's
Right: "Sonntagsspaziergang von Carl Spitzweg" stamp
Deutsche Bundespost (1985)
Image source: German-Stamps.org

Even as German culture was flourishing in domains like science and art around this time -- with Jews like Albert Einstein, who won a Nobel Prize in 1921, and Henri Hinrichsen fully integrated into their respective milieus -- German society of the 1920s was a bubbling cauldron of economic depression, widespread despair, antisemitic hatred, and violent extremism. Einstein recognized the danger and fled the country in December 1932; Hinrichsen, however, was slower to react. Within weeks of Adolf Hitler becoming chencellor in January 1933, the German Music Publishers Association (DMVV) expelled Hinrichsen from its executive committee along with four other high-profile Jews. On Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass in November 1938, the offices of C.F. Peters were heavily damaged and music associated with Jewish composer Felix Mendelssohn was thrown into a fire. As additional laws were put into effect limiting Jewish property rights and excluding them from positions of influence in all sectors of society, Hinrichsen was forced to sign over C.F. Peters along with all assets belonging to the firm to Aryan ownership.^9,10 In January 1940, Hinrichsen fled to Belgium with his wife, leaving behind an art collection that included Carl Spitzweg's Der Hagestolz ("The Bachelor's Outing"), Fritz von Uhde's Im Herbst ("Autumn") and Wilhelm Leibl's Johann Harterich -- as well as the Stieler portrait.

דיוקן בטהובן בניו־יורק
Stieler portrait overlooking a Walter Hinrichsen meeting in NY
Image source: Sheet Music Plus

Germany invaded Belgium in May 1940, and in August 1942 Henri Hinrichsen was arrested by the Gestapo in Brussels and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.¹¹ He was marched to a gas chamber and murdered the following month. He was 74. After the war, one of Hinrichsen's sons, Walter, who had moved to the United States in 1935, served in the U.S. Army during the war and established an American firm under the name C.F. Peters in New York, returned to Germany as Music Officer for the American Zone in Germany.¹² As Leipzig was in East Germany and under Soviet control, what was left of his father's firm drifted beyond his reach. He was, however, successful in retrieving the Stieler portrait, which he arranged to be shipped to New York. It hung in his office until 1981 when it was sold to the Beethoven House in Bonn, which is where it remains to this day.

בול בית הכנסת הגדול של וינה
"150 Jahre Wiener Stadttempel" stamp
Österreichische Post (1976)
Image source: Pinterest

What were Beethoven's attitudes toward Jews? Cecil Bloom found in the composer's letters "more than a trace of antisemitism," citing as an example a letter Beethoven wrote to one of his music publishers:

You yourself when replying may fix the prices as well; and as you are neither a Jew nor an Italian [his emphasis] and since I too am neither, no doubt we shall come to some agreement.¹³

John Neubauer similarly characterized Beethoven's comments in reference to music publisher Adolf Martin Schlesinger as "angry, even anti-Semitic remarks": "In a letter to Diabelli of 1823, Beethoven called him once 'a beach-peddler and rag-and-bone Jew,' and he complained in 1826 to the publisher Peters that Schlesinger paid him a dirty Jewish trick."¹⁴ Neither Bloom nor Neubauer went so far as to call Beethoven a full-on antisemite; nor did musicologist Malcolm Miller, who examined Beethoven's interactions with numerous of his Jewish contemporaries and found no pattern suggesting racial animus.¹⁵ One chronicler who did impute to Beethoven unequivocally antisemitic views was Anton Schindler, who wrote of Beethoven's "hatred for the children of Israel in the arts."¹⁶ Schindler, however, who was Beethoven's secretary and biographer, was not only an antisemite himself but is also known to have corrupted written records Beethoven left after his death and distorted his legacy.

Of special note in this context is the case of the Stadttempel in Vienna. On the occasion of the synagogue's dedication in 1826, Vienna's Jewish community had sought to commission Beethoven to compose what would essentially be an anthem for their newly constructed house of worship. Depending on one's interpretation, Beethoven either was unable to accept the commission, accepted it, declined it, or left the matter open for consideration.^17,18,19,20 Whatever the case may be (the commission ultimately went to another composer), the fact that a Jewish community would reach out to Beethoven reflects a perception on the community's part of Beethoven as sympthatetic to the Jewish ethnos and faith.

בול יום כיפור: כל נדרי
Festivals 5773: "Yom Kippur, Kol Nidrei Prayer" stamp
Israel Post (2012)

Even more remarkable than the Stadttempel case is the speculation surrounding Beethoven's 1826 String Quartet No. 14 in C♯ minor, Op. 131, the sixth movement of which has evoked in many listeners' minds the melody of Yom Kippur's Kol Nidrei prayer as recited in Ashkenazic Jewish congregations. Since 1898, when composer Emil Breslaur first called attention to the quartet's resemblance to Kol Nidrei,²¹ scholars and casual audiences have debated the degree to which a resemblance actually exists and, supposing it does, the degree to which it ought to be construed as meaningful.

Velvel Pasternak was one musicologist who, referencing the Stadttempel commission, clearly identified Kol Nidrei in String Quartet No. 14's sixth movement and looked to the commission as a possible source for Beethoven's familiarity with the prayer:

It may very well be that, while Beethoven was considering this commission, he began to look into Jewish thematic material, and Kol Nidre was brought to his attention. We find the theme of Kol Nidre woven throughout Beethoven's C♯minor String Quartet, opus 131, composed during that period.²²

In opposition to Pasternak, musicologist Alfred Sendrey flatly dismissed as apocryphal any connection between the two works:

It is unimaginable that Beethoven might have "heard" the Kol Nidre theme in a synagogue or elsewhere, since at the time of the creation of this quartet, in the last years of his life, he was completely deaf. It is quite obvious that a similarity, if there is one, which is very questionable, is nothing more than a coincidence.²³

Complicating the debate further is a note Beethoven attached to the quartet when sending it to his publisher. In the note, Beethoven described his latest composition as "patched together from pieces filched here and there." Could that have been a veiled admission of having incorporated elements of Kol Nidrei into the quartet? The general consensus is that Beethoven was waxing facetious, yet his publisher was sufficiently alarmed by the note that Beethoven had to send him another one declaring that the quartet was entirely new.

Beethoven compositions have been adapted by musicians of all instruments and styles, from the accordion to the qanun and from jazz to heavy metal. Each adaptation is necessarily, much like Zvika Roitman's illustration, a reimagining of source material, preserving a kernel of the original and introducing novel layers that are unique to the tools, skills and personality of the new performer. Moonlight Sonata (Piano Sonata No. 14 in C♯ minor, Op. 27, No. 2), whose opening notes appear on the "Beethoven" first day cover, is one such composition that has undergone periodic reimaginings. In particular, its third movement has been a favorite among electric guitar shredders for its alacrity, its sophisticated arpeggiation, and for how challenging it is to faithfully reproduce on the guitar.

In this context, the performance of Moonlight Sonata's third movement by French guitar virtuosa Tina Setkic at the age of 17 is nothing short of jaw-dropping. Originally arranged by Michele Vioni and with a backing track by the same, Setkic demonstrates an exceptional understanding of the movement's internal structure -- tension, relief, and how to transition fluidly between them -- and showcases an array of techniques executed with a flawlessness that thoroughly belies her youth. Being of a more relentlessly aggressive nature, Setkic's performance on the electric guitar lacks much of the variation in mood that the piano performances express, but she makes up for it with subtle alterations of tone and intensity that are expressive in their own way.

בטהובן מעטפת יום ההופעה
"Beethoven" first day cover
Image source: eBay

The tab of "Beethoven" is inscribed with the Israel Philatelic Federation logo and with the words "Philately Day" in Hebrew, Arabic and English. The significance of this is twofold. First, were it not for the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, specially canceled "Beethoven" stamps would have been distributed to guests at the Israel Philatelic Federation's annual convention in December as a souvenir of the event. Second, the "Philately Day" inscription indicates that profits made from the sale of the "Beethoven" stamps are entrusted to the Philately Promotion Foundation (הקרן לעידוד הבולאות), a joint venture of Israel Post and the Israel Philatelic Federation. The first Philately Day stamp was issued in December 1989, and the Philately Promotion Foundation was established some time between 1989 and January 1991.

רחוב בטהובן בעיר אשדוד
Beethoven Street in Ashdod, Israel

How prominent is Beethoven's legacy in Israeli culture? The Jewish coastal city of Ashdod has a street named after the composer in a neighborhood with streets named for Michelangelo, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Brahms, and Haydn. In the Arab town of Shefar'am few streets have names, but there is a dead-end named after Beethoven in an area that also has Mozart and Picasso streets. In 2004, a council member in the coastal town of Netanya tried to get a street named after Beethoven there, but he was unsuccessful.²⁴

Bottom line: 2/5 -- Mild pass. Evaluated against other Beethoven stamps issued in 2020, "Beethoven" represents an average effort. More visually striking stamps were issued by Faroe Islands (Heiðrik á Heygum), Armenia (David Dovlatyan) and Azerbaijan (Vugar Eyyubov), while the Beethoven stamps of France, Spain and even Germany and Austria were worse. What drops "Beethoven" into pass territory is its missed opportunity. Instead of being harnessed to tell a uniquely Israeli story of Beethoven through a Jewish lens, the design corresponds to a generic narrative, formulated by Ronit Bordo (רונית בורדו) in the stamp's release notes, that fails to offer any compelling justification for Israel Post's launch of the stamp:

The trajectory of Beethoven's life and works is comparable to the Israeli experience of overcoming hurdles and crises, showing ambitiousness and uniqueness, creativity and innovation to create a country from its inception in a land with limited material and physical resources. All whilst marching forward with confidence and faith in the human spirit, like Beethoven, to become a leading global force.²⁵

The attempt to draw an analogy between Beethoven's life and Israel's history feels forced, thrust upon each side without its permission. And the message conveyed rings especially hollow when a more genuine and important story was out there waiting to be told.

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References

1. Rob Winberg. "How the only portrait Beethoven posed for in his lifteime became a much coveted memento." Apollo, 4 February 2020.

2. Freia Hoffmann. "Spohr, (Auguste Theodora Ulrike Amalie) Rosalie, verh. Gräfin Sauerma, Saurma." Sophie Drinker Institut, 2011.

4. Alexandra Matzner. "Joseph Stieler: Ludwig van Beethoven." Art in Words, 1 January 2020.

5. "Gurlitt: Status Report." Bundeskunsthalle, 13 September 2018.

6. Steven Lehrer. Wannsee House and the Holocaust. McFarland & Company, 2000.

7. Irene Lawford-Hinrichsen. Five Hundred Years to Auschwitz: A Family Odyssey from the Inquisition to the Present. Edition Press: Middlesex, 2008.

8. Anne Büsing, Kirsten Büsing. Alumnen und ihre Exlibris: 600 Jahre Universität Leipzig. Vieweg+Teubner, 2009. 9. Michael Haas. Forbidden Music: The Jewish Composers Banned by the Nazis. Yale University Press, 2013.

10. Monika Gibas, Cornelia Briel, Petra Knöller, Steffen Held. "'Aryanization' in Leipzig. Driven out. Robbed. Murdered." Leipzig City History Museum, 2009.

11. Tomas Urbina. "Storied music publisher celebrates Leipzig return." Deutsche Welle, 11 October 2014.

12. William Lichtenwanger. "Walter Hinrichsen, 23 September 1907-21 July 1969." Notes, March 1970.

13. Cecil Bloom. "Beethoven's Jewish Connection." Jewish Quarterly, 1991.

14. John Neubauer. The Persistence of Voice: Instrumental Music and Romantic Orality. Koninklijke Brill, 2017.

15. Malcolm Miller. "Beethoven and His Jewish Contemporaries." Shofar, Summer 2000.

17. David Conway. Jewry in Music: Entry to the Profession from the Englightenment to Richard Wagner. Cabridge University Press, 2012.

18. Irene Heskes (editor). Studies in Jewish Music: Collected Writings of A.W. Binder. Bloch Publishing Company, 1971.

19. Mark Kroll. Ignaz Moscheles and the Changing World of Musical Europe. Boydell Press, 2014.

20. Abraham Z. Idelsohn. Jewish Music: Its Historical Development. Dover Publications, 1992.

21. Megan Ross. The Critical and Artistic Reception of Beethoven's String Quartet in C♯ Minor, Op. 131. 2019. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, PhD dissertation.

22. Velvel Pasternak. The Jewish Music Companion. Tara Publications, 2002.

23. Alfred Sendrey. The Music of the Jews in the Diaspora (up to 1800): A Contribution to the Social and Cultural History of the Jews. Thomas Yoseloff, 1970.

24. "נתניה: הצעה לקרוא רחובות על שם בטהובן, טוסקניני, ניוטון, וסוקרטס". נתניה - הריביירה של ישראל, 25 March 2004

25. Ronit Bordo. Ludwig van Beethoven - 250th Birthday - Philately Day. Israel Post, 2020.

26. Philip V. Bohlman. "Composing Cantorate: Westernizing Europe's Other Within." Western Music and Its Others: Differences, Representation, and Appropriation in Music, edited by Georgina Born and David Hesmondhalgh. University of California Press, 2000.