Sigma Alpha Iota

beethoven's home Close Encounters of the Beethoven Kind A World of Music Beethoven-Haus Bonn Inside the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, Germany. By Jayne I. Hanlin E very so often as a young piano student, I received little white statuettes as rewards. From these, I learned to identify the figures of several composers, including "The Three B's" of classical music: Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. Through the years, I've loved listening to their music and learning about their lives. About a decade ago, inside Thomaskirke in Leipzig where Bach had been a cantor, I attended an unforgettable performance of St. John's Passion. My chair was just a few feet away from his grave strewn with flowers. Recently, I took my iPhone and listened to the music of Beethoven and Brahms when I visited their gravesites in 14 PAN PIPESSUMMER 2013 sai-national.org Vienna's Central Cemetery. Farther north on the same trip, when the river cruise ship docked at Cologne, Germany, I began another Ludwig encounter. I took a train to Bonn to explore the Beethoven-Haus Museum. It is an easy walk — less than ten minutes — from the Hauptbanhof. Once outside this station, I followed the arrows on brightly colored Beethoven-haus signs pointing the way through Münsterplatz with its famous Beethoven monument. In 1845, Ernst Julius Hähnel's imposing bronze sculpture was unveiled to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Beethoven's birth. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were among the attending royalty. Beethoven stands holding a stylus in his right hand, his eyes gazing heavenward. On each side of the granite pedestal is a relief that represents A World of Music one of his four genres: instrumental, symphonic, operatic, and sacred. Five minutes more by foot is the museum. When it opened at 10 AM, I entered the pink house at 20 Bonngasse and, for five euros, purchased an admission ticket that included an audio guide. Then I went through a back courtyard to enter a yellow Baroque town house, Beethoven's Geberthaus (or birth house). In 1767, the family moved here, and, three years later, in its small attic, Bonn's favorite son was born. Although the

• Cover