Readers Respond on Issue of Beethoven’s Ethnicity

After graduating from elementary, junior high, high school and college, it’s overwhelming and not a little sobering when I consider that the first time a teacher informs me that the extraordinary composer Ludwig von Beethoven is of African descent, it isn’t in a classroom but in a Times Counterpunch (“Beethoven’s Racial Ties Misrepresented Again,” Feb. 13).

Thank you, Dr. Kwaku Person-Lynn, for your poignant and revealing discourse. While some will undoubtedly downplay the significance of race in appreciating Beethoven’s timeless symphonies, many others like myself will radiate a strong sense of pride not only during this monthlong celebration of black history but throughout the year because of what we’ve learned.

Hopefully, more of us in the African American community will expand our musical tastes to include Bach, Brahms and Beethoven, in addition to Braxton, Brownstone, Boyz II Men and Bone Thugs.

BRYAN BOWEN

Los Angeles

When I read Person-Lynn’s assertion that Beethoven was a black man, I think I could hear the greatest genius of European classical music chuckling in his grave.

In making his bizarre argument--for which the professor claims “years of research”--notice that he only mentions one parent, Beethoven’s mother, who died when he was 17. His mere assertion of her possible Spanish Moor ancestry does not establish Beethoven’s ethnicity.

Whatever else Beethoven may have been, he was--like all of us--influenced by many things, and we know that he was the product of generations of classical musical tradition, with both his father, also Ludwig, and grandfather, Johann, having been professional musicians in the employ of European royalty.

With so much genuine African accomplishment of which to be justifiably proud, it is a shame Person-Lynn chose such a poor example (especially during Black History Month).

GEORGE D. WOOD

Riverside

Beethoven was a black man, writes Person-Lynn. And because nobody believes him, there is a conspiracy in Hollywood to deny African Americans one more source of pride in their heritage.

Unfortunately, Person-Lynn’s article shows what is typically wrong with ethnic studies today. In their rush to find heroes and role models for whatever ethnicity they represent, ethnic-studies professors often find some whose connections to their group is tenuous or superficial at best. They forget the essence of what makes a person a member of a particular ethnic group.

Person-Lynn failed to explain how black culture shaped and molded Beethoven. Is Beethoven’s music a direct result of his having a Moorish mother if, in fact, that is true? How important is that supposed ethnic background in the composition of the Ninth Symphony? These are the questions ethnic studies should be pondering.

How does one’s ethnicity make a person great or behave in a certain way to do great things? Ethnic studies should tell us, rather than just pointing to a famous person as one of us.

Ethnicity is a feeling of belonging. It is a way of thinking and reacting to certain situations in wonderful and terrible ways. It has something to do with being different from and being similar to other groups at the same time.

Beethoven may have been a black man. And then again he may not. His ethnicity, unless it can be connected to his music, does not matter. It is his music that lives.

HECTOR SANTOS

Los Angeles