Book – La Passion de la Fraternité: Beethoven

 Book – La Passion de la Fraternité: Beethoven

By: Erik Orsenna

Rating: 10/10

Year: 2021

Publisher: Stock. Fayard

ISBN 9782234090149

Pages: 247

Language : French 

Somewhere between a biography told in a novel and light form, and a letter of admiration from an author towards its subject, La Passion de la Fraternité ( = The Passion of Fraternity) travels in time and space: from the 18th century, its wars and socio-politico-cultural shocks in a Europe in constant boiling, in the 20th and 21st, recounting snippets of the life and career of Erik Oresenna and what led him to write about the genius and tragic life of Ludwig Van Beethoven - above all going through the contexts, sometimes even going back to previous centuries the main subject.

I translate for you the book's commercial description : 

  “Joy, all humans become brothers when your gentle wing spreads.”

Four years before 1789, four years before the storming of the Bastille and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, Schiller wrote this poem which would never cease to accompany Beethoven.

A Beethoven all his life passionate about brotherhood while everything is ganging up against him, his family, his health, his loves, his finances, the nobility.

To every blow that hits him, he responds with a masterpiece. Until this end of the road, March 26, 1827, in the heart of a storm. He died leaving us, bequeathing us this joy, the last accents of his ninth symphony which became the song of Europe finally reconciled.

This book is the story of this passion, the portrait of a fraternal genius.

A book born from a double love.

For Europe.

And, of course, for music. Because the “Fidelio” trio that Erik Orsenna, pianist Michel Dalberto and cellist Henri Demarquette have just created tells, with mixed words and notes, this crazy and overwhelming passion for the Fraternity.

What treasure do we need most today?

The backcover text translates as 

"Fraternity. 

In these torn times, what treasure could better repair us? 

Here, begun in this eighteenth century which believed light, peace and happiness were possible, is the story of Ludwig van Beethoven. The story of a genius passionate about fraternity while everything conspires against him, his family, his health, his loves, his finances and the contemptuous nobility of Vienna. 

To every blow that hits him, Beethoven responds with a masterpiece. Until the finale of his ninth symphony, this poem by Schiller which has never left him since his youth and will become the anthem of united Europe: “Joy, all humans become brothers when your gentle wing spreads. » What if it was the opposite, if it was fraternity that gave joy? " 

The pen is very fluid and quick to read; the chapters are generally very short (4-6p for the majority of the 45 that make up this book) and contain both serious subjects (wars but also Beethoven's various health difficulties) but, above all, humor to profusion in the sentences and certain situations described.

I learned a few things that I didn't know about his life, but also before or after - for example the passage on the unveiling of the statue which was dedicated to him in 1845 is crazy as can be, and recalls his anti-fascist attitude that he had his whole life and the details of which I did not know before reading this.

We most often visit Bonn and Vienna, the two main cities for Ludwig (from birth to musical career), but also the Paris of 2020 during a special interview between Orsenna Dalbero and Demarquette. The book adds extracts from letters - those of Ludwig but also witnesses of his life, which shed a little more light on his qualities, faults, and other health hazards, as well as recurring financial worries.

Ludwig, in short, was not only a compositional genius despite all his health problems - and especially the gradual loss of his hearing - but also a passionate 'antifa' as we call him nowadays; a man who wanted to abolish human barriers, to have a single brotherhood, instead of multiple groups of humans who beat each other up and change geopolitical borders with harmful effects. He went so far as to modify his 3rd symphony, initially dedicated to Napoleon, but when the latter changed from a rebel to a mad dictator, then Beethov's disenchantment reoriented his view and this work to no longer praise Napoleon. a man he no longer respected! Ludwig, musical genius, clumsy, ill, unloved, then proclaimed, was therefore also a pro-Europe before his time.

I highly recommend this Passion, my 10th reading of 2024, 4th for February but even 5th since the last meeting of the fclub de lecture en eau douce reading club, thus fulfilling the bibliobook challenge.