Lead in Locks of Beethoven's Hair Offers New Clues to the Mystery of His Deafness

[appalachiablue]

Last edited Tue May 7, 2024, 04:00 AM - Edit history (1)

- Locks of Beethoven’s Hair Offer New Clues to the Mystery of His Deafness, The New York Times, May 6, 2024 Ed. - Using powerful technologies, scientists found staggering amounts of lead and other toxic substances in the composer’s hair that may have come from wine, or other sources. By Gina Kolata.
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(Photo: Two authenticated locks of Beethoven’s hair collected by Alexander Thayer, which were found to contain astounding levels of lead per gram of hair. Credit...Kevin Brown). Gina Kolata previously wrote about the medical and family secrets in Beethoven’s DNA.
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At 7 p.m. on May 7, 1824, Ludwig van Beethoven, then 53, strode onto the stage of the magnificent Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna to help conduct the world premiere of his Ninth Symphony, the last he would ever complete. That performance, whose 200th anniversary is on Tuesday, was unforgettable in many ways. But it was marked by an incident at the start of the second movement that revealed to the audience of about 1,800 people how deaf the revered composer had become.

Ted Albrecht, a professor emeritus of musicology at Kent State University in Ohio and author of a recent book on the Ninth Symphony, described the scene.

The movement began with loud kettledrums, and the crowd cheered wildly. But Beethoven was oblivious to the applause and his music. He stood with his back to the audience, beating time. At that moment, a soloist grasped his sleeve and turned him around to see the raucous adulation he could not hear. It was one more humiliation for a composer who had been mortified by his deafness since he had begun to lose his hearing in his twenties. But why had he gone deaf? And why was he plagued by unrelenting abdominal cramps, flatulence and diarrhea?

A cottage industry of fans and experts has debated various theories. Was it Paget’s disease of bone, which in the skull can affect hearing? Did irritable bowel syndrome cause his gastrointestinal problems? Or might he have had syphilis, pancreatitis, diabetes or renal papillary necrosis, a kidney disease? After 200 years, a discovery of toxic substances in locks of the composer’s hair may finally solve the mystery. This story began a few years ago, when researchers realized that DNA analysis had advanced enough to justify an examination of hair said to have been clipped from Beethoven’s head by anguished fans as he lay dying.

William Meredith of the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies at San Jose State Univ. began searching for locks at auctions and in museums. Eventually he and his colleagues ended up with 5 locks that were confirmed by a DNA analysis to have come from the composer’s head. Kevin Brown, an Australian businessman with a passion for Beethoven, owned 3 of the locks and wanted to honor Beethoven’s request in 1802 that when he died doctors might attempt to figure out why he had been so ill. Mr. Brown sent 2 locks to a specialized lab at the Mayo Clinic that has the equipment and expertise to test for heavy metals... More, Gift Article,
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/06/health/beethoven-deaf-lead-hair.html

[appalachiablue]

1. Beethoven 9th, mvt. 2, Schiller, Ode to Joy

Last edited Tue May 7, 2024, 04:18 AM - Edit history (1)

- Ode to Joy, Schiller, 1785, Wiki, Ed. This article is about Schiller's poem. For the "Ode to Joy" theme by Beethoven, see Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven). "Ode to Joy" (German: "An die Freude" ) is an ode written in the summer of 1785 by German poet, playwright, and historian Friedrich Schiller. It was published the following year in the German magazine Thalia. In 1808, a slightly revised version changed two lines of the first stanza and omitted last stanza.

"Ode to Joy" is best known for its use by Ludwig van Beethoven in the final (fourth) movement of his Ninth Symphony, completed in 1824. Beethoven's text is not based entirely on Schiller's poem, and it introduces a few new sections. Beethoven's melody, but not Schiller's text, was adopted as the "Anthem of Europe" by the Council of Europe in 1972 and later by the European Union. Rhodesia's national anthem from 1974 until 1979, "Rise, O Voices of Rhodesia", also used Beethoven's melody.

The poem: Schillerhaus in Gohlis. Schiller wrote the first version of the poem when he was staying in Gohlis, Leipzig. In 1785, from the beginning of May till mid-September, he stayed with his publisher, Georg Joachim Göschen, in Leipzig and wrote "An die Freude" along with his play Don Carlos. Schiller later made some revisions to the poem, which was then republished posthumously in 1808, and it was this latter version that forms the basis for Beethoven's setting.

Despite the lasting popularity of the ode, Schiller himself regarded it as a failure later in his life, going so far as to call it "detached from reality" and "of value maybe for us two, but not for the world, nor for the art of poetry" in an 1800 letter to his longtime friend and patron Christian Gottfried Körner (whose friendship had originally inspired him to write the ode).
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- Ode to Joy
Joy, thou shining spark of God,
Daughter of Elysium,
With fiery rapture, goddess,
We approach thy shrine!
Your magic reunites those
Whom stern custom has parted
All men will become brothers*
Under your protective wing.

Let the man who has had the fortune
To be a helper to his friend,
And the man who has won a noble woman,
Join in our chorus of jubilation!
Yes, even if he holds but one soul
As his own in all the world!
But let the man who knows nothing of this
Steal away alone and in sorrow.

All the world's creatures draw
Draughts of joy from nature;
Both the just and the unjust
Follow in her gentle footsteps.
She gave us kisses and wine
And a friend loyal unto death;
She gave the joy of life to the lowliest,
And to the angels who dwell with God.

Joyous, as His suns speed
Through the glorious order of Heaven,
Hasten, brothers, on your way
Exultant as a knight victorious.

Be embraced, all ye millions!
With a kiss for all the world!
Brothers, beyond the stars
Surely dwells a loving Father.
Do you kneel before Him, oh millions?
Do you feel the Creator's presence?
Seek Him beyond the stars!
He must dwell beyond the stars.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ode_to_Joy

[ShazzieB]

2. The link isn't working as a gift link for me.

It takes me to the article but demands I renew my subscription before I can read it.

[progree]

4. 👇👇👇👁️ 👁️

https://archive.is/rTEFK

[ShazzieB]

8. Thanks!

[appalachiablue]

5. NYT, Con't from above, Ed.

Last edited Tue May 7, 2024, 05:52 AM - Edit history (1)

.. The result, said Paul Jannetto, the lab director, was stunning. One of Beethoven’s locks had 258 micrograms of lead per gram of hair and the other had 380 micrograms. A normal level in hair is less than 4 micrograms of lead per gram. “It definitely shows Beethoven was exposed to high concentrations of lead,” he said. These are the highest values in hair I’ve ever seen,” he added.. Beethoven’s hair also had arsenic levels 13 times what is normal and mercury levels that were 4 times the normal amount. But the high amounts of lead, in particular, could have caused many of his ailment.

The investigators describe their findings in a letter published on Monday in the journal Clinical Chemistry. The analysis updates a report from last year, when the same team said Beethoven did not have lead poisoning.

Now with thorough testing they say that he had enough lead in his system to, at the very least, explain his deafness and illnesses. David Eaton, at the Univ. of Wash. who was not involved in the study, said that Beethoven’s gastrointestinal problems “are completely consistent with lead poisoning.” As for Beethoven’s deafness, he added, high doses of lead affect the nervous system, and could have destroyed his hearing. Whether the chronic dose was sufficient to kill him is hard to say,” Dr. Eaton added. No one is suggesting the composer was deliberately poisoned. But, Jerome Nriagu, an expert on lead poisoning said that lead had been used in wines and food in 19th-c. Europe, as well as in medicines and ointments.

One likely source of Beethoven’s high levels of lead was cheap wine. Lead, in the form of lead acetate, also called “lead sugar” often added to poor quality wine to make it taste better.

Beethoven drank copious amounts of wine believing it was good for his health, and also because he had become addicted to it. A few days before his death at age 56 in 1827, his friends gave him wine by the spoonful. Anton Schindler, described the deathbed scene: “This death struggle was terrible to behold, for his general constitution, especially his chest, was gigantic. He still drank some of your Rüdesheimer wine in spoonfuls until he passed away.” On his deathbed, his publisher gave him a gift of 12 bottles of wine. Beethoven knew he could never drink them. He whispered his last recorded words: “Pity, pity — too late!”

When he was 32, Beethoven mourned that he could not hear a flute, or a shepherd singing, which, he wrote, “brought me almost to despair. A little more and I would have committed suicide — only Art held me back. Ah it seemed unthinkable to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I feel lies within me.” Over the years, Beethoven consulted many doctors, trying treatment after treatment for his ailments and his deafness, but found no relief. At one point, he was using ointments and taking 75 medicines, many of which most likely contained lead. In 1823, he wrote to an acquaintance, also deaf, about his own inability to hear, calling it a “grievous misfortune,” and noting: “doctors know little; one finally tires of them.”...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/06/health/beethoven-deaf-lead-hair.html

[progree]

3. archive.is link

https://archive.is/rTEFK

One of Beethoven’s locks had 258 micrograms of lead per gram of hair and the other had 380 micrograms.

A normal level in hair is less than 4 micrograms of lead per gram.

“It definitely shows Beethoven was exposed to high concentrations of lead,” Dr. Jannetto said.

“These are the highest values in hair I’ve ever seen,” he added. “We get samples from around the world and these values are an order of magnitude higher.”

Beethoven’s hair also had arsenic levels 13 times what is normal and mercury levels that were 4 times the normal amount. But the high amounts of lead, in particular, could have caused many of his ailments, Dr. Jannetto said.

[appalachiablue]

7. Thanks, he was really impaired by all those toxins. Tragic.

[progree]

6. 9th symphony in 13 minutes -- Copying Beethoven, from the movie

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10181607194

The 2nd movement is from 3:08 to 4:21

Don't expect it to be historically accurate. More of a fantasy.