Ludwig van Beethoven is one of my favorite composers of all time. In my opinion, he is also one of the best. Something I've been reflecting on is this marriage between God, a person, and a created musical piece. Sometimes people can agree that a work is truly divinely inspired. Other times, people agree that a piece of music most certainly is not. And other times, people disagree.
I do tend to believe that hymns, sacred choral anthems, worship & praise songs do tend to have at least some divine inspiration, as well as the idea that if the composer or songwriter truly does follow Jesus, then his or her work also is likely to have marks of His supernatural creativity.
While I do generally believe that those composers and songwriters who don't follow Jesus are much less likely to produce works co-created with Him, I don't necessarily subscribe to the thinking that because one is a non-believer, then his or her work is automatically not approved by Him. (Although it can be the case.) I actually do believe that God can and does sometimes speak through those who don't know Him or acknowledge Him. I believe that Beethoven is one of those people, especially later in his career, once he had gone completely deaf. I mean, how does one continue to compose music and not be able to hear it? (I know that that has been a question asked repeatedly by many people over the years.) Certainly, there must be some divine grace involved. Mustn't there?
Which brings me not only to Beethoven, but to his very last piano sonata. (I'm amazed that this guy cranked out 32 of these things! To date, I only really have one piano sonata done, with a second in the works.) By this point, he had been deaf for quite some time. Sure, by putting his head on the pianoforte when he played he could somewhat "hear" the notes, but, even that doesn't explain the clip I shared earlier in this post.
What if you hadn't known that it was Beethoven who had written the above? Who might've you guessed could have composed it? Scott Joplin, perhaps? What we have here is a section of music that sounds like the prototype for ragtime. How is that possible? The piece (Opus 111, Piano Sonata No. 32, C minor) from which this segment was taken was written in or around 1821; ragtime didn't become a thing til like 80 or so years later.
And that's my point. I believe that not only did God give this inspiration to Beethoven (a non-believer, mind you), but that He used him to try to point a message to people both then and now that He can use anyone. The Bible is full of stories where God chose the weak, the feeble, and the unlikely. After all, "God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong." (1 Corinthians 1:27, New International Version) I mean, how does someone write music from the future? There really is no way one can know what the future holds, not until it becomes the present.
As such, I am still amazed by this work. A deaf man -- a deaf, angry, bitter, pill of a man -- was inspired to write music that he never heard while he still had his hearing, and music that wouldn't be replicated until almost a century later. There is no way that God wasn't front-and-center on this. There's just no way.
With that, I now take my blogging leave. Three posts are currently scheduled to appear during the month of July, all related to sports. I don't know yet when I'll return, but I intend to take my time away. If you made it all the way to the finish line with me on this prayer-and-fasting blogging challenge, I applaud you. I'm just amazed I made it to the finish line. Now to recharge before the next marathon.
