Jan Swafford is a composer and music scholar who has written biographies of Beethoven, Brahms and Charles Ives. (CNN) The spring of 1809 found Ludwig van Beethoven in Vienna, huddled in the basement of his brother's house clutching pillows over his ears. A mural shows German composer Ludwig van Beethoven on a house facade in his birth city of Bonn, Germany. But by the time Beethoven came to use those verses in his Ninth Symphony, Europe had changed for the worse. Napoleon had made himself an emperor, revealed himself as another tyrant, and Beethoven took his name off the Third Symphony.

Source: CNN December 16, 2020 00:22 UTC