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☆ Beethoven’s hair reveals lead poisoning
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-11 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” is one of the first songs I learned to play on the violin. While his doctor’s notes were lost to time, scientists sequenced Beethoven’s genome from locks of his hair last year. Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesA new analysis of Beethoven’s hair has shown the composer experienced lead poisoning toward the end of his life. Tests revealed incredibly elevated levels of lead, as well as arsenic and mercury, in two of his locks, likely from drinking wine that was sweetened with lead. Researchers don’t believe lead poisoning would have been enough to kill him, but it could have contributed to the composer’s well-known gastrointestinal issues and deafness.

Persons: CNN — Ludwig van Beethoven’s, Joy ”, I’ll, Beethoven, Ludwig van Beethoven, don’t, ”, William Meredith, Umm Jirsan, Lady Elliot, Rebecca Wright, Kate Quigley, “ We’re, Ashley Strickland, Katie Hunt Organizations: CNN, Symphony, Hulton, “, Arabia, National Oceanic, Atmospheric Administration, Minderoo, Energy, CNN Space, Science Locations: Alabama, Saudi Arabia, Umm Jirsan, Lady, Australia

☆ Beethoven’s hair reveals evidence of lead poisoning, scientists say
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-09 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

Beethoven’s genome was made publicly available, inviting researchers around the world to investigate lingering questions about Beethoven’s health. Meanwhile, scientists continue to figuratively go over the authenticated locks of Beethoven’s hair with a fine-tooth comb, teasing out surprising insights. But at the time the researchers did not test Beethoven’s newly authenticated hair samples for lead. Because the researchers don’t have hair samples from earlier in Beethoven’s life, it’s impossible to understand when the lead poisoning started, Meredith said. But Rifai said he saw comparable lead levels when he conducted research in two villages in Ecuador where the main trade is to glaze tiles with lead from batteries.

Persons: Ludwig van Beethoven’s, Beethoven, ”, Christian Reiter, Hiller, Thayer, Anton Halm, William Meredith, Nader Rifai, Meredith, Rifai, Paul Jannetto, he’d, Johann Adam Schmidt, Beethoven’s, “, ” Meredith, Friedrich Schiller’s, Joy, it’s Organizations: CNN —, Center of Forensic Medicine, Medical University of Vienna, Harvard Medical School, Boston Children’s Hospital, Mayo Clinic, Beethoven, Symphony, Ninth, Ninth Symphony Locations: United States, Ecuador, Vienna

☆ Daniel Barenboim: What Beethoven’s Ninth Teaches Us - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-06 | by ( Daniel Barenboim | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was first performed exactly 200 years ago Tuesday and has since become probably the work most likely to be embraced for political purposes. (These days the Ninth is being played in concert halls worldwide in commemoration of the premiere. Beethoven might have been surprised at the political allure of his masterpiece. He was interested in politics, but only because he was deeply interested in humanity. I don’t believe, however, that Beethoven was interested in everyday politics.

Persons: Ludwig van Beethoven’s, Leonard Bernstein, ”, Joy, Beethoven, Napoleon —, “ Bonaparte ” —, Napoleon Organizations: European Union Locations: Berlin

☆ Locks of Beethoven’s Hair Offer New Clues to the Mystery of His Deafness
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-06 | by ( Gina Kolata | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

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. 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. At that moment, a soloist grasped his sleeve and turned him around to see the raucous adulation he could not hear.

Persons: Ludwig van Beethoven, strode, Ted Albrecht, Beethoven Organizations: Symphony, Kent State University, Ninth Symphony Locations: Vienna, Ohio

NEW YORK (AP) — Andrea Götsch was surprised when she won her audition in 2019 that led to membership in the Vienna Philharmonic. I thought that was too far away.”A male bastion from its founding in 1842 until 1997, the Vienna Philharmonic now has 24 female players among 145 members with three vacancies as it tours the United States this week. And we want the best members, so it was the right decision.”Based since 1870 at Vienna’s Musikverein, the Vienna Philharmonic elects leadership, engages conductors, chooses programs and schedules tours and recording sessions. It selects members from the Vienna State Opera Orchestra and has had a summer residency at the Salzburg Festival since 1922. A year later, she was confirmed for the Opera Orchestra and in 2022 she became a VPO member.

Persons: — Andrea Götsch, ”, “, It’s, Daniel Froschauer, Vienna’s Musikverein, Anna Lelkes, Albena Danailova, Franz Welser, Madeleine Carruzzo, York Philharmonic’s, Stephanie “ Steffy ” Goldner, Helen Kotas, Froschauer, Anneleen Lenaerts, Xavier de Maistre, Michael Bladerer, Strauss ’, Arabella ”, ” Lenaerts, ” Götsch, Johann Hindler, Verdi’s “, Daniel Harding, Götsch Organizations: Vienna Philharmonic, Associated Press, Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Salzburg Festival, Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, Berlin Philharmonic, York, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, State Opera Orchestra, Mahler, of, State Opera, VPO, Opera Orchestra Locations: Vienna, United States, Vienna’s, Swiss, Brussels, Bolzano, Italy, Mahler’s

Dudamel was hired in February to become the Philharmonic's music director for the 2026-27 season. As part of the gift, the music director will become The Oscar L. Tang and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Music and Artistic Director Chair starting with the 2025-26 season, when Dudamel becomes music director designate. The 42-year-old Dudamel has been music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic since 2009, a tenure that will end after 17 seasons when he starts in New York. He quit as music director of the Paris Opéra in May, two seasons into a six-year contract scheduled to run through the 2026-27 season. Oscar Tang, 85, has been part of the philharmonic board since 2013 and has been co-chairman with Peter W. May, since 2019.

Persons: Gustavo Dudamel, Oscar L, Tang, Agnes Hsu, Dudamel, L, H.M, Oscar Tang, Peter W Organizations: New York Philharmonic, Tang, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Paris, philharmonic, Reich Locations: New York

☆ An Orchestra’s ‘Ode to Joy’ Calls for Ukrainian Freedom
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-25 | by ( Ben Miller | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Not long after the Berlin Wall fell, in 1989, Leonard Bernstein traveled to the once-divided German city and led a performance of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” replacing the word “Freude,” or joy, with “Freiheit” — freedom. In an echo of that historic concert, the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, a touring ensemble formed in the early months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, presented Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in the suburbs of Berlin on Thursday. And, for the famous “Ode to Joy” choral finale, the text was translated to Ukrainian, with the key word being “slava,” or glory, as in “Slava Ukrainii”: Glory to Ukraine. “I’m driven by my passion for Ukraine,” the orchestra’s conductor, Keri-Lynn Wilson, said on Thursday afternoon before the concert, at the garden of Schönhausen Palace. The orchestra, made up of 74 Ukrainian musicians — some of whom live in that country still, some of whom have fled — was about to perform as part of its second summer tour of Europe.

Persons: Leonard Bernstein, Beethoven’s, Joy, ”, slava, Slava Ukrainii ”, “, Lynn Wilson, Putin, — Organizations: Orchestra Locations: Ukrainian, Ukraine, Berlin, Schönhausen, Europe

☆ Gustavo Dudamel in New York: Selfies, Hugs and Mahler
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-28 | by ( James Estrin | Javier C. Hernández | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The violins were tuning, the woodwinds warming up and the trumpets blaring bits of Mahler. Then the musicians of the New York Philharmonic began to whistle and cheer. Gustavo Dudamel, one of the world’s biggest conducting stars, strode onto the stage this month for his first rehearsal with the Philharmonic since being named the ensemble’s next music director. “I will have the opportunity in the next few days to hug everybody,” he told the musicians, smiling and pumping his fist. “I’m very honored to become part of the family.”

☆ Wall Streeters peak between 36 and 40, according to a Harvard social scientist. Here's what they forget to plan for in the second half of their lives.
▼ + stars: | 2022-02-16 | by ( Jonathan A. Knee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

In his new book, social scientist Arthur C. Brooks explains why addiction to achievement is bound to yield disappointment. To find true joy in the second half of life, invest in relationships instead of material possessions and social status. According to From Strength to Strength: Finding Happiness and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life, the basic problem is the inevitable decline in our abilities. The decline in peak performance begins far earlier than we are likely to admit across professions, not just in athletes. Strength to Strength reads like a companion volume to the cult classic from 1979, The Drama of the Gifted Child by Swiss psychoanalyst Alice Miller.

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