Ludwig van Beethoven, 1819, von Joseph Karl Stieler
On the occasion of Ludwig van Beethoven’s 250th birthday, Google Arts & Culture has announced a new online project in cooperation with the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, which sheds light on the world of the iconic composer and lets users explore the many facets of Beethoven’s life, work and legacy. It must be the largest and most comprehensive Beethoven documentation online.
A central component of the project is a virtual tour of the composer’s birthplace in Bonn. Malte Boecker, director of the Beethoven-Haus: « Due to the pandemic, our newly designed museum is closed on Beethoven’s 250th birthday. This makes it all the more important to me that Beethoven friends and music lovers from all over the world can now virtually visit the exhibition thanks to the Google Street View tour and experience it with a lot of additional Beethoven content ».
Among the 18 renowned cultural institutions from seven countries that have participated in « Beethoven Everywhere » are the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, Carnegie Hall, Deutsche Grammophon, the Secession in Vienna, the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic, and the Chineke! Orchestra from Great Britain. A variety of stories, contributions and videos allow a global audience to learn more about Beethoven’s everyday life: How he worked, what made his music so ground-breaking and where we still encounter him in our modern culture today. This is made possible, among other things, by digitized personal objects and documents of Beethoven, which provide insights into his life with his increasing deafness, address his difficult private life, but also illuminate his creative process. A central component of the online celebrations is also the video series « Global Ode to Joy », initiated by conductor Marin Alsop, in which people around the world participate to celebrate the composer.
As one of the main partners, Beethoven-Haus Bonn has contributed more than 500 objects from its collection and created 25 online stories especially for the project.
The entire Beethoven online exhibition including the contributions of the Beethoven-Haus Bonn can be found via the free platform Google Arts & Culture at , as well as via the free app on iOS or Android.
