Actor brings Beethoven to life at Judd School
BY JENNIFER AMATO
Staff Writer

NORTH BRUNSWICK - And the "Beet" goes on.

Music in Our Schools Month at Judd Elementary School brought music to the ears of its students, as a performance by Ludwig van Beethoven shared stories of personal triumph, self-sacrifice and persistence.

Actor and musician Dennis Kobray brought the 237-year-old pianist to life, saying that music is a language used to tell stories when words are not available. Beethoven had a severely difficult childhood, during which his father suffered from alcoholism. Although at 4 years old, he knew he wanted to be a musician like his grandfather, at age 6 his father became sick and started abusing his family.

Beethoven was influenced by the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and due to his talent, his father wanted to show him off to become rich. He would practice for hours, although his father constantly criticized him and made him wake up at 3 or 4 a.m. to play for his friends when he returned home. Although Beethoven's friends told him to quit music, Kobray said the piano became a "best friend," a way to express his troubled childhood.

Because Beethoven's family was short on money, his music teacher, who recognized his talent, offered him money so he could travel to Vienna, Austria, which was the music capital of the world at the time. While there, Beethoven was advised to walk down the street and knock on a door, which turned out to be the home of Mozart. Told to improvise after the climbing pattern of Mozart's "G Minor Symphony," the musician was impressed by his young protégé's talent. He told Beethoven to return in a week at which time he would take him under his wing.

However, in that one-week time period, Beethoven found out his mother was dying. Although he knew if he returned to Germany he would never see Mozart again, he decided to stay with his mother during her last moments. He now had to take care of his family because his father completely fell apart.

After six years of caring for his siblings, Beethoven studied with Joseph Haydn for a time. However, Beethoven was not satisfied with being a "musical servant," according to Kobray, but instead wanted to express himself musically in much the way the Americans and the French did during their revolutions. Despite learning and admiring the elegant, graceful and refined styles of Mozart and Haydn, Beethoven wanted his music to be powerful and emotion-provoking.

"I wanted to write music that was dramatic, dramatic like my suffering as a child," he said.

Kobray said older musicians would laugh at Beethoven, unimpressed with his powerful striking of the keys and shattering of pianos with his force. He was nicknamed the "string buster" but he "wanted my music to roar like a lion." He went on to write 32 piano sonatas, which are over 700 pages of music; 16 string quartets for the viola, violin and the cello; and nine orchestra symphonies, each 70 to 80 pages long.

However, with his music career advancing, Beethoven experienced a very frightening situation at the age of 26 - he had trouble hearing certain sounds, especially higher-pitched notes. A doctor said he had a rare disease that would eventually steal away his hearing. He was told to give up music.

He said Beethoven decided to look inside himself and hold onto his dreams; he possessed "perfect pitch," which meant he could hear every note in his head and had the ability to write music from that. He gave up playing the piano publicly and conducting orchestras, but became "the deaf genius, the man who could write music although he could no longer hear."

Kobray explained that it was at this point in Beethoven's life that the young man finally understood the problems of his father. It was not that he was a bad person, but that sometimes life is unfair and bad things happen to good people. In his own circumstance, Beethoven chose to not try and escape because "it makes things worse because you can't run away from yourself. … The only thing that works is to believe in yourself when no one else believes in you."

At 35 years old he fell in love with a music student but the woman's father did not agree to marriage because he felt a countess should not marry someone such as Beethoven. He was crushed, and wanted to write her a letter, but instead wrote a musical tribute titled "Fur Elise." He never saw her again.

Then, in 1824, at almost 54 years old, he finished his "Symphony No. 9." A song about peace and freedom, "Ode to Joy" was sung in German, based on a poem he had read at 19 years old. He sat in the front row during the concert it was first played at, although he could hear no sounds at all. Kobray said Beethoven closed his eyes, put his head down and concentrated on the music he heard in his head. Although he was still in thought at the end of the performance, a young woman jumped off stage and alerted him to the standing ovation and the cheering - and tearful - crowd that stood behind him.

"The dream I had all my life finally came true," he said. "I took pain and fear and whatever courage was inside of me and poured it into this … so I could shout my music to the world," he said.

Three years later, on March 26, Beethoven passed away at age 56. Over 20,000 people attended the funeral in Vienna. Kobray said the acclaimed musician was honored for reflecting the changing attitude of Europe over the previous 30 years.

Kobray also added that when someone writes a piece of music, they put a part of themselves into it. If musicians keep the notes alive they keep the spirit of the musician alive too, which allows Beethoven to speak to us across the centuries.

"I wrote a lot of music a long time ago and here today, in 2007, people still listen to the music of Beethoven," he said.

The program was sponsored by the Judd Parent-Teacher-Student Organ-ization.