Beethoven's Tenth

by CrackedInkWell

Chapter 8: Inspiration in B b Major.

As much as he tried for the past several hours, Beethoven was completely stumped. All he was able to come up with is some new tunes, but none that caught his attention for the symphony that will take him home. No matter how much he tried to clear his head or listened to the ever-present ring in his ears that kept the world silent, there were no beginning movements for him to write. Worst yet, he still had no idea what theme to work off of.

Sitting on a hay bale, he could only hear the goosing and slurping sound of the strudel he’s been eating and swallowing. His mind was getting off of the yellow filly that was here minutes ago to get back to work on the ticket to Vienna. “If only I had a beginning,” he muttered between chewing.

The barn door behind him opened, in which Ludwig didn’t hear the hoofsteps that came in. “Mr. Beethoven,” Twilight said as she went around him to get into his sight.

When Beethoven looked up, he nearly jumped. “Ach! Oh, it’s you again,” he said before returning to eating. “I must say that yellow pony was rather quick.”

Twilight tilted her head in confusion.

“I think I’ve broken a few strings on the piano already,” he pointed.

She pulled out some paper and scribbled down a message for him.

Mr. Beethoven, I really need to talk to you on the books you’ve lent to me! It’s incredible!

Putting his tray down, he inquired, “Does this have to do with you borrowing my copies of Herr Bach and Mozart?” She nodded, “Well then, what did you find?”

Believe it or not, they’re the exact same, note for note! I have checked it and rechecked again from every page of music, and they look as if they’re copies of one another!

“Copies?”

Even the most challenging of pieces are exactly like the ones in your books. From key changes to trills, crescendos, the number of notes, you name it! As hard as I tried, I couldn’t find a single flaw with any of them. Every piece is the same as their counterparts!

“So in other words,” Ludwig said, “What you are saying that the genius and poetry of my Bach and Mozart is mirrored exactly as your composers?”

Twilight nodded furiously.

Exactly! So I went to research the history of classical music and wrote a report for you. Tell me, do you know much about the history of the music before you?

“It was required in my studies,” he told her. “I’ve studied ancient music of the monks for a Mass that I worked on several years ago, as well as those of the masters like Bach and Handel.”

From her saddlebag, Twilight pulled out a scroll with her aura and offered it up to Beethoven.

It read:

An Abridged History of Music
By Princess Twilight Sparkle

Even before Equestria was founded, music had always played a key role in the ancient tribes of ponykind: Earth Ponies, Unicorn, and Pegasi. Each one had a different part that they played in the earliest of societies. The Pegasi, who began as a military-like culture, used music for marches and signals in the role of battle. The Unicorns used it for entertainment or to woo others for romantic purposes. And the earliest of Earth Pony society used music for their harvest festivals.

Unfortunately, only an extremely few of these prehistoric tunes were ever put down into writing. That came shortly after the foundation of Equestria. Although nopony is certain who invented the earliest form of musical writing, legend has that it was invented by either Clover the Clever or Starswirl the Bearded. Either way, for whatever reason, this universal coded writing system of putting dots against lines had sparked a revolution in music and musical experimentation.

Over time, especially during Celestia’s lone reign, ideas of music were slowly developed such as the ideas of melody, octaves, harmony, rhythm, time, how many Major and Minor chords there are, just to name a few, had progressed when early composers experimented. They did this with their own voices or organizing choirs, as well as for instruments both for solos and as for ever-growing bands. Eventually, Before 850 A.B.N.M. (After Banishing Nightmare Moon (Celestia’s sister)) there were two types of music being played: the folk, common music; and the classical for the higher class ponies.

For the common pony, their idea of music was either a soloist or a band that had a lead singer to sing about love, loss, protest, or whatever poem that they could set music to. Although popular music such as this has evolved over the years, the formula has stayed the same.

As for the higher class ponies, Classical music is considered intellectual, fancy background music to listen, dance, march, or in some cases, fall asleep to. For musicians in this field, it’s considered the most difficult to play in because composers like Bach to Moztrot have pushed the virtuosity of their instruments. However, since the death of W. A. Moztrot, such music has been in decline in popularity because the younger audiences consider it as slow, boring, no catchy tunes, exciting, or as shocking as the common music. In modern times, classical music from orchestras or soloists is only widely used as background music since the invention of the moving picture.

Today, from the folk, common music had sprung out a wide variety of music in the last century and a half while using the same formula. From jazz music that requires musicians to play improvised variations on a theme to “country” that deals with rural life that deals with farm life, to the rebellious rock and roll (although it uses the same musical techniques of classical music), the ever-trendy “pop” music (short for popular) that favors strong rhythmic beatings of the bass clef, and the latest techno music that uses the sounds of modern technology that’s commonly used for dances.

By now, Ludwig had read enough, turning to the alicorn that was fixing his piano while he was reading, he said, “So the music I know is dying in this world?” She nodded. So in response, Beethoven crumpled up the report and tossed it to the floor. “Unbelievable! Music that’s supposed to be timeless is falling out of fashion! You know what, I don’t care if this is the New World or Vienna, this is completely unacceptable!”

Twilight wrote a note to him.

Mr. Beethoven, I know how upsetting this is for you. But the point of the report that you’ve crushed was to compare our history of music with yours.

Ludwig took in several deep breaths, “Upsetting is, as you might say it, an understatement. I mean, here you had such a rich history where the poetry of Moztrot, Beethoven, Handel, and so on has faded into the background in this world. I’m completely stunned, Your Majesty!”

Okay, let’s not focus on that at the moment. Can we talk about what’s different in your world?

Picking up the crumpled report, Ludwig sat back down to reread it again, “For one, nowhere in this do you mention Christianity. I do not see a word about the chants, or the masses, requiems, or even the oratorios.” Then a thought came to him, “Do you know anyone by the name of Jesus Christ?”

He only got a confused look.

“What I mean is that religion has played a vital role in my world’s music. What about yours? Do you have a religion?”

Twilight took up a pencil to give him her response.

Actually, there isn’t. When your rulers control the very sun, moon, and stars themselves, that you could actually see them up close that you can talk with them or even write to them, where’s the need for religion when you can see them? What does this have to do with music?

“Well, in that case, I don’t know if it’s possible to explain the differences.”

He saw the lilac alicorn raised an eyebrow and tilted her head, and he knew what she was thinking.

“Look, your beginning is eerily similar to the reasons why our ancestors used music such as the Greeks, the Romans or the Celts. But where your kind started to write music down, however, that’s where it becomes alien. The reason why the monks of the early church wrote down their chants was so that they wouldn’t have to remember the melodies of the prayers they were saying. It made things easier. From Christianity, we learned about balancing harmonies, of rhythms and chords. However, even if I explain it to you, you still wouldn’t understand it.”

Why not?

“Because!” Ludwig stood on his feet. “To understand how music as I know it grew up, you have to experience it yourself! A composer like me talking about neither of it nor a thick book could explain to you everything of the journey that music has gone to. How could you understand the haunting sounds of the monks if you never heard it? Or when chord progression revolutionized music? Or the concertos? The Fugues? Tonic and Dominant? Or even… what sort of effect that I have caused in what music supposed to mean if you never heard a note of it! How can you…”

Then Beethoven paused. In his rant, he froze into place as he reflected on what he just said. In the silence of his ringing ears, his muse was whispering to him. It was on an idea that no other composer before him had ever thought up before. “Mein Gott! Das ist es!”

“What?” Twilight asked but Ludwig went straight to one of the boxes and pulled out a thick notebook before marching over to the improvised desk where his pen and inkwell was kept. Uncorking the bottle, he immediately started to write on it. Curious, Twilight walked over and hopped onto the hay bale to see what he was doing. It was a title.

Symphony No. 10 in A Minor by Ludwig van Beethoven

Geschichte der Musik

Twilight tapped him on the shoulder and wrote to him.

These words here, what do they mean?

“History of Music,” Beethoven replied. “I’ve been thinking all day what theme to work on as my ticket home. But now, I have got it. If that creature wants a symphony of me, then I might as well do it as no other composer has done before! I’ll write up four movements to illustrate the story of how music grew up. The first movement shall be the past, while the final, will be about the future.”

“The future?” Twilight said, but when Ludwig didn’t look back up, she remembered that he couldn’t hear so she wrote to him.

“Yes, the future,” Ludwig got back up and went over to the boxes of his sketched out music. “I’m going to tell them about the past and present of music as I know it, why not go ahead into the future of what music will sound like?”

The Princess of Friendship wrote to him.

But how can you write about what music will sound like if you don’t know what it will be like?

“You said so yourself that this is two hundred years after your Mozart’s death, correct?” She nodded, “Are there still orchestra’s and choirs in this world?” she nodded again. “Then that settles it, I’ll write the future’s music for them. While I’m at it, try to save the music as I know it from dying completely! After all,” He started to pick up some scraps of paper from one of the boxes, “if there’s anything that yellow filly has taught me, is that there’s still hope through my music.” He then turned around to Twilight, “Princess, I need to use whatever influence you have to get my music not only published but performed by the best orchestras you can find. I don’t care what you have to do, but find the best musicians that are out there, and make my music sing.”

Twilight put a hoof to her chin in thought.

Since I have your permission, and I thank you kindly for it, I think I might know at least one pony in town that may provide a tremendous help.

"Good," Ludwig said, "Now unless you have something else to bother me with, I have work to do."

Well, since you have brought it up, I do have one more question to ask of you: What was Vienna like?

Beethoven stared at that the question for a good long minute. Even though he'd been gone from his home city for about a day, he started to recall the days when he still had his hearing. "My home...? It was both a great paradise and a gilded prison. I remember when I first came to the city when I was quite young, that not just music, but masterpieces were everywhere. Everywhere! Where on one street, a marching band is playing a patriotic song from their trumpets and drums. On a street corner, you may hear an organ-grinder singing a song from an opera that played the night before. On a clear day summer's day when all the windows are open, you could hear melodies and harmonies clashing together as students practiced their singing and their instruments for a future recital. Even the parks held concerts where I heard Mozart himself play his concertos for money. The Viennese always loved listening and playing good music. They rate it, criticize, praised, booed, applaud and discussed great melodies they hear. Vienna isn't called the Music Capital for nothing, if anything, you might call it a second religion."

He sighed, "As beautiful as the city can be, it is a prison if you're too good at what you do. Don't misunderstand me, Princess, my heart belongs to that city, but for most of my life, I'm restricted to perform my music there because that's where the real money comes from. Sometimes it underpays, but I have... had friends there... Come to think of it, I don't think I've seen my friend Schindler for over a year now. When was the last time I've spoken to him?"

Twilight could see that Ludwig's expression was taking on a look of guilt. She wrote down asking if something had happened between him and his friend.

"Long story short," Beethoven replied, "I had a fight with him about a year ago after I premiered the Ninth. Even though everyone fell in love with it, I wasn't getting the money that I deserved after working so hard on it. Schiller was the one who helped me with the finances, so I accused him of robbing my share of it. We fought, and we haven't spoken to one another since... Perhaps, I should have apologized. I guess I have been rather bad at friendships since I've lost my hearing." He looked up at Twilight who was giving him a sympathetic look. Returning his attention to the notebook, he flipped the score to the next page. "Now leave me, I have work to do."

Before Twilight left, she gave him one last note before she left.

Then as the Princess of Friendship, I swear upon my honor that I will do everything in my power to get you back home. You have my word on that.

Comments

[Strange Entity]

This is the part in which Octavia arrives, isn't it?

[TheDriderPony]

Thing is, how is he going to learn their modern music? Feeling the vibrations of the wubs? Read a transcription of a guitar solo?

[CrackedInkWell]

7445273 I have already thought of that, and the answer is: yes, and yes. But also something else.

[forrest yuchnitz]

7445210 woo I'm so excited

[Time Reaper]

I like where this is going.

[WanderingPony]

7445273

Even if you're Deaf, there's definitely ways to transmit music. Remember how Beethoven used a spoon to feel the vibrations coming from his music? The same thing can be done in other ways, or if the music in question is strong enough, felt directly.

Put someone in front of a Vinyl Scratch-sized speaker and you'll get the idea.

[The Philosopher King]

Mein gott im himmel, I'm impressed with the way this is going. Keep up the good work.

[Circut Breaker]

Vinyl! Vinyl! VINYL! VINYL!

Oh, and Octavia too, I guess. She and Beethoven would get along famously.

Edit:

[ShadowWalking18]

My god! That is it!

I am assuming is the translation

[A Soul In Limbo]

I'm just waiting for him to feel the vibrations of dubstep and be like "Dafuq is dis shit? It's just deep noise!" XD

[Doolally Loop]

I half expected the theme to be friendship or something.