Beethoven
Beethoven: The Black-a-Moors of Europe – by ReelDeel
Frederick Hertz, German anthropologist, in “Race and Civilization,” refers twice to Beethoven’s “Negroid traits” and his “dark” skin, and “flat, thick nose.” (pp. 123 and 178).
Frau Fischer, an intimate acquaintance of Beethoven, describes him thus, “Short, stocky, broad shoulders, short neck, round nose, blackish-brown complexion.” (From r. H. Schauffler, The Man Who Freed Music, Vol. I, p. 18, 1929).
In speaking of the immortal Haydn who was Beethoven’s teacher, Andre de Hevesy, says: “Everybody knows the incident at Kismarton or Eisenstadt, the residence of Prince Esterhazy. In the middle of the first allegro of Haydn’s symphony, His Highness asked the name of the author. He was brought forward. “‘What!’exclaimed the prince, ‘the music is by this blackamoor? ‘Well, my fine blackamoor, henceforward, thou art in my service.'”
Carpani, who originally related this says that “Haydn’s complexion gave room for the sarcasm.” And that Haydn had the title of “second professor of music but his new comrades called him The Moor.” (G. Carpani: Le Haydn, etc. Letter 5. Milan, 1812).
Referring to the above incident, Alexander W. Thayer, perhaps the foremost authority on Beethoven, says, “Beethoven had even more of the Moor in his features than his master, ‘Haydn.'” (Beethoven, Vol. I, p. 146). By “Moor” was meant “Negro.” Until recent times the German for “Negro” was “Mohr.”
Paul Bekker, another very noted authority on Beethoven, says that “the most faithful picture of Beethoven’s head” shows him with “wide, thick lipped mouth, short, thick nose, and proudly arched forehead.” (Beethoven, p. 41, 1925. trans. Bozman). Thayer adds that Beethoven was an ugly little man, and no one would be more astonished than the great composer should he return and see how he has been idealized by sculptors and painters.
Beethoven’s family originated in Belgium, which had been ruled for centuries by the Spaniards, who had large numbers of Negro soldiers in their army there. Theophile Gautier speaks of a Belgian type characterized by brown skin and dark hair “a second race which the soldiers of the Spanish Duke of Alva have sown between Brussels and Cambrai.”
In short, the general description of Beethoven, even to his frizzly hair, fits that of many an Aframerican or West Indian mulatto. In the Southern States Beethoven would have been forced to ride in the jim-crow car.
See also: Rogers, J.A., “Sex and Race,” Vol. I, pp. 288, 289,302 (1941) for other data on Beethoven’s Negro strain, one of which is from the new York Times. Also p. 8 for portrait of Beethoven drawn from life by Hofel, which clearly shows the Negro strain. For more extended proof as well as a picture of Beethoven’s life-mask see Sex and Race, Vol. 3, pp. 306-309.
Now, I will admit that there is nothing indicated here that Beethoven was a “mullatto,” in it’s strictest sense, which meant, literally, the offspring of a white woman and a black man (or vice-versa). And THAT hasn’t been proven otherwise. “Mullatto” was often misused as meaning “light-skinned blacks.” However, when one explores the accepted definition of “race” as it relates to black people, the U.S. definition seems to have been (and continues to be) that “If you have one drop of ‘black’ blood in your lineage, you’re black.
I contend that, with all of the above evidence, one must conclude that Beethoven was AT LEAST of African descent. Perhaps not a ‘mullatto (1/2 black,’ ‘quadroon (1/4 black),’ or ‘octaroon (1/8 black),’ as the old terminology went. But, if he WASN’T black, then many people of African descent in the U.S. today would have to be excluded from being black as well, especially given Mr. Roger’s accounts of Beethoven’s descriptions.
A whitened image of Beethoven
Information like this will be in the best interest to all. Open your minds to accept history of this magnitude and to educate your children and parents about truth, truth which was hidden for most of our time on earth. Turned in to learn and never to be fooled ever again about whom you and we are; from whom we come, and the lands from which we came. Open your minds to deal with truth.
Information like this will not be accepted by whites. I’m sorry but it won’t be. Whites have spent too much time and effort trying to rewrite history to reflect that only Anglos have contributed to the great works in the world. From them claiming that aliens created the pyramids in Africa, to stating that the term “Moor” referred to anything else but Africans of dark or brown complexions. The term Moor actually meant black, dark or swarthy, but today’s so-called scholars try to make it imply Arab or muslim, even though the Moors predate Mohammad or the Persian invasion of Northern Africa.
Beethoven could have looked like an original member of the Jackson 5 but his portraits will always look like Michael in the 1990’s for the same reason no one has ever heard of John Hanson, a Moor, who was the first black president of America.
No matter your sources, people with agendas will always seek to “spin” what they are not comfortable with. The whole “one drop of negro blood makes you a negro” law is coming back to haunt White people under their own guidelines.
Information like this is always stimulating for me a student of the Black Man’s history which is actually the history of this world. Our history has been suppressed or destroyed but not completely obliterated. My stepfather told me of a great race of Black Kings and Queens when I was thirteen. It was decades later when I began discovering relics of truth to the origin of who the Black Man was. I learned that the slave trade was not as far reaching as his-tory teaches. The Black Man was everywhere in Kemet/Kmt/Egypt/Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, the Pacific Islands and of course Australia before our white brothers were conceived. WE were the residents of the planet. We are the civilizers of this world; the astronomers, the mathematicians, astrologers, scientists, and artists. Egypt, Songhai, Mali, Timbuktu, Ghana, Zanzibar were some of the Black nations that studied the planetary system. May I add also this piece of information which is known to some but not to many that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are copies of the teachings of Kemet/KMT the true name of Egypt. The Old and New Testament of the Bible is A Black Man’s Bible. What a rich heritage WE have. I am like a kid in the candy store of knowledge. As a pastor this information of Christianity rocked me to the core BUT I recovered. I had to replace anger with love as the Spirit of God instructed me. This information must be passed on to our children. They must know that their ancestors were great navigators of knowledge and wisdom. Lastly, we are not the remnants of slaves in Iran, Iraq, England, Spain and so. We are the remnants of conquerors. Books of interest are Stolen Legacy by George G.M. James, Destruction of Black Civilization, African Presence in Early Asia, African Presence in Early Europe and Anacalypsis by Godfrey Higgins.
Well said. You say you are a pastor and old and new testaments of the Bible are from teachings of Kemet. I am confused. Does this mean that men inspired by the Holy Spirit writing the Bible is a lie? The lost Holy Books and the book of Enoch are they lies too? I too am a Christian and I have family members who talk about Kemet and its teachings. They don’t believe Jesus is the son of God but a story taken from Kemet and told as the Europeans what it told. I am still in the faith and want to ensure I am following the true faith. I believe Jesus is the son of God. What do you think?
I watched the a movie from my cousin recently called “Hidden Colors” by a man named Tariq Nasheed. I think every young black person should watch this. I think every black person should what this. I’m a college study with a minor in history and since I watched that movie my whole perspective on history is changed. I feel like i was finally told the truth and that truth can help a lot of our people better ourselves. I get the story out of our people as much as possible but I have my own friends and people on Twitter laughing at me. Its a shame because even our own people in this day and age cant believe. I’m still searching about my history because I will pass it along to my children one day that we ruled the world and we have no reason to be ashamed of our history
Right, Hidden Colors changed my life! I look at a whole bunch of things from a whole different perspective now.
Beethoven might or might not have had “Spanish,” “Moorish,” or African genes in his ancestry, as so many of us (myself included) do. However, objectively looking at his portraits – even those made from life and death masks – reveals that Beethoven had thin lips, which he kept tightly pressed together thanks to what appears to be an underbite, and curly/wavy hair. His nose is pug, but not flat and not particularly wide for a man. Those who would point to contemporary references to his supposedly dark complexion should take into account that Beethoven spent his life in 18th and 19th century Germany and Austria, environments with very homogenous populations and little tolerance for variance from their “norm” of small features, very pale skin, blond to light brown hair, and blue eyes. In other words, even Mediterranean appearance marked one as ‘different’ and pulled up monikers like ‘Spanish’, ‘Moorish,’ and so forth.
Take a look at portraits, including photographs, of Beethoven’s daughter, Minona von Stackelburg, his nephew, Karl van Beethoven, and his brothers Kaspar Karl and Johann, as well as his parents and grandparents. None of them appear African-German/Austrian.
Those who say that Beethoven was really black and that Caucasians are just trying to suppress the history of black people should consider seriously that they might be doing the same thing themselves by claiming a composer whom contemporary accounts never actually identified as black. Beethoven himself had an evening of drinking and music with the distinguished African-British violinist George Bridgetower, to the point that Beethoven actually wrote a dedication to him of what became his Kreutzer Violin Sonata. That dedication – which Beethoven supposedly retracted because Bridgetower insulted a girlfriend of Beethoven’s – was “Sonata per un mullatico lunatico” (Sonata for a lunatic mullato, apparently intended to be a compliment). Beethoven clearly did not identify /himself/, therefore, as ‘mullatico’ if it is something he makes a point of mentioning in a dedication to another artist. Moreover, Beethoven’s upbringing (such as it was) and cultural underpinnings were all undeniably northern European. He didn’t even have much respect for Italian music.
It does not detract from the African disapora’s extraordinary place in world (and particularly US) musical history to give European culture its due as well.
Actually, you can’t go on portraits. They alter them. Don’t believe me? Look up a picture of the king that was black in Europe. Yet the portaits show he is white with a thin nose. The only thing Europeans can be proud of is how well they have copied everything that they use today even without the respect of claiming where they actually learned it from. Y ou cant call it a discovery if you stole the credit from a different race! If YT is so superior why hide the truth about all history and where it originated from?
Actually there is a way of settling the matter once and for all. There are samples of Beethoven’s hair that are still in existence but don’t hold your breath waiting for scientists to reveal what his racial background is.
It seems as though your incompetence, over shadows the knowledge of nature, it seems as though that you do not read, because anything can be manipulated artist wise. If his predecessor Franz Joseph Haydn described him as black, whom Franz himself was Austria born, which is written by him, then why need a picture of a false prophet, when his teacher already portrayed him through words? Because you humans are stupid
Beethoven never had any children. When you check Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_van_Beethoven you can have a look at his life mask, he has a rather flat noise for a European. I think that if at the time it was written rather specifically about his complexion and the same was done about Joseph Haydn maybe it’s time to realize that history gives a false image of what really happened and ask yourself why is that? What is the agenda behind all of that. Do your research for your own sake. This is what Napoleon used to say about history “History is a set of lies agreed upon. “
Beethoven’s daughter? No dice…Beethoven didn’t have any children. You can discount
1.lunatic mullato – he absolutely would’ve made a point of mentioning a similar trait in a dedication just like many artist do today– also known as a “shout out”
2. paintings and statues are commissioned to look like what the person paying for it wants it to look like. if the guy with the money thought fiery hair and baloney lips were more marketable then so be it.
3. sex has been happening for a bizillion years. the races were mixed along time ago. homogenous societies are insignificant blips in time at best— all races have always been everywhere.
As nikki has commentedb they change art all the time. That is really all they can do in order to be proud of a history that is not theirs. There is documented proof of that in this post https://www.quora.com/Are-there-any-credible-sources-that-believe-that-King-James-of-the-King-James-Bible-was-a-black-man/answer/Christopher-Mansfield-8?. Fake art is an ANCIENT problem. Nothing new. But most are not familiar with authentication techniques. They just gaze at the art and form opinions. Its a powerful tool, but as I said, it fake.
So….even back then Europeans where digging on African grooves! Imitation is the best form of flattery!