2-23-98 LUDWIG VON BEETHOVEN

If you have seen the movie "Immortal Beloved", you will have grasped the essential nature of this, otherwise, complex man. A passionate love letter was found in Beethoven's personal effects after his death addressed to his "immortal beloved." Whether the beloved was a real person, or an archetypal longing expressed in poetic form is not as important as what it conveys about his innermost nature: a pursuer of beauty and ideal love in all of its guises, even if, from time to time, this pursuit became a titanic struggle due to his weak, fluctuating, volatile, emotional nature governed by the Moon.

Beethoven's creative gifts were equal to those of Mozart, even though quite different. Mozart could create great music with ease, whereas Beethoven's compositions required great effort, fine-tuning and numerous revisions due to the Saturnine influence in his field of creative play. On a positive note, this same planet also reflected a talent of creating musical compositions which express both life's dynamism and its silence. Beethoven knew how to balance his music with pregnant pauses and silence; this is partly what makes his music so enchanting. Beethoven could also contrast gentle beauty with passion in his music in a way which has never been quite duplicated. For this gift, we are all eternally grateful.