By Steve Sailer
11/03/2023
I’ve thought about this over the years without coming up with much of a theory. Beethoven was Beethoven, so maybe he did invent African-American music in his ultimate piano sonata in 1822.
Scott Joplin’s music teacher in Texarkana was a German Jewish immigrant named Julius Weiss who loved Beethoven, so that’s a not implausible connection.
(There’s also a Chopin sonata that sounds like 1940s piano bar jazz that Dooley Wilson might have improvised at Rick’s in Casablanca.)
Of course, ragtime was more or less around even before Joplin. Most musical innovators have precursors. Similarly, I wouldn’t be surprised if this ragtime/ boogie woogie syncopated style wasn’t invented before Beethoven by, say, some forgotten folk or popular musician in Mittel-Europa and heard (before he went deaf) and remembered by Beethoven.
But I’ve never seen much evidence of that.
Beethoven being deaf is what makes this extra-curious. Presumably, he didn’t hear much new folk music after about 1800 but did keep up with innovations in music important enough to be published in scores. But we don’t seem to have scores like this other than Beethoven’s ultimate piano sonata. (Or maybe I’m just ignorant of what music scholars do know.)
All in all, I’m leaning toward the Beethoven Was Indeed a Genius, Just Like Schroeder Always Said theory.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.