The Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies is a hidden gem inside the Martin Luther King Jr., Library holding famous items from one of history’s most famous composers, Beethoven.
Ludwig van Beethoven was a classical music composer who was born in Bonn, Germany on December 16, 1770, according to a Biography’s YouTube video.
Eric Gjovaag, the public services coordinator at the Beethoven Center, said one of the main reasons why Beethoven is popular is because he became deaf in his late 20s and 30s.
Despite this impairment, he said Beethoven continued to write and compose music until the end of his life.
Gjovaag said Ira F. Brilliant, who is originally from Phoenix, Arizona, founded and opened the center at San Jose State University in 1985.
Patricia Stroh, the curator who has been working at the center since it opened, said Brilliant was a private collector who wanted to donate his collection to the university.
Stroh said the president and dean of the college at the time were excited about having “something so unique and special.”
She said the Beethoven Center is the only library and museum that’s dedicated to the composer.
Gjovaag said one of the oddest items the center has is multiple locks of hair from Beethoven’s scalp, which is located in a gold and teal frame, hidden in a wooden drawer in the back of the center.
He said it used to be very traditional to have a lock of hair after someone famous died.
“When someone died, they would cut a lock of hair to remember that person,” he said.
Erica Buurman, Director of the Beethoven Center and assistant professor in the music department at San Jose State, said having a lock of hair from someone who was considered famous at the time was comparable to having a celebrity’s signature.
She said one out of the three locks of hair the center owns has been tested to be authentic and has been proven to once belong to Beethoven himself.
“I think it’s worthwhile to come in [to the center] because Beethoven had such fundamental importance in the history of music and still has a profound influence on not just music, but on art and society,” Stroh said.
She said regardless of whether or not a visitor is well educated on who he is, they should still come to the center.
Stroh said Beethoven is seen as one of the most influential composers because he revolutionized how the genre sounded during his time.
She said by the end of his life, Beethoven was writing music that was quite advanced.
“I mean, [it was] sort of futuristic in a way,” Stroh said.
Buurman said Beethoven’s music was extremely influential, widely known for writing symphonies and chamber music.
Chamber music is a type of music that is performed in small groups, according to a Richmond Symphony Orchestra webpage.
According to the same source, these groups usually have each performer play a different instrument.
Stroh said these groups could include between two to nine people and typically are performed in people’s homes or in small public halls.
Buurman said the Beethoven Center is currently presenting “Beethoven’s Chamber Music Exhibition” to present some of the chamber music he wrote when he was alive.
She said seeing Beethoven’s chamber music helps scholars understand the social world he lived in.
“That was a really important part of the culture in Beethoven’s day that kind of died out,” Buurman said. “I suppose when, you know, after the era of recorded sound, you don’t need that anymore because you can just play a CD at home of a symphony.”
Buurman said Beethoven would sometimes write dedicated pieces of chamber music to his friends as a symbol of friendship.
She said it’s fun to see his music scores and items out on display because it helps remind her and other visitors that Beethoven was a real person.
“It’s always helpful to see things, you know,” Buurman said. “Everyone knows Beethoven existed and whatever and you kind of know about the music, but once you start to see the world that a [historical] figure lived in and some of the objects that they used. . . it seems much more accessible and real.”
