Colorado College Bulletin

Lock of Beethoven's Hair Launches Quest

By Robin Vidimos

Shorn Locks Take Fascinating Trek to Modern Lab

The newspaper story that first caught author Russell Martin’s eye was no more than two paragraphs long. In December 1994, a wood and glass locket holding a strand of Beethoven’s hair was sold at auction. The purchasers were the charmingly named Ira F. Brilliant, the founder of the Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies at San Jose State University, and Dr. Alfredo “Che” Guevara. The men hoped genetic and forensic information contained in the hair could tell them not only something of the maestro’s life, but also of his death. Their investigation, combined with an amazing history that came to light in conjunction with the Sotheby’s sale, is the basis of Martin’s latest book, Beethoven’s Hair. 

Martin ’74, a visiting assistant professor of English at CC, called Ira Brilliant and chatted with him. “He was full of enthusiasm, as is his style. He began to tell me what he knew about the provenance, about the lock of hair’s trip through time. It was amazing the information he had, even at that point. That’s when I really got hooked, when I heard the first bits about the Danish part of the story.” It soon became clear to him that he was dealing with not one, but many, different stories all joined together by a single lock of hair.

The locket’s journeys make for a history that is as rich as the eventual forensic findings. It was not unusual, in Beethoven’s time, to keep a lock of hair as a remembrance of the dead. In this case, a young musician from Cologne, Ferdinand Hiller, placed the hair in a locket that was eventually passed on to his son. During World War II, the locket found its way from Cologne to the city of Gilleleje in Denmark, carried as part of the Jewish flight from Nazi death camps.

Though there are several plausible theories on how and why the locket ended up in Denmark, Martin believes he’s found the most likely explanation. “Marcel Hillaire, who was originally named Irwin Hiller, said on several occasions that he wished his father had given the lock of hair to him or his brother instead of to the people of Cologne. So, he was always convinced that it was in a museum long before the family left Germany,” Martin explained. “Now, if that’s the case, then almost certainly someone who was either an employee of the museum or a trustee took the lock of hair and any evidence that it had ever been there, and that person may well have been the donor.” The locket ended up in the hands of a man who helped the Jews escape to Sweden, Dr. Kay Fremming. The physician never talked about the circumstances that put the relic in his possession. It seems likely the reason he never spoke of the locket was that he hoped its owner would some day return to reclaim it.

The enticing combination of history and science -- and more than a strong curiosity about the composer -- was what initially drew Martin to the project that became Beethoven’s Hair. At the start, he said, “I had a really passive interest in classical music.” Though familiar with Beethoven’s symphonies, he knew little of the man behind the compositions. “I didn’t even know, for instance, that he had other medical problems besides the deafness when I began the project,” the author explained. Becoming intimately familiar with the composer’s works was a necessary part of creating his book, and now, Martin said, “although I certainly still recognize that the symphonies are towering works of art, it’s the chamber music that I really love.” He also gained an appreciation for Beethoven’s opera. “I saw Opera Colorado’s production of Fidelio at Boettcher Concert Hall in May and was just enthralled by it. I thought the production was just fantastic.” 

Beethoven’s Hair includes biographical sections that reveal the composer to be a complex and often difficult man. “He couldn’t keep any domestic help for more than a couple of weeks,” Martin said. “But nonetheless, and not just because of his music, his friends were devoted to him.” 

This passionate devotion transcends time, as reflected by the men who bought what is now known as the Guevara Lock. Beethoven’s letters include a plea that investigations into the cause of his ailments continue beyond his death. Martin explained that Guevara and Brilliant “believed in doing this, in making this purchase, in setting in motion this testing to fulfill his express wish.” 

The results of the testing revealed that Beethoven most likely died of plumbism, lead poisoning, though it isn’t possible to clearly pin down the source of the contamination. Martin says, “My own lay person’s opinion is that it was a slow and chronic and entirely accidental poisoning.” At the time, the detrimental effects of lead were unknown, and it is probable that a number of the composer’s household effects would have contained the element. The author explained that Beethoven owned “earthenware plates that would very likely have had lead glazes. If he had a favorite pewter mug, for instance, that he drank from all his life, that alone could clearly be the culprit.”

In Beethoven’s Hair, Martin points out that “writing symphonies or string quartets or piano pieces was taxing and time-consuming work. It depended on a kind of daily drudgery as much as it did on inspiration.” Martin sees a clear parallel between the processes of creating music and his creation of text. “Writing for me is very slow, and I guess I’m willing to say torturous work, principally because I write aurally, musically.” This reliance on alliteration and beat leads to a painstaking work ethic. “Instead of writing drafts, I write in repeating circles. I circle back and re-do things constantly. I start work every day re-doing what I did the day before. It’s a slow process. And I take pleasure in shaping sentences, there’s no question about it,” he explains.

The work may not go quickly, but the results of his labor are both varied and interesting. Martin has authored a number of books. Taking advantage of his Colorado roots -- which include growing up in Cortez, attending Colorado College, and now maintaining an apartment in Denver -- he was able to bring a fan’s perspective to the Denver Broncos during a Superbowl season in The Color Orange. A more recent book, “Out of Silence,” employs a profile of his autistic nephew to investigate the science of language. 

This variety of writing projects adds up to a diverse career. Martin is quick to point out that part of his success is due to readers’ growing interest in reading nonfiction that is related with a storyteller’s sensibilities. He explains, “When I was a college student, for instance -- and that’s been some time ago, in the early ’70s -- there was a notion that the only artistic writing was deemed to be the writing of fiction. And of course that has changed dramatically in the last part of the century. And I feel extremely fortunate to do reportorial work that is aimed as much at creating art, literary art, as is fiction.” 

-- Russell has a new book in the works, one with the working title of Doom and Beauty. It is, he says, “an examination of the bombing of Guernica in the Spanish Civil War, and Picasso’s subsequent painting that memorialized it. The painting has long been considered one of the foremost paintings of the 20th century, if not the foremost painting. Its meaning to the people of the Basque region of Spain is profound.”

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