When Einstein met Beethoven

Oslo, Madison Square Garden, Music, memories, Luna, and more

Oslo, October 27, 2024 (all photos were taken by me, except for the one where I pose next to Beethoven, which a tourist took)

The most consequential elections in American history will take place in nine days, and you may expect me to write about the Triumph of the MAGA Will celebrations in Madison Square Garden.

I won't; I just finished the memories below of the lovely weekend I spent in Oslo, where life is good and people still enjoy each other's company independent of the political party they vote for.

And while typing these words, I took a photo of Luna, which I will share as well. She realized I had put on the radiators now that it gets colder in Norway; it is wide enough to sleep on. The small apartment has little to discover, so I guess it must have been a highlight for her.

I enjoyed my break from the news cycle, and by writing about normality and beauty, I hope to give the readers of this newsletter a brief break from the ugly reality. If you want a touch of MAGA madness, read the note I posted with a short reference to the events in the US. I will paste the note at the bottom of this newsletter for those who still need to discover the app to read notes (the social media part of Substack). Notes are getting more interesting, so if you still need to get on the Substack app, I recommend downloading it on your smartphone or tablet.

Here is the link:

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Oslo:

I often pass this street in Oslo and have tried several times to picture it exactly as I wanted. It finally worked out on Sunday: a spectacular blue sky and warm sunlight on the row of colorful houses. Each house is different in style and color, yet they all match in their design and pastel hues. The lines on the photo all converge to one point in the distance.

The icing on the cake is the red pavement that replaced the black asphalt only days ago. It reminds me of a Dutch cycling path, and I'm eager to find out if that is indeed the meaning of this color change. It would fit Oslo's policies, where the city has mostly been given back to pedestrians, and the few cars I see are nearly all electric. I have lived here for almost two months without owning a car and have yet to consider buying one; I walk everywhere or use public transport. What a difference with living in Ottawa, where I even needed a car to get to the local supermarket.

So when my weekend started, I walked in about ten minutes to Oslo's Konserthus for a sold-out Friday evening of musical brilliance. The Oslo Philharmonic, conducted by Klaus Mäkelä, delivered a spectacular performance, featuring Leif Ove Andsnes in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5, and Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra.

It transported me back to my Vienna days when I enjoyed many concerts after I moved there 20 years ago. Vienna is also the city where the "Emperor" Concerto was first performed in the early 19th century. Beethoven's distaste for Napoleon's self-coronation as emperor, which occurred around the time of the concerto's composition, may explain why he never approved of the concert's nickname.

Beethoven would have loved to hear Andsnes play. Still, everyone will feel his pain for not having been able to perform it himself during the premiere since his hearing had deteriorated so much that he could no longer perform. There is beauty in this sad story: being able to compose music while losing your hearing, which was so brilliant that millions of fans still enjoy it more than two hundred years later.

Directly after the break, I remember the youthful enthusiasm of Mäkelä when entering the stage; he expressed so much energy, joy, and eagerness to lead the orchestra through Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra with incredible passion. I hope to see and hear more of him when he takes the helm of the renowned Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam in 2027. This appointment, along with his simultaneous leadership of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, cements Mäkelä's status as one of the most sought-after conductors of his generation.

Meeting Beethoven in Bonn, summer 2022.

While listening to Beethoven, my mind drifted to Bonn and Vienna, two cities where I lived centuries after Beethoven lived there. I remember one day passing a house in the 19th district of Vienna with a sign on the door indicating Beethoven had lived there. A few doors further down the same road was another front door revealing that Albert Einstein had lived there. For a brief moment, I imagined the two neighbors meeting, which would require warping time by a century. I know, even for Einstein, that's too much to ask. How interesting such a meeting would have been between these two men, united by their brilliance and hairstyles.