Charles Harmon

"DRINK IT ALL DOWN, BEETHOVEN!"

"Roll over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news!"

Thus spake Saint Chuck Berry, father of Rock and Roll.

Don't believe me? Just ask his home boy, Marty McFly!

Well, hey! I love rock & roll, but I also like folk, jazz, country,

and so much more including classical and much foreign music. 

I always heard that heavy metal can make go you deaf, and in the

case of Beethoven that's what happened. Not exactly the music

but the metal. I grew up with classical music and enjoyed Beethoven,

Bach, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and so much more, not that I know much

about it, but I know what I like. So, I knew that Beethoven went deaf 

in his 30s, and that although he was writing some of the world's greatest

music, and conducting it with great orchestras, he could not hear his own  

compositions, although I am sure he could hear it in his head, just as I am

listening to the 9th at this time. But Beethoven is thought to have gone deaf 

from drinking too much wine, although Germany has always had great beer 

also. But back in the old days the wine had many impurities and so they added

lead acetate, called "Sugar of Lead" to sweeten it. Sometimes mercury and 

arsenic were also added to flavor the wine. And these were all toxic! And some 

of the side effects were that they could cause deafness and make people 

angry, moody, and depressed. But there were a lot of rough edges from the 

fermenting process. But they caused many bad symptoms in Beethoven.

How do we know all this? Classical musicians were much like modern rock stars,

and had many fans, many of whom were adoring women who wrote romantic 

letters to their idols. And Beethoven was one of the most popular and would write

them back, perhaps to arrange trysts. And we would send locks of his hair to his 

lovers and most were saved as keepsakes. Many of these samples were analyzed 

and found to contain high concentration of lead, mercury, and arsenic and other 

toxic heavy metals. Not only from the wine, but from the potions and medicines

early doctors would prescribe, many of which just made things worse. 

So, the next time you visit the Hollywood Bowl and are listening to Beethoven 

or anything, enjoy a bottle of wine and the music, and be glad it won't poison you!

Da Da Da DDDAAAAA!