{"id":753,"date":"2009-01-15T10:54:09","date_gmt":"2009-01-15T10:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2009\/01\/15\/secret-beethoven-messages-in-peanuts\/"},"modified":"2009-01-15T11:12:44","modified_gmt":"2009-01-15T11:12:44","slug":"secret-beethoven-messages-in-peanuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2009\/01\/15\/secret-beethoven-messages-in-peanuts\/","title":{"rendered":"Secret Beethoven subtexts in Peanuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a great piece in the New York Times today<\/a> about Charles Schulz\u2019s use of the music of Beethoven in the Peanut\u2019s comics. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Schroeder plays the Hammerklavier (Photo: Peanuts\/United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the world of \u201cPeanuts,\u201d of course, Schroeder was the Beethoven-obsessed music nerd who lost patience when Lucy interrupted his practice and who called time-outs as a baseball catcher to share composer trivia with the pitcher. Yet musicologists and art curators have learned that there was much more than a punch line to Charles Schulz<\/a>\u2019s invocation of Beethoven\u2019s music. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t read music and you can\u2019t identify the music in the strips, then you lose out on some of the meaning,\u201d said William Meredith, the director of the <\/span>Ira<\/span> <\/span>F.<\/span> <\/span>Brilliant<\/span> <\/span>Center<\/span> for Beethoven Studies at <\/span>San Jose<\/span> <\/span>State<\/span> <\/span>University<\/span>, who has studied hundreds of Beethoven-themed \u201cPeanuts\u201d strips. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

When Schroeder pounded on his piano, his eyes clenched in a trance, the notes floating above his head were no random ink spots dropped into the key of G. Schulz carefully chose each snatch of music he drew and transcribed the notes from the score. More than an illustration, the music was a soundtrack to the strip, introducing the characters\u2019 state of emotion, prompting one of them to ask a question or punctuating an interaction. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Had I known one could specialize in the analysis of comic strips, I might have become a musicologist….<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Schulz was a long time subscriber of the Oakland Symphony in the years when my teacher, Gerhard Samuel<\/a>, was there. Gerhard had a number of treasured Schulz originals that he had drawn for fundraisers for the orchestra. The one which held pride of place in his flat had Charlie Brown saying the Oakland Symphony was \u201cmy kind of orchestra.\u201d Apparently, Schulz, for all his well-documented love of Beethoven and Brahms, thought the San Francisco Symphony\u2019s programming in those years was a little dull. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n