Advertisement
Opinion | What Beethoven can teach Hong Kong protesters: tragedy is the flipside of heroism
- As Hong Kong prepares to mark the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, his earlier works exalting the hero will be heard. But it is his later, more sensitive work exploring humanity and the face of difference that we should be listening to
Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
0

In 2017, I published a book titled Beethoven and Freedom. The manuscript was completed during the “umbrella movement”. The dedication page reads: “As I write these words, I am conscious of the freedom I have because I can no longer take it for granted. The Umbrella Movement and its political backlash has flushed out the demons from the crevices of this gleaming metropolis. Freedom is on trial, and its ideals distorted as a clash of wills in a zero-sum game where any victory is destined to fail.”
In the wake of the violence engulfing Hong Kong today, the book seems more prescient than I had imagined. It is a difficult book, heavy with philosophy; it was never meant for a general readership or to influence Hong Kong. After all, the idea that Beethoven might have something to say in the current situation seems arcane, if not hopelessly naive.
But as we witness the violence, the barricades, the fires, and the slogans calling for freedom, Hong Kong is not so far from the revolutionary fervour that gripped much of Europe during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars.
It is in this context that Beethoven’s music is regarded as heroic. Indeed, his Third Symphony is titled Eroica (Heroic), and Beethoven is often styled in the image of this symphony. Hong Kong is now fashioning its own heroes, both among the protesters and the police.
The heroic Beethoven captures the idealised image of such heroes today as it did back in the early 1800s. This is a music with volition, a music determined to seize history and shape the future with its ineluctable drive towards cadences that speak of violence and resolve. Beethoven’s symphonic structures are autonomous and self-determined; they give the law to themselves.
Advertisement