“Bummer. Been singing “Datt-Datt-Datt-Daaaaaaaah, Datt-Datt-Datt-Daaaaaah” since I was a child. It’s from something Great-great-great Van Grandpa wrote. All my Beethoven relatives know the tune, even singing it around a fifth of whiskey on holidays. And now I find out I might not be related. All those years of walking around pridefully for naught. Oh! Sure we have the same name, but the genes! The Genes! No wonder I stopped taking piano lessons and got rejected by the church’s choirmaster. I guess music just isn’t my thing. But on the plus side, maybe I won’t go deaf in my old age. Datt-Datt-Datt-Duuuuuuh.”
According to a DNA analysis of Ludwig’s hair, “The living Van Beethoven men were shocked to learn they likely aren’t biologically related to the composer, Dr. Larmuseau said. ‘I reminded them that there is still a legal and genealogical connection with Beethoven, but people also value the biological connection and it is gone now, he said.” * Then there’s that tale of Beethoven’s failed proposal to Therese Malfatti and his writing “Für Elise” for her. The story goes that there never was anything physical to their relationship, but certainly it seems to have engendered a musical piece everyone has heard.
Makes you wonder. How far back can you trace your genetic heritage? Could be someone in that line of DNA you never knew existed. It’s almost as though humans have been humans acting as humans acted throughout human history, all those occasional or frequent moments of couplings after some drinks in a bar where the piano man played and sang Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.” Maybe even after a concert of the Fifth and over a shared fifth. Or, filled with “Joy” after a concert of the Ninth. Not that Great-great-grandma was promiscuous or anything like that…
*Amy Docker Marcus, march 22, 2023, 11:05 am ET, The Wall Street Journal online at https://www.wsj.com/articles/beethoven-dna-hair-health-98155ce5 Accessed march 23, 2023.
According to a DNA analysis of Ludwig’s hair, “The living Van Beethoven men were shocked to learn they likely aren’t biologically related to the composer, Dr. Larmuseau said. ‘I reminded them that there is still a legal and genealogical connection with Beethoven, but people also value the biological connection and it is gone now, he said.” * Then there’s that tale of Beethoven’s failed proposal to Therese Malfatti and his writing “Für Elise” for her. The story goes that there never was anything physical to their relationship, but certainly it seems to have engendered a musical piece everyone has heard.
Makes you wonder. How far back can you trace your genetic heritage? Could be someone in that line of DNA you never knew existed. It’s almost as though humans have been humans acting as humans acted throughout human history, all those occasional or frequent moments of couplings after some drinks in a bar where the piano man played and sang Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.” Maybe even after a concert of the Fifth and over a shared fifth. Or, filled with “Joy” after a concert of the Ninth. Not that Great-great-grandma was promiscuous or anything like that…
*Amy Docker Marcus, march 22, 2023, 11:05 am ET, The Wall Street Journal online at https://www.wsj.com/articles/beethoven-dna-hair-health-98155ce5 Accessed march 23, 2023.
RSS Feed