This year marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven
One story about Beethoven has it that, towards the end of his life, unmoored from the world by advancing deafness, further isolated from it by family conflicts and romantic failures, he began to lose his grasp on basic civilities and conventions of behaviour. He went ungroomed, his clothes were unwashed; his rooms were unswept by servants who had long since fled this angry, unkempt bear of a master who kept used chamber pots under the piano.
Wandering the streets of Baden in his scruffy state one day, he lost his bearings. Forced to peer into the windows of houses to try and find his way back to his lodgings he attracted the attention of the local constable. When apprehended, Beethoven defended himself vigorously, protesting his identity. “Of course you’re not Beethoven,” replied the constable. “You’re nothing but a tramp. Beethoven doesn’t look like that.” Locked up in a cell Beethoven continued to protest, and eventually in the middle of the night, Herzog, the music director in Wiener Neustadt, was summoned to prove his identity. This he duly did, much to the horror of the constable, and the prisoner was released and driven home in style.