Music Inspiration: Beethoven’s Compositions in Modern Art, currently on view at Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, attempts to bridge the gap between auditory and visual experience by inviting artists to translate Beethoven’s compositions into contemporary artworks. Yet, this endeavor raises a key question: can the complexities of Beethoven’s music truly be captured visually without diluting their emotional resonance? Curator Dr. Silke Bettermann’s selection of works spanning the last century provides an array of strategies—some more successful than others—that expose both the limitations and potential of such cross-sensory interpretation.
The exhibition prominently features intensely colorful abstract compositions by artists Norman Sigbert (1892–1980), Christel Bak-Stalter (b. 1937), and Peter Fischerbauer (b. 1966). Sigbert’s drawing labeled Allegro con brio (Italian for “fast and vigorously”) dissolves the structure of a composition into soft layers of red, green, and orange. While his controlled use of color gestures toward the music’s dynamism, the abstraction arguably strips away the rhythmic complexity that defines Beethoven’s work. The result feels visually appealing but risks flattening the visceral energy of the original composition into mere color harmonies.
In stark contrast stands a bold, gestural painting that dominates one wall with its broad strokes of orange and green, white and black, with blank sheet music decorating the background. This large-scale work by French artist Arman (1928–2005) captures the emotional force of a Beethoven crescendo through pure color and movement. Thick applications of paint inspire a physical presence that echoes the weight of a full orchestra.
Rebecca Horn’s (1944–2024) Beethoven / Violin Concert in N.Y. (2000) introduces yet another perspective. The photographic C-print overlays a female figure—Horn herself—with glowing orange and blue gestural marks against a black background. As the title indicates, the artist created this work after experiencing a performance of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 61 (1806) in New York. The blindfolded figure hints at the internal experience of listening, while the fluid marks trace the paths of sound through space. Here, Horn’s work represents music as a physical force that acts upon the body and consciousness simultaneously.
The etching Es war einmal ein König (2002), by Baldwin Zettl (b. 1943) takes a more narrative approach. In this black and white work, Zettl transforms Beethoven’s musical adaptation of the Flohlied Op. 75, No. 3 (1809) from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faustinto visual art. The composition shows three fantastical characters, unmistakably the flea from the song’s narrative with its royal entourage, traversing the keys of a piano. Above them, perched on a music stand, the concluding measures of Beethoven’s musical score can be glimpsed. This imaginative interpretation mythologizes Beethoven’s composition, with the characters’ distinctive and somewhat grotesque features embodying the dramatic intensity characteristic of the composer’s work.
Meanwhile, Thomas Bayrle (b. 1937) has contributed a captivating score visualization titled Ludwig van Beethoven (1971). The large-scale work reinterprets sheet music from a Beethoven sonata, showing the standard notation as a flowing visual pattern where black, red, and blue notes undulate across the page like sound waves. The blue and red notations create distinct voice sections within the visual composition; by doing so, they highlight different instrumental elements from the original score. Bayrle offers a literal yet visually stimulating approach, but when juxtaposed with Jorinde Voigt’s (b. 1977) more subjective, gestural translations, his work feels almost mechanical. Voigt’s annotations, in contrast, breathe life into the musical material, suggesting that a more personal, emotional engagement yields a richer interpretive outcome.
Jorinde Voigt has visualized Beethoven’s sonatas through sweeping lines and meticulous notation. In Ludwig van Beethoven / Sonate Nr. 6 (Opus 10 Nr. 2), #11 (2012), the artist presents a bold red ribbon-like form cutting across white space, intersected by tiny handwritten notes that document her analysis of the musical score, complete with intricate webs of arcing lines. Another Voigt piece depicts yellow, pink, and gray washes flowing around a central vortex of fine black lines, evoking the movement of sound, alongside precise annotations. Her interpretations of all thirty-two Beethoven piano sonatas draw inspiration from the composer’s own performance directions; her seemingly three-dimensional spirals of line work serve as visual echoes of Beethoven’s keyboard masterpieces.
Where Voigt embraces emotional interpretation, Benjamin Samuel (b. 1981) examines contemporary technology. His work transforms Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, Op. 120 (1819–23) into a sophisticated light installation using custom software. By mapping individual notes to specific colors and blending these hues when notes are played simultaneously, the artist creates evolving chromatic sequences that make visible the architectural structure of Beethoven’s work. This digital translation unveils new dimensions in centuries-old musical works.
Ultimately, Music Inspiration offers an ambitious but uneven meditation on the translation of Beethoven’s compositions into visual form. While some artists—particularly Jorinde Voigt and Rebecca Horn—effectively balance emotional resonance with formal innovation, others risk reducing the intricacies of Beethoven’s music to surface-level aesthetic gestures. Dr. Bettermann’s curatorial premise, though thoughtful, sometimes leans too heavily on reverence, rarely challenging how Beethoven’s legacy operates within broader cultural narratives. Nevertheless, the exhibition succeeds in sparking a dialogue on how historical works continue to influence—and at times constrain—contemporary artistic practices. Visitors leave not with definitive answers, but with a refreshed awareness of the tensions between sound, sight, and interpretation.
