If we ask someone what music they like and answer “Beethoven”, we will not really know their musical tastes. The German composer is beyond good and evil (musically). If you like music, you like Beethoven, although your favorite style is pop. And if in his life he awakened admiration, over time they have only increased his image and his legacy. Often, geniuses' work is usually their costume, their mask. This is not the case with Ludwig van Beethoven. In this case, the work does not cover the creator. Anyone can sing his music, which has been used as a soundtrack for films and series and which has also had rocker arrangements, but, in addition, we know his face well – there are more portraits than if there had been selfies at that time – his life and his loves – or desamores – his manias, his bad genius, proven facts, anecdotes and, of course, senseless invented. It was, remains and will be a music star.

On 16 December, the 250th anniversary of his birth will be celebrated. Thus, this year has been a great year of remembrance, although the pandemic has blurred it. But in spite of everything, the world has celebrated its art, especially two cities: Bonn, Germany, where he was born and raised, and Vienna, Austria, where he passed maturity until his death.

Beethoven is one of the first examples of the thinker artist and perhaps the most famous. Through Beethoven a way of understanding art as a force of action was opened up in Europe. She is not just creating beautiful music: her work is an appeal to consciousness, to social and personal transformation. It therefore makes no sense to continue to regard Beethoven – and Schubert – as part of Viennese “classicism”. Beethoven, with all its consequences, is a romantic, a man of the new Democratic Age, a modern man. Although before its goal was music, for German, music is part of a historical process that encompasses all of humanity. The progress of science, the struggle against tyranny, nature and love for the people, universal non-dogmatic religion, the transforming capacity of art are the pillars of their ideas.

So from those premises, the next time we hear Beethoven's music on this anniversary, let's think he's telling us more than unforgettable melodies, novel compositional schemes, or a reflection of a wild personality. The art of Beethoven must serve us to make us think, especially in these times of desolation.