SJSU’s Beethoven Center boasts amazing collection, hosts Regency era ball  

The Beethoven Center at San Jose State University, boasting the world’s second largest collection of items related to the revolutionary German composer, adds an intriguing 18^th century European flavor to the tech city’s downtown. 

That continental touch will be on display Saturday at the Beethoven Ball, where attendees will dance to the Viennese music popular during the lifetime of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827).  

Open to the public, the dance in the stately ballroom of the San Jose Woman’s Club features music by the SJSU Symphony Orchestra. Participants are encouraged to dress in Regency period attire.  

The first ball in 2022 was going to be a one-time event, said Erica Buurman, director of the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies and an associate professor in SJSU’s School of Music and Dance. 

“We decided it was so much fun,” Buurman said, that the event had to be continued. 

More than 100 people are expected to attend the ball, which also features costumed revelers and performances by vintage dance groups. Guests also may take an afternoon workshop with separate admission that offers instruction in 19^th century contradances. 

The Beethoven Center, on the fifth floor of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library on the SJSU campus, houses benefactor Ira F. Brilliant’s extensive collection of Beethoven-related materials. Brilliant, a real estate developer who died in 2006, donated the materials to SJSU in 1983, wanting to ensure that the public could access them.   

Filled with more than 30,000 items — including Beethoven’s notes, books, and most intriguingly, several samples of his hair — the center, which is open weekdays, houses the largest collection of Beethoven-related items outside of Europe, and the second largest in the world.  

“Beethoven rarely threw things away,” Buurman said. 

On a recent tour, Buurman pointed to a glass-covered, wood framed object containing locks not only of Beethoven’s hair, but his contemporary, writer Johann Goethe’s hair; and the quill pen Beethoven was said to have used on his deathbed.  

The hair samples have gotten attention over the years. One, which contained lead in it, was the subject of a book. But later DNA testing showed the sample belonged to woman, not to Beethoven. 

Other items in the center include first edition scores, manuscripts and engravings from Beethoven’s era. The center recently acquired two pages of French composer Hector Berlioz’s analysis of Beethoven’s First Symphony, with Berlioz’s handwritten notes on it. The $5,000 purchase was made by the nonprofit American Beethoven Society, which supports the center.  

Demonstrating how the music sounded during Beethoven’s time, Buurman played some of the center’s period keyboard instruments, including a harpsichord, clavichord, and a replica Dulcken fortepiano. Modern pianos, she said, are louder, while older instruments are gentler and more varied in their sound. “The pianos of Beethoven’s day are not what the public is used to,” she said. 

The Beethoven Center also sponsors free noontime concerts. On May 7, violinist Yeonglee Kim and pianist Akira Kaku perform romances for violin and piano by Beethoven and Rachmaninoff. 

The Beethoven Ball is at 7 p.m. April 25 in the San Jose Woman’s Club, 75 S. 11^th St., San Jose. Tickets are $27 general; $11 for SJSU students at https://hammertheatre.com/events-list/. 

The Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies is in Room 580, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, San Jose State University, 150 E. San Fernando St., San Jose; admission is free. Visit www.sjsu.edu/beethoven/visit.