AN ODE RESPONSE

How many people, listening to the Ode to Joy from Beethoven's ninth symphony, stop and think to themselves that the composer was German?  Not many.  But to our knowledge there are two exceptions: the Nazis, and now the British Tory tabloids.  It is not a happy pairing, and it is one that ought to give the latter pause for real thought.

This latest entry in the Any Stick To Beat A Dog album arises because the BBC has chosen the Ode to Joy as the theme tune for its coverage of this month's Euro 96 football championships which, in case you have recently returned from Mars, will take place in England.  Education Secretary Gillian Shephard claims to find the decision "unbelieveable".  Party chairman Brian Mawhinney is upset that the BBC could not support British teams with British music.  Former industry minister John Butcher finds the choice of the Ode "bizarre and unacceptable".

It is the Tories' bad luck that they have turned against Beethoven for being German just as a new tome, Beethoven In German Politics, has been published by Yale University Press.  From David Dennis's book we discover that Germans are con­stantly reinventing Beethoven in the image of their own particular era.  Over the years Beethoven has been variously recast as a French revolutionary, a German nationalist, a proto-coinmunist, it prot-Nazi, a precursor of the 'niird Reich, the GDR, German reunification and the European Union.

Only the Nazis, however, wanted to celebrate Beethoven because he was a German.  And only the Tories and the British tabloids want to drive him off the airwaves for the same reason.  Presumably they would prefer a bit of British music - as long as it is not by Handel (German), Delius (son of a-German), Holst (sounds German) or Britten (pacifist so probably pro-German).  Best to stick with God Save the Queen.  Except, isn't she German too?