《Beethoven's Hair : An Extraordinary Historical Odyssey and a Scientific Mystery Sol》是2001年Random House US出版的圖書，作者是Russell Martin。
基本介紹
- 中文名：Beethoven's Hair : An Extraordinary Historical Odyssey and a Scientific Mystery Sol
- 作者：Russell Martin
- 出版社：Random House US
- ISBN：9780767903516
內容簡介,作者簡介,
內容簡介
Ludwig van Beethoven lay dying in 1827, a young musician namedFerdinand Hiller came to pay his respects to the great composer. Inthose days, it was customary to snip a lock of hair as a keepsake,and this Hiller did a day after Beethoven's death. By the time hewas buried, Beethoven's head had been nearly shorn by the manypeople who similarly had wanted a lasting memento of the great man.Such was his powerful effect on all those who had heard hismusic.For a century, the lock of hair was a treasured Hiller familyrelic, and perhaps was destined to end up sequestered in a bankvault, until it somehow found its way to the town of Gilleleje, inNazi-occupied Denmark, during the darkest days of the Second WorldWar. There, it was given to a local doctor, Kay Fremming, who wasdeeply involved in the effort to help save hundreds of hunted andfrightened Jews. Who gave him the hair, and why? And what was thefate of those refugees, holed up in the attic of Gilleleje'schurch?After Fremming's death, his daughter assumed ownership of thelock, and eventually consigned it for sale at Sotheby's, where twoAmerican Beethoven enthusiasts, Ira Brilliant and Che Guevara,purchased it in 1994. Subsequently, they and others instituted aseries of complex forensic tests in the hope of finding theprobable causes of the composer's chronically bad health, hisdeafness, and the final demise that Ferdinand Hiller had witnessedall those years ago. The results, revealed for the first time here,are startling, and are the most compelling explanation yet offeredfor why one of the foremost musicians the world has ever known wasforced to spend much of his life in silence.In Beethoven's Hair, Russell Martin has created a richhistorical treasure hunt, an Indiana Jones-like tale of falseleads, amazing breakthroughs, and incredible revelations. Thisunique and fascinating book is a moving testament to the power ofmusic, the lure of relics, the heroism of the Resistance movement,and the brilliance of molecular science.An astonishing tale of one lock of hair and its amazingtravels--from nineteenth-century Vienna to twenty-first-centuryAmerica.
