Whistling Beethoven
Sir: I do not think that Mr Geoffrey Wheatcroft is quite correct in his 'Last Word' in the 30 September issue entitled 'Singing songs'. He states that 'Beethoven's quartets have never been whistled in the street.'
Whilst I have never (to my knowledge) attempted the Grosse Fuge, Op. 133, [can assure Mr Wheatcroft that I have whistled many passages from the quartets of Beethoven (early, Rasumowsky, late) in the street. I first discovered the existence of these sublime works twenty-one years ago, when I was fourteen years old, and now parts of them frequently surface to my consciousness, and! find myself whistling or humming them in the street, walking the dogs in the countryside — even in the supermarket. I seem to have passed this peculiarity (?) on to my two daughters aged eight and ten, who sometimes break into fragments of song with the very few words which Beethoven left us from the 'motto theme' of the last movement of his last string quartet in F. Op. 135. So, Mr Wheatcroft, if there are three Beethoven Quartet Street Whistlers in Great Missenden alone, there may perhaps be more of us than you have imagined. Judith Rydings The Vicarage, Great Missenden, Bucks.
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