I generally ignore Google Doodles, but when presented with a caricature of Beethoven with keyboard first thing this morning as I opened up my laptop I couldn’t help myself – apparently it’s the classical master’s 245^th birthday; he was born in December of 1770, but the precise day has been lost.

Google’s Beethoven birthday celebration hardly qualifies as a doodle – it’s a little animated game.  You travel with Ludwig through the streets of Vienna, where the composer clumsily destroys score after score in accidents; he falls into a river and gets trampled by a carriage, amongst other mishaps.  Of course he is carrying musical scores loosely, as all composers do, so when these mishaps occur the maestro’s works are lost.  The player’s task is to reassemble the scores by dragging bits of them into their proper order.  Google plays the new composition, and when it’s correct you get to proceed to the next adventure with Ludwig.

I had a lot of fun with it, and enjoyed assembling the Fifth Symphony, the Moonlight Sonata, Fur Elise, and the Ninth Symphony.  Upon finishing the Ninth Symphony, Beethoven and I made it all the way to the concert hall, which turned into an illuminated bit of heaven and began billowing the Fortissimoissimo moment when the voices and orchestra, tutti, light up the ears with the triumphant Ode to Joy.

Hurry over and play!  I hope it tickles you as much as it did me.

Thanks for reading.

Ryan