A recent study published in the journal Current Biology reveals that Beethoven, one of the greatest music composers in history, was not that exceptional. The DNA tests reveal that Beethoven had a poor musical predisposition.
Predisposition generally refers to the genetic susceptibility or likelihood of developing a certain disease. However, a team of researchers from the Max Plank Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (MPIEA) in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and for Psycholinguistics (MPI-PL) in Nijmegen, Netherlands, performed DNA analysis of Beethoven’s DNA to investigate his genetic “musical” predisposition.
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Who is Beethoven?
Ludwig van Beethoven, born in 1770 in Bonn, Germany, was considered one of the most crucial composers in the history of Western classical music. Despite losing his hearing in his twenties and problematic family life, Beethoven is widely known for his talent in music.
Beethoven’s father, Johann, was his first music teacher. However, Beethoven’s musical education came from renowned composers like Franz Joseph Haydn. In his mid-twenties, he was widely known as a skilled pianist and a composer in Vienna. His compositions started gaining popularity in Vienna, a European cultural epicentre, due to its innovativeness and technical brilliance.
His compositions include symphonies, piano sonatas, string quartets, and concertos. His works are known for their deep emotions and revolutionary musical ideas, and they have had a profound and lasting impact on future generations of musicians.
Ludwig van Beethoven died in 1827, but his rich musical heritage continues to inspire and captivate audiences worldwide.
What do the DNA tests say?
In this study, the researchers examined the genetic factors related to beat synchronization. Beat synchronization is a crucial ability of a person to keep time with music, meaning if one can tap along with a beat.
Researchers compared Beethoven’s genetic profile to population samples from the Karolinska Institue, Sweden, and Vanderbilt University, US.
Beethoven’s first DNA tests focused on health-related genetic predispositions. It did not look into his musical traits due to lacking an informative Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS) on musical talent.
Later, a GWAS involving 606,825 people identified 69 genes associated with beat synchronization ability. Scientists tested this ability by asking people to clap in time with the beat of the music. A follow-up study also reveals that polygenetic indices (genetic factors) have a small but significant impact on various music-related abilities.
Polygenetic indices (PGIs) are summaries of the impact of multiple genetic variations on how a person’s genes are physically expressed. In this study, the scientists calculated Beethoven’s PGI and compared it with two datasets of modern people with data on musical achievements.
The results reveal that Beethoven’s PGI was low compared to the Karolinska Institue, Sweden, and Vanderbilt University, US samples. His PGI for predisposition to beat synchronization ranges from the 9th to 11th percentile compared to the samples, which is relatively poor.
However, scientists have found that Beethoven’s symphonies have a lot of percussion and complex rhythms. Besides that, they also found that his music was influenced by German folk dance rhythms, accounting for the fact that DNA tests are not a perfect method to measure a person’s musical abilities.
Despite this limitation of the PGI approach, the findings also do not rule out the role of DNA in musical talent. A previous study on twins reveals that genetic factors influence a significant portion of individual differences in music-related traits, around 42% of average heritability.
