The opening four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony may be the most recognizable musical phrase in western culture.
The face of Ludwig van Beethoven, usually depicted with an intense scowl under stormy locks, is nearly as familiar. Anyone who has watched a “Peanuts” cartoon will remember the bust of the composer perched atop Schroeder’s piano.
Wearing cloth gloves, music professor Tyson Voigt carefully lifted a plaster mask as he stood in his office at Southeastern University in Lakeland. And there it was, that unmistakable face set in what Voigt described as “grumpy defiance.”…