16 December—Today is the sestercentennial of the legendary Boston Tea Party. Don’t bother looking it up, it means 250^th anniversary. It comes from the old Roman coin, the sesterce, essentially equivalent to a quarter, being a fourth of a denarius; it was originally equivalent to 2½ asses—singular as—later to 4 asses. Really.

Everybody knows about the Boston Tea Party in 1773 and that Boston boys have always been celebrated for their wild parties. But few people know the real reason it was held. And in the quarter-millennium since the big Beantown bash historians haven’t done a thing to correct the misleading story of its purpose.

That’s because the Boston Tea Party was really a birthday party for Ludwig van Beethoven. That’s right, that Ludwig van Beethoven, the composer. Lou, as he was known over here, was born on 16 December in 1770 in Bonn. Germany. Even as a toddler he showed considerable musical talent as a performer and composer. The kleines Kind was a prodigy from the get-go.

So Ludwig’s papa, a noted musician and teacher himself, took the precocious kid to the colonies to launch his career as only we colonials could do, even back then. As it happens, the British-flagged freighter from Hamburg with some deluxe accommodation for passengers arrived in Boston Harbor on 15 December.

Johann van Beethoven—Jack, to his new pals in Beantown—announced that little Lou’s birthday was the 16^th and that the kid would be delighted to give a piano recital on the boat (even though little Ludwig didn’t know what the hell was going on). But since there was no piano on the boat, the Beantown boys would have to get one on board.

And that they did. Or tried to do, anyway. Problem is, all the guys, in true Boston fashion, were three sheets to the wind by the time they got the fortepiano to the boat and they dropped it in the harbor. Shite!

So much for little Lou’s recital. But why let a fortepiano overboard spoil a good booze-up birthday party? So Jack sang some duets with little Lou in German and English and the Beantown boys did what Beantown boys do best: create mayhem.

And the rest should be history but isn’t.

In recognition of Ludwig van Beethoven’s 253^rd birthday, then, and taking account of Rudolph Guiliani’s current predicament, here’s the second movement of Beethoven’s A-flat major piano sonata, Opus 26: