Beethoven went Deaf, Jean Carles became NoseBlind

But they still carried on

When Beethoven lost his hearing it could have been the end for the great composer. But he overcame the tragedy and created some outstanding work. The late string quartets, composed near the end of his life, are deep and complex musical meditations. Far ahead of their day, they still remain pinnacles of excellence in the modern repertoire.

Beethoven had great will power, which helped him overcome his setback, but that wouldn’t have been enough by itself. As well as enormous drive, he needed a note-perfect inner ear that let him hear the music directly in his mind — not mediated by his physical ears. A profound imagination was the third element required for the magic to flow from his pen.

In the film Amadeus, when Mozart is jolted from his creative flow by a masked visitor -who has come to check on the progress of a piece he has ordered- Mozart tells him its under way. When the stranger asks to see a draft, he’s told that won’t be possible, the music’s all in Mozart’s head — just waiting to be written down.

Perfumers work by blending imagined notes in their minds. So when Jean Carles became anosmic in later life, his prodigious recall of perfume materials -and their various effects- allowed him to write from memory one of the finest scents of the post war years.

His son -the only one privy to the secret- acted as nose, giving Carles feedback on the various mods that Ma Griffe went through during its creation. Released in 1946, it was a song of liberation to rank alongside Bandit and Miss Dior. Carles’ work was the most joyful of the three : a green, aldehydic, gardenia-muguet chypre — chypres being the style of the day.

With citrus and bergamot in the head, Ma Griffe feels solar and buoyant. This makes it a precursor of the Mademoiselle Tendency in scent, which typically targets daughters as opposed to mothers. Today, youth-centric scents are big on the feminine side of the aisle - especially sweet and fruity ones. And so, even though Ma Griffe is neither sweet nor fruity, you could say it’s had a lasting effect.

The sprightly tone of Ma Griffe is quite remarkable in the light of Jean Carles’ loss of odorat, which could have made him depressed — just as it did in the 43% of people who lost their sense of smell after catching Covid.

Carles was not given to brooding introspection. In a talk at the Osmothèque he was portrayed as a lover of fast cars; a practical joker who would entertain his students with card tricks.

In complete contrast to this, his approach to perfume composition was hyper-rational and serious. Patient and methodical, he spent a lot of time researching perfume materials and how they interact. It’s said that he did over 1000 experiments with oakmoss alone. This dedication led him to formulate the Jean Carles Method, which is still used in perfume schools today.

Materials are gathered together in logical groups — eg rosy molecules, and these are compared and contrasted with materials from the same -and different- groups — eg other rosy molecules, and aquatic molecules, woody molecules, etc. Students work through the range of odorants in a rational orderly way, building up a mental map of links between their odors. This helps learners classify and combine materials in a logical manner.

Instead of perfumers creating their work through pot luck and intuition -as they had in the past- Jean Carles founded perfumery on a rational footing.

The Carles method of creation is to mix two materials together in ratios of 1—9 2—8 3—7 etc. The most suitable blend is then mixed with a third material in the same way, and so on — until a perfume has been created.

Carles also made bases in this way. Bases are substructures - like a rose or a woody accord. They were used originally in Ma Griffe to soften up its hard chypre shell, but because they are no longer available, modern versions do not smell the same.

As well as the odors of perfume materials, Carles studied their duration on a smelling strip. This gave rise to the note pyramid, where long lasting notes are at the bottom and ephemeral notes at the top.

Note pyramid of Ma Griffe © Basenotes

Carles took a bottom up approach to perfume construction. He would begin with individual bass notes, build them into accords, and work his way up.

Listening to the late quartets, it seems Beethoven used a similar approach. Notes are placed next to each other, compared and contrasted in stark surroundings, analysed, and built up into harmonies. Just as harmonies and contrasts are the core of a composition, a logical structure is needed to bind them into a whole.

Within the logic is infinite variation — limited only by imagination.

Carles, with his swansong and Beethoven with his, found ways of joining the left and right brains — their methods combining logic and feeling.

Where Beethoven moved beyond the strict forms of Haydn and the Classical composers, Carles moved in the opposite direction. He rejected the trial and error approach, but he didn’t throw out the intuitive baby with the bathwater. In a vintage Eau de Cologne, Ma Griffe is both touching and vibrant — almost defiantly hopeful in the face of adversity.

Just as Carles never smelled Ma Griffe but had to be content with the praise of others, Beethoven never heard his late works — except in his mind.

When Beethoven (somewhat erratically) conducted the premiere of his stupendous Ninth Symphony -complete with double-size orchestra and full choir- he got so out of synch that when the music stopped, he was still wildly gesticulating. A singer gently turned him round to see the audience madly applauding.

Despite the praise given to Ma Griffe, and the unparalleled frisson that Ode to Joy can offer, a lingering doubt remains.

These composers were cut off from their media - and could not perfect their output in the real world. So, are we just hearing simulacra of the real works that were trapped in their minds?

Please like, and subscribe to get each new issue direct to your inbox.