Music as a pervasive cultural practice serves many functions for a community, and its selection is determined by the interaction between multiple contingencies at individual, group, and society levels. An analysis was recently conducted on the dynamic interaction between contingencies in frescoes art that promoted the Mexican Muralist movement (Malott, 2019, 2020). Following this example, we provide a selectionist account of the music of Ludwig van Beethoven in the 250^th anniversary of his birth. We explored the variation, selection, and transmission of his music over the course of his life and career in the sociopolitical milieu of his time, as well as after his death. The dissemination of Beethoven’s music was characterized by aggregate products resulting from a number of interlocking contingencies, which created a high demand for his music. Our analysis highlights two levels of relational processes in the selection of Beethoven’s music: The relational repertoire that enabled Beethoven to compose masterpieces while he was completely deaf, and the symbolic meaning of his music in promoting the values of freedom and democracy in many societies.

音乐作为一种无孔不入的文化实践，对一个社区具有多种功能，它的选择是由个人、群体和社会层面的多种偶然因素之间的相互作用决定的。最近对促进墨西哥壁画运动的壁画艺术中的突发事件之间的动态相互作用进行了分析（Malott，2019，2020）。根据这个例子，我们对 250^世纪路德维希·范·贝多芬的音乐进行了选择主义的描述。他的生日。我们探讨了他的音乐在他的生活和职业生涯中在他那个时代的社会政治环境以及他去世后的变化、选择和传播。贝多芬音乐的传播特点是由许多相互关联的偶然因素产生的聚合产物，这对他的音乐产生了很高的需求。我们的分析强调了选择贝多芬音乐的两个层次的关系过程：使贝多芬在完全失聪的情况下创作杰作的关系曲目，以及他的音乐在许多社会中促进自由和民主价值观的象征意义。