Ira Brilliant

Ira Brilliant, whose enthusiasm for Beethoven led to the founding of a research center at San Jose State University focused on the celebrated composer's life and music, died Sunday night of congestive heart failure. He was 84.

The retired Phoenix real estate developer established the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies in 1983 when he donated 75 first-editions of Beethoven music to the university.

His continued donations over the years -- from Beethoven's symphonies to his letters to his hair -- made San Jose one of the eminent Beethoven research centers in the world and the only one in North America.

``With all of his shortcomings and human failings,'' Brilliant told the Mercury News in 1983, ``Beethoven still is the shining example of what man is capable of achieving.''

Brilliant's approach to Beethoven was ``a delight in the music itself,'' said D.W. Krummel, a professor emeritus of library science and music at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. ``Beethoven talked to him and it moved him to a degree that he was willing to devote a lot of his attention, funds and respect to it.''

Brilliant traced his love for Beethoven back to his college days, where he listened to the composer's works on 78 RPM records.

``Beethoven once said, `He who understands my music will shed the miseries of the world,'' Brilliant told the Mercury News in 1983. His favorite Beethoven piece changed depending on his mood, he said.

``His styles covered about all the emotions that we experience,'' Brilliant had said. ``You have to know what he was going through in his own personal life and how he released his emotions through his music.''

Brilliant began his collection in 1975. He had approached Arizona State University about a possible center, he had said, but university didn't want to focus on only one composer.

He later told a San Jose economics professor about his hopes for a center, when the professor suggested he call Arlene Okerlund, then dean of SJSU's School of Humanities and the Arts. Her enthusiasm convinced Brilliant to donate his collection, which included a first copy, first issue of Beethoven's Trio in B Flat Major, Op. 97, ``The Archduke,'' published in 1816. Its cover notes its dedication to Beethoven's patron, the Archduke Rudolph of Austria.

Today, the center claims it has the biggest collection of Beethoven items outside Europe. Its holdings include manuscripts, more than 300 first editions and conversation books (as the composer grew deaf, visitors and servants had to write their comments).

The holdings also include letters written in Beethoven's own terrible penmanship -- complete with misspellings -- and a lock of the composer's unruly hair, which Brilliant and others bought at Sotheby's in 1994. After examining the hair, researchers speculated the moody composer who had a host of ailments might have suffered from lead poisoning.

In addition, the center at SJSU sponsors young pianists competitions, works with the American Beethoven Society and publishes the Beethoven Journal. A family has also loaned the center remnants of Beethoven's skull, though they are not on display.

The evolution is in keeping with the ambitions Brilliant laid out during a 1985 ceremony for the center. During a speech for the fledgling center, he said it could one day venture into scholarship, newsletters for Beethoven fans and innovative programs for ``the innocents'' -- those unfamiliar with the genius' work.

``Ira put his own personal mark on the whole thing and kept his eye on it the whole time,'' said Joseph Kerman, a musicologist who sits on the center's board. ``It was his ambition, he realized it, and I think he was very happy with how it turned out.''

He is survived by his brother Stanley, wife Irma, son Robert, daughter-in-law Marsha, and grandson Alan.