BONN, Germany -- The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra paid tribute to the local composer of this urbane city on the Rhine River last night.

Performing a work by a native son is the kind of honor the orchestra often gives a town when on tour, as the PSO is this week in Europe. It just so happens that this hometown hero is none other than Ludwig van Beethoven, who was born here in 1770 and went on to become the most famous composer in the world.

Beethoven's presence still towers over Bonn, perhaps more so now that the city has lost its capital status to Berlin (and in spite of the fact that the composer high-tailed it out of town to Vienna). The city's motto, "Freude" (joy), comes right out of Beethoven's famous Ninth Symphony, "Choral," and its main park has an imposing, stern statue of him. His likeness is everywhere, and busts even turn up in restaurants and bars.

The Beethoven-Haus Museum, in the home where the composer was born, is the major attraction in town. There, T-shirts proclaim, "Ludwig Lives!"

The city's main concert hall is called the Beethovenhalle, and its primary function is host to the Beethovenfest, in which the PSO debuted last night. On the program -- Did you have to ask? -- Beethoven's Violin Concerto. "The people are proud of him," said Beethovenfest Director Ilona Schmiel.

As far as music history goes, Bonn arguably is home to a more significant building -- the sanatorium in which the composer Robert Schumann spent his final years after attempting suicide. But it hardly warrants a mention in any guide. "Bonn has a Beethoven fix," said its director, Katrin Reinhold, with a wry smile.

Plenty of European towns ply the tourist trade by promoting an association with a famous resident. But what is truly remarkable is just how much Beethoven's music and persona continue to dominate classical music everywhere. Nearly 200 years after his death, and many musical styles later, no composer is performed more than Beethoven on the orchestral stage, and only Mozart and Bach sell more recordings.

"He is certainly the most performed composer on radio," said Jim Cunningham, host on WQED-FM. "I often jokingly say on the air 'You are listening to Classical QED 89.3, the Beethoven station.' "

Beethoven also is the subject of films and an influence on living composers -- still treading with the giant, menacing footsteps Brahms once heard when he tried to write his own symphonies. In the other arts, certain seminal figures remain popular and influential, but few so completely dominate the present like Beethoven.

"For nearly two centuries, a single style of a single composer has epitomized musical vitality, becoming the paradigm of Western compositional logic," wrote musicologist Scott Burnham, in his book, "Beethoven Hero."

Indeed, Beethoven is one of the few composers who never went out of style. Many of his symphonies have never left the repertoire and organizations devoted to his works, such as the Beethovenfest (founded in 1845), began early on.

It's partly because of just how effective Beethoven's music was in expressing emotion. His "heroic style" was the musical language of his works from the first decade of the 19th century, such as Symphony No. 3, "Eroica," and Symphony No. 5 and Piano Concerto No. 5, "Emperor." They finally -- and with vigor -- completely wrestled music from its old, genteel realm to the new world of individuality and democracy.

"With Beethoven, the human element first came to the fore as the primary argument of musical art," wrote Frederi Busoni in the early 20th century.

"His music is extremely modern still because he uses elements in the composition which we understand in our time much more," said Manfred Honeck, music director of the PSO and conductor for its concerts here and elsewhere in Europe as part of its 2009 European Festivals Tour. "Since Beethoven we have a view for the dramatic like he used; 200 years later we have the same expression."

Whereas Bach, Mozart and Haydn wrote just as much emotion into works, Beethoven did so in a patently direct and visceral way. It is not unlike film or popular music.

"If he were alive today he would love to be in the middle of the arts -- rock, jazz, hip hop, etc.," said Ms. Schmiel.

Beethoven's staunch belief in humanity's potential to be great took flight in his music in a way that also resonated well with listeners then and now.

"He is a bit of a political hero," said Mr. Honeck. "He fought for freedom and wrote pieces about it."

"[His music] invokes the necessity of struggle and eventual triumph as an index of man's greatness," summed up Mr. Burnham.

Many of Beethoven's messages can easily be read and have personal impact.

"[His] is not a faceless universality, not some blunted common denominator; his is a universality that embraces all individualities," wrote Mr. Burnham.

If Beethoven created the musical model that classical music steadfastly followed for years, even underpinning much modernist and post-modern music to this day, then isn't that the real reason his music is so beloved today?

"The values of Beethoven's heroic style have become the values of music," writes Mr. Burnham.

We may never know that score for certain. But you don't need to come to Bonn to see that Beethoven is still king of classical music. Too much reliance on a past master can suffocate music, and indeed at times Beethoven probably has done that. Yet in the end, for most audiences, listeners and musicians, the final proof is in the powerful music that never ceases to sound revolutionary and soul-searching even to this day.

"If his music was not such genius or so glorious, I would speak another way," said Mr. Honeck. "But it is. His music is like a letter, it speaks to you."