Prom 9 (20.7.12): Beethoven Cycle – Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2

[marvin]

Personally speaking, I don't want this Beethoven cycle taking up so much of valuable TV broadcasts of these Proms. I may watch/listen to a few more but certainly not the ninth, which I find most unedifying and generally don't listen to the dirge that is the last choral movement;

[salymap]

Personally speaking, I don't want this Beethoven cycle taking up so much of valuable TV broadcasts of these Proms. I may watch/listen to a few more but certainly not the ninth, which I find most unedifying and generally don't listen to the dirge that is the last choral movement;

Oh you will find a soulmate here marvin but sadly I am not allowed to mention his name

[EdgeleyRob]

Personally speaking, I don't want this Beethoven cycle taking up so much of valuable TV broadcasts of these Proms. I may watch/listen to a few more but certainly not the ninth, which I find most unedifying and generally don't listen to the dirge that is the last choral movement;

Couldn't have put it better myself, although I do love the first three movements of no 9.

[amateur51]

Just catching up with this concert. Is Gillian Moore's hair stylist attempting to creating a female version of the male comb-over?

I thought that Barenboim looked tired - maybe he is?! Is the absence of Boulez providing additional work/strain? He's also tremendously po-faced - is that, as my father used to say, how his face hangs perhaps? It just didn't seem to me to be the galvanising face that I would have expected to see with an orchestra of young people at the start of such a concert.

The first symphony was nice enough but scarcely as witty as it can be, and it does not erase memories of the Beethoven cycle that Harnoncourt gave with the much more experienced Philharmonia in the Royal Festival Hall in London in the 1990s, for one.

[Nick Armstrong]

Just catching up with this concert. Is Gillian Moore's hair stylist attempting to creating a female version of the male comb-over?

Her hairdresser is a stranger to symmetry, that's for sure...

[amateur51]

Her hairdresser is stranger to symmetry, that's for sure...

S/He's doing our Gillian no favours, that's for sure.

There's a fledgling sparrow who visits the seed feeders here who sports a similar look.

Mind you, sitting next to Turnage is a bit like sitting in an installation entitled Un hommage aux vêtements froissés

[Nick Armstrong]

S/He's doing our Gillian no favours, that's for sure.

There's a fledgling sparrow who visits the seed feeders here who sports a similar look.

Mind you, sitting next to Turnage is a bit like sitting in an installation entitled Un hommage aux vêtements froissés

[Pegleg]

Sapere Aude has introduced two heady concepts in his posts, belief and truth.

And then ask yourself? Did I like it? Did I believe it? Did it move me?

For the layman, liking or being moved by a piece of music is easily answered, but “believing it” is not. I may, or may not, like Bach's keyboard works played on a piano, but should I believe it? I prefer to hear it played on a harpsichord. I can see why people get hung up over the question of vibrato, what violinist Rachel Podger has often called “wobble”. Yet I have no trouble believing Nathan Milstein playing Bach's solo violin works.

Take these two examples of Bach's Erbarme dich. The first sung by Julia Hamari with violin accompaniment , the second sung by Delphine Galou.

http://youtu.be/aPAiH9XhTHc

http://youtu.be/BBeXF_lnj_M

The first on modern instruments with plenty of vibrato and second on baroque with far less vibrato. However fine the playing and the voice of Julia Hamari I find the vibrato in the first example is intrusive. So I like the second example more, I suppose you could say I “believe it” more as I feel it might come closer to what Bach intended. But I don't really “know” that. Where that leaves me on the question of belief I don't know either. I know I enjoyed Emmanuel Krivine's Beethoven cycle more than DB's so far.

http://youtu.be/izTVmeaW1bQ

That's the great thing about music, compared to, let's say physics: there is not only one possible result, only one "truth", only one "beautiful"!

To my mind this is a false comparison, the history of science has shown that what is true one day, is not the next. James Clerk Maxwell did not live to see his all conquering equations of electromagnetism founder on the rocks of Black Body radiation, but founder they did.

http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/252/black_body_radiation.html

Analogies have their limits, but I would prefer to compare music to nature and the musician to a physicist. Just as there may be more than one “truth” in the interpretation of a score, however sophisticated the physics, physicists create models of nature and there may be competing theories at any one time.

Perhaps a more interesting question is to ask what is false?

Yet the sight of the Sun may just have gone to my head and I should lie down for a while ....

[jayne lee wilson]

Personally speaking, I don't want this Beethoven cycle taking up so much of valuable TV broadcasts of these Proms. I may watch/listen to a few more but certainly not the ninth, which I find most unedifying and generally don't listen to the dirge that is the last choral movement;

What a shame that the fashion, (even here, among distinguished Hornists) for subjective dismissal of the finale of Beethoven's 9th has seemingly stopped any attempt to listen to it intelligently and appreciatively (let alone emotionally - oh, it's just too much for some, isn't it?)

"DIRGE: lament for the dead, esp. forming part of funeral service; any mournful song or lament" (OED)
Are you SURE Beethoven's "Presto-Allegro assai" Ode to Joy sounds like this?

I can't improve on Robert Simpson's description of the 9th's finale:

"Its structure is both subtle and strong, and its precursor, the finale of the Eroica, has been almost equally misunderstood. The last movement of the 9th is an organic blend of variations and sonata, with both introduction and symphonic coda, and not without a suggestion of rondo. Structurally it is a summing-up of classical possibilities, all expressed in a single huge design with astonishing certainty of touch."

"A summing-up of classical possibilities" puts it perfectly - but with, as its text and message, a humanistic appeal to "all men becoming brothers", as all those classical forms combine in a great affirmation.

Ah, you will say, all this is just technical, its how I feel that matters... well yes, but you can't then dismiss the value of a piece of music by ignorant and inaccurate description. The R3 Forum is a place for all opinions - but also a place for deeper understanding of music - and of our response to it; otherwise, its back to the Classic FM Hall of Fame, and to hell with close listening...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

OK. That's it.

Beethoven's 9th needs to be torn to shreds on every available thread. Therefore, I'll open the Prom 18 thread immediately, in order for those who need to vent their ire over this work (which I think is superb, just for the record - it's the finale of the 5th, particularly the coda, that I have issues with - oops, now I'm doing it too ).

[Ariosto]

Ah, you will say, all this is just technical, its how I feel that matters... well yes, but you can't then dismiss the value of a piece of music by ignorant and inaccurate description. The R3 Forum is a place for all opinions - but also a place for deeper understanding of music - and of our response to it; otherwise, its back to the Classic FM Hall of Fame, and to hell with close listening...

I'm beginning to warm to you an awful lot Jayne. There is I'm afraid an awful ot of BS without substanciation introduced by some people.

[Ariosto]

Sapere Aude has introduced two heady concepts in his posts, belief and truth.



For the layman, liking or being moved by a piece of music is easily answered, but “believing it” is not. I may, or may not, like Bach's keyboard works played on a piano, but should I believe it? I prefer to hear it played on a harpsichord. I can see why people get hung up over the question of vibrato, what violinist Rachel Podger has often called “wobble”. Yet I have no trouble believing Nathan Milstein playing Bach's solo violin works.

Take these two examples of Bach's Erbarme dich. The first sung by Julia Hamari with violin accompaniment , the second sung by Delphine Galou.

http://youtu.be/aPAiH9XhTHc

http://youtu.be/BBeXF_lnj_M

The first on modern instruments with plenty of vibrato and second on baroque with far less vibrato. However fine the playing and the voice of Julia Hamari I find the vibrato in the first example is intrusive. So I like the second example more, I suppose you could say I “believe it” more as I feel it might come closer to what Bach intended. But I don't really “know” that. Where that leaves me on the question of belief I don't know either. I know I enjoyed Emmanuel Krivine's Beethoven cycle more than DB's so far.

http://youtu.be/izTVmeaW1bQ

To my mind this is a false comparison, the history of science has shown that what is true one day, is not the next. James Clerk Maxwell did not live to see his all conquering equations of electromagnetism founder on the rocks of Black Body radiation, but founder they did.

http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/252/black_body_radiation.html

Analogies have their limits, but I would prefer to compare music to nature and the musician to a physicist. Just as there may be more than one “truth” in the interpretation of a score, however sophisticated the physics, physicists create models of nature and there may be competing theories at any one time.

Perhaps a more interesting question is to ask what is false?

Yet the sight of the Sun may just have gone to my head and I should lie down for a while ....

Maybe you should lie down!

I have to say that I loved the violinist and the singer in the first clip, with the vibrato.

The second clip was OK but I wouldn't buy a ticket for it.

The Beethoven band was dire.

But that's just my opinion, you can like what you prefer.

[jayne lee wilson]

I'm beginning to warm to you an awful lot Jayne. There is I'm afraid an awful ot of BS without substanciation introduced by some people.

And Beethoven is still with us, inspiring and provoking...
and 3 more concerts-full of controversy to come...

[Bryn]

Maybe you should lie down!

I have to say that I loved the violinist and the singer in the first clip, with the vibrato.

The second clip was OK but I wouldn't buy a ticket for it.

The Beethoven band was dire.

But that's just my opinion, you can like what you prefer.

I have time for Barenboim's bottom heavy modern instruments arrangements as well as Krivine's glorious direction of historically informed performances of these great symphonies. It's the Krivine I'd save from a house fire though.

[Ariosto]

I have time for Barenboim's bottom heavy modern instruments arrangements as well as Krivine's glorious direction of historically informed performances of these great symphonies. It's the Krivine I'd save from a house fire though.

As I say Bryn, we have our likes and preferences. I have room for both too, but as I say, one I personally find preferable, the other is OK but it would not be my first choice. So we basically agree. House fires are always a problem, as it may be the gin and whiskey and my Bergonzi fiddle with built in vibrato that I might save first, after my wife that is ... (Thought I should add that in case she is reading this ... )