Prom 21 - 30.07.17: Beethoven – Symphony No. 9, ‘Choral’

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdSsWRT_Ugk

[Prommer]

I will watch and listen this evening.

I gather the EU fanatics were out in force again, to persuade us that Beethoven was in favour of the EU?

And that the BBC then made themselves ridiculous again by jumping on the flag-wavers?

[maestro267]

"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are" - Marillion, Rich (1999)

Remember the days when Beethoven 9 was just about the music? Before people decided that politics had to be brought into absolutely everything in life?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Remember the days when Beethoven 9 was just about the music? Before people decided that politics had to be brought into absolutely everything in life?

Were there ever such "days" with regard to this work? Wasn't the choice of text a deliberately political "statement" by the composer in Metternich's Vienna?

[Bryn]

Were there ever such "days" with regard to this work? Wasn't the choice of text a deliberately political "statement" by the composer in Metternich's Vienna?

Indeed, it was Beethoven who brought politics into his 9th Symphony.

[Prommer]

Were there ever such "days" with regard to this work? Wasn't the choice of text a deliberately political "statement" by the composer in Metternich's Vienna?

Easier to view a work in this way by reference to events of the composer's time than by linking it to a later, specific political construct from which it is separated by hundreds of years.

[Bella Kemp]

I remember when I was about fifteen and heard Colin Davis conducting the 9th at the proms. I was ecstatic and came home wildly proclaiming that this was surely the greatest performance of the greatest work. The next day, my father read me Peter Stadlen's review in the Daily Telegraph. Alas, the performance had not been, after all, so great. 'Colin Davis is too young yet to give us his Beethoven interpretations,' said Mr Stadlen (or words to that effect). Of course Peter Stadlen was right and now I am older and have learnt also how to be critical and discern nuance and appreciate what makes for a truly great realisation of a piece of music. These days I can be deeply moved on hearing, say Klemperer conduct Mahler, or Brendel play Schubert; but, gosh, it would be so good to experience again that intensity of emotion when one just loves a piece of music regardless of how it is performed.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I remember when I was about fifteen and heard Colin Davis conducting the 9th at the proms. I was ecstatic and came home wildly proclaiming that this was surely the greatest performance of the greatest work. The next day, my father read me Peter Stadlen's review in the Daily Telegraph. Alas, the performance had not been, after all, so great. 'Colin Davis is too young yet to give us his Beethoven interpretations,' said Mr Stadlen (or words to that effect). Of course Peter Stadlen was right and now I am older and have learnt also how to be critical and discern nuance and appreciate what makes for a truly great realisation of a piece of music. These days I can be deeply moved on hearing, say Klemperer conduct Mahler, or Brendel play Schubert; but, gosh, it would be so good to experience again that intensity of emotion when one just loves a piece of music regardless of how it is performed.

There's more than one way to perform a work like this, and I learnt at a very early age not to be swayed by critics. They can only express their personal opinions, which are often interesting, but never definitive.

And fashions change, but I'll make a quiet retreat...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Easier to view a work in this way by reference to events of the composer's time than by linking it to a later, specific political construct from which it is separated by hundreds of years.

Yes; I can see that there will be people who see it - and prefer to hear it - in this way. (Personally, I think it rather diminishes a work's significance if it can only be referenced in this way; in a not dissimilar way to how Shakespeare's history plays are lousy history, but astonishing psychological portrayals of the political mind.) Nonetheless, it is true to state that there never was a time when this work was ever "just about the Music" as the maestro seemed to be suggesting.

[gurnemanz]

Yes; I can see that there will be people who see it - and prefer to hear it - in this way. (Personally, I think it rather diminishes a work's significance if it can only be referenced in this way; in a not dissimilar way to how Shakespeare's history plays are lousy history, but astonishing psychological portrayals of the political mind.) Nonetheless, it is true to state that there never was a time when this work was ever "just about the Music" as the maestro seemed to be suggesting.

I've just been reading Jan Swafford's book on Beethoven (as recommended elsewhere on this board) and it is fresh in my mind that the teenage Ludwig very much absorbed the enlightened politics which were prevalent in Bonn. The French Revolution was taking place not very far away and even in those early years he was already possibly working on a setting of Schiller's An die Freude.

[maestro267]

But a work as universal as Beethoven 9 should transcend petty human politics.

[edashtav]

But a work as universal as Beethoven 9 should transcend petty human politics.

[Petty] human politics are universal and an integral part of Beethoven's vision.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

[Petty] human politics are universal and an integral part of Beethoven's vision.

I think so, too - how else can a work be "universal" if it does not contain and embrace (with a kiss for all the world) human politics (of all sizes)?

[Prommer]

Still got bugger all to do with the EU, either way.

[gurnemanz]

But a work as universal as Beethoven 9 should transcend petty human politics.

The politics which concerned Beethoven were not "petty" and what other sort of politics is there but the human sort? I can't make any sense of "should" in that sentence. By whose judgement? On whose authority? If Beethoven saw his artistic creations as a way of transcending politics or escaping from real life I have been fundamentally misunderstanding him for the last five decades of my life. I'm pretty sure he would find the statement as meaningless, as do I.