What did Beethoven mean ?

[Sorrano]

Originally posted by robert newman:

Peter, you may be right about me reading too much Berlioz. Only today I confess to buying a recording of the Berlioz 'Te Deum' (Op.22) - LSO/LP Choir/European Youth Orchestra etc. and with Claudio Abbado conducting. (It's on DG). That work is some 45 minutes long and I don't know it at all. I'm looking at large scale works these days. That's why I was recently looking closely at words chosen by Beethoven in his 9th Symphony. Thanks anyway.

Berlioz referred to the Te Deum as a "sister" to the requiem. It is an equally magnificent work, although not quite as extravagantly scored as the Requiem it has moments of great power and rhythmic intensity as well as soft and sublime moments, as well. If you liked the Requiem you will like this, too!

[Peter]

Originally posted by robert newman:

Well sensed Peter. You are spot on - I've been focusing quite a bit lately on the Beethoven legacy as seen by Berlioz. The lecture in London at the Royal Society on 27th September ('Berlioz in London')will be introduced by David Cairns (whose multi volume biography on Berlioz is considered to be the best yet written). The sheer scale of Beethoven's 9th symphony astounded Berlioz.

Best regards

Yes Berlioz was certainly one of the first in France to truly recognise the greatness of Beethoven, but his writings are apt to be on the fanciful side despite this. Typical Romantic I suppose!


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'Man know thyself'

[robert newman]

It seems Berlioz never stopped talking. He was very highly strung it seems - as a person. He's one of the few composers I wanted to read about before I heard his music in detail. To me there was an ugliness about his music at first hearing. At least there was to me.

He may well have been, as Peter suggested, a complete Romantic. But I so much like his music.

Thanks Sorrano for the views on the Te Deum.

[PDG]

Originally posted by robert newman:

'Oh friends, not these tones! Rather let us sing more cheerful and more joyful ones'

Is Beethoven refering only to the music so far heard in this same 9th symphony ? And/or something else ?

'Oh friends not THESE tones. RATHER let us sing MORE CHEERFUL AND MORE JOYFUL ONES'.

Yes, interesting point. I find much beauty in discordant Beethoven. So "Oh, friends, not these tones!" does seem to suggest to me Beethoven trying to shrug off his masterful compositional techniques in order to satisfy the palates of less-emotionally absorbent contemporaries. How far did Schiller's words, then, influence the musical opening to the Ninth's choral movement? I don't like the idea of that at all: Beethoven writing to fit in with Schiller's poetic meanderings. If anything it should be the other way around. Due to this impure attachment, I consider the 4th movement to be the weakest of the symphony, and have confessed here before to sometimes playing only the first three movements which satisfies me well enough. Has anyone ever considered recording the 4th movement without the singers?

It's the same with the folksong arrangements - I'd rather hear them without the voices; all voices do is obscure Beethoven's contributions to these pieces.

[Peter]

Originally posted by PDG:

Yes, interesting point. I find much beauty in discordant Beethoven. So "Oh, friends, not these tones!" does seem to suggest to me Beethoven trying to shrug off his masterful compositional techniques in order to satisfy the palates of less-emotionally absorbent contemporaries. How far did Schiller's words, then, influence the musical opening to the Ninth's choral movement? I don't like the idea of that at all: Beethoven writing to fit in with Schiller's poetic meanderings. If anything it should be the other way around. Due to this impure attachment, I consider the 4th movement to be the weakest of the symphony, and have confessed here before to sometimes playing only the first three movements which satisfies me well enough. Has anyone ever considered recording the 4th movement without the singers?

It's the same with the folksong arrangements - I'd rather hear them without the voices; all voices do is obscure Beethoven's contributions to these pieces.

Hmm - sacrilege I hear many cry!

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'Man know thyself'

[Joy]

According to Robert Greenberg, Professor at San Francisco University, those words are a throw back to the first three movements as suggested here already. 'Oh, friends' could be a referrel to the three movements or maybe even to the world itself.

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'Truth and beauty joined'

[robert newman]

Thank you Joy. Since these few words were chosen by Beethoven himself I thought it worthwhile asking what they actually meant to him. I agree they relate in their most obvious sense to the preceding 3 movements.

And what of 'Plunk. Plunk. Over the hill comes a scraggly Turkish military band (in B-flat) led by a swaggering tenor ? You can almost feel the side drum banging against his knee on the off-beats, as he sings about brotherhood in 6/8 time. The chorus falls in behind him, followed by horns and violins, and they trek energetically through a half-dozen keys to eventually arrive at a noisy, full-throated reprise of the Ode in D major'.

Why should Beethoven here have chosen Turkish march music ? It is absolutely unexpected. In terms of joy I think this symphony never gets more joyful than here in this rabble of the Turkish march phase. It does get far more powerful, dramatic, exciting, even overwhelming etc.. But joyful ? I guess I must listen much more to this symphony.

[Rod]

Originally posted by robert newman:


Why should Beethoven here have chosen Turkish march music ? It is absolutely unexpected. In terms of joy I think this symphony never gets more joyful than here in this rabble of the Turkish march phase. It does get far more powerful, dramatic, exciting, even overwhelming etc.. But joyful ? I guess I must listen much more to this symphony.

It shouldn't be such a surprise, Beethoven used the same turkish band to good effect in the finale of his cantata 'The Glorious Moment', a proto-late period piece in itself.

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Michael]

Originally posted by PDG:
I consider the 4th movement to be the weakest of the symphony, and have confessed here before to sometimes playing only the first three movements which satisfies me well enough. Has anyone ever considered recording the 4th movement without the singers?

[/B]

The Ninth has often been performed with the final movement omitted but not for any reasons connected to the quality of the music. Many orchestras in the early part of the twentieth century would find themselves without a choir or soloists but that wouldn't prevent them putting on a "complete" Beethoven symphony cycle. When it came to the Ninth, they would simply stop where you do, PDG, at the end of the third movement.
Well, it works for Opus 111 ........

Michael

[PDG]

Originally posted by Rod:
It shouldn't be such a surprise, Beethoven used the same turkish band to good effect in the finale of his cantata 'The Glorious Moment', a proto-late period piece in itself.

But as the first substantive passage in the final movement of Opus 125, after the soloists/choir have offered their opening salvos? The Turkish mantra does tend to punctuate the hitherto gravitas of all that has preceded.

[PDG]

Originally posted by Michael:
The Ninth has often been performed with the final movement omitted but not for any reasons connected to the quality of the music. Many orchestras in the early part of the twentieth century would find themselves without a choir or soloists but that wouldn't prevent them putting on a "complete" Beethoven symphony cycle. When it came to the Ninth, they would simply stop where you do, PDG, at the end of the third movement.
Well, it works for Opus 111 ........

Michael

What I'm wanting, Michael, is a recording of the fourth movement without the singers! I know I'd enjoy it more performed this way.

To use what should be the most oft-used soundbyte in all music, thusly: "Beethoven is not as successful a composer for vocal music because the human voice suggests definition of the aural experience; thus depriving the senses total and free reign of the emotional experience".

[Rod]

Originally posted by PDG:
But as the first substantive passage in the final movement of Opus 125, after the soloists/choir have offered their opening salvos? The Turkish mantra does tend to punctuate the hitherto gravitas of all that has preceded.

To me it's quite obvious why Beethoven included a march in the Ode, and for starters the text as this point almost demands it! I bet you would say the same of the march in the Quartet Op132? You don't really understand Beethoven's 'gravitas' PDG, it's way too sophisticated for you as your rather bizarre comments in this chain have clearly proved, and the finale is essentially celebratory in any case. The 'questions' as such were asked in the first movement.

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin


[This message has been edited by Rod (edited 08-16-2006).]

[PDG]

Originally posted by Rod:
To me it's quite obvious why Beethoven included a march in the Ode, and for starters the text as this point almost demands it! I bet you would say the same of the march in the Quartet Op132?

No, I wouldn't. That's a cunningly clever movement all of its own, acting as the perfect foil for the magnificent finale which follows.

You don't really understand Beethoven's 'gravitas' PDG, it's too sophisticated for you...

Well, thank you. I'm impressed that you know the meaning of the word.

...and the finale is essentially celebratory in any case. The 'questions' as such were asked in the first movement.

What questions? I agree about the celebration, but the symphony's finale deserves better than to include Rondo Alla Turk.

[Rod]

Originally posted by PDG:
What questions? I agree about the celebration, but the symphony's finale deserves better than to include Rondo Alla Turk.

Whatever...

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[robert newman]

At the risk of heresy I really must ask why a Turkish military band features so prominently in the finale to Beethoven's 9th symphony. Were Viennese listeners meant to forget there was a time when Vienna was within days of being occupied by Moslem forces ? Is that fact of history irrelevant in this context ? If we did not know otherwise the victorious troops here are Muslim and everyone follows them along through the streets.

Now I know that the Janisseries were actually Christians in the service of the Turks. Perhaps that has relevance (?). But for Beethoven to have used Turkish music in a symphony premiered in 1824 is, frankly, odd.

Turkish music, of course, was hugely popular in Vienna during the 1780's and 1790's. But was it still fashionable in the 1820's ?

I admit to sometimes reading too much in to things. But audiences at that premiere in 1824 must have been completely amazed by this Turkish section. Sure, it's quickly overwhelmed by the ode in full cry. But relations with Turkey (even in the 1820's) were never very close. Or were they ?

To me, it's a bit like introducing a German military march into a symphony by Elgar, or, perhaps, Vaughan Williams.

I can only think that this Turkish section is Beethoven at his most playful (and innocent) or Beethoven saying something that tends to be overlooked in the emotion that follows it.

140 years later another of the truly great symphonists, Dimitri Shostakovitch, finished his symphonic career with a finale to his 15th Symphony where percussion is very prominent. Bearing in mind the Turkish music and what follows it seems Beethoven was 'throwing the kitchen sink' at this last movement of his 9th symphony. That too is remarkable.

I am sure that orchestral music using huge forces and with great percussion sections (such a feature of the later 19th century) was in one sense started right here with Beethoven's 9th symphony. And out of this came, perhaps inevitably, Wagner, Debussy, Schoenberg, Stravinsky and others. Beethoven was doing more than being noisy. He was (in my view) experimenting with tonality though by emphasising percussion. So too in his Hammerklavier Sonata. He could hardly have done more.



[This message has been edited by robert newman (edited 08-17-2006).]