Happy Thanksgiving

[susanwen]

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. Our local classical music station, WETA, had their listeners vote on their favorite classical music, and they're playing the countdown this week, culminating this evening with the most popular piece. Gee, I wonder what that might be? It's been Beethoven's Symphony #9 every year when WGMS was our classical station. If you'd like to listen live, it's at:

http://www.weta.com

There's a 60-second ad when you first tune in.

[Quijote]

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. Our local classical music station, WETA, had their listeners vote on their favorite classical music, and they're playing the countdown this week, culminating this evening with the most popular piece. Gee, I wonder what that might be? It's been Beethoven's Symphony #9 every year when WGMS was our classical station. If you'd like to listen live, it's at:

http://www.weta.com

There's a 60-second ad when you first tune in.

Please forgive my cynicism Susanwen, but your posting aptly illustrates the point I was making to Sorrano et al on the 'Tavener can't forgive Beethoven' thread.

[Quijote]

Dear Susanwen :

You also wrote : To learn about "The Better Baby" book, ways to increase a baby's intelligence, health, and potentials, please use the same address.

Again, please excuse my cynicism, but I have to say to you that such titles dismay me. I am all for improving babies health and so on, but I remain extremely sceptical about such books. Sorry.

[susanwen]

No need to be sorry or to apologize. This wouldn't be much of a discussion forum if we didn't disagree about some things. There are some in this group who prefer other composers over Beethoven, and that's what keeps the forum lively.

"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that." -- G. H. Hardy

[Sorrano]

Please forgive my cynicism Susanwen, but your posting aptly illustrates the point I was making to Sorrano et al on the 'Tavener can't forgive Beethoven' thread.

Happy Thanksgiving, all! Also, the local Classical Station here does a top 40 "hit list" and nearly every year the 9th Symphony is in the number 1 spot. I trust there is a good reason for that.

[susanwen]

Needless to say, our team won. They used a new recording of the Ninth, with the Cleveland Orchestra, Franz Welser-Moest (conductor). Personally, I love the Minnesota, Vanska recording, but this one had its merits. I would consider it if I didn't already have nearly a dozen recordings of the Ninth (smile).

[Michael]

This Thanksgiving Day news item caught my eye:


Beethoven's song of thanksgiving

The Thanksgiving we celebrate today may hearken back to the New England of the early 17th century, but its formal assignment to this time in November was established by President Lincoln during the Civil War.

It’s my favorite holiday, primarily because it’s about the basic idea of expressing gratitude for our daily blessings — health, family, laughter. Lincoln’s idea (suggested to him by magazine editor Sarah Hale) was to institute a time-out from the fighting, which at the time of the Thanksgiving proclamation in 1863 was two years away from its end.

Some aspect of that idea — let’s remember the good things for a moment and not dwell on the bad — stays with us today, in an observance that’s long been compromised by runaway commerce.

I’m thinking this morning before heading out for a family gathering of a musical moment from May 1825. That spring, Ludwig van Beethoven had fallen seriously ill with abdominal problems, which I’m guessing had a lot to do with the pancreatitis he developed after years of alcohol abuse. Beethoven was in the middle of writing his String Quartet in A minor (Op. 132, pictured above) when he got sick, but recovered with the aid of Dr. Anton Braunhofer, to whom he sent a little canon with the words: “Doctor, close the door against Death/Notes will help him who is in need.” (By “notes,” of course, he meant music.)

But he expressed his gratitude most memorably by reworking the quartet, adding a movement titled Holy Song of Thanksgiving to the Deity from a Convalescent, in the Lydian Mode. This is an extremely beautiful, powerful movement, its opening chorale redolent of the study Beethoven had been conducting of the music of Palestrina and other older masters; the chorale is followed by a slow-pulsed but vigorous section subtitled “Feeling new strength.” Both sections trade off, and the movement ends with music of the deepest serenity.

Beethoven himself was a man whose spiritual outlook was heavily influenced by Masonic belief in an all-knowing Godhead rather than the God of the Catholic Bonn where he’d grown up. As he aged, he grew more mystical, especially as he concentrated even more on completing the huge works that were always gestating in his mind.


He recovered enough to finish three more quartets and the Grosse Fuge, but he had less than two years to live after he wrote his Song of Thanksgiving. He must have known it was probably only a reprieve from a condition that was going to be fatal, but he was happy to get it, and his survival ensured a few more masterpieces for the world of music -— his gift, the only one he knew how to give, to humanity.

And so I’m listening now to the beautiful music, and thinking about how sick its composer was at the time, and how a return to his work, which was almost all he wanted, was what he was profoundly grateful for. It was a simple thing: “It would please me greatly to be able to sit at my writing desk without too much difficulty,” he wrote to Braunhofer, and that’s what he was able to do.

That’s often how we are after illness; we want to be able to do something basic, something as ordinary as sitting up straight, or sleeping through the night without pain. For Beethoven, it was just to be able to sit down and work.

To me, that’s a good model of the kind of thing I like to be thankful for on this holiday. I’m happy for the smallest things — being able to type this entry, and listen to the music as I do so, enjoy the sweet air coming through the windows this morning, laugh along with my wife as she gets ready for our trip — and it’s wonderful to have a holiday to take note of them.

Beethoven’s Op. 132 is my Thanksgiving music for the day.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving.


Posted by Greg Stepanich at November 22, 2007 8:41 AM

[Preston]

And as a Thanksgiving day treat, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=6387666 .

[PDG]

Thank U Very Much for the Aintree Iron...

[Michael]

Thank U Very Much for the Aintree Iron...

You're in the pink tonight, PDG!