Reception history

[Quijote]

But what the hell. If Beethoven can write the "Battle Symphony" for a certain sum of money, all you need to do is cross my palm(s) with some of your fine Australian gold Florins, and the diploma shall be yours. What name shall I put on it?

[Quijote]

Pip? Short for Philip? Great expectations? My bed (when I creep into it) is only full of disappointment and very unsound. Cue lachrimose violins con sordini ...

[Bonn1827]

Philip Pirrip, late of that parish. Son of "Also Georgiana, Wife of the Above".

[Quijote]

Nah, scrub that. When I go to bed it's a full 8-horn / 3-trombone / 6 trumpet / 2 tuba and 1 euphonium arrangement, everytime, no doubt about it. Hey Bruckner, move over, kiddo!

[Bonn1827]

Let's keep this respectable!! Roll over Beethoven?

[Quijote]

He snores terribly, Bruckner does.

[Quijote]

Beethoven? Girl, we are talking Bruckner.

[Quijote]

Bruckner's music, that is. Do not search for meaningless and unwarranted metaphors.

[Bonn1827]

Apologies!! As Byron said:

"Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter,
Sermons and soda-water the day after"!!

[Megan]

Also, Philip 2 of Spain: I think there's a great difference between "utopianism" and "totalitarianism", since the latter only is a particularly institutionalized response to the former - minus the idealism. Look at the utopianism in Shakespeare's "The Tempest", for example.

Bonn, did you not mean there is little difference between utopianism and totalitianism. All political visions of the future involve compulsion, ' Aye, there's the rub'.

Yes, Prospero in the Tempest does play a kind of god like role and tries to direct everything on the Island, but he has to accept life as it is lived, is just not like that, so at the end, in that fantastic speech, he has to abjure his rough magic. I don't think Shakespeare is visionary, with the exception of that great speech in the Tempest. If you are looking for the Bard's view of a rural Idyll, that's probably in , As You Like It, where the exiled duke almost makes a hymn to the beauty of nature and his happiness in living a quiet simple life.
That's all a long, long way from communism, nazism, and all the horrible ideologies of the 20th century.

[Hofrat]

May I just ask at this juncture if you think Beethoven had "an eye" for the future? Did he have "a historical perspecitve"?

Could Beethoven really "have an eye" for future? How could he when he could not foresee the present? Just in the realm of piano music, he could not foresee the advent of the modern piano, with its heavy metal frame, its string layout, its key action, and its note sustaining power. If so, he would have composed much differently.

[Megan]

Could Beethoven really "have an eye" for future? How could he when he could not foresee the present? Just in the realm of piano music, he could not foresee the advent of the modern piano, with its heavy metal frame, its string layout, its key action, and its note sustaining power. If so, he would have composed much differently.

Didn't Beethoven continue to improve the piano, he must have had a vision for its future perfomances. His musical ideas were driving technological changes as to what was possible with the standard of traditional pianoforte.

[Hofrat]

Beethoven's piano-writing style changed as the piano evolved. He made suggestions to the piano builders of his day for improvements, but Beethoven certainly could not foresee the future. He said on occasion that his music will be understood better in the future, but so did other famous people.

[Bonn1827]

Megan, I meant what I said about utopianism and totalitarianism being different. Just because Prospero renounces the world of the island doesn't negate it as a utopian kind of text. Shakespeare was making the point that it really isn't possible, even desirable. I think of utopianism as hopelessly politically naive, and totalitarianism as a cynical exploitation of alternate possibilities, or a repressive response to the threat of them. Think of Marxian utopian theory and look what the realpolitik of communism did with that!! I think Rousseau was utopian in his "noble savage" thesis, but hopelessly naive and misguided. I go so far as to suggest Marx would not have written what he did had he never read Rousseau!!

Regarding Beethoven not being forward-looking? I believe he was very much thinking ahead of the rest of them. The experimental nature of his last works definitely points in that direction. Even if not expressed explicitly, his exploration of tonal and structural possibilities - 5 movement string quartets, for example - suggests he was looking for another way. Thank God, I say!!

[Megan]

Megan, I meant what I said about utopianism and totalitarianism being different. Just because Prospero renounces the world of the island doesn't negate it as a utopian kind of text. Shakespeare was making the point that it really isn't possible, even desirable. I think of utopianism as hopelessly politically naive, and totalitarianism as a cynical exploitation of alternate possibilities, or a repressive response to the threat of them. Think of Marxian utopian theory and look what the realpolitik of communism did with that!! I think Rousseau was utopian in his "noble savage" thesis, but hopelessly naive and misguided. I go so far as to suggest Marx would not have written what he did had he never read Rousseau!!



Regarding Beethoven not being forward-looking? I believe he was very much thinking ahead of the rest of them. The experimental nature of his last works definitely points in that direction. Even if not expressed explicitly, his exploration of tonal and structural possibilities - 5 movement string quartets, for example - suggests he was looking for another way. Thank God, I say!!

I think I see what you mean there Bonn.
All I would say is it's the utopians that end up bieng the kind of fascists by trying to enforce their misguided views on everyone else. I have just read a fascinating book written about 10 years ago, by a guy called Cornish, The Jew of Linz. He makes out that the 5th man in the Cambridge spy ring and who was the recruiter of Philby, Blunt etc.. was none other that one of the cleverest men of the century, Ludwig Wittgenstein, whom Cornish presents reasonable evidence , was a classmate in Austria in 1905 of Adolf Hitler.
The Wittgenstein circle was full of wild utopians, basically communists, who for some bizarre reason, the security services thought were ok, and they went on to wreak havoc by passing over, and which went to Stalin personally, British and American top secret material. There actions led directly to the thousands , so their utopianism was carried over into totalitarianism.