Beethoven alive today

[Peter]

Originally posted by Rod:
...the next thing we will see is Elton John doing a 'Requiem' (and then release a new single).

This is ridiculous as you know Rod - the last night of the proms is an annual event that has taken place for over 100 years regardless of what you think of it (and I'm no fan of the normal jingoistic nonsense either) - it is not being staged just because of this atrocity. So what options were open to the organisers? either cancel the whole thing which serves no point at all, or change the program from something that was totally inappropiate to more fitting music as they have done. Beethoven's 9th is a symbol of humanity and to criticise its being performed under these circumstances is ludicrous.



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'Man know thyself'

[Peter]

Originally posted by Rod:
Don't get on your high horse Leslie, my position is based on the fact that I see the current situation in a far more serious light than it appears you do yourself, so serious that the gesture of sticking on Barber and the 9th at the Proms seems somewhat tame.

I hardly think that is fair or appropiate comment.

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'Man know thyself'

[Joy]

Music is indeed a way to express grief, as an outlet, and can be a catalyst to tears as happened to me on Friday. Moved by some very
poignant and patriotic music being played while showing pictures of the victims and gruesome shots of lower Manhattan, (plus having bomb threats, evacuating buildings, and closing streets right here in Phoenix), it moved me to tears which lasted most of the day. I think other countries are doing a fine effort in showing support and to see in London in the Cathedral everyone singing the 'Star Spangled Banner' and then singing it again at the 'changing of the guard' was quite touching. So music can bring all sorts of emotions out of us. (I do feel better today and now I'm ready to kick some a^^-excuse my language but this is one angry American)!!

[Kevin]

Originally posted by Joy:
Music is indeed a way to express grief, as an outlet, and can be a catalyst to tears as happened to me on Friday. Moved by some very
poignant and patriotic music being played while showing pictures of the victims and gruesome shots of lower Manhattan, (plus having bomb threats, evacuating buildings, and closing streets right here in Phoenix), it moved me to tears which lasted most of the day. I think other countries are doing a fine effort in showing support and to see in London in the Cathedral everyone singing the 'Star Spangled Banner' and then singing it again at the 'changing of the guard' was quite touching. So music can bring all sorts of emotions out of us. (I do feel better today and now I'm ready to kick some a^^-excuse my language but this is one angry American)!!

The problem is that most of those to now be killed to appease the American need for vengance won't be the perpetrators. It will be innocent Afghan civilians including among them "500,000 diabled orphans". What most people don't get is that the Taliban and the Russians have already laid waste the Afghan people. Bin Laden and the Taliban as well as other guilty parties will go underground and wait it out. This is precisely what they want the US to do in order to turn worldwide Arab and Muslim opinion against them.
I agree with the earlier comment about too much "show", but then everything over here eventually ends up as some form of show business given enough time. May peace somehow prevail.

[Rod]

Originally posted by Peter:
I hardly think that is fair or appropiate comment.

Well, I hope you watched the Proms last night Peter, and witnessed the utterly sterile effect it (the 9th Finle) had under the circumstances. Playing it on its own doesn't work at the best of times. Did you get any positive feeling form this performance whatsoever? I switched over after the march section, which took the irony to even greater hights. How absurd to perform a work promoting a world brotherhood on the brink of a world war! I hope you guys are digging your shelters! We can play the 9th AFTER we've won.

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

[This message has been edited by Rod (edited 09-16-2001).]

[Rod]

Originally posted by Peter:
This is ridiculous as you know Rod - the last night of the proms is an annual event that has taken place for over 100 years regardless of what you think of it (and I'm no fan of the normal jingoistic nonsense either) - it is not being staged just because of this atrocity. So what options were open to the organisers?

There was no solution open to the organisers, as current circumstances only played to make a mockery of the traditional last night, which was a large part of my point. Now to replace the traditional sabre rattling nationalism with pacifism...the sheer hippocracy of it all! The last night of the Proms is superficiality incarnate.

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

[This message has been edited by Rod (edited 09-16-2001).]

[Rod]

Originally posted by Kevin:

Bin Laden and the Taliban as well as other guilty parties will go underground and wait it out. This is precisely what they want the US to do in order to turn worldwide Arab and Muslim opinion against them.

Thus ultimate irony being that the CIA actually financed and armed the Taliban and Bin Laden when it suited them during their war with the Russians. We are all paying for this extreme act of folly now. Its effects are even felt to some extent by my own family - a cousin of my daughter's best friend was killed by debris falling from the tower! Getting off topic I suppose.

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

[Rod]

Originally posted by Joy:
Music is indeed a way to express grief, as an outlet, and can be a catalyst to tears as happened to me on Friday.

My opposition concerned primarily the Proms. But the 9th Finale was an ill considered choice regardless. You would not have been moved to tears by last nights performance of the 9th, which created a most uncomfortable feeling as far as I am concerned. Op 118 is the only suitable work, for it was written to commemorate the untimely death of the wife of a friend of B's, and is of a nature more on a par with Barber's adagio, but whose text offers hope in the face of death '...no eye can shed a tear for the home-comming of a heavenly soul' or words to this effect, certainly preferable to Schillers poem whose sentiments are ironic and uncomfortable in almost every stanza with regard to the deaths in the US.

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




[This message has been edited by Rod (edited 09-16-2001).]

[Peter]

Originally posted by Rod:
My opposition concerned primarily the Proms. But the 9th Finale was an ill considered choice regardless.

It is ridiculous to even be discussing this when what matters is what is the most appropiate response. I have read reviews of the last night of the proms and one comment from a young man stood out - 'I was truly pleased I was present to show my respect and it is an occasion I will remember for the rest of my life.' No more needs to be said.

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'Man know thyself'

[Rod]

Originally posted by Peter:
It is ridiculous to even be discussing this when what matters is what is the most appropiate response. I have read reviews of the last night of the proms and one comment from a young man stood out - 'I was truly pleased I was present to show my respect and it is an occasion I will remember for the rest of my life.' No more needs to be said.

This man's review of the 9th at the Proms - 'it was like playing a jig at a funeral'. B did not write many pieces that were suited to this occasion, other than op118. You should have watched it yourself Peter, at least I did that.

PS as I predicted the first 'charity' single is being produced already, by that worthless wretch Michael Jackson, along with all the other usual suspects. It's a sign of the times. If you told the Queen of England 30 years ago that some camp pop-star would be playing one of his greatest hits in a Cathedral at the Princess of Wales funeral, she would have laughed, then sent me to the Tower. Yet all this has come to pass...whatever next?!

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

[This message has been edited by Rod (edited 09-17-2001).]

[Susan]

Excuse my cultural ineptness guys, but what the heck is the "Proms"??

Susan

[joel fienen]

Peter!

What is the proms is that some kind of cultural event that goes on there in UK? I had watch the very tail end of it on BBC america on my satelite dish.

[Joy]

Originally posted by Rod:
This man's review of the 9th at the Proms - 'it was like playing a jig at a funeral'. B did not write many pieces that were suited to this occasion, other than op118. You should have watched it yourself Peter, at least I did that.

PS as I predicted the first 'charity' single is being produced already, by that worthless wretch Michael Jackson, along with all the other usual suspects. It's a sign of the times. If you told the Queen of England 30 years ago that some camp pop-star would be playing one of his greatest hits in a Cathedral at the Princess of Wales funeral, she would have laughed, then sent me to the Tower. Yet all this has come to pass...whatever next?!

I saw that one coming too!! Of course the next thing will be movies about the 'Day of Terrorists' or 'A Day in the Life of a Terrorist' perhaps. Why does this have to happen all the time. Why can't they just have the appropriate and respectful actions (as they did last week) and leave it alone? I'll answer my own question on this...money!!!

Joy

[This message has been edited by Joy (edited 09-18-2001).]

[Joy]

Originally posted by Rod:
My opposition concerned primarily the Proms. But the 9th Finale was an ill considered choice regardless. You would not have been moved to tears by last nights performance of the 9th, which created a most uncomfortable feeling as far as I am concerned. Op 118 is the only suitable work, for it was written to commemorate the untimely death of the wife of a friend of B's, and is of a nature more on a par with Barber's adagio, but whose text offers hope in the face of death '...no eye can shed a tear for the home-comming of a heavenly soul' or words to this effect, certainly preferable to Schillers poem whose sentiments are ironic and uncomfortable in almost every stanza with regard to the deaths in the US.

I have to agree. To me the 9th Finale was not appropriate to what has happened over here.
The 9th signifies triumph and joy not tragedy and destruction. They should have kept that for when we win this upcoming war.

Joy

[Michael]

I think that, under the circumstances, the finale of Beethoven's Ninth was an absolute necessity, though it suffered from the absence of the cumulative power of the three preceding movements. Leonard Slatkin admitted, at the end of the night, that it was not the programme that he wanted to perform - but it was necessary.
Rod gave up during the "Alla marcia" section - he should have waited for the heart of the finale, the "Seid umschlungen, Millionem" - transcendent music that may never be performed to everyone's satisfaction at the best of times, let alone under the trying emotional conditions of last Saturday night.
I am fully aware that it is easy for me to write this in a country that is not, at the moment, under attack (although we are not strangers to terrorism) but it seems to me that if the performers and audience at the Proms wished to send out a message of despair, then the finale of Tchaikovsky's Sixth would have been an ideal choice.
Beethoven's Ninth - with its hard-won spiritual "joy" - gave the proper answer to those heartless bastards who murdered so many innocent people.
(I think my profanity is justified).

Michael