I think the Bernstein quote is taken from an essay he wrote in the form of an imaginary conversation between himself and a "Lyric Poet". It is actually quite a clever piece of work in which Bernstein pretends to denigrate Beethoven's abilities to the horror of the Lyric Poet who has been mindlessly warbling on about The Great Composer.
Bernstein proceeds to demolish Beethoven on the grounds of melody, describing the slow movement of the seventh symphony as a "monotone". The harmony of the Fifth symphony is dismissed as limited - a three-chord trick!
Finally he states that "the orchestration is at times downright bad, especially in the later period when he was deaf. Unimportant trumpet parts sticking out of the orchestra like sore thumbs, horns bumbling along on endlessly repeated notes, drowned-out woodwinds, murderously cruel writing for the human voice ....."
The poor Lyric Poet is reduced to tears and cannot understand why a musician cannot love Beethoven, whereupon Bernstein reveals that he has no doubt that Beethoven was the greatest composer who ever lived. As he put it: "Many, many composers have been able to write heavenly tunes and respectable fugues. Some composers can orchestrate the C major scale so that it sounds like a masterpiece or fool with notes so that a harmonic novelty is achieved. But this is all mere dust - nothing compared to the magic ingredient sought by them all: THE INEXPLICABLE ABILITY TO KNOW WHAT THE NEXT NOTE HAS TO BE.
"Beethoven had this gift in a degree that leaves them all panting in the rear guard. When he really DID it, as in the funeral march of the "Eroica", he produced an entity that always seems to me to have been previously written in Heaven and then merely dictated to him."
This was written by Bernstein around 1960. He lived to hear the "period" performances of Beethoven which surely banished the notion that his orchestration was merely serviceable. A lot of the blame lay with the Wagners and the Mahlers who caused later conductors to fatten up Beethoven's unique sound and cause the effect of "drowned-out woodwinds."
The best quote I have heard about B's orchestration (and I forget who said it) was that "it was so good nobody noticed."
Michael
Bernstein proceeds to demolish Beethoven on the grounds of melody, describing the slow movement of the seventh symphony as a "monotone". The harmony of the Fifth symphony is dismissed as limited - a three-chord trick!
Finally he states that "the orchestration is at times downright bad, especially in the later period when he was deaf. Unimportant trumpet parts sticking out of the orchestra like sore thumbs, horns bumbling along on endlessly repeated notes, drowned-out woodwinds, murderously cruel writing for the human voice ....."
The poor Lyric Poet is reduced to tears and cannot understand why a musician cannot love Beethoven, whereupon Bernstein reveals that he has no doubt that Beethoven was the greatest composer who ever lived. As he put it: "Many, many composers have been able to write heavenly tunes and respectable fugues. Some composers can orchestrate the C major scale so that it sounds like a masterpiece or fool with notes so that a harmonic novelty is achieved. But this is all mere dust - nothing compared to the magic ingredient sought by them all: THE INEXPLICABLE ABILITY TO KNOW WHAT THE NEXT NOTE HAS TO BE.
"Beethoven had this gift in a degree that leaves them all panting in the rear guard. When he really DID it, as in the funeral march of the "Eroica", he produced an entity that always seems to me to have been previously written in Heaven and then merely dictated to him."
This was written by Bernstein around 1960. He lived to hear the "period" performances of Beethoven which surely banished the notion that his orchestration was merely serviceable. A lot of the blame lay with the Wagners and the Mahlers who caused later conductors to fatten up Beethoven's unique sound and cause the effect of "drowned-out woodwinds."
The best quote I have heard about B's orchestration (and I forget who said it) was that "it was so good nobody noticed."
Michael
Comment