Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, Herr Beethoven

December 16th is generally assumed to be Ludwig van Beethoven's birthday.  Today is the anniversary of his baptism.

In light of the current tragedy in my home state of Connecticut I thought it doubly apt to post the Egmont, yet again, for Ludwig van's birthday.  It was also performed at the memorial service after the Munich Massacre of 1972 at the Olympics.

There is no music more uplifting than this:

ANOTHER Reason Not To Like Rick Perry

Besides the anti-scientific evolution denial, and the anti-scientific climate change denial, (both of which are not-surprising coming, as they do, from the anti-science party that's the current GOP), but I've just discovered another reason to really really dislike (or at least distrust) Rick Perry.

Recently the Washington Times asked all the Republican candidates about their favorite movies (Newt Gingrich said Casablanca and Herman Cain said The Godfather, and so on), Rick Perry said Immortal Beloved.

It was such a strange answer (though not as strange as Perry's speech in New Hampshire), the Washington Times wrote:

The most unusual choice belongs to Rick Perry, who immediately singled out “Immortal Beloved” as his favorite, adding, “Bet you’ll have to look that one up.” (He was right.) “Immortal Beloved” is a 1994 drama starring Gary Oldman as Ludwig van Beethoven.

There's a bit more to this bio-pic than that.  The "Immortal Beloved" of the title is a woman to who Beethoven wrote (but did not send) a love letter.  It was found among his effects after he died in 1827.  For more than a century and a half, real musicologists have struggled to figure out who she was.

The producer of the movie (not a musicologist) believes he settled the issue.  He thinks it was Beethoven's sister-in-law.  It's a claim no actual scholar has actually proposed.

As Beethoven scholar Lewis Lockwood pointed out:

That this 1994 film by Bernard Rose failed notably as cinematic product is obvious from reviews by film critics, surely none of them musicologists. That it also fails, on other levels, as history and biography is clear enough to music lovers, musicians, musicologists and certainly Beethoven scholar by all of whom it's been pretty much condemned to oblivion.

Don't get me wrong, Gary Oldman did a great job and the music, well, was Beethoven.

But it's hardly surprising that such an anti-science guy such as Rick Perry would also be an anti-history guy as well.

Ok, this blog post was a just teensy bit nit picky.  But it's MONDAY, for gosh sakes!  And it's RAINING, for gosh sakes!

Do I need to go all Carpenters on you?

Would Have Been 240 Years Old Today

Happy Birthday Ludwig!

Happy Belated Birthday Beethoven

December 16th is usually regarded as the birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), composer of 9 great symphonies (the ninth, of course, being the greatest), the Appassionata and Moonlight sonatas (among many many others).

The birthday passed a few days ago unnoticed on this blog - to my utter and complete shame and embarrassment.

For that I apologize, for even badly played Beethoven is worth many times good soup. Here, listen to some good Beethoven. Lenny conducting the Egmont:


Some famous quotations about Beethoven.

• He was a Titan wrestling with the Gods.
  
• There are and always will be thousands of princes, but there is only one Beethoven.
• Everything will pass, and the world will perish but the Ninth Symphony will remain.

Yea, yea, I know. He's a dead white guy. But he was an amazing dead white guy.

Birthdays N@

Today is my mom's birthday (Happy Birthday, mom!) and tomorrow is usually recognized as the birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven.

See, he was baptized on the 17th of December (or so I am told. I wasn't there) and so it's been assumed that he was born on December 16th.

As I have already wished my mom a Happy Birthday, let me do the same for Ludwig van.

The piece is his Seventh Symphony (Opus 92) in A Major. It premiered (again so I am told. I wasn't there, either) on December 8th, 1813 at a charity concert for soldiers wounded at the Battle of Hanau.

If you have the time, give a listen - especially the second movement, it starts about 11 minutes 20 seconds in. And for those of you who want to follow along with the score - enjoy.

Completely Non-Political Blog Entry

I was lucky enough to attend (with some very nice seats, by the way) last night's performance of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

They performed first the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with violinist Sarah Chang. It was ably played - the second movement certainly - but the whole thing was inexplicably followed by a rousing though completely undeserved standing ovation from the crowd.

After intermission what followed was one of the masterworks of the symphonic repetoire, the 9th sympnony of Ludwig van Beethoven. After that piece finished, the standing-O absolutely necessary.

Here's the P-G's review from Andrew Druckenbrod. While he had to have seen Thursday's performance and my date and I saw Saturday's, I'd have to agree - mostly - with his review. One thing I do wholeheartedly agree with is this sentence:

If your list of 100 things to do before you die doesn't include it, squeeze the Ninth in.

As I said above I wasn't impressed with Chang. Don't get me wrong, in a million lifetimes I wouldn't be able to be anything near as good in anything, she must've been having a bad week. I wouldn't go so far as the Trib's Mark Kanny however:

Before the intermission and Beethoven's music, Sarah Chang played the Violin Concerto in E minor by Felix Mendelssohn. Although Chang received a strong standing ovation, I thought the performance was deplorable.

He was also at Thursday's performance. The performance we heard would have been something to write home for any immensely talented DMA candidate or even someone playing with, say, the Hartford Symphony. But this is Heinz Hall and that' the PSO. It should have been flawless and it just wasn't.

The Beethoven, however, was amazing. For those of you who don't know the piece (and by all that's holy, why the heck not?) it's the symphony where Beethoven added the chorus and soloists to the last movement. It was a very new thing in the 1820's when the piece was composed.

It's the piece where he set Shiller's Ode To Joy to music.

But it's so much more than that. The last movement (beginning ostensibly as a loose theme and variation form) progresses to a more an more discordant texture - it risks collapsing under it's own weight only to be saved by the baritone singing:

O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!
Sondern lasst uns angenehmere anstimmen, und freudenbollere!

Translation:

Oh friends, no more these sounds!
Let us sing songs that are more cheerful and full of joy!

Sometimes there are things that can't be expressed in just music - sometimes words are necessary. And for Beethoven the message of universal brotherhood was what needed to be expressed. The piece was so important it set the course of the rest of the 19th Century symphonic music. How do you compose anything after the 9th? Brahms, for instance, wouldn't complete a symphony until he was well into his early 40s (my current age, by the way. Ugh.). The influence of this piece was felt everywhere. It's echoes are heard still.

What a fucking masterpiece.