Semi-Daily Journal

I love it as well; it strikes an emotional chord in me(no pun intended) unmatched by any other musical work, excluding lyrical content, since there are occasions when the Battle Hymn of the Republic gets to the same place, like when I heard it at Gettysburg. What I have found interesting, however, is the number of professional musicians who have remarked that they don't have the same connection. Perhaps it is a case of repetition of performance breeding boredom.

>>Why do we like it so much?<<

Because it is a Hymn to Joy :) (Incidentally, that last movement is the EU's anthem and... my cell phone ring as well :-D)

> my cell phone ring as well :-D)

If it rings near me, expect a right hook.

Much will be explained by watching "Man facing Southeast". Even aliens like Ludwig.

Much will be explained by watching "Man facing Southeast". Even aliens like Ludwig.

The 9th does nothing for me. It seems overwrought. IMO 3,5, and 7 are by far the better symphonies.

That's what some musicians have said to me.

"The 9th does nothing for me. It seems overwrought. IMO 3,5, and 7 are by far the better symphonies."

You must be a heathen. Have you no soul? The 9th is my favorite.

Also, Beethoven is the perhaps the quintessential example of a great artist who was a very nasty human being. I thoroughly enjoy his music while detesting his despicable behavior.

And why you have bought every single album by the Dixie Chicks...

:-)

David,
Good catch, I am a heathen, but I still love Beethoven, just not the 9th. The 3rd Symphony was my favorite as a youth. It was my first classical record. It is however a stormy brooding composition. The 9th of course isn't and that's why many people love it, but it can't match the 7th for ethereal beauty.

It is enscribed:

"Also, Beethoven is the perhaps the quintessential example of a great artist who was a very nasty human being."

Quintessential? Picasso? Wagner?!

As for the "Hymn to Joy" comment, I find the choral part the weakest section of the symphony; nor am I without co-signers. (Although I like it anyway; weakest is a relative term). But using it as an anthem is unspeakably vulgar.

Dunno, it's good. I'm relatively lukewarm on the choral movement in isolation, but as the inevtiable conclusion of the rest of the piece I find it brilliant.

Three words: A Clockwork Orange. :)

Dunno, it's good. I'm relatively lukewarm on the choral movement in isolation, but as the inevtiable conclusion of the rest of the piece I find it brilliant.

I don't know if Beethoven adapted Schiller himself, but when I compared the two one time, I found his Ode to Joy libretto better art than the Schiller original. Schiller's a tremendous playwright but his lyric poetry tends to be a bit Longfellowish, IMHO. I won't even bother repeating here the stories about how Beethoven wanted to say "Freiheit", not Freude", and how Bernstein performed it that way in Berlin in 1989. The Ode to Joy, his Fifth Piano Concerto, and Bach's Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring are my three transcendent moments in classical music, about which I know nothing. Give me Ray Charles.

Dunno, it's good. I'm relatively lukewarm on the choral movement in isolation, but as the inevtiable conclusion of the rest of the piece I find it brilliant.

During WWII the opening notes of the 5th symphony were used to announce BBC broadcasts beamed to occupied Europe. Now, we just like Beethoven.

"'Also, Beethoven is the perhaps the quintessential example of a great artist who was a very nasty human being.'"

"Quintessential? Picasso? Wagner?!"

Ty Cobb?

The 9th works well because it sows the seeds of the elements of the final theme early on, and there's a tangible sense of 'aspiration-towards' which compels the listener. Of course, it's hard to imagine a world in which someone comes to the 9th without being aware of the final movement, but if you suspend your memory...

I do think it's slightly overwrought and overlong -- is it really true that Sony set the length of a CD to fit the 9th? -- especially by comparison with the 3rd, with its astonishing second movement; but the visceral rush of the choral movement, once you get to it, is pretty intense.

I prefer Bach, though, where the ethereal calculus (curves from lines, curves from lines) is there from the first note.

This is a question for neuromusicologists.

Here is a bit from:

http://216.239.33.104/search?q=cache:VM49C6p5xs4C:www.ipem.rug.ac.be/staff/marc/papers/RelevanceNeuromusicology.pdf+neuromusicologist&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Music psychol-
ogy and cognitive neuromusicology adopt scientific
methods that may lead to reliable knowledge. A
main issue is how to be sure that we ask the right
questions to the human subject, or to the human
brain. To be sure, our stimuli must be musically
relevant, but even then, asking the right question is
not trivial. Can we control all parameters? Do we
always know what parameters are involved? Should
we start with a Symphony of Beethoven and
observe the brain's global reactions, i.e., in terms
of a complex dynamic system? Or should we start
with beep tone sequences and find the precise pro-
cessing localization for certain sound features?
The answers may be either too global or too speci-
fic to be relevant for the explanation of particular
musical phenomena.

Yes, Beethoven very freely re-arraigned and re-wrote Schiller, as Maynard Solomon points out in his very fine "Beethoven."

The way Beethoven achieved his effects can be found in "Beethoven Hero" by Scott Burnham, which is actually a musicological exploration of how the "heroic" style works. The 9th, although a late work, employs these techniques, along with the extended harmonic language of the composer's late period. Plus, it ends with a kick-ass march of considerable simplicity, itself organized into a dramatic structure that virtually anybody can grasp on first hearing (dark vs. light, with light winning). It seems certain that Beethoven, who although enjoying a reputation as a jerk had many life-long friends and patrons, intended this symphony to have mass appeal. Clearly he succeeded.

The Ninth is so good because Beethoven continued to improve right up to the end. The last string quartet is also very fine.

There is some frivolity in the symphony: the way it opens sounding as though the orchestra was still tuning up; the beginning of the fourth movement, when the earlier themes are briefly reviewed and dismissed, and the theme of the Ode to Joy is prefigured.

The real magic comes after the Ode has been sung, when the variations and transformations begin, "Seid umschlungen" played against "Deine Zauber" and so forth.

I always wondered if the transition from the third to the fourth movement were a practical joke on Beethoven's part. The third movement lulls the less attentive concertgoers to sleep, and then it finishes and all of a sudden - BLAM!

I think the Ninth and Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade" are two of the most joyous musical compositions ever.

I'm another one those who love it, and can't explain why (though ditto to Atrios). A few thoughts, though: I've always liked what Gunther Schuller aid about Sonny Rollins, something like "He has the ability to play a complete surprise that seems inevitable in retrospect." I think that's true of all the best music, whether improvised or composed, and also the best prose. Beethoven had this ability more than any composer (which makes him special to me as a jazzbo), and in the Ninth he set all these inevitable surprises (plus lots of really excellent counterpoint) within a magnificent architecture. Beyond that, there was his ability to transform emotion - any emotion - into notes, and this ability was true magic, not a trick, which is why his music makes you feel what he felt.

Alan K. Henderson: I assume you're referring to that amazing moment toward the end of the 4th movement where we hear the short motif in major (pause) then minor (pause) then (as you say): BAM! - the tune that he's been playing around with throughout the movement.

Yeah, a joke, no doubt - probably the greatest musical joke of them all. There's much more to that last movement than just the famous song.

It sucks on ice. More likely to put me to sleep than drugs.

Nick, I blieve that the story is true except that it was Philips inspired rather than Sony.

Sorry Allan, I know that's not what you were talking about. Your BAM was funny, too.

The 9th has always gotten great press, right from the start. There is a story, which may be apocryphal, that at the premiere performance, Beethoven was up on the stage, keeping time.

Beethoven was stone deaf by this point, and the conductor had already told the musicians to pay absolutely no attention to him. So the orchestra did its thing and Beethoven did his.

But Beethoven's imaginary beat was just a little bit slower than the real one. So after the orchestra had finished, he was still up there on the stage, his head down, back to the audience, beating away with his baton -- lost in the music inside his head.

When the audience realized what was happening, they went absolutely nuts -- screaming, applauding, bravo, bravo, etc. But of course, Beethoven couldn't hear them.

Supposedly, the lead violinist had to walk over and turn the composer around, so he could see the audience. And then Beethoven stood there, tears streaming down his face, while the crowd roared its approval.

When they tell stories like that about opening night, you know you're dealing with a hit.

In answer to the question:

-- is it really true that Sony set the length of a CD to fit the 9th? --

Yes.

The later comment that it was Phillips, not Sony, is wrong.

Akiro Moro (I may have this name a little wrong), Sony's Chairman at the time, was renowned for his love of classical music. Phillips, by contrast, wanted a 14 rather than a 16 bit spec.

One of these days I'll have to go a performance of the Ninth at the Morton Meyerson (aka the Mortatorium) in Dallas, and watch to see how many dozing concertgoers are jolted awake by the beginning fanfare of the fourth movement :-)

Speaking of which...a friend of mine told me once of his radio alarm clock going off right at the point near the end of "Don't Get Fooled Again" as Roger Daltry screams "YEEEEEEEEEEEEAH!" Reveille!

Rossini's visit to Beethoven at his leaky, attic apartment is one of the saddest celebrity anecdotes ever.

Each of the movements of the ninth alone are great. Beethoven anticipated the Huntley Brinkley Report by 140 years in the second movement. The whole work together is emotionally elevating, you feel like you are part of something big, heroic. Its a master composer bringing all the tools of his trade to bare on this rather eccentric, over the top production.

The fifth was a magnificient morality play of motivic development where, after a great battle, C major ultimately triumphs over C minor. The sixth is the first and greatest of the program works, with B painting a bucolic idyl, eschewing the drums until the magnificent sturm near the end. All this time hes working and reworking his essentially Italian Opera Fidelio. Not a success he gets increasingly interested in choral music. He is working on the Missa Solumnis at the same time as the ninth. Those eiree, weird late string quartet sonatas flowing around in his mind's ear...

Yeah Beethoven was a misanthrope. But he knew humanity in the abstract. And he had soul. So what is the ninth? It's a catharsis of Italian romantic melody and German intellectual motif that beats you with hope and kettle drums to the point where you forget the profane so that you feel you're in the presence of the devine.