... Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was performed for the first time in Vienna, Austria. It went on to become perhaps the best-known symphony in the classical music repertoire. The anniversary is being celebrated there with all due pomp and ceremony.
The symphony, widely regarded as one of the great masterpieces of Western classical music and culminating in the Ode to Joy, was first performed in 1824 in Vienna, where the German composer lived and worked for most of his life.
Now the city is celebrating with a series of performances of the symphony, notably by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by famed Italian Riccardo Muti.
“It's the whole world to us to be able to sing this wonderful message of love,” Heidrun Irene Mittermair, an alto in the Vienna Singverein Choir, told the BBC. “You're lifted up at the end, when you're singing.”
Heidrun, like the rest of the singers in the Singverein Choir, is not a professional musician - she’s a schoolteacher. But her choir sings at Vienna’s famous Musikverein Concert hall, with the Vienna Philharmonic, one of the world’s finest orchestras.
Over the past few days, the choir has been singing the stirring Ode to Joy, the choral finale of Beethoven’s Ninth. Based on a poem by Friedrich von Schiller, it embraces a vision of universal brotherhood.
The musicologist Otto Biba said the symphony was revolutionary, partly because it culminated with singing.
“It was a symphony, but with something new in the fourth movement. There was a choir on the stage and the soloists were starting to sing," he said. "There were so many new details. It was very difficult for the musicians, and very experimental.”
“Beethoven opened the door to the future. It's a work left by Beethoven for the next generation,” Mr Biba said.
There's more at the link.
It's worth remembering that Beethoven composed this symphony while almost completely deaf. At its premiere performance, conducted by Michael Umlauf, Beethoven was on stage as well, and tried to conduct his own work, but lost his sense of timing due to his deafness. At the end of the piece:
Beethoven was several bars off and still conducting; the contralto Caroline Unger walked over and gently turned Beethoven around to accept the audience's cheers and applause. According to the critic for the Theater-Zeitung, "the public received the musical hero with the utmost respect and sympathy, listened to his wonderful, gigantic creations with the most absorbed attention and broke out in jubilant applause, often during sections, and repeatedly at the end of them." The audience acclaimed him through standing ovations five times; there were handkerchiefs in the air, hats, and raised hands, so that Beethoven, who they knew could not hear the applause, could at least see the ovations.
For those who've never been to Vienna, and never heard the world-famous Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra or seen the Musikverein, here are both of them in a single video.
Timeless indeed, and well worth commemorating on this anniversary.
Peter
As an informed but uncultured Sixties kid, I was familiar with part of the 2nd movement only because NBC News used it as the theme for The Huntley-Brinkley Report every evening. It was a while longer before I grasped the entire symphony.
ReplyDeleteLiszt created an arrangement of the 9th for 2 pianos. This is the "presto" half of that arrangement performed live (without charts). If you happen to have any delusions that you can play piano this will end them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH5lhJrHXdw&t=362s
ReplyDeleteIt's an odd symphony for a number of reasons. I've sung it twice, and each performance is an adventure. (Not the least because Beethoven seemed to confuse sopranos and violins as far as range and endurance go!)
ReplyDeleteTXRed
As a church pianist, I have "a few" hymnals around. "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee", based on this, is one of the first 4 hymns in each.
ReplyDeleteFor funerals (and board meetings), I like to play it in a minor key. .
I've read the story told slightly differently. Beethoven, being totally deaf could not hear the applause and stood there with shoulders slumped facing the orchestra, thinking the audience did not like it and was not applauding. As I read it, the concertmaster came to him and turned him around, so he could see the audience. He had 'brought down the house'! They loved it! Beethoven went from sadness and embarrassment to great joy at his triumph.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to be there to hear Muti lead the Vienna Philharmonic, the recordings of Karl Böh m conducting that orchestra through the Nineth are about the most stirring I've ever heard of that piece. Seiji Ozawa and the Boston symphony are also outstanding for Beethoven in general and the later symphonies in particular. Ormandy and Philadelphia too, But there's so many great performances that I haven't heard yet. The nice thing about collecting old classical vinyl is that relatively nobody wants it. Usually in mint condition and almost free.
ReplyDeleteVienna is a charming old world city that has taken it's art and music and opera very seriously for several centuries. Attending any of these performances is not inexpensive, especially the opera but it's worth it.The horsey dressage set appreciate the Lippizaner stallions. im not horsey (except for Trigger and Cochise). There's museums like the Schatzkammer full of interesting historical loot. The Kahlenberg was an attractive and convenient walk. And the food in the city is first class, as befits a cultural crossroads. Weather is central European, an umbrella is never inappropriate no matter what it looks like outside.
rick m