December 18, 2006

• BAH! 15 minutes late!
• Doesn't matter, he can't fucking hear you anyway.
• It's Frank Zappa's birthday on the 21st. Just get ready for that, I won't be around.
• It's also Superman's birthday. He really hates Santa Claus.
• Yes, but who likes beets?
• As the risk of rerailing, Beethoven conducts Fidelio. Also, way to show some fucking respect.
• Wolof: There's respect, and then there's fucking respect. Let's all do the Beethoven Polka!! *cues accordians
• Well ... I like beets. Particularly because they make my pee pink. That freakin' rules.
• "show some fucking respect." Respect for what? Beethoven? He doesn't benefit from respect, due to the fact he's been dead for 179 years. Respect for his family? He has no descendants. Respect for his memory? We remember him, which seems enough, considering it doesn't affect him one way or the other, due to the aforementioned 179 years of deadness. Respect for his music? Where is his art being disrespected, here? Tell us how to show appropriate respect, oh Wolof, keeper of the eternal flame.
• So.. whatever happened to that fewer-derailments thing, anyway?
• Did someone say Beethoven?
• Bush sucks!
• keeper of the Eternal Flame Are you knocking The Bangles? That song ROCKED. You have no fucking respect - I hope Susannah Hoffs rises from her unholy grave on a moonless night utterly without hope and, flying on her vast, spectral wings and pronouncing her terrible and ear-quivering shrieks, shoots up the leg of your pantaloons and bites off your pee-pee.
• If this is the best we can do as far as discussing Beethoven goes, that is the end for me.
• Don't let the door hit your humourless ass on the way out.
• How many casual Beethoven admirers are aware of the controversial "Symphony No. 10"? Or Symphoney No. 10, if you prefer.
• Oh ta for that link fish tick - interesting stuff. Like old school mash up!
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• 
• Jesus wept Chy. From derail to couldn't-let-it-lie over-response to an actual illustrated ad hominem. Let's not do this.
• I've heard the 'reconstructed' Tenth, but the Ninth would have been difficult to follow, I think. I hate it when people refer to Brahms' first as Beethoven's tenth - it seems to insult both composers. You have to admire the optimism of the Ninth, anyway. Beethoven's life was not going well on almost any count by then: grave family problems, lack of cash, and deafness for heaven's sake. You could well understand it if he'd chosen to wrap up with a tragic piece: but putting aside the equally grim political disappointments of his life, he chose a piece of undiluted idealism and optimism. That seems to me as much a personal as an artistic achievement.
• The tale of his last public performance is sort of sad, yet silly. How could one break half a dozen piano strings?
• No, let's do it.
• Here's a challenge: link to one positive comment Wolof has made in the last year. Just one. The guy pisses on everything. Had a guts full, me.
• Perhaps Plegmund that he felt his music was the only thing he had any control over, and could express himself in an optimistic way through that as everything fell apart? gomichild is also wondering how you break half a dozen piano strings
• Chy, you pissing in Pete's thread over it is hardly positive. Take it outside.
• Possibly, gomi: and although his music might be all that was left, I suppose he could justifiably feel it was after all no small thing. I think Beethoven used to break strings regularly during his concert career, and had people standing by with spares. I think he even broke the frame of a piano. But you have to remember this was before metal frames and metal strings. Pianos then would have been rather quieter than modern ones, unless you really thrashed them: but at the same time much more fragile. That's my theory, anyway.
• *agrees with Abiezer*
• Oooooo actually Beethoven was one of the first to use metal strings it seems. Although it might have been quite brittle, unlike the steel used today.
• Sorry to de-rail again but I just have to say this: Chyren, you bastard, fuck off. You want evidence that Wolof's had positive contributions? Look here, here, here. I've had my guts' full of your juvenile, cranky, self-righteous, pseudo-philosophical antics, you idiot. But since it's obvious you're not going to fuck off, I'll go. Here's me hitting my butt on the door as I leave.
• Susanna Hoffs has already risen from her unholy grave. She and Matthew Sweet just released a covers album (I think it is called "Under the Covers") of songs from the 60's. I have only heard "And Your Bird Can Sing" (good) and Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" (fantastic).
• Alnedra, stop it, you're scaring me.... *trembles*
• Oh, and don't go.
• She and Matthew Sweet just released a covers album Is that so? I may check that out.
• <>
• I've seen a couple of performers break piano strings in concert (Ben Folds and a couple of contestants at the Van Cliburn competition) and they were always really rocking it. I can't imagine the power it takes to break six! (Though I will accept the argument that the older strings were more fragile.)
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• Yep - The Who WISH they could break instruments as well as Beethoven. We are the beneficiaries of the silver lining of his sad life. Oh, and by the way...
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• Given up on re-railing, have we?
• Looks like it.
• Apparently at the first performance of the Ninth, LVB conducted, but obviously could not hear a thing. The orchestra was told to ignore him apart from following the tempo he set. It all went OK except that at the end he was a long way off and was still conducting after the orchestra had finished. One of the singers had to go up and gently turn him round so he could see the audience applauding wildly. Or so it is said. You can't help feeling they should have talked him out of it.
• I am a classical music ignoramus, but religiously downloaded the full symphonies BBC Radio Three made available last year (IIRC - they were a time-limited offer unfortunately). I will stick my critical neck out here and say the man was a genius.
• No but see, the cats are playing the Beethoven! I likes me some Ludwig van.
• Thanks for the relevant links, all. I'm always interested to find things out that I probably knew before and forgotted, i.e. (via fishy's link to Wiki): The problem is that much of the most widely admired piano repertoire — for example, that of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven — was composed for a type of instrument that is rather different from the modern instruments on which this music is normally performed today. Even the music of the Romantics, including Liszt, Chopin, Schumann, and Brahms, was written for pianos substantially different from ours. The interpretation of these works on modern pianos poses a variety of problems. For discussion, see Piano history and musical performance. I heard that story about conducting the 9th also via Charlie Brown, Pleggy. It was presented very movingly there, with Beethoven being given a huge ovation for an amazing work although he himself couldn't hear what he wrote. I also remember a story about Beethoven having the legs of his piano removed and the piano placed on the floor so he could "hear" it via the vibrations to write. Certainly it's human interest to see someone who is capable of mastering their art be denied the full enjoyment of it. Schroeder would also point out that the Countess turned him down too, as a way to say that your current problems are probably minimal. And lastly, as to the bullshit, I see Chy as a cranky drinker and Wolly as an old-school enforcer doing his job. Neither one bothers me a bit, in fact each is just right. And brings a little persepctive to a thread about a famously cranky old schooler like Ludwig. Cute kittens too : ) *snag*
• I also remember a story about Beethoven having the legs of his piano removed and the piano placed on the floor so he could "hear" it via the vibrations to write. I understood that he would hold a wooden dowel between his teeth, and have the other end touching the piano. As people hear sounds through both air conduction and bone conduction, Beethoven still had the latter option available to him. The rod would conduct the piano's sounds to his skull, and he would be able to hear it. Distorted, obv., but still. But this is just my personal recollection. I leave it to more smartser monkeys to correct me.
• He used to bite onto a steel spike driven into the chassis of his piano to feel the rhythm of the music, slavering & gnashing his worn teeth in time with the beat. And when the orchestra got it wrong, he would have at them wildly, thrashing them with a piece of bone drawn from the shank of a rhumatic water buffalo, symbol of his Romantic Dream, fossilised like the eardrums of his brainpan.
• "Quiet you! Spread owwt! Buncha knuckleheads!"
• D'oh! *apologizes to Wolof for reposting his link*
• Chy, you're out.
• Here's a fabulous website which among other things features a scrolling score of the Eroica symphony of a San Francisco Orchestra performance. (And for musicnauts shows when the key changes happen and the appearances of the theme). Quite cool. (Click on "Beethoven's Eroica" followed by "visit the Eroica website" near the top. You'll painlessly learn about symphonic form as a bonus. Favourite Beethoven piece: Appassionata piano sonata. The slow movement with variations. Favourite Beethoven anecdote as recounted by Robert Harris: "When a gifted pianist and friend of Beethoven's, Dorothea von Ertmann, lost a child, Beethoven at first did not want to go to her house; at length he invited her to visit him, and when she came he sat himself down at the pianoforte and said simply: 'We will now talk to each other in tones' and for an hour played without stopping, and as she remarked 'He told me everything, and at last brought me comfort'".
• That is an awesome story, thanks SB! I mean, Story van Bored
• You're welcome, Pete! *proudly displays new middle name*
• Ludwig sounds similar to Glenn Gould in personality. That Eroica thang is diplomatic pete's penultimate link above, also. Oh, and mine. Double link day - yay!
• OMG, doublay on the linkay! That's pretty funny, i moved my mouse too fast over the FPP. Fish, I say we're just trying to re-emphasize them goody links. No doublays at all.... no....
• I missed the last one, meself. Did you say Robert Harris? I love his weekend show.
• Can anyone comment on how realistic or true to life the movie Immortal Beloved (starring your friend and mine, Gary Oldham) was?
• Not very realistic. It's been quite a while since I saw it but the chronology is wrong, and the true 'Beloved' is thought to be Annie Bretano. As for Beethoven's hearing, here's the scoop.
• weird
• Beethoven is a case in point. Rogers' evidence for the composer's blackness, presented in the third volume of Sex and Race, is twofold: (1) Some of Beethoven's ancestors lived in Belgium; Belgium had long been controlled by Spain; Spain employed some full-blooded Negro troops and in addition had been overrun by the Moors in medieval times; the Moors, according to Rogers, were a hybrid of white and black African stock; ergo, over the span of 1,000 years, black ancestry could conceivably have been transmitted from Africa to Beethoven. (2) Beethoven had a darker complexion than was typical of northern Europeans of his day, and some referred to him as "the black Spaniard."
• Oops add one more paragraph: That's about it. So far as I'm aware, no one in a position to know has taken the idea of Beethoven's being black seriously, but the story survives. Too bad--if we set aside the dubious claims based on guesswork, Rogers' work offers ample support for the once-derided idea that people of black ancestry and in particular those of mixed race could achieve great things. In his books he cites an impressive collection of doers of color, many well-known in the U.S. (Paul Robeson, Marian Anderson, George Washington Carver), others not, e.g., Joaquim Machado de Assis (1839-1908), son of a Brazilian mulatto, whom Susan Sontag called "the greatest author ever produced in Latin America." Worth mentioning for his connection to Beethoven is virtuoso violinist George Bridgetower (1778-1860), the son of a black West Indian servant, who gave the premiere performance of what became known as the Kreutzer Sonata. (Apparently it would have been called the Bridgetower Sonata had not the two men quarreled.) Your reaction to such a recitation may be: Big deal. But in Rogers' day just speaking positively about racial mixing was a subversive act.
• Interesting, Pete. I had heard Beethoven called the "black composer" but thought it was due to the deafness and his grief. I wonder if he were alive now if his hearing could have been helped. amazing guy . MonkeyFilter: Don't let the door hit your humourless ass on the way out. bye Chy
• I missed the last one, meself. Did you say Robert Harris? I love his weekend show. That's him, a long-time fixture on the CBC. He wrote two popular books: "What to listen for in Beethoven" and "What to listen for in Mozart".
• I know absolutely nothing about classical music. Are people like Beethoven and Mozart considered the very best of the composers among aficionados? Or were they simply the most popular of their era so copies of their works endured? Or are they the most accessible?
• bernockle: probably some of all that, but I don't discount the "accessible" factor. I love music from the Baroque and Classical eras, and, to a lesser extent Romantic. I have a harder time with more modern serious music. Maybe 200 yeaars from now I'll find it more accessible :)
• It's fair to say that Mozart and Beethoven (and also Bach) were tops in their game. All three composers wrote works that are very accessible (e.g. Beethoven's "Fur Elise" and Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's desiring") that are instantly recognizable to people who don't count themselves as classical music aficionados. At the same time, they also wrote works of intense difficulty. Bach's fugues are famous for their intricacy. Beethoven's late string quartets are renowned for their unprecedented stretching of the form. Their reputation rests on more than just popularity. If i remember right, Bach's music languished in obscurity for many years after his death until it was rediscovered by later composers.
• Thanks, Gyan!
• Mendelssohn was a driving force behind the Bach revival, as was the "Swedish Nightingale" Jenny Lind. I've always found it fascinating that Bach came from such a large and well-known musical family (so much so that one prince was reputed to say at the death of his court composer, "Bring me another Bach,") yet Johann Sebastian's music was such that he's the only Bach most of us remember 200 years later.
• For my final recital at music college, I learned Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte, a short but sweet song cycle. (It's usually sung by men. I did it for the sisterhood.) Even though the orchestral and instrumental stuff is better known, I damn well love Beethoven's vocal music. The man rocks. Oh, and here's the Heiligenstadt Testament.
• I did An die ferne Geliebte in college as well. It's the first song cycle, and a brilliant one at that. And the final movement of the Choral Symphony may just be the perfect piece of music.
• Thanks PA, that was an interesting read.
• Yay Beauchard! Dann vor diesen Liedern weichet Was geschieden uns so weit, Und ein liebend Herz erreichet Was ein liebend Herz geweiht. Ditto on the glorious Ninth-- being a big cheesehead, I'm also fond of the Choral Fantasy in C.
• I just pullled out the score for An die ferne Geliebte for the first time in a while. What a great piece of music! I'm a fan of the Mass in C. It's underperformed and underrated, but there are moments of brilliance in there.
• Please help out the classically challenged, like me, via a pointless thought exercise: Compare great composers' places in the classical pantheon with more modern acts' places in the rock and pop firmament. E.g. "The Who is the Beethoven of rock and roll." Or, "Brahms is the Eagles of classical music." I and I'm sure others want to expand our appreciation of classical music, and this might help.
• I don't think there's an easy way to make that comparison. It's comparing apples and oranges. There are no modern equivalents to the great classical composers. Even singer-songwriters who still create their own original works don't do it on the sheer scale of an 18th century composer. I can't think of any modern musician whose work spans a full lifetime of original music. Another pointless thought exercise: do you think there is any piece of modern music, be it pop, rock, country, or whatever, that will survive for the next 200 years?
• HW, Hicinbaby is right, but for what it's worth (and I hope you like Jazz): Bach is a Duke Ellington type, Mozart, think Dizzy Gillespie, And for Beethoven, think Coltrane. Ain't perfect, but it's really late.
• Beauchard: I'm with you. The fourth movement is the perfect piece of music.
• Another pointless thought exercise: do you think there is any piece of modern music, be it pop, rock, country, or whatever, that will survive for the next 200 years? Yes.
• Oh come on, don't tease me, which ones?
• I'll tell you, but only if you say "Linda Rondstadt was the Debussy of the 1970s", or something like that.
• Ooh, I like this game. JS Bach= Chuck Berry. Father of rock 'n' roll. Handel= Little Richard. Lovely vocal stylings, but a predictable style-- he found a formula that worked and went with it. Haydn = Fats Domino. Vivaldi= Jerry Lee Lewis. Mozart = the Beatles. Broke all the rules and made new ones, and influenced everyone who came after. Awopbopaloobopawopbamboom!
• To expand (and avoid) a little, what about the piano as an instrument - the electric guitar was little more than an amplified acoustic before Mr. Hendrix came along and explained how it all worked. The pianos in Beethoven's time were different but how did composition change with the evolution of the modern piano - (Or, more applicably, how were Beethoven's compositions affected by the evolution of the piano during his time?) Although there were various crude earlier attempts to make stringed keyboard instruments with struck strings,[1] it is widely considered that the piano was invented by a single individual: Bartolomeo Cristofori of Padua, Italy. It is not known exactly when Cristofori first built a piano, but an inventory made by his employers, the Medici family, indicates the existence of a piano by the year 1700. The three Cristofori pianos that survive today date from the 1720s. So timeline-wise, the piano must have been taking off when Beethoven was finding his compositional groove, is that the case?
• Linda Ronstadt is... Linda Ronstadt is the... Linda Ronstadt is the De... Damn, I can't do it. Hey did you know she used to date Governor Moonbeam, who just got elected as attorney general of California?
• The Beatles were more like Beethoven. Well-defined and recognizable early, middle and late periods, where the early years were spent writing music that was similar to everything else around them in the music world (albeit very well-constructed), and the later years were spent innovating and creating music that broke the rules.
• Can Led Zeppelin be Mahler?
• I'd go with Pallas' Mozart = Beatles, both had them great melodies. Maybe Beethoven = The Stones? I can't think who Bach goes with though....
• ...being a big cheesehead, I'm also fond of the Choral Fantasy in C. I've never heard this but based on your unusual testimonial, I'm gonna have to check it out.
• Bach=Queen
• StoryBored, it's a lot like a dry run for the choral movement of the 9th, except with an (incredibly virtuosic) piano part instead of the orchestra. Same sort of transcendent lyrics about love saving everything, etc. It's feelgood music. I first sang it in a double bill with Brahms's Schicksalslied, with which it went eerily well.
• Zep can definitely be Mahler. What do people think of Hendrix=Liszt? Arrogant, magnetic virtuoso who destroyed instruments?
• Elton John = Rachmaninov?
• What about Bach = Tortoise, or some post-rock/math-rock outfit? And Barry White is probably the Ravel of pop, huh?
• Pallas, i just listened to the Choral Fantasy, it's pretty good! and like you said is faintly a reminder of the last bit of the 9th. It would help if i understood the lingo though...
• Hurrah, StoryBored! The only online translation I could find is here; I'm fairly sure it contains some mishearings and a few scrambled lines. For example, I thought the last 2 lines were "When true lovers are united, then the gods approving smile." Bear in mind that this is a rhymed singing translation, so it's likely to be less than faithful. I'll do my best to find a better one.
• Aha! Here's a more literal one.
• A better one. Heh. They said Goettergunst.
• *pokes Preview button in annoyance*
• goetter! How goes, you big old spotted-kitten-owner, you?
• Those spotted kittens have become big, boisterous spotted cats. This morning they're doing their best to keep me from baking. They don't seem to be big Beethoven fans, either, but I think that has more to do with the presence or absence of a lap while practicing. One once had the habit of trying to find a lap on my partner violinist while we'd essay the Spring Sonata. Perhaps that was an editorial attempt to redirect us, the cat appreciating Beethoven more than we ever realized. Happy solstice to all!
• It's when they start setting tempi with their tails that you've gotta worry. BTW, anyone see Copying Beethoven? I missed it; is it worth it?
• Thanks for the lyrics Pallas and Goetter! ...and I'll be looking for Copying Beethoven, cuz that's the first i've heard of it!
• Ah Beethoven! Probably my desert island choice if forced to pick one. Many great comments in this thread (and some bullshit ones too- but let's ignore that). *skipping around* As others have said, the triumph of the 9th Symphony is an unparalled artistic and spiritual statement. There was nothing triumphant in his life when he wrote that, but he chose to pour his optimism for the human race into it and for that, I'll always love him. It's almost beside the point that musically, it is an incredible work, both technically and emotionally. Though "Dearly Beloved" got a lot wrong, they got that aspect of Beethoven's spirit and life correct. I loved the movie in spite of the boatload of historical innaccuracies. The Choral Fantasy is not one of his best pieces but it did provide a blueprint for the finale of the ninth as correctly pointed out by Pallas Athena. Maybe I'm just a big poopyhead, but as amusing as the rockstar comparisons are, none hold water. Beethoven was an genius of an order rarely seen in history. I don't know of a single rock musician whom I would consider a genius. (*prepares to duck*) Many very talented individuals have graced popular music of course, but no geniuses of Beethoven's calibre. The Beatles, Stevie Wonder? Very talented songwriters and their music had a profound effect, but not the work of genius IMO. Perhaps the closest non-classical musician I would compare him to would be Coltrane- but still, Beethoven's prowess as an improviser plus his ability to grasp and compose in long forms (without hearing!) puts him in a different class altogether. At the risk of derailing my own comments, I would be curious to know what rock musicians people here think truly deserve that overused characterization of genius (please, please do not say Brian Wilson or Bob Dylan). Also, it's interesting to note that Beethoven was the first composer to consciously elevate the artist above the artisan; the first composer to hire a publicist and possibly the first person to create and cultivate the idea that musicians were *stars/heroes* complete with an adoring public. This was an idea later developed to the hilt by Liszt. A case could be made for Mozart along those lines, but he concentrated primarily on impressing the aristocracy and did not have the mass appeal that Beethoven generated. Just contrast Beethoven's funeral with it's massive outpouring of grief in Vienna, to Mozart's lonely funeral (I'm not sure anyone was there besides his wife) and his subsequent burial in a pauper's grave. Prince and Michael Jackson and Sting and Mick Jagger and Eminem Thanks for the FPP!
• I was a right idiot last night- the penultimate sentence was supposed to be- "Prince and Michael Jackson and Sting and Mick Jagger and Eminem all owe Ludwig a debt of gratitude-seriously- as do we all". In my defense I was getting that Internal Server Error 500 thing again. And I'm a moron
• Yo, Kamus! This is turning into a nice little gathering of musical monkeys! possibly the first person to create and cultivate the idea that musicians were *stars/heroes* complete with an adoring public ...is the downside of this the coincident(?) removal of music-playing from everyday life? People no longer feel they are "qualified" to play and sing because the standards have been set by superstars and flawless recording technology...much joy and community lost.
• Absolutely SB- very insightful! I have lectured on precisely that subject. In an era of specialization we have abdicated our belief in our innate musical abilities and handed them over to the "Artists", believing them to be sole possessors of some secret and exclusive powers. If you look at non-western cultures, you find that music making is a much more community based activity where everyone is expected to participate. And some of these community musics can be intimidatingly complex as in Bali and Western Africa. Perhaps the only western country that still clings to that idea is Brazil. Nowadays most people don't believe that they are musically talented right out of the box, even though it's probably hard-wired into most of us. Artists aren't out there dispelling this myth either as it wouldn't serve their own selfish interests. Very sad, actually. Even in recent times, I remember that everyone in my grandparent's family was expected to perform, sing, play a musical intrument and so on at holidays etc. (incidentally, the Bach family had a similar tradition). I don't see that tradition very much these days- not even in my own family. It's the "Avalon-ing" of culture and it disturbs me greatly, even though as an "artist" I benefit from certain people thinking I'm "special" which I am increasingly convinced I am not despite my Mum's protests to the contrary.
• Some fascinating comments here, thanks for the good read, folks. Not Beethoven, but on a silly classical-music-as-pop-music tangent: One man's rage against Pachelbel's Canon (YouTube) Season's greetings, everymonkey!
• Contemporary popular music that'll survive for two hundred years... that's a tough one. Given that so gross a body of music persists now in recorded form, where once it had to endure via writing and reperformance, and recordings are so recent on the historical scale. Would we remember Dufay's chansons if so little else didn't survive from that era? (Much as I love Dufay.) Still, I'd put money on Louis Armstrong's "Black and Blue," and James Brown's "Please, please, please" or maybe "Licking Stick." Each has fifty-odd years already down, so only a hundred and fifty to go.
• This is stretching the definitions of both "contemporary" and "popular", but I'd expect to find some Jacques Brel and a bit of Brecht and Weill hanging about in a corner somewhere in 200 years. Oh, and Cats.
• Oh, and Cats Much as we still remember Jack the Ripper.
• I'm tempted to go for the contrary opinion on what will survive in 200 years. Namely: Everything. From ABBA to Zappa, if it's on the web right now, it'll be around 200 years from now. And plenty more besides. There'll be aurological archaeologists who are going to specialize in soundtracks of American beer commercials of the 1970s...
• Monkeyfilter: stretching the definitions of both "contemporary" and "popular"
• *notices that Chyren's profile is no longer Pending, but Default* Have missed the old fart...
• Last visit: 07:04AM on January 16 Hey up!
• Woot!
• 
• Excellent Dudley Moore Beethoven parody.
• Nice one, fish tick.
• What a gem!
• *applause* I love the protracted ending... and i couldn't believe it was dudley moore....
• Beethoven Inadvertently Poisoned? Cheers: There's a Beethoven Journal Jeers: Use of the adjective "CSI-like"
• I would have said "using science". Why do people have to use such overly-technicalish words.
• Quit steppin' on my lines, Scully.