Fredick what’s he doing beats me friends but whor is he stopped hearing long ago guys caline looks like she’s going to say something Maestro betoven the piece has finished turn around lud see see how they still adore you 12 years L 12 years Vienna never forgot you by 1824 Beethoven was internationally
Famous yet it’s spent more than a decade as recluse from public life since the completion of his eighth Symphony in 1812 his family woes were reaching an alltime crisis Point Beethoven’s nephew and Ward Carl had attempted suicide in order to free himself from the tyrannical composer’s tough love
Beethoven’s love life was even more dire he was too much of a commoner for his single female friends and those who weren’t Aristocrats were already hitched but worst of all his fears was his increasing deafness it put a stop to his piano performances it stalled his ability to compose living in squala
Drinking a bottle of wine a day and suffering from rheumatism and jaundice he needed the money more than ever a commission came in 1817 from the philarmonic Society of London for a new symphony and it was no easy right Beethoven now middle-aged bedraggled and angry with the world only completed the piece in
1824 but the result was spellbinding it’s as though his Affliction so much liberated him from the realm of actual sound that he was now able to hear on a level that others couldn’t even begin to imagine unlike Mozart he didn’t need to satisfy the whims of some paying Master nor was this
Piece in the service of God instead it was the ultimate in self-expression hard-headed independent Beethoven was now writing for himself and what better way for the deaf composer to begin his Symphony with the idea of sound emerging from Silence violins Cascade over the top of deep rumbling strings
They play Perfect fifths that most ancient and Elemental of intervals Rhythm Melody and Harmony are all ambiguous almost sounding as if the orchestra is tuning up it’s the building blocks of sound musical plasma emerging out of a black hole of Silence never before had a symphony started with just
Pure atmosphere mozar just got right down to business first L establishing our key and time signature but even when we get our big bang in a thunderous key of D Minor the music’s always Restless for we can at any time slip from minor to Major from despair to Joy for this
Symphony is a journey of Darkness to light and of chaos to order it lays out the path from Silence to sound and eventually to a music that gloriously transcends the composers struggle to communicate just when we think we’ve settled on a defiant and heroic climax the music sinks to a funeral March the
Bases creep upwards and downwards to restore the mystery of the symphony’s opening in the second movement Beethoven throws out the rule book normally second movements are slow whereas third movements are Dancy skatos but Beethoven takes us straight to a sketo with skipping strings playing a fiery dance even more revolutionary is his use
Of The Stomping out of face Tony he deploys these tuned drums not as subsidiary instruments providing rhythmic backbone to the music but as melodic instruments in their own right it’s such an iconic statement of nervous tension that djac ripped it off for the sketo movement of his own Ninth
Symphony obos and clarinets usher in a contrasting section called a trio it’s a folky tune full of Slavic cheer but the pounding timony drives us back into the sko propelling US forward to an optimistic D major ending but this life affirming earthy cheer isn’t to last for the third
Movement is an aching dreamlike vision of longed for peace and happiness two lyrical themes intertwine in a set of increasingly complex variations unbearably moving always yearning the himlike quality is a precursor of what’s to come that world of long for Joy is just moments over the horizon a jubilant Fanfare promises this
Victory in the midst of our our Dream but joy doesn’t come easily and freedom must be earned so a massive dissonant Outburst of wind and Brass plunges us back into dark chaos it’s what Vagner called the shreen Fanfare the Fanfare of Terror now remember that this symphony
Is about that search for light in darkness for ordering chaos and for music and sound Beethoven now surveys the ground we’ve covered does the music of the last three movements help us on our journey we hear a fragment of the first movement the chellos and bases reject it too gloomy too
Joyless now a fragment of the second movement though this is again rejected by cellos and bases too turbulent too Restless third movement doesn’t Fair much better for freedom and joy must be grounded in reality not dreams what needed is an allog together new theme which we now hear on cellos
And bases it’s in a joyous Dem major and almost sounds like the strings are speaking as if in an operatic rective as the theme is restated and developed we soon realize the timelessness of this uplifting hymn it’s a mere five Notes The Perfect Blend of imposing and accessible Noble and plain
You’d never know that Beethoven in fact labored painstakingly over it 200 attempts to perfect its Simplicity just when we reach a climax we’re interrupted mids sentence with that returning shren Fanfare the voice of Doubt reasserting itself what’s gone wrong well what is Joy without people to experience it and
In an electrifying moment of surprise Beethoven gives us the sound of the human voice its first appearance in a symphony oh friends not these sounds shouts a baritone let us sing more cheerful songs full of joy now for the symphony’s crowning Glory the Ode to Joy written in 1785 by
Famous German writer Friedrich Schiller the poem extoled the virtues of Harmony and justice For All Mankind it was a defiant statement of optimism and idealism written at a time when tyrants were asserting their repressive rules across Europe not least in Revolutionary France but why did Beethoven incorporate
Schiller’s ode 40 years after it was written well by the 1820s the Napoleonic dream had proven disappointing Europe had returned to reactionary politics and the repercussions were being felt Bel in Beethoven’s Austria now ruled by ruthless conservatives ready to crack down on artistic Freedom what better time to revive old revolutionary ideals
To establish a new Utopia founded on liberal principles of social change and political reform in his celebration of the democratic longings of the populace Beethoven even pokes fun at the old image of the great Napoleonic Commander the pen sings to the backing of a Turkish March like a drunken Soldier In
Praise of conquering Heroes but he soon buried by the full might of the choir who add to the movement’s jumble of ideas a mixture of symphony cataa Opera theme and variations political speech philosophical rant and celebratory Jam all United Under One Roof mightily reconciled by a community of
Voices they invoke a rapturous vision of God who sits in the vast Cosmos while humankind dwells like a speck Under The Canopy of stars small and futile yet infinitely powerful when clubbed together in Universal fraternity the bond between Brothers will always be stronger than the orders of the
Tyrant as the choir sing blocked major cords we realize we’ve reached our goal order in chaos light in darkness music in Silence the struggle to communicate is no longer and Beethoven has found a universal language to express Joy’s triumphs over Despair and division this is why the o to Joy Melody
Is used in the International Community to symbolize Nations coming together in peace and Harmony woke it’s the official anthem of the European Union it’s heard as often at Olympic ceremonies as at New Year celebrations one of the most famous versions is a mega concert played next to the Berlin wall with musicians from
France Britain Russia and America it was to Mark the reunification of Germany and Reconciliation of past foes and just when we think Beethoven has thrown every idea into this crazy mixture he gives us a great double Fugue two themes intertwined in magnificent counterpoints yet always coherently merged
Ed individual voices shout out from the multitudes joy joy the orchestra races euphorically at a new Tempo with yet another theme towards a triumphant Ending Beethoven completed the symphony in 1824 but he was pessimistic about premiering it in his hometown of Vienna musical tastes in the city were changing Ing and interest was now focused on Italian composers like rosini it took 30 members of the vienes musical establishment to petition the reclusive
German to persuade him that he still mattered in the city after his decade of retirement from public life Beethoven was persuaded but by the time the theater was selected the musicians hired and the dates set only 3 days remained to rehearse this new and deeply challenging music
The concert was a tentative site reading of messy handwritten schoes even worse for Boven the expense of the production with the largest Orchestra ever assembled meant that profits were minimal the kinly composer stormed out at the post-performance dinner after accusing his faithful Secretary of cheating him and mismanaging the whole
Event a follow-up performance at the symphony fared even worse no one turned up and it was an even greater Financial failure sadly that one was baen’s Final concert before his death but the Ninth Symphony was his Parting Gift To The World probably the most influential Symphony ever written
It liberated the formal restraint and rigid structure of the classical Symphony it looked to a new romantic model that expanded the r of musical expression further than ever before this model of subjective expression pure unfettered emotion provided a Wellspring of endless possibility for later composers Schubert and Browns both stole
The OD to Joy theme for their own Symphonies lists symphonic poems brookner’s rumbling string openings and Mara’s sprawling Symphonies all owe a debt to Beethoven’s Masterpiece yet Vagner was it staunchest advocat proposing that it paved the way for the music of the future the manner in which Beethoven symphony fused Words and Music
In a universal drama greatly inspired farner’s vision for his own operas in fact so daunting was the legacy of Beethoven’s n Symphony that many later composers struggled with the question of how to ever write a 10th Symphony it’s a phenomenon called The Curse of the 9th a spooky coincidence that so many
Composers have died after completing their ninth Symphonies but for Beethoven his final Symphony was a work of intense paradoxes despite the symphony’s message of Brotherhood he had few friends despite its message of Joy he was a frail unhappy man in constant physical and emotional pain despite its celebration of God’s fatherly goodness
He was not religious and despite its Exquisite music he was a man for whom sounds no longer existed for when Beethoven conducted from the podium at the premiere the truth is that the musicians had been told to ignore him rather they were to watch the discreet reliable beat of the
Real conductor Michael uml Beethoven’s hearing was so compromised that he didn’t even noticed when the orchestra had finished playing so deeply immersed in a world of his own he was still conducting when the orchestra were giving their massive Ovation when The contr Soloist kolene un turned him round to face the audience it
Was as though Beethoven had finally discovered that connection so rarely found in his personal life in that single moment it was as though he was liberated from his Affliction embraced by the multitudes after a decade of reclusion it was as though the message of the symphony the power of humankind
To unite in Joy once freed from the shackles of tyranny had come [Applause] true well that’s it folks follow our Channel support us on patreon listen to the peace and fall and most importantly enjoy classical Music
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