{"id":563,"date":"2022-06-05T13:29:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-05T17:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.courtneylewis.com\/blog\/?p=563"},"modified":"2022-10-26T13:31:35","modified_gmt":"2022-10-26T17:31:35","slug":"beethovens-ninth-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.courtneylewis.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/beethovens-ninth-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Beethoven’s Ninth, today"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Next week we perform the final classical concerts of the season. We\u2019ll open with a brand-new work composed by Tarik O\u2019Regan, commissioned by the Jacksonville Symphony. Tarik was born in England of Irish and Algerian parents, and lives in the US. His piece, Trances<\/em>, is an exploration of his childhood memories of Moroccan pop music. It\u2019s a fascinating exploration of how time affects our memories, like a haze of fog might affect our vision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After that we\u2019ll perform Beethoven\u2019s Ninth Symphony. It\u2019s hard to know where to start when talking about this colossus, which is one of the most important, beloved and powerful pieces of art in Western culture. It\u2019s different from Beethoven\u2019s other symphonies because it introduces words for the first time, sung by a choir and a quartet of soloists. When we listen to any of Beethoven\u2019s other eight symphonies, we are listening to abstract music that doesn\u2019t have concrete semantic meaning \u2013 they are just music, like an abstract painting is just art. But because of the introduction of words, the Ninth is about<\/em> something. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We must wait until the finale to hear any words. The first three movements proceed as you might expect in another symphony: a fast allegro, a scherzo and a slow movement. The first is dark and violent. In my opinion it\u2019s a depiction of evil, ruin, or death. It\u2019s music of terror: dark and unrelenting. The second continues this tone, but in the form of a wild dance. Stanley Kubrick was right to use it to accompany scenes of destruction in his movie A Clockwork Orange<\/em>. In the slow movement, we finally escape this darkness. In one of his most beautiful adagios, Beethoven writes a set of variations on two sublime themes, each full of consolation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This sense of relief is shattered at the start of the finale, with a chord deliberately designed to offend our ears. It\u2019s as if the orchestra is searching for a way forward, a solution to the despair of the first two movements. They don\u2019t find it, and the dissonant chord returns as if nothing has changed. Only now do we hear words for the first time, as the solo bass sings, \u201cOh friends, not these sounds! Rather let us sing more cheerful and more joyful ones. Joy! Joy!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beethoven proceeds to set Schiller\u2019s Ode to Joy<\/em>. He\u2019d been obsessed with this poem since his teens, but couldn\u2019t figure out how to set it until much later in life. The poem is very much a product of the Enlightenment, full of the sentiments of universal brotherhood, cooperation, and love that so inspired Beethoven throughout his life. He had often been a kind of class warrior, refusing to bow to members of the aristocracy in Vienna, whom he saw as his equals. Egalitarian to the core, Schiller\u2019s words inspired Beethoven to write music of unrelenting and emphatic optimism. It is joy that is the solution to the darkness of the opening two movements. Joy enlivens us, inspires and unites us. \u201cAll people become brothers, where joy\u2019s gentle wings alight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That optimism can be a sticking point for us today. How can we believe in common bonds between all people when our country is so divided, after the twentieth century\u2019s cruelty, after Russia\u2019s brutal invasion of Ukraine? We\u2019re suspicious of anyone who claims we can all be one after the gulags and the concentration camps. The Ninth can seem cloyingly na\u00efve, simplistic, and outmoded. And yet its ravishing beauty and power demand that we listen. To paraphrase the brilliant writer Richard Taruskin, \u201cBeethoven\u2019s gigantic affirmation still awakens in us longings for what we can no longer believe in, but wish we could. And that gives us hope.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally published in The Florida Times-Union on June 5, 2022:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.jacksonville.com\/story\/entertainment\/music\/2022\/06\/05\/beethovens-ode-joy-close-jacksonville-symphony-season\/9941630002\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Next week we perform the final classical concerts of the season. We\u2019ll open with a brand-new work composed by Tarik O\u2019Regan, commissioned by the Jacksonville Symphony. Tarik was born in England of Irish and Algerian parents, and lives in the US. His piece, Trances, is an exploration of his childhood memories of Moroccan pop music. It\u2019s a fascinating exploration of how time affects our memories, like a haze of fog might affect our vision. After that we\u2019ll perform Beethoven\u2019s Ninth Symphony. It\u2019s hard to know where to start when talking about this colossus, which is one of the most important, beloved and powerful pieces of art in Western culture. It\u2019s different from Beethoven\u2019s other symphonies because it introduces words for the first time, sung by a<\/p>\n

Continue readingBeethoven’s Ninth, today<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"nfd_image_url":"","nfd_onboarding_generated":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conducting-electricity","category-jacksonvillesymphony"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.courtneylewis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.courtneylewis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.courtneylewis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.courtneylewis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.courtneylewis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.courtneylewis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":564,"href":"https:\/\/www.courtneylewis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions\/564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.courtneylewis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.courtneylewis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.courtneylewis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}