[lit-ideas] Re: Some years ago ...
- From: cblists@xxxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 19:29:34 +0100
On 23-Dec-08, at 11:30 AM, Donal McEvoy wrote:
--- On Mon, 22/12/08, cblists@xxxxxxxx <cblists@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: cblists@xxxxxxxx <cblists@xxxxxxxx>
Subject: [lit-ideas] Some years ago ...
The 'some' years are, to be precise, how many? And
what made this concert so significant?
200. Premiere of Beethoven's 5th (inter alia) and/or last time B
performs as a concerto soloist and/or theatre runs out of ice cream
at interval.
Yes, (at least to the first con/disjunct) - but premiere of not only
the 5th Symphony, but also the 6th, and the Choral Fantasy, and ...
and ... and ...
It is hard to imagine what is perhaps the most well-known musical
phrase in the world (immediately identifiable by those first four
beats - no other piece is so quickly recognized) as 'new music' - but
there was a time .... Indeed, (as I have previously mentioned on this
list) a critic contemporary with Beethoven confessed that he was not
sure whether he could label what Beethoven was creating as 'music' at
all.
It is also hard to imagine *so* much 'of a good thing'. Conditions
and performance were apparently less than optimal - one account has
the proceedings 'breaking down' during the Choral Fantasy.
This is how Elizabeth Schwarm Glesner, at http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/beethoven_sym5.html
puts it:
"On December 22, 1808, Viennese devotees of new music made their way
to Theater-an-der-Wien for the most significant concert of the year,
one of the most significant concerts in all of music history. The
program, consisting entirely of Beethoven premieres, began with the
Symphony no. 6, followed, in order, by the concert aria, "Ah,
perfido", two movements from the Mass in C major, the Fourth Piano
Concerto, the Symphony no. 5, and, last but not least, the Choral
Fantasy. It was four hours of music, new music to their ears. The
theater was unheated, the orchestra was under-rehearsed, and the
soprano soloist had a bad case of stage-fright. The whole experience
led one listener to comment later that 'one can have too much of a
good thing --- and still more of a loud'."
Chris Bruce
Kiel, Germany
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