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When we find ourselves in times of trouble, some turn to Mother Mary, others to therapists, still others to religion and still others to booze. For their part, musicians tend to turn to Beethoven, the classical composer who, better than anyone else apparently, used the orchestra as a twin-pronged implement for expressions of desolation and consolation. Rigmarole over Beethoven
By Scott Vogel
svogel@starbulletin.com
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It's for this reason that performances of Ludwig van's works are increasing the world over, yet one more consequence (this one happy) of the September terrorist attacks. When the Berlin Philharmonic toured New York in October, Beethoven's Fifth, Sixth and Seventh symphonies were substituted at the last minute for programs that once included Mahler and Wagner (not exactly lightweights themselves). And orchestras all over the globe have found solace in Beethoven's Third Symphony ("Eroica"), no doubt because of the majestic funeral march that comprises the piece's second movement.Not to be outdone, the Honolulu Symphony is also joining the Beethoven brigade. To be fair, however, this weekend's performances of the composer's Ninth Symphony were scheduled long before the horrors of autumn. In fact, Beethoven's last great work is rapidly becoming a New Year's tradition in this town, and one that represents a kind of artistic kismet this time around.
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Requiring massive musical and human firepower (the Honolulu Symphony Chorus is yet another battalion the piece has conscripted), Beethoven's Ninth is an oft-chosen accompaniment to occasions celebrating our common humanity. Friedrich Schiller's poem "Ode to Joy," which is sung by both the choir and soloists, and provides the subtitle of the symphony, includes moving passages like "All men will become brothers under thy gentle wing." Small wonder, then, that Beethoven's Ninth was the piece Leonard Bernstein conducted in Germany on Christmas Day 1989, less than two months after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
But the piece is also about the healing properties of joy, of the way its "magic reunites those whom stern custom has parted" and how "both good and the evil follow the same rose-strewn path."
What: The Honolulu Symphony and Chorus perform Beethoven's Ninth Symphony; program includes Bach's Suite No. 3 in D major Love that Ludwig
When: 7:30 p.m. tomorrow and 4 p.m. Sunday
Where: Blaisdell Concert Hall, 777 Ward Ave.
Cost: $15 to $55
Call: 792-2000
In short, it's not hard to see how the Ninth might be an anodyne during wartime, especially given Beethoven's own supposed attachment to the causes of liberty and human brotherhood. This latter point is debatable, as Anthony Tommasini recently said in the New York Times.
"The man who set Schiller's 'Ode to Joy' to stirring music proclaiming 'all men are brothers' was haughty and abusive to servants, copyists, publishers and patrons," Tommasini wrote, "and he wasted years of his creative life in a protracted lawsuit to wrest custody of his weak-willed nephew from his dead brother's loving and decent wife."
Well. If so, the case of Beethoven is just one more disturbing reminder that appearances can be deceiving and that life doesn't necessary imitate art.
As if we needed any reminders of that lesson these days.
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