Dang that Beethoven!

[b_elliott]

I find it hard to talk about Beethoven without accidentally lapsing into “Nadsat” Clockwork Orange speak about Ludwig Van and his slooshy melodies. Hear angel trumpets and devil trombones.

Clockwork Orange? Memories flood in of an early 70s concert I played in: our 6' 10" keyboardist wore the white jumpsuit, jock strap and eye lashes on one eye. My band embraced the lingo and liked our "devotchkas".
No Beethoven was played at that concert; though I later enjoyed an all nighter in a recording studio with its towering electrostatic speakers pumping out B's symphonies one after the other. A memorable work night droods.

 

[b_elliott]

I do think it could be worth discussing his deafness and how it affected his writing. I had a music teacher that swore up and down that LVB would have re-written parts of the 9th had he been able to hear them, especially the horn cadenza in the Adagio. He said the triplet pizzicato accompaniment in the Adagio didn't work either. I'm not one to second guess Beethoven, but there are some odd moments and dissonances in the 9th that do kind of stick out, perhaps because the conductors I've heard perform it never really pulled it off...I dunno...

I had a recent experience that sorta-kinda relates.

Recently after a long day (composing and listening to a crap-ton of Furtwangler's Beethoven) I went to bed. For some reason I dreamed of Beethoven's inner ear, what it was like. Perhaps my dream lasted a second (maybe less), but what I heard was stunningly L-O-U-D, realer than real--so much so, I woke up startled--whoa!

Though I have nothing but tinnitus and monotonous sub-vocalizations to brag about, that dream makes me think LVB had an excellent grip on what he heard internally.

His final piano concerto moves into ragtime a century before that genre was to be born; his Grosse Fuge string quartet was considered discordant trash by his contemporaries.... me thinks his inner ear led him to exactly the right notes.

No offense to your music teacher's opinions, just my .023 cents (15% Canadian tax added. )