Wei Wu Wei

Wei         Wu

~ Quotes from our Master

The New York Times: May 6, 2024 ~
By Daniel Barenboim (Mr. Barenboim is a pianist and conductor)

“By all accounts, Beethoven was courageous, and I find courage an essential quality for the understanding, let alone the performance, of the Ninth. One could paraphrase much of the work of Beethoven in the spirit of Gramsci by saying that suffering is inevitable, but the courage to overcome it renders life worth living.”

~ Get the PDF

MUSIC  – Beethoven’s 9th Symphony

Thoughtful awareness to awaken our inner listening by remembering how Beethoven’s creative process of composing his music’s later years.  The premiere of the 9th was at the Vienna Kärnthnerthor Theater on May 7, 1824. By this stage Beethoven’s hearing had deteriorated to such an extent that conducting the performance was out of the question. Instead, Michael Umlauf led the premiere. A fictionalized film of this process worth viewing is “Copying Beethoven” with Ed Harris playing the composer. Another historic high point was the Berlin Olympics in 1936.

Beethoven’s 9th Symphony by Berliner Philharmoniker with Herbert von Karajan. (1977 Deutsche Grammophon)

There have been numerous fine recordings as far back as the Naxos 1935 VPO recording with Weingartner, especially the one in 1951 of Bayreuth Festival  Orchestra with Wilhem Furtwängler Orfeo C754 081B (8/08) which I have always enjoyed dancing Tai Ji to the  Adagio molto e cantabile 3rd movement.  Also the recordings of Leonard Bernstein during and after the Fall of Berlin Wall

“Bernstein in Berlin: Ode to Freedom” in 1989 and 1990.

Notable historic details—

Leonard Bernstein conducted a version of the Ninth Symphony at the Konzerthaus Berlin with Freiheit (Freedom) replacing Freude (Joy), to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall during Christmas of 1989.^[63] This concert was performed by an orchestra and chorus made up of many nationalities: from East and West Germany, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, the Chorus of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, and members of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, the Philharmonischer Kinderchor Dresden (Philharmonic Children’s Choir Dresden); from the Soviet Union, members of the orchestra of the Kirov Theatre; from the United Kingdom, members of the London Symphony Orchestra; from the US, members of the New York Philharmonic; and from France, members of the Orchestre de Paris. Soloists were June Anderson, soprano, Sarah Walker, mezzo-soprano, Klaus König, tenor, and Jan-Hendrik Rootering, bass.^[64]

Bernstein conducted the Ninth Symphony one last time with soloists Lucia Popp, soprano, Ute Trekel-Burckhardt, contralto, Wiesław Ochman, tenor, and Sergej Kopčák [Wikidata], bass, at the Prague Spring Festival^[65] with the Czech Philharmonic and Prague Philharmonic Choir [cs; de] in June 1990; he died four months later in October of the same year.