Ingen musikk i verden bringer meg mer glede enn nettopp ode to joy. Derfor er jeg veldig skeptisk til når den skal framføres av annet enn et symfoniorkester og et digert kor som byyyyr. Jeg liker for eksempel veldig godt versjonen fra Copying Beethoven så mye at jeg får frysninger de gangene jeg ser klippet på youtube. (All ære til lena for at jeg oppdaget den, da hun var den som fikk meg til å se filmen til å begynne med). Slik mener jeg at det skal gjøres:

Nå er ikke jeg noen klassisknerd, og det finnes sikkert ennå bedre versjoner der ute, men jeg liker denne så STFU. Tilbake til de andre versjonene. La oss først begynne litt heavy:

Til tross for min fortid som heavy metal-fan, så er det noe med Beethoven og headbanging som ikke funker helt for meg. Eller kanskje det bare er meg som synes headbanging er det teiteste i verden, som ikke klarer å se på dette uten å bli pinlig berørt. Kanskje det er en mellomting? Jeg har uansett hørt bedre.

Rundt om i verden finnes det geeks som liker å eksprimentere med rare saker som lager lyd. Disse to har gjort det. Den ene litt heldigere med utfallet enn den andre:

Jeg trenger vel ikke si hvilken som er min favoritt? Kudos til damen som spiller på tamponger, men herregud!

Også helt til sist da, ingen post om Ode To Joy uten å nevne den ene versjonen som er på nippet til å utkonkurrere alt annet, min kjære Beaker og hans MIMIMIMIMIMIIII!

JEG ELSKER DENNE! Den blir ALDRI gammel! Herreguuuud!

]]> http://albadesnuda.wordpress.com/2009/05/30/dayton-philharmonic-celebrates-beethoven/ Sat, 30 May 2009 13:05:59 +0000 albadesnuda http://albadesnuda.wordpress.com/2009/05/30/dayton-philharmonic-celebrates-beethoven/

On Friday, May 1 at 8 pm in the Schuster Center, DPO Music Director Neal Gittleman and the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra will present Portrait: Ludwig van Beethoven. The final Dayton Daily News Classical Connections concert of the …[More..]


Discussion of Movements II and III of Beethoven

MUDGE’s Musings

There’s most read, and then there’s favorite. This is a post which yr (justifiably) humble svt is, regrettably, but not regretfully, not at all humble about.

Blast from the Past!

A post we really, really loved to write, and read, and re-read…

From last summer, originally posted September 2, 2007, and originally titled “It <is> a serious music trifecta”.

MUDGE’S Musings

Have written comparatively little regarding music, until the past few days. Odd how concepts seem to cluster sometimes.

So, first it was that terrific review of that sublime recording of the Bach Goldberg Variations by Simone Dinnerstein, which recording was even excerpted on our local classical station today during their new releases weekly segment.

Then, found very randomly on someone’s blog, that hysterical (I’ve watched it several times and it makes me laugh each time) goof on the performance of Rachmaninov’s Prelude (“only the hands are small!”).

Later the day I posted that one, we went out to our neighborhood Blockbuster to find holiday weekend fare. Sometimes she picks the movies; sometimes I do. This time she did.

What did lovely spouse (emphatically not the serious music lover in the family; mainly the tolerator of the serious music lover in the family) choose first to listen to that night? Copying Beethoven.

It never made much of an impression when it was released last year; just another of the thousands of releases that MUDGE would never venture out to see in a theatre. I guess I read a review or two:

went to Copying Beethoven expecting, even wanting to like it. Some of it I did like. Immediately, Agnieszka Holland’s usually sure hand is evident in the magnificent opening scene. A closed carriage careens along a muddy road in the 19th century Austrian countryside, past poor trudging women who peer after it as they get out of the way, past fields and woods—past daily life—and beneath wheeling birds whose startled flight matches the passenger’s own urgency. It’s 1827 and young Anna Holtz (Diane Kruger), musical copyist and aspiring composer, is rushing to the death-bed of her “Maestro,” the renowned Beethoven (Ed Harris). But more than anything this carriage scene is about the vivid, almost overwhelming awakening of her senses. It’s chilly, and we are roughly thrown about in Anna’s careening coach along with her, catching flashes of sky and branch, nearly smelling the steaming horses, and above all, hearing everything. Every hoof beat, every crow’s call, every squeak of the carriage, every sudden brief lull, pant and rustle—all of it picked out clearly and then mingled with soaring music. Anna Holtz apprehends the world fully just as the man who’s shown it to her lies on the razor’s edge of death. You see, she has just grasped what he has to offer, barely in time to repay his gift by telling him so

Copying Beethoven – Movie Review – Stylus Magazine

Or this one, from London:

When writing this good can meet with indifference from the hand that feeds, it’s all the more galling to see a dog of a script being thrown filet mignon. The glossy Euro-production Copying Beethoven barks, rolls over, and plays dead for two hours. It is a great example of that time-honoured genre, the biopic so silly it plays like a spoof.

Try this: “My God, Beethoven, you’re even deafer than I thought!” says someone about one of the late string quartets.

Or this: “Beethoven mooned me!” complains his put-upon female copyist, Anna Holtz (Diane Kruger). You won’t struggle to guess which sonata he was miming.

Film reviews: Sparkle, Copying Beethoven and more – Telegraph

I have to say, though, that it made a better impression on us, watching at home ($4.29 vs. $18.00 never hurts either). The centerpiece comes in the first hour: the performance, chopped, hashed, sliced and diced as it was arrayed in the film, of the 9th Symphony. It was compelling, not for one looking for an authentic, complete performance (although it was taken from a masterful one), but for the film’s depiction of its emotional affect on the listeners.

There are moments in music that one would love to have a time machine available to go back to. And the first appearance of a massed choir is definitely one. Am I subjective about this? Of course. A lifetime ago, I sang in an amateur chorus (its amateurishness enhanced by my presence, alas).

• The entry of the chorus for the first time (the fourth number) in Handel’s Messiah: “And the glory of the Lord.”
• The near-whispering entry of the chorus in the last movement of Mahler’s 2nd Symphony (I’m certain that Beethoven’s 9th was Mahler’s inspiration).
• And the triumphant entry of the chorus in the 9th itself. You see them there, and even if you know the music, when they enter… there are fewer more sublime moments in life, much less music.

Back to the film. Here’s what one of its writers, Steven Rivele had to say, on a site called Films about Beethoven: Copying Beethoven:

Our film begins in April of 1824 just before the premiere of the 9th Symphony. Beethoven has had a falling out with his copyist, Wolanek, and Schlemmer is desperate to find someone to replace him, to prepare the parts for the premiere. He sends to the Vienna Conservatory for their brightest young composition student, and they send, in return, our fictional heroine, Anna Holtz. (In fact, they sent two young men, but we asked ourselves: What if it had been a woman? This is what enabled us to create a film about the late Beethoven that could actually get financed.) Anna goes to work with Beethoven, helps him prepare for the premier, conducts with him from the wings, and then summons the strength to show him some of her own work. He mocks it, sending her into despair. Later he comes to apologize, and to ask her to help him with the composition of the last string quartets, his legacy to the future of music. In doing so, she learns the deepest meaning of music, and finds the strength to become a composer in her own right. There’s more to it than this, of course, but that’s the gist of it. There is a lot of humor, much soul-searching, a great deal of talk about the meaning of art and the role of musicians, and, of course lots of wonderful music.[...]

…We have had very lively discussions on our forum with regard to authenticity, and Mr.Rivele has explained just how difficult this is to achieve on a limited budget. For example, did the violinists use chin rests? Did the cellos have tailpins? Did the horns have valves? What music would have been played in the taverns? There can be no doubting Mr.Rivele’s sincerity and desire to present a film covering the last years of Beethoven’s life as accurately as possible, but in order to create a viable project certain artistic licence has had to be taken.

Films about Beethoven: Copying Beethoven – Ludwig van

So, perhaps not the greatest film ever made with a musical subject (Amadeus, definitely an inspiration to the filmmakers, who respond with a similarly gritty depiction of 19th Century Vienna might get my vote), but atmospheric, weirdly (a female copyist?) believable, and often profoundly moving.

Definitely worth the renting. And definitely odd that we should end up watching a film with serious music as its theme. Clustering.

Then, in a rare DVD matinée, this afternoon we watched her next choice, the scenery chewing performances of Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett in Notes on a Scandal, which features a characteristically moody music score provided by another long-time favorite of this scribe, Philip Glass.

I have fond memories of driving my little guy to summer camp every day when he was indeed little, five or six years old. All he wanted to hear on the car’s stereo was Glass’ score to Mishima, a film I never saw, because, really, I’m just not that interested in a fanatical Japanese guy who commits hara kiri to make a point, but the music is wonderful.

So, it’s been about serious music for the past several days.

And, BTW, I do consider seriously composed film music serious music. I’d go so far as to say, much of it has more of the qualities that audiences for so-called classical music are starved for: emotional content, a story, tunes.

The Pulitzer-winning college professors who rule the roost in concert halls today (if you can find orchestras that play music written in the last 50 years), present their clangorous, academic, modern for the sake of modernity, scores composed for academic reasons (publish or perish, indeed).

And, naturally, their off-campus audiences stay away.

The film guys: Ennio Morricone, Jerry Goldsmith, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, even James Horner and Hans Zimmer, to slight very many others, speak to the audience directly and compellingly. And their best scores are eminently listenable, even if you never see the movie.

Immersed as I’ve lately been in the pop soup of Pandora.com, it reminds me of what I’ve been missing that Cyndi Lauper, Mike Post, Paul McCartney and the like just aren’t providing.

So, that’s the serious if not totally classical music trifecta. It’s been fun. Maybe we’ll do it again.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

Unfortunately today we had to check out of the Diamond City Hotel and stop pretending that we’re here for a fortnight.

In between sightseeing yesterday we had scoped out a couple of hotels in the Kao San Road area which is quite pleasant by day but turns into a little bit of Benidorm at night – by which I mean of course, there are 100s of British people making a complete prick out of themselves on half a whiskey bucket, abusing the locals and generally justifying the idea for an aptitude-based passport application system.

That was for later though. Two quid each got us a lunch of sweet and sour chicken with basil and scented rice washed down with an ice cold San Miguel.  

The hotel we checked into wasn’t great – a little bit moldey, cold shower and only a mosquito screen to keep the noise of the Kao San Road nightlife out but it was just for the one night and I’m used to staying up through the night on Indian sleeper trains. Just more of the same really.

It’s hot hot hot at the moment so we mooched about for the rest of the day having the occasional beer and a coconut ice-cream pancake. Late in the afternoon we watched an awful piece of faux-historical bullshit called Copying Beethoven on a pub screen. It really is terrible. I’ve just spent 5 minutes thinking about how to explain how bad it is and why before realising it’s not even worth the effort. Basically Beethoven’s a bit moody, it’s set in Vienna and there’s all the research you need to wrap a run-of-the-mill, unoriginal and lazily characterised love story around.

Throughout the day we’ve been idly playing “Spot The Sex-Tourist”. Male single traveller (1 point), shaved head and/or baseball cap (1/2 point), George Best stubble (1/2 point), 40-something and with a beer belly (1 point), long greasy hair (1/2) point, nervous disposition (1 point). Reach three points and you have a confirmed grudge against women and a score.

Tomorrow we are off on a bus to Kanchanaburi to see the bridge over the River Kwai and we have decided to stay over a couple of days so we can take a side trip to do a spot of waterfall swimming. And why not.

Agnieska Holand – Beethoven, Monstruo Inmortal (Copying Beethoven, 2007)

Académica y simplista. Copying Beethoven (o Beethoven monstruo inmortal) no llega ni de lejos a la magnificencia que intenta mostrar de uno de los más grandes compositores de música clásica. Es más bien una obra medida, moderada, y cuando trata de mostrarse inquieta o desbordada no convence.

El temperamento de Agniezka Holland en la dirección de la película parece haber sido el mismo con el que Diane Kruger lleva el papel de la protagonista, Anna Holtz, pues si bien cuida los movimientos estéticos y alimenta de belleza los escenarios, lleva un tempo o ritmo cabizbajo, con pocos brillos.

Hay una atmósfera de timidez –que se nota sobre todo en los momentos menos opacos– que no combina con el esfuerzo de Ed Harris para darle naturalidad (léase desfachatez) a la figura de Ludwig van Beethoven, quien tiene por momentos poses poco acertadas y desechables. No aportan nada a la construcción del personaje y tampoco tienen el brillo del protagonista de Amadeus, película que aun siendo tan falsa como Copying Beethoven fue dirigida con mayor acierto.

Esta vez no se trata de un niño prodigio y de una muerte joven, sino más bien de la despedida de un anciano cuya fe crece o adelgaza según el resultado de sus propias circunstancias, un genio absorbido por su propio ego, que lucha por permanecer solitario y a la vez por convertir el silencio de su sordera (o los gritos de sus demonios) en música, a la que el llama la voz de Dios. Pero su interpretación parece un monólogo con altibajos, en un escenario prolijo, donde los adornos y las alhajas no pasan de ser sólo un dato viejo, sino recuérdese al sobrino del compositor, cuyo papel, nuevamente, poco aporta a la caracterización del maestro.

Un buen recurso, aunque también peligroso, podría haber sido dejar de lado al personaje de Beethoven para que sea su música la que suba al escenario y maneje el filme desde una perspectiva más expresiva –vuelvo al ejemplo de Amadeus–, sin embargo Holland prefirió ofrecer una historia simple, hecha en dos actos (la terminación de la novena sinfonía y el fracaso de una composición musical de Anna Holtz), llena de desperfectos y sin alma.

Tal vez eso es lo que más reclamo, pues incluso una historia simple pudo fraguar la grandeza musical y elitista de Beethoven con la cultura de masas que significa el cine. Pero le faltó pasión, aquello que el propio maestro empezaba a buscar, ese lenguaje que tiene poco de cerebral pero que puede hacer explotar las entrañas. Le faltó empatía, pues ni la cámara ni los personajes nos hicieron olvidar un solo minuto que una pantalla nos separaba de la farsa.

Dicho esto, me atrevo a rescatar la escena musical en que la novena sinfonía de Beethoven toma la posta y nos permite cerrar los ojos por un momento para olvidar la simpleza de la historia y concentrarnos en la complejidad de los tiempos musicales que Ludwing va a resumir e reinterpretar al final de la melodía con un coro ya muy conocido pero que no por ello deja de sentirse nuevo.

También hay que reconocer que la fotografía es impecable, y no podría ser diferente con todos los ensayos que se pueden recoger de otras películas musicales (a la maestría fotográfica de Amadeus, hay que agregar la sobriedad gráfica de La pianista y muchos otros ejemplos). Las tonalidades cálidas también relucen la ambientación de Viena del siglo XIX, pero aún así la película no se atreve a mostrar planos demasiados abiertos y nos mantiene en el enclaustramiento de Beethoven.

El acompañamiento musical en lugar de aportar al reconocimiento de la música compuesta por Beethoven y Holtz se perdía fácilmente. Tampoco el remate fue decisivo y contribuyó a la insuficiencia dramática para sellar el filme con la solidez que en las primeras escenas parecía prometer.

Claudia Ugarte

MUDGE’S Musings

Have written comparatively little regarding music, until the past few days. Odd how concepts seem to cluster sometimes.

So, first it was that terrific review of that sublime recording of the Bach Goldberg Variations by Simone Dinnerstein, which recording was even excerpted on our local classical station today during their new releases weekly segment.

Then, found very randomly on someone’s blog, that hysterical (I’ve watched it several times and it makes me laugh each time) goof on the performance of Rachmaninov’s Prelude (“only the hands are small!”).

Later the day I posted that one, we went out to our neighborhood Blockbuster to find holiday weekend fare. Sometimes she picks the movies; sometimes I do. This time she did.

What did lovely spouse (emphatically not the serious music lover in the family; mainly the tolerator of the serious music lover in the family) choose first to listen to that night? Copying Beethoven.

It never made much of an impression when it was released last year; just another of the thousands of releases that MUDGE would never venture out to see in a theatre. I guess I read a review or two:

went to Copying Beethoven expecting, even wanting to like it. Some of it I did like. Immediately, Agnieszka Holland’s usually sure hand is evident in the magnificent opening scene. A closed carriage careens along a muddy road in the 19th century Austrian countryside, past poor trudging women who peer after it as they get out of the way, past fields and woods—past daily life—and beneath wheeling birds whose startled flight matches the passenger’s own urgency. It’s 1827 and young Anna Holtz (Diane Kruger), musical copyist and aspiring composer, is rushing to the death-bed of her “Maestro,” the renowned Beethoven (Ed Harris). But more than anything this carriage scene is about the vivid, almost overwhelming awakening of her senses. It’s chilly, and we are roughly thrown about in Anna’s careening coach along with her, catching flashes of sky and branch, nearly smelling the steaming horses, and above all, hearing everything. Every hoof beat, every crow’s call, every squeak of the carriage, every sudden brief lull, pant and rustle—all of it picked out clearly and then mingled with soaring music. Anna Holtz apprehends the world fully just as the man who’s shown it to her lies on the razor’s edge of death. You see, she has just grasped what he has to offer, barely in time to repay his gift by telling him so

Copying Beethoven – Movie Review – Stylus Magazine

Or this one, from London:

When writing this good can meet with indifference from the hand that feeds, it’s all the more galling to see a dog of a script being thrown filet mignon. The glossy Euro-production Copying Beethoven barks, rolls over, and plays dead for two hours. It is a great example of that time-honoured genre, the biopic so silly it plays like a spoof.

Try this: “My God, Beethoven, you’re even deafer than I thought!” says someone about one of the late string quartets.

Or this: “Beethoven mooned me!” complains his put-upon female copyist, Anna Holtz (Diane Kruger). You won’t struggle to guess which sonata he was miming.

Film reviews: Sparkle, Copying Beethoven and more – Telegraph

I have to say, though, that it made a better impression on us, watching at home ($4.29 vs. $18.00 never hurts either). The centerpiece comes in the first hour: the performance, chopped, hashed, sliced and diced as it was arrayed in the film, of the 9th Symphony. It was compelling, not for one looking for an authentic, complete performance (although it was taken from a masterful one), but for the film’s depiction of its emotional affect on the listeners.

There are moments in music that one would love to have a time machine available to go back to. And the first appearance of a massed choir is definitely one. Am I subjective about this? Of course. A lifetime ago, I sang in an amateur chorus (its amateurishness enhanced by my presence, alas).

• The entry of the chorus for the first time (the fourth number) in Handel’s Messiah: “And the glory of the Lord.”
• The near-whispering entry of the chorus in the last movement of Mahler’s 2nd Symphony (I’m certain that Beethoven’s 9th was Mahler’s inspiration).
• And the triumphant entry of the chorus in the 9th itself. You see them there, and even if you know the music, when they enter… there are fewer more sublime moments in life, much less music.

Back to the film. Here’s what one of its writers, Steven Rivele had to say, on a site called Films about Beethoven: Copying Beethoven:

Our film begins in April of 1824 just before the premiere of the 9th Symphony. Beethoven has had a falling out with his copyist, Wolanek, and Schlemmer is desperate to find someone to replace him, to prepare the parts for the premiere. He sends to the Vienna Conservatory for their brightest young composition student, and they send, in return, our fictional heroine, Anna Holtz. (In fact, they sent two young men, but we asked ourselves: What if it had been a woman? This is what enabled us to create a film about the late Beethoven that could actually get financed.) Anna goes to work with Beethoven, helps him prepare for the premier, conducts with him from the wings, and then summons the strength to show him some of her own work. He mocks it, sending her into despair. Later he comes to apologize, and to ask her to help him with the composition of the last string quartets, his legacy to the future of music. In doing so, she learns the deepest meaning of music, and finds the strength to become a composer in her own right. There’s more to it than this, of course, but that’s the gist of it. There is a lot of humor, much soul-searching, a great deal of talk about the meaning of art and the role of musicians, and, of course lots of wonderful music.[...]

…We have had very lively discussions on our forum with regard to authenticity, and Mr.Rivele has explained just how difficult this is to achieve on a limited budget. For example, did the violinists use chin rests? Did the cellos have tailpins? Did the horns have valves? What music would have been played in the taverns?  There can be no doubting Mr.Rivele’s sincerity and desire to present a film covering the last years of Beethoven’s life as accurately as possible, but in order to create a viable project certain artistic licence has had to be taken.

Films about Beethoven: Copying Beethoven – Ludwig van

So, perhaps not the greatest film ever made with a musical subject (Amadeus, definitely an inspiration to the filmmakers, who respond with a similarly gritty depiction of 19th Century Vienna might get my vote), but atmospheric, weirdly (a female copyist?) believable, and often profoundly moving.

Definitely worth the renting. And definitely odd that we should end up watching a film with serious music as its theme. Clustering.

Then, in a rare DVD matinée, this afternoon we watched her next choice, the scenery chewing performances of Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett in Notes on a Scandal, which features a characteristically moody music score provided by another long-time favorite of this scribe, Philip Glass.

I have fond memories of driving my little guy to summer camp every day when he was indeed little, five or six years old. All he wanted to hear on the car’s stereo was Glass’ score to Mishima, a film I never saw, because, really, I’m just not that interested in a fanatical Japanese guy who commits hara kiri to make a point, but the music is wonderful.

So, it’s been about serious music for the past several days.

And, BTW, I do consider seriously composed film music serious music. I’d go so far as to say, much of it has more of the qualities that audiences for so-called classical music are starved for: emotional content, a story, tunes.

The Pulitzer-winning college professors who rule the roost in concert halls today (if you can find orchestras that play music written in the last 50 years), present their clangorous, academic, modern for the sake of modernity, scores composed for academic reasons (publish or perish, indeed).

And, naturally, their off-campus audiences stay away.

The film guys: Ennio Morricone, Jerry Goldsmith, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, even James Horner and Hans Zimmer, to slight very many others, speak to the audience directly and compellingly. And their best scores are eminently listenable, even if you never see the movie.

Immersed as I’ve lately been in the pop soup of Pandora.com, it reminds me of what I’ve been missing that Cyndi Lauper, Mike Post, Paul McCartney and the like just aren’t providing.

So, that’s the serious if not totally classical music trifecta. It’s been fun. Maybe we’ll do it again.

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE