To me, the famous Douglas Adams quote captures it quite well: Beethoven tells you what it's like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it's like to be human. Bach tells you what it's like to be the universe.
I feel like you did a great injustice to your review on the 9th symphony. The 4th movement defines a whole philosophy, Beethoven searching for meaning in this world, the Freude theme isn’t the most beautiful melody but it’s use of bringing the whole orchestra and choir together is so powerful and always leaves me in an unparalleled state. It is one of, if not the, greatest piece of music and collections of sounds I’ve ever heard.
Absolutely correct! I would also suggest that the baritone soloist voice suddenly arising out of the orchestra in the 4th movement is like an unexpected awakening to another era that only Beethoven could have created at that time. This moving moment, within seconds, redefines musical and cultural boundaries and begins its journey across nations, peoples and time itself! It’s radically genius!
If someone doesn't like the last movement of the 9th, the 1, 2 and 3 ones are unique, not from these world. No one composer after him have composed something even close to that.
Hear hear! The whole 9th symphony is (alongside the Missa Solemnis and Bach's Mathew Passion) one of the greatest of all music for choir and orchestra. The 4th part of it leaves me also in an 'unparalleled state' as you call it so adequately. For me because it is the progress of of all the 3 parts before it, witch makes the whole peace so much more than the sum of its parts. The last part begins by repeating all the previous main themes in a unsure, seeking kind of way, incorporating them in a total frenzy of musical ideas, themes, rhythms and dynamics. So I could never agree on leaving the 4th part out.
My jaw dropped when he said the Ode to joy is surely one of the most joyless melodies anyone could ever come up with😂. A moment of shock😅 I love the ninth so much. Especially the part where it goes "was die Mode stre-e-e-e-eng geteilt!" tears everytime... I love the message of the piece so much.
Yeah. It isn't that he isn't entitled to his own opinion, as baffling as it is. It is that he somehow thinks his opinion is objectively right about perhaps (along with Fur Elise) two of the most beloved pieces of music ever composed by anyone ever. And he uses Leonard Bernstein to substantiate the belief? The guy who stole the middle movements melody to the 'pompous' (as this guy put it) 5th piano concerto for West Side Story?
We've always heard of big composer's merits but we never hear of Beethoven's musical flaws for example. I think a series of these videos would be very intriguing and interesting.
David Bruce kinda wrongfully suggests Beethoven was of poor character or did something egregious in the thumbnail by making Beethoven look like a zombie and then a creepy old 18th century child playing a Casio. The reality is that he was just abused by his father growing up and battled depression the rest of his life.
I would absolutely adore a Beethoven for haters video! His music is fantastic, but it being held in such high regard can smudge the jagged human details, and being guided through the musical “faults” (and personal faults as well) would be incredibly interesting.
@@jimit.4220 People who think that Mozart is overrated DON’T KNOW MOZART… and I know a good number of people who don’t particularly care for Bach. My point was that I find that a lot of people trash (undeservedly so) Beethoven. THAT was my point.
@@CFDavid847People who think that Beethoven is overrated DON'T KNOW BEETHOVEN... My point is that I find that a lot of people trash (undeservedly so) Mozart. THAT is my point.
Great video discounting the blasphemous remarks about the ode to joy melody 😂. I believe it is one of the most beautiful melodies ever written.. how it starts solitarily in the bases and blossoms with more and more instruments coming in, culminating in a march like it’s some kind of revolution; as if more people are swept into the message and taking over the world with it. Why do you dislike it so much Bruce?
I was going to comment the exact same thing. As someone who personally isn’t a fan of most of Beethoven’s music, I absolutely adore and have a special connection with the final movement of his 9th symphony. Nothing (and I mean nothing) in this video personally makes me feel emotional apart from the final movement of his 9th symphony. Im honestly extremely shocked that David said that because his takes almost always hit the nail on the head, but this video wasn’t the one tbh.
I'm not going to try to put words in David's mouth, but I would imagine that he just finds the melody, on it's own, boring. It's almost entirely scalar and diatonic which would make it pretty bland if not for the arranging and orchestration. I think the whole point of his playfully irreverent joke was to show that Beethoven could evoke so many characters and emotions with simple themes - as pieces of a greater whole. In other words, it isn't so much the individual elements of his writing that made Beethoven a great composer, but rather the gestalt of his work. ... that, and as a fellow music educator, I would imagine David has had to endure a million beginner students play this excerpt. Enough to drive any person to insanity. Like "Canon in D" for a cellist.
@@devostm Thats a good point! I was aware he said it jokingly, but still, I can’t imagine how such an iconic melody can even be considered as boring haha. The beauty is in its simplicity in my mind, like it is made especially to remember te words that the music serves. The rhythm of the quartet notes fits like a glove for the words.
The whole point of the 9th symphony is that the very simple melody becomes meaningful and significant, but not out of context, only AFTER you have already heard all the contextual rhythmic variations, and the preludes leading up to it. It's a resolution, like a final chord.
his anger toward his impending deafness was most exemplified in his impetuous middle period. the torment he suffered in his late works was mostly fueled by his poor health and misanthropy
@@furtvvanglerr8296I think it would be more descriptive to say that we have a man who has accepted his fate and who knows he has limited time on earth. There is always a sense of resignation of a man who overcomes his fate to come up with the best of what he has to say. He transcends death. He transcends music itself. He reaches ideas that have never been explored before or after him.
@@linkthai1995 Op 101 is my favorite! It's perfection to my ears. I'm pretty sure David didn't use the word lightly, but I'm completely sure I do not: it's transcendental. Gorgeous, deeply moving... Very underrated piece in my opinion.
There will never be another Beethoven. Unique genius that challenged multiple boundaries and to this day continues to cross national borders and cultures with debates on how to interpret, reinterpret and perform his works of art. Perhaps we could go as far as referring to the Beethoven era! He bridged the classical with the romantic with a voice that will speak for generations to come.
So glad you covered sonata 32 - I've been addicted to Igor Levit's 2019 recording since I first heard it. It's like the last triumphal pushes against death itself - Beethoven knows Death is there but no, "I'm not done yet!"
Thanks so much. Whatever is in vogue, or not in vogue, means nothing compared to the singular compositional genius of Beethoven. Pretty much unbelievable.
Wow, that sure is a hot take on his 9th symphony. I kinda understand it - when listening to his 5th symphony I sometimes skip the first movement just because I've heard it so many times. But there's a lot more to the 4th movement of Beethoven 9 than just the Ode to Joy.
One of my best musical memories was experiencing Beethoven's 9th symphony with full (actually augmented) orchestra and choir in February 2020 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Little did I know that it was to be my last live music experience for almost 3 years, due to the pandemic.
watched your saddest concerto vid...came here to add my $.02 for saddest movement ....IMO, Beethoven’s String Quartet 14 in C sharp minor op 312 Adagio quasi un poco andante ..... each listen takes me to the same place....my 2 minutes of un-joyment....the sense of longing....something has past...not regret....soft pain....exquisite
This video contains some very interesting information and provides good jumping-off points to promote further listening. I had never knowingly heard Piano Sonata 32 until today. It has some wonderfully moving parts in the Arietta (described perfectly by David as 'transcendent ... out there on the further edges of the universe) which contrast somewhat with other sections (variations?) which I can imagine Jools Holland bashing out or Scott Joplin taking inspiration from. I spent some time listening to Mitsuko Uchida's recording of Sonatas 30, 31 and 32 due to this video. Thank you David. Cheers 👍🏼
Great video, really love the word "Transcendence" One can only imagin what Beethoven felt when he lost his hearing, an ability he exceled and treasured most. With the fate against him, we could feel suffering, despire and sadness through his music. But even so, he didn't give up. And so we hear joy, hope and his final triumph against the fate.
When I was 14 my grandparents had a cabin in the Blue Ridge mountains near Washington DC. It had all the attributes you might think of when imagining a cabin in the mountains. It was constructed of logs and had a screened porch. There was a wood burning stove and the place held a gentile odor of fires past. There was a magnificent view overlooking the Virginia countryside. At night we would sit on the porch listening to the quail sing "bob white" as my grandfather smoked cigarettes. My grandfather was audiophile and had a very nice stereo and classical music collection there. On one Saturday afternoon visit he poured me a glass of red wine and put the Brahms D major Violin Concerto on the turntable and I was swept away, instantly addicted. This led to a study of the classical guitar and endless hours of listening and more study. What are the maximum number of bars in any of his symphonies which did not include the timpani?
Beethoven's 4th piano concerto, performed by Yefim Bronfman at the NY Philharmonic in 2019, was the best performance of anything I've ever witnessed. I'd already been to performances of Beethoven's 3,5,7,9 symphonies, 3rd and 5th piano concertos, many other pieces from Rach, Stravinsky, Berlioz, Mozart, Mahler, Tchaikovsky, but that performance of the 4th piano concerto absolutely blew me away. Glad to hear it highlighted here, although I don't know if I'd agree with some of your characterizations of other works - like other concertos as "pompous," and the ode to joy, live, certainly didn't SOUND sarcastic 😅 great video as always
The Arditti Quartet is devoted to contemporary music, and their first recording included the Grosse Fuge, which Arditti said was a piece of 20th century music that just happened to have been written in 1824. I don't know if "transcendant" is the word to describe what happens in the first movement of piano sonata 23 ("Appassionata"), starting at bar 217. I don't know if there's any word to describe it. It's the most Beethovenian moment I can think of in his whole oeuvre: wild, passionate, fiery, stark, direct. It's literally a show-stopper. The sonata stops doing what it was doing, and just enters another realm. That low C at bar 231 is an incredibly dramatic _note_. How is that even possible? Also, I feel that it's at least a little relevant to what Beethoven is all about that the Allegretto from the 7th symphony is the most beautiful piece of music anyone has ever written.
Thank you!!! I think one of my favourite besides his 6th Symphony has to be his String Quartet No. 14, Op. 131 - Adagio quasi un poco andante. It is so sad and peaceful.
Whenever I listen to the first third of the Grosse Fuge I always feel like I’m watching someone hopelessly lost in endless black smoke, smoke so thick that nothing else is visible. They’re holding a tiny flashlight whose beam reaches no more than a foot in any direction before the smoke smothers it. And, no matter how dark it is, no matter what may be waiting unseen in the smoke, the person runs and runs and runs, as fast as they possibly can towards what they can only hope is a way out - holding the hobbled flashlight straight forward. To imply this piece is an unemotional intellectual exercise is wild to me.
I've got recordings of all his symphonies, piano concertos, piano sonatas, and the violin concerto, but not familiar with some of the chamber music you listed, so thanks for that.
Kinda like him (& Mozart) Kinda like Bach just a tad more. I'm old fashioned. I wish I could remember which Piano concerto it was but there is a place where it starts to swing and almost sounds "jazzy". First time I heard it it really shocked me. . . . I hadn't heard Sonata 32. There does seem to be a bit of Boogie Woogie. I must listen to it. The 16th string quartet sounds like Beethoven is rocking out!
Bring on the Beethoven for Haters video! I spent two years learning his last piano sonata, and agree with your description. It almost seems like he was ready to check out of this world and drift away into the eternity of his next world. Those two years were full of astonishment of how successfully he wrote that piece.
Beethoven’s music should be the main philosophy of our time. It gathers what humans need to reach their most important achievements, peace and hope included
Thank you for this. I think you really nailed it. I've loved his music ever since I was a little boy, and thought it was pronounced "Bee Though Ven." Whenever I was alone in the house I used to play my mom's vinyl "Choral Fantasy" so loudly it made the windows shake.
Have you seen Thomas Goss of Orchestration Online's response to that Bernstein interview? Bernstein's was making a valid rhetorical point, but he honestly overstated the point quite grossly in the part you quoted here.
I just love little boy Beethoven at the top of the video, or is that our little Dave at the piano? Even his fingers appear to be playing the right notes. Hats off to your clever video wizard.
The reason I always come back to Beethoven, even though I am not a fan of Classicism, is that Beethoven sounds like... Beethoven. He has a unique voice, and many of his middle and late period pieces are groundbreaking, and there's something 'janky' and raw about it, which it makes a lot of his successors during the 19th century sound bland and formulaic in comparison (at least to my taste). His Grosse Fuge is probably my favourite piece of all time - at least my favourite chamber piece.
@@EnginAtik Yeah, its rhythms are often unintuitive (the first fuge in particular, all syncopations, I can't even hear it properly myself while reading the score) and there quite a few sudden tempo changes. Plus, it's fiendishly technical for all four instruments individually.
As someone who personally isn’t a fan of most of Beethoven’s music, I absolutely adore and have a special connection with the final movement of his 9th symphony. Nothing (and I mean nothing) in this video personally makes me feel emotional apart from the final movement of his 9th symphony. Im honestly extremely shocked with your take on this David because you usually hit the nail on the head with these videos. As a supporter of yours for many many years (almost since you first started uploading) this is the first time I *have* to dislike one of your videos.
I'd love to see a Beethoven for haters video! Not because I particularly hate his music (I don't particularly love it either), but because I'd love to know what you'd consider "bad" composing.
I've recently discovered the Diabelli Variations. Wow. Fourty years or so ago I discovered the Goldberg Variations (GG). Both have everything. I suspect that there's something powerful in the whole concept of variations. Consider Elgar, Vaughn Williams and Hindemith: their variations also seem to be their most transcendent works.
The only thing wrong with Für Elise is our overexposure to it. We've merely been subjected to it for too long, and usually by students who can't play the whole thing. That doesn't make it a bad song.
As a complete non-musician, most of the technical comments mean nothing to me and go so far above my head that I don't know, until you tell me, whether they are good or bad features. I sometimes wonder whether musicians enjoy music as much as I do, because they hear all the techniques, but I can only hear the sound. As someone once said, when I complained about the noise of scratches and distortion on his old gramophone, I don't listen to the noise, I listen to the music - unless it's Beethoven, then I listen to God.
Funny - the first time I ever got in contact with the orchestration world some 10 years ago was from a video called "Defending Beethoven", where Thomas Goss argued against the Bernstein clip you showed. It's funny seeing it again after all these years.
Great and insightful video, your introduction of transcendence is spot on and helps me understand my lifelong (I am 69 now) appreciation of Beethoven's music. Surprisingly enough it also helps me understand my lack of involvement with or even dislike of certain pieces. Most strikingly I always skip the fourth movement of the ninth symphony. I won't even hear the ninth at a concert because the finale just ruins the experience, not in the least by the verbal rejection of the sublime previous movements in the recitativo (Of Freunde, nicht diese Töne(!)). Plodding and pompous indeed.
If you were a composer who became increasingly deaf you'd probably get grumpy too. Beethoven was well read, had a wide circle of friends and was known for his wit and charm until the final years. The slow movement of the 7th Symphony has always moved me, along with the slow movements of the 4th and 5th piano concerti.
Totally down with this take on "transcendental" music. For me, more than Beethoven (although I'm not arguing with his quartets or piano sonatas), it's Schubert's late chamber and solo piano music that hits that spot. That feeling that you are connected with the composer's consciousness, that you can see it from the inside. And somehow, this experience is universal to every human, regardless of their culture or the era they lived in. I mean, it does help if you take magic mushrooms while listening to this stuff, but it's by no means essential.
Beethoven is my favourite composer by far, even though I think J.S. Bach is more miraculous. I love everything he has written, but despite a lifetime of listen to Beethoven, I still can't tune into to the late quartets and get any pleasure from listening to them. I guess they are beyond the limits of my ability to process music.
His 4th Piano Concerto in G was quite unorthodox for its time. Having any concerto start with a solo instrument was highly unusual but perhaps even more attention-grabbing was the key of the orchestra when it started - B major! But Beethoven always had a way of getting everyone back on track (proper key). Even the final movement was a juxtaposition with a strong C major tonality through most of it that, again, Beethoven resolves just in time to its proper key.
An old friend of mine once made the observation that if old Ludwig had written ONLY the slow movement of the Ninth (4:40), he would still be revered today as a great composer. I agree. Oh and btw, if you really pay attention to Lenny's comments (0:53), they're a crock. Beethoven wasn't a great melodist?? See any number of slow movements, esp. of the piano sonatas. Can't do harmony? Late string quartets. Counterpoint? First movement of Op. 131, and Grosse Fuge -- Bach would throw up his hands: "I can't beat that!". Beethoven did have one absolute superpower, though: Form. Nobody can keep ideas going like he could.
I had this funny idea for a composition for a symphony or whatever. The piece starts with an ending, like cycles through all these cliché endings for pieces, yet it keeps on ending, if you will. And you gotta make it a flawless loop at the end, and then write down on the notation at the repeat mark ''repeat until audience walks away''
I don't under the choice for the structure/tone of this video. It's advertised as a "quick guide" to Beethoven for anyone who's curious to click on it, but it's written as if there's a preconceived notion of your public's opinion, as if you're talking to a skeptical audience who supposedly have contempt for the composer (why?), but trying to win them over with sound bites from his "deep cuts" that show "transcendence". Not only this approach gets awkward for a "guide" that's also being very introductory, I think the ideas you want to get across (your feelings and appreciation/depreciation) are too complex for such a short script that goes all over. For the effect you wanted to achieve, it'd be much more effective to write a love/hate letter that truly comes from your heart, without the introductory talk, and go a lot deeper into a few selected examples that you love/hate. Ps: you even show that infamous video by Bernstein where Bernstein was clearly being over the top and facetious about Beethoven's abilities to impress his interlocutor with a fascinating argument that would suit a fun bar talk. You'll find other videos by Bernstein where he'll say the exact opposite of that, saying that Beethoven was a good melodicist, or that he wrote good/great counterpoint, etc.
Re Beethoven for haters and this will probably be an unpopular opinion: The first work by Beethoven I was really fascinated by was the Eroica symphony. I played the first 3 movements over and over, yet I never listened much to the last movement. After many years I still don't think it's a satisfactory conclusion to a great work. Don't get me wrong, the finale itself is a brilliant piece by itself, it just, in my opinion, draws to much attention to itself with its "virtuosic" composing techniques and spoils the concentration maintained so far. I think that Beethoven got much wiser in this regard in his later years. The compositions are much better balanced and if there is some "pyrotechnics" used he knows when enough is enough. Cf. simple minuet as the last Diabelli variation or almost benign sounding last pages of die Grosse Fuge.
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To me, the famous Douglas Adams quote captures it quite well: Beethoven tells you what it's like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it's like to be human. Bach tells you what it's like to be the universe.
Bachs music feels like a fine machinery with alot of cogs running and all working together perfectly.
Academic? Grosse Fugue may be. But unemotional? Couldn't be further from the truth. It's one of the most passionate and raw pieces I've ever heard.
I feel like you did a great injustice to your review on the 9th symphony. The 4th movement defines a whole philosophy, Beethoven searching for meaning in this world, the Freude theme isn’t the most beautiful melody but it’s use of bringing the whole orchestra and choir together is so powerful and always leaves me in an unparalleled state. It is one of, if not the, greatest piece of music and collections of sounds I’ve ever heard.
Absolutely correct! I would also suggest that the baritone soloist voice suddenly arising out of the orchestra in the 4th movement is like an unexpected awakening to another era that only Beethoven could have created at that time. This moving moment, within seconds, redefines musical and cultural boundaries and begins its journey across nations, peoples and time itself! It’s radically genius!
The 1st movement is king to me.
@@Tylervrooman Yes, it’s outstanding for sure!
If someone doesn't like the last movement of the 9th, the 1, 2 and 3 ones are unique, not from these world. No one composer after him have composed something even close to that.
Hear hear! The whole 9th symphony is (alongside the Missa Solemnis and Bach's Mathew Passion) one of the greatest of all music for choir and orchestra. The 4th part of it leaves me also in an 'unparalleled state' as you call it so adequately. For me because it is the progress of of all the 3 parts before it, witch makes the whole peace so much more than the sum of its parts. The last part begins by repeating all the previous main themes in a unsure, seeking kind of way, incorporating them in a total frenzy of musical ideas, themes, rhythms and dynamics. So I could never agree on leaving the 4th part out.
I've always loved Beethoven's 2nd movement from the 7th symphony.
Absolutely. It hurts my heart.
Yes
absolute favorite
Third movement for me, what a jig!
My jaw dropped when he said the Ode to joy is surely one of the most joyless melodies anyone could ever come up with😂. A moment of shock😅 I love the ninth so much. Especially the part where it goes "was die Mode stre-e-e-e-eng geteilt!" tears everytime... I love the message of the piece so much.
Sounds like you have a soul.
It's not sacrilege to compare it to Stairway to Heaven for the sheer teeth gritting it causes me .... overplayed
Yeah. It isn't that he isn't entitled to his own opinion, as baffling as it is. It is that he somehow thinks his opinion is objectively right about perhaps (along with Fur Elise) two of the most beloved pieces of music ever composed by anyone ever. And he uses Leonard Bernstein to substantiate the belief? The guy who stole the middle movements melody to the 'pompous' (as this guy put it) 5th piano concerto for West Side Story?
We've always heard of big composer's merits but we never hear of Beethoven's musical flaws for example. I think a series of these videos would be very intriguing and interesting.
There is a reason we don't hear much about his flaws: He simply didn't have many, or any. I mean, he wrote the Missa Solemnis, do I need to say more?
What flaws?
David Bruce kinda wrongfully suggests Beethoven was of poor character or did something egregious in the thumbnail by making Beethoven look like a zombie and then a creepy old 18th century child playing a Casio. The reality is that he was just abused by his father growing up and battled depression the rest of his life.
That would be extremely presumptuous, if not foolish, of anyone to digress on Beethoven's musical flaws.
Beethoven has always been one of my favorites. His music is so rich in his personality, a perfect self-portrait of a complex person.
I would absolutely adore a Beethoven for haters video! His music is fantastic, but it being held in such high regard can smudge the jagged human details, and being guided through the musical “faults” (and personal faults as well) would be incredibly interesting.
It's funny... no one ever says this about Bach or Mozart. Interesting.....
@@CFDavid847 uhm mozart is seen by a ton of people as massively overrated. Bach however is indisputably an incredible composer.
@@jimit.4220 People who think that Mozart is overrated DON’T KNOW MOZART… and I know a good number of people who don’t particularly care for Bach. My point was that I find that a lot of people trash (undeservedly so) Beethoven. THAT was my point.
Ronaldo vs Messi for classical music bros!
@@CFDavid847People who think that Beethoven is overrated DON'T KNOW BEETHOVEN... My point is that I find that a lot of people trash (undeservedly so) Mozart. THAT is my point.
Great video discounting the blasphemous remarks about the ode to joy melody 😂. I believe it is one of the most beautiful melodies ever written.. how it starts solitarily in the bases and blossoms with more and more instruments coming in, culminating in a march like it’s some kind of revolution; as if more people are swept into the message and taking over the world with it. Why do you dislike it so much Bruce?
I was going to comment the exact same thing. As someone who personally isn’t a fan of most of Beethoven’s music, I absolutely adore and have a special connection with the final movement of his 9th symphony. Nothing (and I mean nothing) in this video personally makes me feel emotional apart from the final movement of his 9th symphony.
Im honestly extremely shocked that David said that because his takes almost always hit the nail on the head, but this video wasn’t the one tbh.
I'm not going to try to put words in David's mouth, but I would imagine that he just finds the melody, on it's own, boring. It's almost entirely scalar and diatonic which would make it pretty bland if not for the arranging and orchestration. I think the whole point of his playfully irreverent joke was to show that Beethoven could evoke so many characters and emotions with simple themes - as pieces of a greater whole. In other words, it isn't so much the individual elements of his writing that made Beethoven a great composer, but rather the gestalt of his work.
... that, and as a fellow music educator, I would imagine David has had to endure a million beginner students play this excerpt. Enough to drive any person to insanity. Like "Canon in D" for a cellist.
@@devostm Thats a good point! I was aware he said it jokingly, but still, I can’t imagine how such an iconic melody can even be considered as boring haha. The beauty is in its simplicity in my mind, like it is made especially to remember te words that the music serves. The rhythm of the quartet notes fits like a glove for the words.
The whole point of the 9th symphony is that the very simple melody becomes meaningful and significant, but not out of context, only AFTER you have already heard all the contextual rhythmic variations, and the preludes leading up to it. It's a resolution, like a final chord.
The late period Bethoven is my favourite. So much knowledge and experience multiplied by the torment of being deaf as a composer.
his anger toward his impending deafness was most exemplified in his impetuous middle period. the torment he suffered in his late works was mostly fueled by his poor health and misanthropy
@@furtvvanglerr8296I think it would be more descriptive to say that we have a man who has accepted his fate and who knows he has limited time on earth. There is always a sense of resignation of a man who overcomes his fate to come up with the best of what he has to say. He transcends death. He transcends music itself. He reaches ideas that have never been explored before or after him.
Beethoven and Bach are THE two for me. Genius titans of music. World changing.
True, but they are not the be-all and end-all. Gotta evolve just like they were a result of evolution.
(9:03) -- "What Douglas Hofstadter calls a 'soul-shard', a fragment of the composer's deepest humanity." What a word!
I recently bought the scores to all the string quartets. and the last ones are amazing. devastating. I adore them.
Beethoveen's late piano sonatas are also transcendent, I can't even describe them as they are so out of this world.
@@linkthai1995 Op 101 is my favorite! It's perfection to my ears. I'm pretty sure David didn't use the word lightly, but I'm completely sure I do not: it's transcendental. Gorgeous, deeply moving... Very underrated piece in my opinion.
There will never be another Beethoven. Unique genius that challenged multiple boundaries and to this day continues to cross national borders and cultures with debates on how to interpret, reinterpret and perform his works of art. Perhaps we could go as far as referring to the Beethoven era! He bridged the classical with the romantic with a voice that will speak for generations to come.
So glad you covered sonata 32 - I've been addicted to Igor Levit's 2019 recording since I first heard it. It's like the last triumphal pushes against death itself - Beethoven knows Death is there but no, "I'm not done yet!"
It's his last will, sort of.
Thanks so much. Whatever is in vogue, or not in vogue, means nothing compared to the singular compositional genius of Beethoven. Pretty much unbelievable.
Wow, that sure is a hot take on his 9th symphony. I kinda understand it - when listening to his 5th symphony I sometimes skip the first movement just because I've heard it so many times. But there's a lot more to the 4th movement of Beethoven 9 than just the Ode to Joy.
One of my best musical memories was experiencing Beethoven's 9th symphony with full (actually augmented) orchestra and choir in February 2020 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Little did I know that it was to be my last live music experience for almost 3 years, due to the pandemic.
watched your saddest concerto vid...came here to add my $.02 for saddest movement ....IMO, Beethoven’s String Quartet 14 in C sharp minor op 312 Adagio quasi un poco andante ..... each listen takes me to the same place....my 2 minutes of un-joyment....the sense of longing....something has past...not regret....soft pain....exquisite
This video contains some very interesting information and provides good jumping-off points to promote further listening. I had never knowingly heard Piano Sonata 32 until today. It has some wonderfully moving parts in the Arietta (described perfectly by David as 'transcendent ... out there on the further edges of the universe) which contrast somewhat with other sections (variations?) which I can imagine Jools Holland bashing out or Scott Joplin taking inspiration from. I spent some time listening to Mitsuko Uchida's recording of Sonatas 30, 31 and 32 due to this video. Thank you David. Cheers 👍🏼
Great video, really love the word "Transcendence"
One can only imagin what Beethoven felt when he lost his hearing, an ability he exceled and treasured most. With the fate against him, we could feel suffering, despire and sadness through his music. But even so, he didn't give up. And so we hear joy, hope and his final triumph against the fate.
If I didn’t already love Beethoven to death this video definitely would have jump started me down that path. Excellent work.
Brilliant crash course on Beet-hoven!🎉🎉
When I was 14 my grandparents had a cabin in the Blue Ridge mountains near Washington DC. It had all the attributes you might think of when imagining a cabin in the mountains. It was constructed of logs and had a screened porch. There was a wood burning stove and the place held a gentile odor of fires past. There was a magnificent view overlooking the Virginia countryside. At night we would sit on the porch listening to the quail sing "bob white" as my grandfather smoked cigarettes.
My grandfather was audiophile and had a very nice stereo and classical music collection there. On one Saturday afternoon visit he poured me a glass of red wine and put the Brahms D major Violin Concerto on the turntable and I was swept away, instantly addicted. This led to a study of the classical guitar and endless hours of listening and more study.
What are the maximum number of bars in any of his symphonies which did not include the timpani?
The human connection, the rawness, the transcendentalism, the heart-that's what makes Ludwig van my favourite.
Symphony n°7 in A Major Op. 92 - II, Allegretto nearly always brings me to tears. It's so beautiful.
It's my favourite symphony, so profound
The c# minor quartet has been my favorite for many years! A friend once gave me a weird 1960s or 70s LP of an orchestral arrangement of it.
Beethoven's 4th piano concerto, performed by Yefim Bronfman at the NY Philharmonic in 2019, was the best performance of anything I've ever witnessed. I'd already been to performances of Beethoven's 3,5,7,9 symphonies, 3rd and 5th piano concertos, many other pieces from Rach, Stravinsky, Berlioz, Mozart, Mahler, Tchaikovsky, but that performance of the 4th piano concerto absolutely blew me away. Glad to hear it highlighted here, although I don't know if I'd agree with some of your characterizations of other works - like other concertos as "pompous," and the ode to joy, live, certainly didn't SOUND sarcastic 😅 great video as always
The Arditti Quartet is devoted to contemporary music, and their first recording included the Grosse Fuge, which Arditti said was a piece of 20th century music that just happened to have been written in 1824.
I don't know if "transcendant" is the word to describe what happens in the first movement of piano sonata 23 ("Appassionata"), starting at bar 217. I don't know if there's any word to describe it. It's the most Beethovenian moment I can think of in his whole oeuvre: wild, passionate, fiery, stark, direct. It's literally a show-stopper. The sonata stops doing what it was doing, and just enters another realm. That low C at bar 231 is an incredibly dramatic _note_. How is that even possible?
Also, I feel that it's at least a little relevant to what Beethoven is all about that the Allegretto from the 7th symphony is the most beautiful piece of music anyone has ever written.
Thank you!!! I think one of my favourite besides his 6th Symphony has to be his String Quartet No. 14, Op. 131 - Adagio quasi un poco andante. It is so sad and peaceful.
please make a "Beethoven For Haters" video!
This dude is a chad - smoothly overlooking Piano Sonata #14 🎹👀
Whenever I listen to the first third of the Grosse Fuge I always feel like I’m watching someone hopelessly lost in endless black smoke, smoke so thick that nothing else is visible. They’re holding a tiny flashlight whose beam reaches no more than a foot in any direction before the smoke smothers it.
And, no matter how dark it is, no matter what may be waiting unseen in the smoke, the person runs and runs and runs, as fast as they possibly can towards what they can only hope is a way out - holding the hobbled flashlight straight forward.
To imply this piece is an unemotional intellectual exercise is wild to me.
I'm a pretty new subscriber. Incredible content David! Would love to see this "very quick guide to...." as a very long series. Thank you!
Years ago Bethoven opened for me a dor to music Wich doesn't need words to speak. Thank You Maestro!❤
more of this for more composers!!! great!
I unironically enjoy ode to joy. Have you ever heard Litszt’s transcriptions for solo piano? You should.
I kind of feel like the ode to joy melody is completely overshadowed by the gorgeous countermelody.
The whole of the ninth is great and ode to joy is a great finale.
I genuinely think this video deserves millions of views. Appreciate it.
To me, deaf Beethoven is the most raw and real Beethoven. There's punk rock energy.
One of your greatest videos sir, along with the one on the Elgar cello concerto performed by du Pré (have always loved this particular performance)
Thanks for this. My favourite has always been the 6th Symphony.
i loved this! Thanks David. I hope this turns into a series where you talk about other composers :)
I always look forward to David's next video! :)
God the Hagen Quartet is so good… that particular concert at the Mozarteum is especially, well, transcendent.
I've got recordings of all his symphonies, piano concertos, piano sonatas, and the violin concerto, but not familiar with some of the chamber music you listed, so thanks for that.
glad im not the only one who is underwhelmed by that ode to joy tune
Kinda like him (& Mozart) Kinda like Bach just a tad more. I'm old fashioned. I wish I could remember which Piano concerto it was but there is a place where it starts to swing and almost sounds "jazzy". First time I heard it it really shocked me. . . . I hadn't heard Sonata 32. There does seem to be a bit of Boogie Woogie. I must listen to it. The 16th string quartet sounds like Beethoven is rocking out!
6:30 pathetique is the EIGHTH sonata, the OPUS NUMBER is 13
Bring on the Beethoven for Haters video! I spent two years learning his last piano sonata, and agree with your description. It almost seems like he was ready to check out of this world and drift away into the eternity of his next world. Those two years were full of astonishment of how successfully he wrote that piece.
4:55 laughed at david sneaking in the two early symphonies without mention
Beethoven’s music should be the main philosophy of our time. It gathers what humans need to reach their most important achievements, peace and hope included
Thank you for this. I think you really nailed it. I've loved his music ever since I was a little boy, and thought it was pronounced "Bee Though Ven." Whenever I was alone in the house I used to play my mom's vinyl "Choral Fantasy" so loudly it made the windows shake.
I alwayd love your analysis
While Tigran skyrocketed to be in my top 5 favorite musicians/composers, I don't think anyone will ever topple Beethoven from my #1 spot.
Fantastic video
Wonderfully done - the animations really add to the storytelling. It would be fantastic to see more like these!
Have you seen Thomas Goss of Orchestration Online's response to that Bernstein interview? Bernstein's was making a valid rhetorical point, but he honestly overstated the point quite grossly in the part you quoted here.
Yes, I was thinking of Thomas' erudite ripping to shreds of Bernstein too.
I just love little boy Beethoven at the top of the video, or is that our little Dave at the piano? Even his fingers appear to be playing the right notes. Hats off to your clever video wizard.
I cannot believe you did ode to joy like that
thank you
very nice job!
The reason I always come back to Beethoven, even though I am not a fan of Classicism, is that Beethoven sounds like... Beethoven. He has a unique voice, and many of his middle and late period pieces are groundbreaking, and there's something 'janky' and raw about it, which it makes a lot of his successors during the 19th century sound bland and formulaic in comparison (at least to my taste). His Grosse Fuge is probably my favourite piece of all time - at least my favourite chamber piece.
The Grosse Fuge must be very difficult to perform; it is very hard to find YT videos where the musicians do not get out of sync at one point.
@@EnginAtik Yeah, its rhythms are often unintuitive (the first fuge in particular, all syncopations, I can't even hear it properly myself while reading the score) and there quite a few sudden tempo changes. Plus, it's fiendishly technical for all four instruments individually.
Yay a new DB video! I love your content dude!! Dover edition of the Complete String Quartets on the keyboard.
I don't know why but for most composers their symphony #9 is my favorite piece. Especially with Dvořák and Beethoven.
Yes the 32nd piano sonata. It's a miracle.
As someone who personally isn’t a fan of most of Beethoven’s music, I absolutely adore and have a special connection with the final movement of his 9th symphony. Nothing (and I mean nothing) in this video personally makes me feel emotional apart from the final movement of his 9th symphony.
Im honestly extremely shocked with your take on this David because you usually hit the nail on the head with these videos. As a supporter of yours for many many years (almost since you first started uploading) this is the first time I *have* to dislike one of your videos.
I'd love to see a Beethoven for haters video! Not because I particularly hate his music (I don't particularly love it either), but because I'd love to know what you'd consider "bad" composing.
I've recently discovered the Diabelli Variations. Wow. Fourty years or so ago I discovered the Goldberg Variations (GG). Both have everything. I suspect that there's something powerful in the whole concept of variations. Consider Elgar, Vaughn Williams and Hindemith: their variations also seem to be their most transcendent works.
Nice tshirt David
The only thing wrong with Für Elise is our overexposure to it. We've merely been subjected to it for too long, and usually by students who can't play the whole thing.
That doesn't make it a bad song.
As a complete non-musician, most of the technical comments mean nothing to me and go so far above my head that I don't know, until you tell me, whether they are good or bad features. I sometimes wonder whether musicians enjoy music as much as I do, because they hear all the techniques, but I can only hear the sound. As someone once said, when I complained about the noise of scratches and distortion on his old gramophone, I don't listen to the noise, I listen to the music - unless it's Beethoven, then I listen to God.
Thank you for this, David.
I really enjoy listening to Beethoven. (Other composers are available.)
And I really enjoyed your presentation.
Why do so many Beethoven "samplers" leave out his Christ on the Mount of Olives? The Hallelujah from that piece is spectacular!!!
Funny - the first time I ever got in contact with the orchestration world some 10 years ago was from a video called "Defending Beethoven", where Thomas Goss argued against the Bernstein clip you showed. It's funny seeing it again after all these years.
Beet-Hoven!? I would never think of such a thing!
Great and insightful video, your introduction of transcendence is spot on and helps me understand my lifelong (I am 69 now) appreciation of Beethoven's music. Surprisingly enough it also helps me understand my lack of involvement with or even dislike of certain pieces.
Most strikingly I always skip the fourth movement of the ninth symphony. I won't even hear the ninth at a concert because the finale just ruins the experience, not in the least by the verbal rejection of the sublime previous movements in the recitativo (Of Freunde, nicht diese Töne(!)). Plodding and pompous indeed.
If you were a composer who became increasingly deaf you'd probably get grumpy too. Beethoven was well read, had a wide circle of friends and was known for his wit and charm until the final years. The slow movement of the 7th Symphony has always moved me, along with the slow movements of the 4th and 5th piano concerti.
As a pianist the beethiven sonatas are like a religion to me 😂
Totally down with this take on "transcendental" music. For me, more than Beethoven (although I'm not arguing with his quartets or piano sonatas), it's Schubert's late chamber and solo piano music that hits that spot. That feeling that you are connected with the composer's consciousness, that you can see it from the inside. And somehow, this experience is universal to every human, regardless of their culture or the era they lived in. I mean, it does help if you take magic mushrooms while listening to this stuff, but it's by no means essential.
Extraordinary.
Great Vulfpeck shirt
This would be a great series with unlimited number of "victims"!
Some of those pictures made me imagine Ludwig as monster star of a modern horror movie.
❤ Being human. Being alive. Being part of this whole thing. Releasing the eternal energy into rhythm and sound. ❤️
Bach is my favorite composer, but nothing beats late Beethoven
Beethoven is my favourite composer by far, even though I think J.S. Bach is more miraculous.
I love everything he has written, but despite a lifetime of listen to Beethoven, I still can't tune into to the late quartets and get any pleasure from listening to them.
I guess they are beyond the limits of my ability to process music.
His 4th Piano Concerto in G was quite unorthodox for its time. Having any concerto start with a solo instrument was highly unusual but perhaps even more attention-grabbing was the key of the orchestra when it started - B major! But Beethoven always had a way of getting everyone back on track (proper key). Even the final movement was a juxtaposition with a strong C major tonality through most of it that, again, Beethoven resolves just in time to its proper key.
I'd love to see Beethoven for haters
An old friend of mine once made the observation that if old Ludwig had written ONLY the slow movement of the Ninth (4:40), he would still be revered today as a great composer. I agree.
Oh and btw, if you really pay attention to Lenny's comments (0:53), they're a crock. Beethoven wasn't a great melodist?? See any number of slow movements, esp. of the piano sonatas. Can't do harmony? Late string quartets. Counterpoint? First movement of Op. 131, and Grosse Fuge -- Bach would throw up his hands: "I can't beat that!".
Beethoven did have one absolute superpower, though: Form. Nobody can keep ideas going like he could.
These Beethoven animations are kind of trippy 😂
I had this funny idea for a composition for a symphony or whatever. The piece starts with an ending, like cycles through all these cliché endings for pieces, yet it keeps on ending, if you will. And you gotta make it a flawless loop at the end, and then write down on the notation at the repeat mark ''repeat until audience walks away''
I also find his 6th Symphony transcendent.
Is that a Vulf tee-shirt? Good taste, sir.
I don't under the choice for the structure/tone of this video. It's advertised as a "quick guide" to Beethoven for anyone who's curious to click on it, but it's written as if there's a preconceived notion of your public's opinion, as if you're talking to a skeptical audience who supposedly have contempt for the composer (why?), but trying to win them over with sound bites from his "deep cuts" that show "transcendence". Not only this approach gets awkward for a "guide" that's also being very introductory, I think the ideas you want to get across (your feelings and appreciation/depreciation) are too complex for such a short script that goes all over. For the effect you wanted to achieve, it'd be much more effective to write a love/hate letter that truly comes from your heart, without the introductory talk, and go a lot deeper into a few selected examples that you love/hate.
Ps: you even show that infamous video by Bernstein where Bernstein was clearly being over the top and facetious about Beethoven's abilities to impress his interlocutor with a fascinating argument that would suit a fun bar talk. You'll find other videos by Bernstein where he'll say the exact opposite of that, saying that Beethoven was a good melodicist, or that he wrote good/great counterpoint, etc.
I would look from the side of Barenboim to the side of Gulda 😊
Lovely stuff Bruce. Any chance of a list of recommended works that you can add in the description?
❤
Re Beethoven for haters and this will probably be an unpopular opinion: The first work by Beethoven I was really fascinated by was the Eroica symphony. I played the first 3 movements over and over, yet I never listened much to the last movement. After many years I still don't think it's a satisfactory conclusion to a great work. Don't get me wrong, the finale itself is a brilliant piece by itself, it just, in my opinion, draws to much attention to itself with its "virtuosic" composing techniques and spoils the concentration maintained so far.
I think that Beethoven got much wiser in this regard in his later years. The compositions are much better balanced and if there is some "pyrotechnics" used he knows when enough is enough. Cf. simple minuet as the last Diabelli variation or almost benign sounding last pages of die Grosse Fuge.