SEE BELOW FOR DIRECTIONS, INFORMATION ON PARKING, BUILDING OPEN TIMES, TICKET INFORMATION AND WILL CALL
Music of the Spheres
with the Colorado Springs Chorale and
the Colorado Vocal Arts Ensemble
the Colorado Vocal Arts Ensemble
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Saturday, January 20, 2018, 7pm
Sunday, January 21, 2018, 2:30pm Ent Center for the Arts at UCCS 5225 N Nevada Ave, 80918 Handel Dixit Dominus for Chorus & Orchestra Colorado Vocal Arts Ensemble, Deborah Teske, conductor Vaughan Williams Serenade to Music Colorado Vocal Arts Ensemble, Thomas Wilson, conductor Beethoven Ode to Joy, Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 "Choral" Amy Maples, soprano Valerie Nicolosi, mezzo-soprano Jason Baldwin, tenor Peter Tuff, baritone Colorado Springs Chorale, Thomas Wilson, conductor |
In a grand celebratory evening of music in UCCS’ new Ent Center for the Arts, three musical powerhouses of our community--the Chamber Orchestra, Colorado Vocal Arts Ensemble and the Colorado Springs Chorale--give one of the first performances in our city’s new music venue. Conductor Deborah Teske leads the combined forces for Handel’s exuberant Dixit Dominus and Thomas Wilson conducts Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music and Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. What better way to celebrate new musical possibilities for our great city?
Pre-concert talk 45 minutes prior to each concert with Michael Grace, Colorado College.
Pre-concert talk 45 minutes prior to each concert with Michael Grace, Colorado College.
ENT CENTER FOR THE ARTS DIRECTIONS AND PARKING INFORMATION
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The Ent Center for the Arts (notated as ECFA on the map to the right) is located at 5225 N Nevada Ave.
Access to free parking is off of Eagle Rock Rd directly across from the center in UCCS lots #576 and #574. Accessible parking is located next to the building. The Ent Center for the Art is an accessible building. BUILDING OPEN TIMES
The ENT Center for the Arts will be open on Saturday January 20th at 5:30pm and Sunday January 21st at 1:00pm TICKETING AND WILL CALL Ticket purchased after Saturday January 13th can be picked up at the ENT Center Box Office WILL CALL on January 20th after 5:30pm and on Sunday January 21st after 1:00pm Ticket purchased prior to January 13th have been mailed. If you have not received your tickets, please call 719-633-3649. ACCESSIBILITY The ENT Center for the Arts is a fully accessibly building with accessible parking and seating More questions? Call the Chamber Orchestra office at 719-633-3649 |
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PROGRAM NOTES BY MARK ARNEST
Overview: George Frideric Handel
Born. February 23, 1685, Halle, Germany; died April 14, 1759, London, United Kingdom
Work Composed: 1707
Why It Matters: A work that demonstrates Handel’s early mastery
The case of Georg Frideric Handel is unusual. Messiah – or at least parts of it – is one of the best-known, if not the best-known pieces of classical music in the world. But outside a community of Baroque music specialists, the remainder of his vast and extraordinary output is virtually unknown. (The Christmas carol Joy to the World is traditionally attributed to Handel, but there is no actual evidence that he wrote it.)
Dixit Dominus illustrates how widely and deeply Handel’s mastery extended at the age of 21. He composed the work in Italy, where he was invited by by the Medici family (sources don’t agree which Medici). During his four-year stay, he composed his first operas and oratorios, the media in which he would become most famous. The work shows Handel as a fully mature composer, with the energy, the sensitivity to musical textures, and the almost torrential imagination that mark his later works. (And he’d already developed many of his compositional fingerprints: The first movement features the da-da-bum-bum rhythm that figures prominently in the Hallelujah chorus.) Only his instrumentation would become bolder and more vividly expressive, and of course for English-speaking audiences, such oratorios as Messiah have the advantage of being in English.
The text – a Latin version of Psalm 110 – has inspired composers for centuries, before and after Handel: Among the illustrious settings are those by Tomás Luis de Victoria, Claudio Monteverdi, Antonio Vivaldi (two), and Mozart. It refers to God’s ultimate triumph; the final “Gloria patri” is added from the Christian doxology.
The overall form shows Handel’s sensitivity to textures, as Handel creates many different groupings out of his relatively modest ensemble of chorus, strings, and continuo. The opening movement features all the musicians; the following “Virgam virtutis tuae” is an alto solo accompanied only by continuo (low strings with keyboard); the “Tecum principatus” is a soprano solo with orchestra; and so on.
Handel’s delight in varied textures also extends to the individual movements, with many different colors that both increase the musical interest and heighten the words.
The opening movement is illustrative. After the mood-setting orchestral introduction, we hear eight choral repetitions of the opening “Dixit Dominus Domino meo” (“The Lord said unto my Lord”). Handel is already contrasting chordal textures, in which all members of the choir sing the same words at the same time, with quasi-fugal textures in which the different sections of the choir overlap their words. With the second line, beginning with the word “Sede” (“sit”), Handel intensifies this invitation by dramatically extending the word over several bars and many notes. The next line, “donec ponam inimicos tuos scabellum pedum tuorum” (“until I make thine enemies thy foot-stool”) introduces yet another texture: the chorale prelude, in which the melodic material is in long notes while the rest of the chorus and orchestra scurry in the background with shorter notes. The word “dixit” (“he said”) recurs frequently – and vehemently – throughout the movement: It’s the first word we hear, and the last.
The score abounds with such vivid text painting – perhaps none more so than the “Conquassabit,” in which the pounding rhythms evoke the text’s description of smashing heads.
1. Dixit Dominus Domino meo:
Sede a dextris meis, donec ponam inimicos tuos scabellum pedum tuorum.
The Lord said unto my Lord:
Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy foot-stool.
2. Virgam virtutis tuae emittet Dominus ex Sion:
dominare in medio inimicorum tuorum.
The Lord shall send the rod of thy power out of Sion:
be thou ruler, even in the midst among thine enemies.
3. Tecum principatus in die virtutis tuae, in splendoribus sanctis.
Ex utero ante luciferum genui te.
In the day of thy power shall the people offer thee free-will offerings with an holy worship.
The dew of thy birth is of the womb of the morning.
4. Juravit Dominus et non paenitebit eum:
The Lord swore, and will not repent:
5. Tu es sacerdos in aeternum secundum ordinem Melchisedech.
Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedech.
6. Dominus a dextris tuis,
confregit in die irae suae reges.
The Lord upon thy right hand,
shall wound even kings in the day of his wrath.
7. Judicabit in nationibus,
Implebit ruinas,
He shall judge the nations,
fill the places with destruction,
8. conquassabit capita in terra multorum.
and shatter the skulls in many lands.
9. De torrente in via bibet,
propterea exaltabit caput.
He shall drink of the brook in the way,
therefore shall he lift up his head.
10. Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto,
Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, is now; and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Overview: Ralph Vaughan Williams
Born October 12, 1872, Down Ampney, United Kingdom; died August 26, 1958, London, United Kingdom
Work Composed: 1938
Why It Matters: One of the finest pièces d'occasion ever composed, and one of the finest musical settings of Shakespeare.
Henry Wood is not a household name today, but he was vitally important in the development of English classical music in the 20th Century. In a 56-year career he premiered many English works – including several of Vaughan Williams’s – and under his 49-year tenure, the annual series of London concerts known as the Proms became one of the world’s great music festivals.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of his conducting debut, Wood commissioned Vaughan Williams – following the 1934 death of Edward Elgar, the most illustrious English composer – to compose Serenade to Music.
To heighten its connection with Wood, Vaughan Williams composed the work for sixteen illustrious English singers who had performed with Wood, marking the phrases to be sung by each with initials in the score. Realizing that this arrangement would limit the piece’s performance opportunities, he subsequently arranged it in the version heard here, for several soloists and choir. (He also thought highly enough of the music to arrange the piece for solo violin and orchestra, creating a companion piece to his famous The Lark Ascending.)
The words are adapted from a discussion of music in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Act V, Scene 1, by Lorenzo and Jessica, later joined by Nerissa and Portia. Vaughan Williams treats the text freely, omitting some of Shakespeare’s lines and repeating others.
The music is gently impressionistic. It begins and ends in rapturous tenderness; in between is some drama as Shakespeare describes those who do not respond to music’s charms.
The piece was premiered on October 5, 1938, at Wood’s Golden Jubilee concert at the Royal Albert Hall, London. Wood conducted an orchestra made up of musicians from the London Symphony, London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, and Queen's Hall orchestras. One feature of this concert has entered musical legend: The composer Sergei Rachmaninoff had performed his own Piano Concerto No. 2 earlier in the concert, and was moved to tears by Vaughan Williams’s work. A recording made of the Serenade to Music by the original performers a few days later shows that Rachmaninoff’s response was no fluke.
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There's not the smallest orb that thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
Come, ho! and wake Diana with a hymn!
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear,
And draw her home with music.
I am never merry when I hear sweet music.
The reason is, your spirits are attentive –
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted. Music! hark!
It is your music of the house.
Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.
Silence bestows that virtue on it
How many things by season season'd are
To their right praise and true perfection!
Peace, ho! the moon sleeps with Endymion
And would not be awak'd. Soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Overview: Ludwig van Beethoven
Baptized December 17, 1770, Bonn, Germany; died March 26, 1827, Vienna, Austria
Work Composed: 1822-24
Why It Matters: The finale of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony is most revolutionary movement from the most revolutionary symphony ever composed.
If it seems odd to hear only one movement from a Beethoven symphony – and it is odd – this merely illustrates how much concert programs have evolved since Beethoven’s lifetime. It used to be common to excerpt compositions, even making up entire programs from excerpts. As late as 1848, twenty-one years after Beethoven’s death, it was sufficiently rare to hear a multi-movement work performed complete that a singer who joined Chopin for one of that dying composer’s final concerts was moved to write in his diary: “Chopin performed an entire sonata by Beethoven. Lasted twenty minutes. Dreadful.”
At that time, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony was not yet the cultural icon it is now. It was of such enormous length and such extravagant originality that many early listeners dismissed it, sometimes justifying their opinions by noting that Beethoven’s deafness had robbed him of his judgment – “the blind painter touching the canvas at random,” as a writer for the Boston newspaper Daily Atlas expressed it in 1853. In 1861, the composer Louis Spohr wrote of the finale that it was “so ugly, in such bad taste, and in the conception of Schiller’s Ode so cheap that I cannot even now understand how such a genius as Beethoven could write it down”; and even as late as 1899, the illustrious Boston critic Philip Hale could describe this movement as “stupid and hopelessly vulgar.”
During an age when genres were sharply defined, and the boundaries between them inviolable, it was the presence of voices in this symphony that most rankled musical purists. In his 1912 book-length analysis of the symphony, the influential German music theorist Heinrich Schenker maintained that there was simply no way to successfully join voices to the form of the symphony: “Beethoven’s project was thus an unrealizable one, and to give it up completely would have been only proper. Among the great masters, however, Beethoven alone was certainly the most stubborn, and the one who liked to dare everything – even the impossible, and, moreover, often even at the cost of defeat.”
With the hindsight of other successful choral symphonies – especially Mahler’s – there is no longer serious dispute as to Beethoven’s success. But the fact that it was the first choral symphony explains one of the piece’s idiosyncrasies, namely its very long introduction. The voice and chorus repeat a lot of material that has already been presented by the orchestra, because Beethoven wanted to carefully prepare the choral entrance.
Beethoven believed deeply in the message of Friedrich Schiller’s poem. Schiller, along with Goethe and Beethoven, was a German cultural superstar, and his 1785 poem had previously been set to music by numerous German and Austrian composers, including Schubert. Its powerful vision of unity – the power of joy stands above even good and evil – haunted Beethoven for years before he finally tackled it. He could have chosen to set it as a song, like Schubert did, or as a stand-alone choral piece with or without orchestra; but Beethoven took the path of greatest risk – the very public and very prestigious form of the symphony, which never before had featured a poem. As Schenker wrote, he dared everything in this work.
If you have the enormous good fortune to be hearing this movement for the very first time, a little context is helpful. After the harshly dissonant first chord (yet another cause for consternation among musicians – even Hector Berlioz, one of the composers who best understood Beethoven, called it a “hideous assembly of notes”), the basses and cellos present an instrumental recitative followed by short reminiscences of the first three movements: The mysterious opening Allegro, the darkly boisterous Scherzo, and the sublime Adagio.
Each of these is interrupted by the recitative. The orchestra – alone – then presents the famous melody, the simplicity of which Beethoven arrived at only after copious revisions.
This opening, without reminiscences, is then repeated, this time sung, establishing the unity of instruments and voices. The remainder of the movement is a very free set of variations on this theme. The voice writing is famously cruel; no less a vocal composer than Giuseppe Verdi called it “very badly set.” The range of expression is vast, the transitions abrupt, and the effect almost kaleidoscopic, as Beethoven wrings every bit of meaning out of his seemingly simple theme. Hang on and enjoy the ride.
O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!
Sondern laßt uns angenehmere anstimmen,
und freudenvollere.
Freude!
Freude!
Freude, schöner Götterfunken
Tochter aus Elysium,
Wir betreten feuertrunken,
Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!
Deine Zauber binden wieder
Was die Mode streng geteilt;
Alle Menschen werden Brüder,
Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.
Wem der große Wurf gelungen,
Eines Freundes Freund zu sein;
Wer ein holdes Weib errungen,
Mische seinen Jubel ein!
Ja, wer auch nur eine Seele
Sein nennt auf dem Erdenrund!
Und wer's nie gekonnt, der stehle
Weinend sich aus diesem Bund!
Freude trinken alle Wesen
An den Brüsten der Natur;
Alle Guten, alle Bösen
Folgen ihrer Rosenspur.
Küsse gab sie uns und Reben,
Einen Freund, geprüft im Tod;
Wollust ward dem Wurm gegeben,
Und der Cherub steht vor Gott.
Froh, wie seine Sonnen fliegen
Durch des Himmels prächt'gen Plan,
Laufet, Brüder, eure Bahn,
Freudig, wie ein Held zum Siegen.
Seid umschlungen, Millionen!
Diesen Kuß der ganzen Welt!
Brüder, über'm Sternenzelt
Muß ein lieber Vater wohnen.
Ihr stürzt nieder, Millionen?
Ahnest du den Schöpfer, Welt?
Such' ihn über'm Sternenzelt!
Über Sternen muß er wohnen.
Oh friends, not these sounds!
Let us instead strike up more pleasing
and more joyful ones!
Joy!
Joy!
Joy, beautiful spark of divinity,
Daughter from Elysium,
We enter, burning with fervour,
heavenly being, your sanctuary!
Your magic brings together
what custom has sternly divided.
All men shall become brothers,
wherever your gentle wings hover.
Whoever has been lucky enough
to become a friend to a friend,
Whoever has found a beloved wife,
let him join our songs of praise!
Yes, and anyone who can call one soul
his own on this earth!
Any who cannot, let them slink away
from this gathering in tears!
Every creature drinks in joy
at nature's breast;
Good and Evil alike
follow her trail of roses.
She gives us kisses and wine,
a true friend, even in death;
Even the worm was given desire,
and the cherub stands before God.
Gladly, just as His suns hurtle
through the glorious universe,
So you, brothers, should run your course,
joyfully, like a conquering hero.
Be embraced, you millions!
This kiss is for the whole world!
Brothers, above the canopy of stars
must dwell a loving father.
Do you bow down before Him, you millions?
Do you sense your Creator, O world?
Seek Him above the canopy of stars!
He must dwell beyond the stars.
Overview: George Frideric Handel
Born. February 23, 1685, Halle, Germany; died April 14, 1759, London, United Kingdom
Work Composed: 1707
Why It Matters: A work that demonstrates Handel’s early mastery
The case of Georg Frideric Handel is unusual. Messiah – or at least parts of it – is one of the best-known, if not the best-known pieces of classical music in the world. But outside a community of Baroque music specialists, the remainder of his vast and extraordinary output is virtually unknown. (The Christmas carol Joy to the World is traditionally attributed to Handel, but there is no actual evidence that he wrote it.)
Dixit Dominus illustrates how widely and deeply Handel’s mastery extended at the age of 21. He composed the work in Italy, where he was invited by by the Medici family (sources don’t agree which Medici). During his four-year stay, he composed his first operas and oratorios, the media in which he would become most famous. The work shows Handel as a fully mature composer, with the energy, the sensitivity to musical textures, and the almost torrential imagination that mark his later works. (And he’d already developed many of his compositional fingerprints: The first movement features the da-da-bum-bum rhythm that figures prominently in the Hallelujah chorus.) Only his instrumentation would become bolder and more vividly expressive, and of course for English-speaking audiences, such oratorios as Messiah have the advantage of being in English.
The text – a Latin version of Psalm 110 – has inspired composers for centuries, before and after Handel: Among the illustrious settings are those by Tomás Luis de Victoria, Claudio Monteverdi, Antonio Vivaldi (two), and Mozart. It refers to God’s ultimate triumph; the final “Gloria patri” is added from the Christian doxology.
The overall form shows Handel’s sensitivity to textures, as Handel creates many different groupings out of his relatively modest ensemble of chorus, strings, and continuo. The opening movement features all the musicians; the following “Virgam virtutis tuae” is an alto solo accompanied only by continuo (low strings with keyboard); the “Tecum principatus” is a soprano solo with orchestra; and so on.
Handel’s delight in varied textures also extends to the individual movements, with many different colors that both increase the musical interest and heighten the words.
The opening movement is illustrative. After the mood-setting orchestral introduction, we hear eight choral repetitions of the opening “Dixit Dominus Domino meo” (“The Lord said unto my Lord”). Handel is already contrasting chordal textures, in which all members of the choir sing the same words at the same time, with quasi-fugal textures in which the different sections of the choir overlap their words. With the second line, beginning with the word “Sede” (“sit”), Handel intensifies this invitation by dramatically extending the word over several bars and many notes. The next line, “donec ponam inimicos tuos scabellum pedum tuorum” (“until I make thine enemies thy foot-stool”) introduces yet another texture: the chorale prelude, in which the melodic material is in long notes while the rest of the chorus and orchestra scurry in the background with shorter notes. The word “dixit” (“he said”) recurs frequently – and vehemently – throughout the movement: It’s the first word we hear, and the last.
The score abounds with such vivid text painting – perhaps none more so than the “Conquassabit,” in which the pounding rhythms evoke the text’s description of smashing heads.
1. Dixit Dominus Domino meo:
Sede a dextris meis, donec ponam inimicos tuos scabellum pedum tuorum.
The Lord said unto my Lord:
Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy foot-stool.
2. Virgam virtutis tuae emittet Dominus ex Sion:
dominare in medio inimicorum tuorum.
The Lord shall send the rod of thy power out of Sion:
be thou ruler, even in the midst among thine enemies.
3. Tecum principatus in die virtutis tuae, in splendoribus sanctis.
Ex utero ante luciferum genui te.
In the day of thy power shall the people offer thee free-will offerings with an holy worship.
The dew of thy birth is of the womb of the morning.
4. Juravit Dominus et non paenitebit eum:
The Lord swore, and will not repent:
5. Tu es sacerdos in aeternum secundum ordinem Melchisedech.
Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedech.
6. Dominus a dextris tuis,
confregit in die irae suae reges.
The Lord upon thy right hand,
shall wound even kings in the day of his wrath.
7. Judicabit in nationibus,
Implebit ruinas,
He shall judge the nations,
fill the places with destruction,
8. conquassabit capita in terra multorum.
and shatter the skulls in many lands.
9. De torrente in via bibet,
propterea exaltabit caput.
He shall drink of the brook in the way,
therefore shall he lift up his head.
10. Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto,
Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, is now; and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Overview: Ralph Vaughan Williams
Born October 12, 1872, Down Ampney, United Kingdom; died August 26, 1958, London, United Kingdom
Work Composed: 1938
Why It Matters: One of the finest pièces d'occasion ever composed, and one of the finest musical settings of Shakespeare.
Henry Wood is not a household name today, but he was vitally important in the development of English classical music in the 20th Century. In a 56-year career he premiered many English works – including several of Vaughan Williams’s – and under his 49-year tenure, the annual series of London concerts known as the Proms became one of the world’s great music festivals.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of his conducting debut, Wood commissioned Vaughan Williams – following the 1934 death of Edward Elgar, the most illustrious English composer – to compose Serenade to Music.
To heighten its connection with Wood, Vaughan Williams composed the work for sixteen illustrious English singers who had performed with Wood, marking the phrases to be sung by each with initials in the score. Realizing that this arrangement would limit the piece’s performance opportunities, he subsequently arranged it in the version heard here, for several soloists and choir. (He also thought highly enough of the music to arrange the piece for solo violin and orchestra, creating a companion piece to his famous The Lark Ascending.)
The words are adapted from a discussion of music in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Act V, Scene 1, by Lorenzo and Jessica, later joined by Nerissa and Portia. Vaughan Williams treats the text freely, omitting some of Shakespeare’s lines and repeating others.
The music is gently impressionistic. It begins and ends in rapturous tenderness; in between is some drama as Shakespeare describes those who do not respond to music’s charms.
The piece was premiered on October 5, 1938, at Wood’s Golden Jubilee concert at the Royal Albert Hall, London. Wood conducted an orchestra made up of musicians from the London Symphony, London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, and Queen's Hall orchestras. One feature of this concert has entered musical legend: The composer Sergei Rachmaninoff had performed his own Piano Concerto No. 2 earlier in the concert, and was moved to tears by Vaughan Williams’s work. A recording made of the Serenade to Music by the original performers a few days later shows that Rachmaninoff’s response was no fluke.
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There's not the smallest orb that thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
Come, ho! and wake Diana with a hymn!
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear,
And draw her home with music.
I am never merry when I hear sweet music.
The reason is, your spirits are attentive –
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted. Music! hark!
It is your music of the house.
Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.
Silence bestows that virtue on it
How many things by season season'd are
To their right praise and true perfection!
Peace, ho! the moon sleeps with Endymion
And would not be awak'd. Soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Overview: Ludwig van Beethoven
Baptized December 17, 1770, Bonn, Germany; died March 26, 1827, Vienna, Austria
Work Composed: 1822-24
Why It Matters: The finale of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony is most revolutionary movement from the most revolutionary symphony ever composed.
If it seems odd to hear only one movement from a Beethoven symphony – and it is odd – this merely illustrates how much concert programs have evolved since Beethoven’s lifetime. It used to be common to excerpt compositions, even making up entire programs from excerpts. As late as 1848, twenty-one years after Beethoven’s death, it was sufficiently rare to hear a multi-movement work performed complete that a singer who joined Chopin for one of that dying composer’s final concerts was moved to write in his diary: “Chopin performed an entire sonata by Beethoven. Lasted twenty minutes. Dreadful.”
At that time, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony was not yet the cultural icon it is now. It was of such enormous length and such extravagant originality that many early listeners dismissed it, sometimes justifying their opinions by noting that Beethoven’s deafness had robbed him of his judgment – “the blind painter touching the canvas at random,” as a writer for the Boston newspaper Daily Atlas expressed it in 1853. In 1861, the composer Louis Spohr wrote of the finale that it was “so ugly, in such bad taste, and in the conception of Schiller’s Ode so cheap that I cannot even now understand how such a genius as Beethoven could write it down”; and even as late as 1899, the illustrious Boston critic Philip Hale could describe this movement as “stupid and hopelessly vulgar.”
During an age when genres were sharply defined, and the boundaries between them inviolable, it was the presence of voices in this symphony that most rankled musical purists. In his 1912 book-length analysis of the symphony, the influential German music theorist Heinrich Schenker maintained that there was simply no way to successfully join voices to the form of the symphony: “Beethoven’s project was thus an unrealizable one, and to give it up completely would have been only proper. Among the great masters, however, Beethoven alone was certainly the most stubborn, and the one who liked to dare everything – even the impossible, and, moreover, often even at the cost of defeat.”
With the hindsight of other successful choral symphonies – especially Mahler’s – there is no longer serious dispute as to Beethoven’s success. But the fact that it was the first choral symphony explains one of the piece’s idiosyncrasies, namely its very long introduction. The voice and chorus repeat a lot of material that has already been presented by the orchestra, because Beethoven wanted to carefully prepare the choral entrance.
Beethoven believed deeply in the message of Friedrich Schiller’s poem. Schiller, along with Goethe and Beethoven, was a German cultural superstar, and his 1785 poem had previously been set to music by numerous German and Austrian composers, including Schubert. Its powerful vision of unity – the power of joy stands above even good and evil – haunted Beethoven for years before he finally tackled it. He could have chosen to set it as a song, like Schubert did, or as a stand-alone choral piece with or without orchestra; but Beethoven took the path of greatest risk – the very public and very prestigious form of the symphony, which never before had featured a poem. As Schenker wrote, he dared everything in this work.
If you have the enormous good fortune to be hearing this movement for the very first time, a little context is helpful. After the harshly dissonant first chord (yet another cause for consternation among musicians – even Hector Berlioz, one of the composers who best understood Beethoven, called it a “hideous assembly of notes”), the basses and cellos present an instrumental recitative followed by short reminiscences of the first three movements: The mysterious opening Allegro, the darkly boisterous Scherzo, and the sublime Adagio.
Each of these is interrupted by the recitative. The orchestra – alone – then presents the famous melody, the simplicity of which Beethoven arrived at only after copious revisions.
This opening, without reminiscences, is then repeated, this time sung, establishing the unity of instruments and voices. The remainder of the movement is a very free set of variations on this theme. The voice writing is famously cruel; no less a vocal composer than Giuseppe Verdi called it “very badly set.” The range of expression is vast, the transitions abrupt, and the effect almost kaleidoscopic, as Beethoven wrings every bit of meaning out of his seemingly simple theme. Hang on and enjoy the ride.
O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!
Sondern laßt uns angenehmere anstimmen,
und freudenvollere.
Freude!
Freude!
Freude, schöner Götterfunken
Tochter aus Elysium,
Wir betreten feuertrunken,
Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!
Deine Zauber binden wieder
Was die Mode streng geteilt;
Alle Menschen werden Brüder,
Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.
Wem der große Wurf gelungen,
Eines Freundes Freund zu sein;
Wer ein holdes Weib errungen,
Mische seinen Jubel ein!
Ja, wer auch nur eine Seele
Sein nennt auf dem Erdenrund!
Und wer's nie gekonnt, der stehle
Weinend sich aus diesem Bund!
Freude trinken alle Wesen
An den Brüsten der Natur;
Alle Guten, alle Bösen
Folgen ihrer Rosenspur.
Küsse gab sie uns und Reben,
Einen Freund, geprüft im Tod;
Wollust ward dem Wurm gegeben,
Und der Cherub steht vor Gott.
Froh, wie seine Sonnen fliegen
Durch des Himmels prächt'gen Plan,
Laufet, Brüder, eure Bahn,
Freudig, wie ein Held zum Siegen.
Seid umschlungen, Millionen!
Diesen Kuß der ganzen Welt!
Brüder, über'm Sternenzelt
Muß ein lieber Vater wohnen.
Ihr stürzt nieder, Millionen?
Ahnest du den Schöpfer, Welt?
Such' ihn über'm Sternenzelt!
Über Sternen muß er wohnen.
Oh friends, not these sounds!
Let us instead strike up more pleasing
and more joyful ones!
Joy!
Joy!
Joy, beautiful spark of divinity,
Daughter from Elysium,
We enter, burning with fervour,
heavenly being, your sanctuary!
Your magic brings together
what custom has sternly divided.
All men shall become brothers,
wherever your gentle wings hover.
Whoever has been lucky enough
to become a friend to a friend,
Whoever has found a beloved wife,
let him join our songs of praise!
Yes, and anyone who can call one soul
his own on this earth!
Any who cannot, let them slink away
from this gathering in tears!
Every creature drinks in joy
at nature's breast;
Good and Evil alike
follow her trail of roses.
She gives us kisses and wine,
a true friend, even in death;
Even the worm was given desire,
and the cherub stands before God.
Gladly, just as His suns hurtle
through the glorious universe,
So you, brothers, should run your course,
joyfully, like a conquering hero.
Be embraced, you millions!
This kiss is for the whole world!
Brothers, above the canopy of stars
must dwell a loving father.
Do you bow down before Him, you millions?
Do you sense your Creator, O world?
Seek Him above the canopy of stars!
He must dwell beyond the stars.