As good a four minute summary of Beethoven as you’ll ever see. Made around the time of LB’s Vienna recording of the 7th, one of the best available.
Tales of True Adventure for Rugged Men Not Unlike Yourself
Tales of True Adventure for Rugged Men Not Unlike Yourself
As good a four minute summary of Beethoven as you’ll ever see. Made around the time of LB’s Vienna recording of the 7th, one of the best available.
Such an incredible description, the musical equivalent of Einstein using a thought experiment to explain relativity to the greater doofusate.
Still, though: I expect Beethoven to creep up behind Bernstein and clock him with a chamberpot, Some combination of the artist’s temperament and the Backhanded Compliment Hall of Fame.
He’d probably punctuate that chamber pot smack with “Geh und schreib eine bessere Fuge, als ich es kann, du Esel!” (Go write a better fugue than I can, you ass!)
Speaking of fugues, it’s interesting that the “great fugue” for string quartet (the real finale of the Op. 130 quartet, replaced with an easier one when the publisher complained that no one could possibly play it) as well as the two fugues I can think of from two late piano sonatas (Op. 106 & 110) are not good fugues by Bach standards. But they’re great music.
Coincidence: Makerbot and I were talking about Paul Revere and the Raiders earlier, and it occurred to me that the chorus hook of “Kicks” pulls off the same trick that Bernstein mentions in the slow movement of the 7th: it takes a mostly one-note “melody” and turns it into something unforgettable via basic chords, harmonies, and rhythm. Brilliant.