Beethoven's 'Eroica': Opening Chords Change From 1924 To 2011 (VIDEO)

Known to Hitchcock buffs as Norman Bates' favorite symphony, Beethoven's "Eroica" bears more than a dirty-sounding name (although "eroica" is actually Italian for "heroic," not "erotic," as Hitchcock wanted you to think). It's also got a pair of distinctive opening chords that, it turns out, mutate. From 1924 to 2011, recordings of the symphony feature an opening that often sounds wildly different from the one before: sometimes flat, sometimes long, and sometimes cut off so short you'd think the conductor was in a bad mood (hello 1938?). It's enough to make for a weirdly entertaining Youtube compilation. And surprise surprise! We've posted a weirdly entertaining Youtube compilation below.

WATCH:

[via Boing Boing]

Comments

[logic-a-go-go]

09:36 PM on 02/24/2012

Very interesting.

[Balancement]

12:30 PM on 02/24/2012

Fedoseyev wins.

[Luce Caggini]

10:37 PM on 02/23/2012

I was pleased with Bayern orchestra directed by Karl Bôhm

[muggles5]

09:11 PM on 02/23/2012

Obviously a pretty arcane topic, but I found it quite revealing. Of course lots of people know that the pitch standard is not 440 everywhere, but it's wild to hear the pitch slide down as the examples move west, and vice versa. The recording tech involved in different eras and areas also reveals how much of our experience of symphonic music has been mediated and filtered by reproduction. Most of us, most of the time, hear orchestras strictly recorded sound - the ercentage is even higher in that direction when you include the most common place we hear "orchestral" music (sadly faked more and more in recent times): movies. No one is interested, I'm sure, but this for me fits in with notions I've had about the inseparability of genres from their modes of distribution, and about the process by which genre became king in various art forms from music to fiction.

[1other1]

02:52 PM on 02/23/2012

Complete waste of time!

[Gronkie]

01:38 PM on 02/23/2012

Interesting! I've always been partial to Szell's old Cleveland Orchestra version that I grew up with, but I also like Harnoncourt's with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. I've known a number of older professional symphony players over the years and they get bored playing the warhorses. The COE's average age at the time of recording the Beethoven symphonies was 30, so they were still enjoying the music, and the playing shows it. Vivacious performances balanced with great musical scholarship offered by Harnoncourt. Still the best Beethoven symphony set, in my opinion.