The Greatest Concert Ever -- 200 Years Ago Today

On this holiday week Monday, let's take a break from Barack, bailouts and Bush to contemplate the universe. Tomorrow marks the 200th anniversary of The Greatest Concert Ever.

Fellow geezers: Forget the Beatles at Shea Stadium, Dylan in Manchester, the Stones at Altamont, Springsteen at the Bottom Line (I was even there) -- and you youngsters pick your fave from the past three decades. On December 22, 1808, Beethoven himself rented a hall in Vienna and promoted the concert to end all concerts: the debut, over four hours, of three of the greatest works in the history of music: his Fifth Symphony, the Sixth ("Pastoral") Symphony, and the astounding Piano Concerto No. 4, plus the wonderful Choral Fantasia (forerunner to his Ninth Symphony). And yes, it was a fiasco.

But imagine: It was as if Orson Welles premiered Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, and Touch of Evil on the same night -- with The Lady from Shanghai thrown in for good measure.

This was mid-period Beethoven. He was 38 at the time and would live another 19 fitful years.

He had been losing his hearing for almost ten years and would soon be completely deaf. In fact, he would play piano in concert for virtually the last time at this epic 1808 program, as hearing himself play would eventually cease. That wouldn't stop him, a few years later, from producing his most astounding writing of all: the late piano sonatas and string quartets, the Ninth Symphony, and much more. If you know Beethoven only from his symphonies you are truly missing nearly all of his most amazing, moving, and profound work.

I won't go into all of the details on the 1808 concert here, but in a nutshell: The hall in Vienna was freezing cold. Beethoven, as a taskmaster conductor, had alienated the musicians, rehearsals were inadequate, he finished one piece on the morning of the concert with (reportedly) the ink still wet that night.

Parts of the program went off very well; on the other hand, he stopped the Choral Fantasia after a few minutes and made the orchestra start over. In any case, the show went on, and on. In that era, it was hard enough for any audience to appreciate and/or grasp the unprecedented length -- and revolutionary nature -- of Beethoven's compositions, and now they were cold and tired.

The key newspaper review at the time noted the genius of Beethoven's new compositions but also the demands on the audience ("It is known that, with respect to Vienna, it holds even more true than with respect to most other cities, what is written in the scriptures, namely that the prophet does not count for anything in his own country").

I will leave off here with the invitation for you to comment about all of this but also consider my argument that Beethoven was the greatest composer in the history of Western culture. And in these tough times, you really might find (as I did) that a little Beethoven -- principally the piano sonatas, trios and string quartets -- will help you make it through your week. Below please find a brief clip, the 4th movement of the Pastoral Symphony, decades ahead of its time.

Greg Mitchell is editor of Editor & Publisher. His latest book, on Iraq and the media, is "So Wrong for So Long."

Comments

[Ilvutar]

It seems unlikely that there will ever be an objective standard for elevating one great classical composer over another. I think the same can be said for pop. I like Leonard Cohen and don't like Bob Dylan. Why is that? For some reason I simply don't engage in Dylan music.

I play most all of the classical composers on the piano (albeit not very well). I love Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Schumann. But count me among those who give the edge to Beethoven. For me the best Beethoven isn't really human. It is as Leonard Berstein said about the Eroica--written by God.

Thanks to all below for posting your favorites. There's a lot of music I just haven't heard of and I plan to check them out.

[RedDogBear]

Thanks for this article. I had never heard about this concert, it sounds amazing. I first learned to love Beethoven when I played in the High School orchestra. While everyone else was blasting Stairway to Heaven on their stereos I was blasting the Ode to Joy (yes, was very popular). One of the many things I find so disconcerting about our current public school system is the way the arts have been defunded. Rather than truly educating children public schools are just churning out good little workers for the corporations.

[UKOH]

This concert may be the greatest ever but the most controversial concert ever has a clear winner by some distance.

It is the first performance of Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" performed in Paris on May 29, 1913. The audience, used to sweet melodies and harmonies of Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy etc. were unable to comprehend the musical revolution that this work represented. One eye witness described the contrast between the rioting masses and the few who were awe inspired, rhythmically beating on their chairs in time with the music.

In some ways this work might be seen as having paved the way to the vital importance of rhythem in today's modern music.

Just one of the revolutionary musical concepts Stravinsky used is the cadence. There are musical rules - called cadences - that define how to end a movement. Stravinsky ignored all of them - he just stopped!

[HoldeKunst]

Magister Ludi got me intrigued enough to choose my own desert island list and make a post on my own blog in homage to this comment thread! Not to Greg's article (my wife did that yesterday) but to the creative, thoughtful bunch of comments.

My list isn't of desert island CDs or works. It's of specific moments in my favorite works. Not surprisingly, two out of the five are from Beethoven:
1. Beethoven: C Sharp Minor String Quartet, introduction to the Finale (6th movement)
2. Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro, Figaro's denial in the Finale to Act II.
3. Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress, the Bedlam scene at the conclusion of the opera, featuring Ann Truelove's lullaby with the words of W.H. Auden and/or Chester Kallman
4. Beethoven: Fidelio, the divided low strings in "Mir is so wunderbar"
5. Wagner: Die Walkure, Siegmund telling Brunhilde where she can go with her invitation to Valhalla, Act Two. This is my greatest moment, preferably performed by Jon Vickers or Siegriend Jerusalem.

Read the full post and hear musical examples at holdekunst.com, and thanks everyone.
-John Gibbons

[MagisterLudi]

good one, Kunst.
However you missed o the sublime Wagner's aria:
Oh, Bru'hilda you so vovley
Yes I know it I can't help it.

(And the recitative):

Awise storms
North winds blow, south winds blow
Typhoons, hurricanes, earthquakes, SMOGGGG!!!!
Sturm, drang, und sturm..... caboom.....

(then the tragic )

What have I done?? I've killed the wabbit....
Poor little bunny, poor little wbbit...

Happy holidays :-)

[Gerald36]

There are so many wonderful, great composers that is difficult for me to say this one is the greatest; however, I want to thank you Mr. Mitchell for sharing your thoughts at large. Personally I find J. S. Bach to be my all time favorite.

[RedDogBear]

I don't think you can pick one person as "the best". It depends what kind of mood you are in. For passion and rich emotions I would pick Beethoven, then Wagner, Mahler, Tchaikovsky. For sheer musical brilliance Bach, Mozart, and Brahms.

[jl4141]

I was introduced to the Pastoral around 30 years ago was when I watched Edward G. Robinson's death scene in *Soylent Green,* which made excellent use of it.

[Joe-the-historian]

Thanks for the story-- I concur with the spider. Mozart has marvelous melodies (as does Puccini), Beethoven is often splendid, and etherial in the quartets. But Bach rose to these heights dozens of times. There's a true tale of Bach in of Douglas Hofstadter's book, "Godel, Escher and Bach". Bach in old age finally visits his son Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach, in Potsdam, where the son is serving as court musician for Frederick the Great-- himself a composer and fine musician. Frederick had, over several years, accumulated over a dozen new pianofortes made by the inventor of the modern piano, Gottfried Silberman-- only another half-dozen existed anywhere, as Frederick had the assets and the interest to acquire every new one he wanted. Instead ofFrederick's usual Friday court musical soiree, Frederick took "old Bach" around the castle to try out all of them, much of it with Bach playing improvised fugues, including parts of the "ricarcar" or "Musical Offering", one of the master's last pieces. After an enchanting evening (better than any public concert, I'd wager), Bach was sent off to his hotel, after agreeing to join Frederick and his entourage again in the morning. They went all around Potsdam to visit all the greatest churches, where Bach again did a command performance, this time on the finest organs in the city. I think if I had one day to live, I would follow Bach around with the court of Frederick that evening and the following morning. -Joe the historian

[EricLevin]

As Prof. Robert Greenberg of U Cal, Berkeley, and San Francisco Performances observes in his excellent Teaching Company course on the piano sonatas, Beethoven was most revealing, most probing, most surprising, most humorous, most himself, when he composed for the piano.

He was probably the greatest piano virtuoso of his time, a dazzling improviser, a skill that underlies the lightning bolts and introspections, the sudden shifts of tempo, dynamics, mood and color that make the piano sonatas some of the most beautiful, thrilling and psychologically acute music in all history.

Wagner, too, had that ability to create music of incredible power and beauty that, while intellectually formidable, bypassed the intellect and plunged straight to the core of every human emotion, every human strength and failing.

[sbrownmiller]

What nice Christmas gift. Thank you.

[EricLevin]

Wagner revered Beethoven, who he thought was the only composer as great as himself. And he was right.

To a desert island, I would take all the Wagner operas (music dramas, as he called them) plus all the Beethoven solo piano music, not just the sonatas but the variations (Diabelli a must) and bagatelles and other casual forms.

If I had one more pick from the two geniuses, I would trade all of Beethoven's symphonies and concertos for the string quartets.

Send me off with the Beethoven solo piano music (I'll skip the violin sonatas, etc) and the quartets and the Wagner operas, and I'll have my daily sustenance for years to come.

The sonatas as performed by Annie Fisher, the greatest set I have ever heard. Second choice, Claude Frank. Third, Frank's teacher, the inestimable Artur Schnabel.

But, sorry, I also have to have This Land by Bill Frisell, Lost and Gone Forever by Guster, Magazine by Jump Little Children, Who Used to Dance by Abbey Lincoln, Two of a Mind by Paul Desmond and Gerry Mulligan, the White Album, The Bends and OK Computer by Radiohead, some Merle Haggard...

I'll stop there. Don't want to appear to be greedy.

[UKOH]

I'm with you on Wagner. One of the great experiences of my life was when I went to the "Bayerische Staatsoper" in Munich for the entire Ring on four consecutive nights. All 12 hours of it! I had standing room only and it was still so worth it.

However Beethoven's 9th. is, for me, the greatest piece of music ever written. I get an out-of-body-experience every time I listen to it.

One of the little known facts is how Beethoven was one of the first great revolutionaries, in musical terms. At that time there were very strict rules for how to write symphonies, concertos, sonatas etc. - and Beethoven trashed all of them!

One of the great events back in the 70's was the Leonard Bernstein Harvard lectures. I will never forget his treatment of the Pastorale. He made it clear he was talking about "Symphony Number 6 in F major" - in pure musical terms and to forgot all the leaping lambs etc. He then explained how Beethoven had broken so many rules and ended up with a work of genius. Including repeating a single bar 50+ times and making it exciting not boring!

[MagisterLudi]

My 5 CDs for the deserted island:

1. Goldberg Variations -Glenn Gould ( both);
2.Stravinsky- Le Sacre- Boulez;
3. Adams-Nixon in China;
4. Mozart-Die Zauberflöte.
5: Shostakovitch-The Nose.

Stand bys:

1.Bach St John's Passion
2.Berio- Sinfonia. w/Boulez- Swingle Singers

[ARonHenry]

Beethoven was the Bob Dylan of his times.

[MagisterLudi]

BOB Dylan is the Johann Nepomuk Hummel of our times.

[RedDogBear]

Not really. Beethoven was a musical genius. Dylan wrote some catchy tunes but his genius was as a poet who could put his words to music. Dylan without the words is just another tune writer. I'm sure most people will find this hard to grasp but for pure musical genius the only rock musician I can think of who can cut it is Frank Zappa. Forget all the gross lyrics and just listen to the music some time.

[Zanti]

Far out. I wonder why I haven't heard any of Bob's symphonies. Or piano sonatas.

Are his musical scores collected someplace? The orchestrations in his own hand, etc.?

I'll have to Google and find out....

[dawson54]

Thanks for this article. I was lucky enough to become awestruck by Beethoven 30 years ago, when I was studying music in college. Over the years I've remained a faithful fan of all branches of pop music, folk, the blues, new wave, jazz, you name it. But when it's time to trot out the real thing, though, I always return to Beethoven. How and why he created this transcendent expression of what it sounds like to be emotionally alive is beyond me. I'm just glad that he did, and I'm doubly glad you reminded us to take a break and listen with fresh ears to this amazing music.

[Readbetweentheelevens]

"...Forget the Beatles at Shea Stadium, Dylan in Manchester, the Stones at Altamont, Springsteen..."

All imitators. All, with the exception of Zimmerman, will be diminished when the dust settles. American music is rooted in the American masters, Morganfield, Berry, and the Quasar -- Penniman.

I hope the knowledge expressed about Beethoven is better than your knowledge of current masters.

BTW, I love Beethoven"s piano works. It's ironic you mention Beethoven's 1808 concert was a fiasco. In 2009, in the USA, every "Beethoven Concert" is a fiasco when you consider that public funds are used to keep this music alive. Without the public funds this music is dead on the radio and in the concert halls. Penniman's music, on the other hand, and the music he helped create has always supported itself and there appears to be no end to its dominance. If you are using sales as any part of the discussion, it's hard to argue, at least in the U.S. A., that Beethoven was the greatest western composer.

[MagisterLudi]

Is this some kind of a joke? I don't get it...

[RedDogBear]

"All imitators." Calling an artist an imitator is kind of a shallow criticism. Except for the first cave men drawing on walls or banging rocks together to a beat every great artist to some extent imitated others. Beethoven was IMO one of the most innovative. There is a clear break before Beethoven and after. But without Mozart and Hayden there would have been no Beethoven. Even the man himself thought so. I also don't understand why people need to praise one artist at the expense of another. I agree Beethoven was a musical genius in a way that no rock star ever was but that doesn't mean that the Beatles, Stones, Dylan should just be completely dismissed.

[flanardiente]

Back in the '90s there was an orb weaver (spider) who lived in the eaves of my house. She stayed up there most of one spring and summer. I played a lot of eclectic music--rock, blues, jazz, Tuvan throat singers, Hank Williams--but every time I played Bach's "Brandenburg Concerto #2" she was down at the screen of my window, close enough that I could see the gleam in her eyes.

[yodaveg]

I was there"still have the tour T-shirt. It was a cold night, yes, but afterward we went for chocolat mit schlagober at a small cafe on the Krugerstrasse. It was the longest concert I ever saw, except for Hot Tuna in 1974.

[MagisterLudi]

I wonder if Das Kleines Cafe was already in business, the one behinds Stephansdom.
I

[calipublican]

The sixth (pastoral) is my fave too bad we dont have talent like this anymore.

[RedDogBear]

I think part of the reason we don't have talent like that anymore is that modern classical music has gone down such a pedantic academic black hole. I seriously try listening to atonal 12 tone whatever but just don't get it and I've been told by one modern classical devote "well you don't have the proper background to appreciate it" (I understand basic music theory and harmony). To me any music that you have to have a PhD to appreciate is a dead end.