![]() His awareness of the large, overarching scale in music is something that all composers can- and should- learn from. His sense of architecture and structure and proportion in music has not been seen/heard in any previous composer (with the exception of Bach, but he is another story). Here’s what we forget about Beethoven when he gets overplayed. If I never hear the Choral Fantasy again, I will be able soldier on. Also, to be perfectly honest, not every thing he wrote was genius. It makes perfect sense that one could feel weary of hearing his music and come to dread the prospect of a whole year of MORE BEETHOVEN. Every time his 5th Symphony is programmed, a little more of its breathtaking weirdness gets rubbed off. On many levels, I am grateful that we know his music and can learn from it (more on that in a bit), but the disdain many people, especially today’s living composers, have for his music is a perfect example of Familiarity Breeding Contempt. He was not composing for posterity he was composing for next week’s concert. ![]() Each concert was a celebration of the next new piece by living composers, Beethoven in particular. During his lifetime, music of the past was rarely performed. ![]() First, it isn’t Beethoven’s fault his music is overplayed. Some of these are said in jest, and ALL of them come from a very real place of anger at the lack of imaginative programming on the part of orchestras and other music organizations. Many of these offer the idea that, because LVB’s music is already so ubiquitous, all celebrations should involve vows to not program any of his music at all this year. Lately I have been seeing lots of suggestions on Social Media about how to celebrate Beethoven’s 250th birthday this year. ![]()
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