Music historian Harvey Sachs on the power and beauty of Beethoven's Ninth
On May 7, 1824, everybody who was anybody gathered at the Imperial Royal Court Theatre in Vienna for the first-ever performance of Ludwig Van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Beethoven was 53 years old. He was deaf and in poor health, but he attended the premiere. The audience gave Beethoven and the Ninth a standing ovation. But Europe's most revered living composer was oblivious,...
On May 7, 1824, everybody who was anybody gathered at the Imperial Royal Court Theatre in Vienna for the first-ever performance of Ludwig Van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
Beethoven was 53 years old. He was deaf and in poor health, but he attended the premiere.
The audience gave Beethoven and the Ninth a standing ovation. But Europe's most revered living composer was oblivious, lost in a world of deafness.
He was still poring over his manuscript when one of the sopranos tugged on his sleeve, so that he turned to face the audience. Only then did he see how enthusiastically they had received his new orchestral work. He could not hear their applause.
That Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 is a work of genius, is undisputed. It has become a symbol of freedom and joy, a hymn to universal brotherhood. But in the early 19th century, it would have been almost impossible for that audience to understand the significance of what they had just heard.
The Ninth Symphony is the subject of a book by music historian, Harvey Sachs. The Ninth, Beethoven and the World in 1824 looks at the import and impact of a symphony that came into being in the wake of the French revolution and the Napoleonic wars.
Harvey Sachs is a writer, a music historian and the author of many books, including biographies of Arturo Toscanini and Arthur Rubinstein. He has written for many publications, among them, The New Yorker and is on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
In this conversation with Michael which was first broadcast in 2011, he shares the story behind the world's best loved and most revolutionary piece of symphonic music.
NOTE: As this interview includes music, the online audio is available only in Canada.