Day 20

So today you get two for the price of one; well actually you get me catching up on missing yesterday and listening to a piece which spans two records. And the best part is, I even have an explanation why. Yesterday I had a plan, I was going to to go do laundry, come home, listen to some music, relax, then fall asleep. Suddenly, while enjoying my mid dryer beer, I remembered that some black guy who we elected a couple of months back, was giving the speech that could make or break his political career and the health of millions of Americans now and in the future. And I really wanted to watch it.

Ok, so it wasn't a good explanation, but I never said it was going to be; it does however, lead into what I listened to today, Beethoven's 9th Symphony. It was all dependant on the speech, if our president caved in, gave up the health of millions for an easier presidency I had planned to listen to Beethoven's 5th, which as we all know starts off a little less than optimistic. Luckily for me and in my belief anyway, the United States (maybe not Joe Wilson), he threw down the gauntlet. And I ended up doing fist pumps in the air, like the teenager who first discovers alcohol and Black Sabbath during the same summer...Not that would be autobiographical or anything.

Piece: Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125 "Choral"
1. Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso
2. Molto vivace (Scherzo)
3. Adagio molto e cantabile - Andante moderato
4. Presto - Allegro ma non troppo - Allegro assai - Prestp - Allegrp assai - Allegro assai vivace, Alla Marcia - Andante maestoso - Allegro energico, sempre ben marcato - Allegro ma non tanto - Poco Adagio - Prestissimo
Composer: Beethoven
Orchestra: Bayreuth Festival Orchestra and Chorus
Conductor: Wilhelm Furtwangler
Record Date: Live 1951

It's entertains me that the two pieces I was going to choose from today are probably (next to Fur Elise) Beethoven's most famous. Yet if you asked the average Joe to sing any part of the 5th besides the first movement, or the 9th besides the fourth movement, they would probably make some joke about bowel movements. This is saddening to me, not just on a comic level, or even on an educational level, or a cultural level, but rather just for the fact that the first, and especially the third movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony is outrageously gorgeous. The symphony is complete with full thoughts and ideas that develop throughout the movements and when compared to seconds it takes to lay down and idea during first movement of his 5th Symphony, makes my jaw wag in awe. I guess what my rambling is trying to point out is, listen to the whole symphony, not because it's a classic, not because it's great, and not because it's culture, but rather because it's simply beautiful.

I'll end today with the translation of the first three lines of the famous fourth movement chorus, the only lines normally sung these days that were actually written by the Composer himself:

O friends, no more these sounds continue--
Let us raise a song of gladness.
O Joy! Let us praise thee!