Beethoven NEUN

"O friends, not these tones! But let us sing more pleasant and joyful ones!" That is unheard of! After the first three movements of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, someone suddenly raises their voice and sings. In a symphony! That had never happened before. The music had already stalled at the beginning of the last movement, it seemed as if it was going nowhere. The themes of the three previous movements were alluded to once again and then discarded. No progress. Instead, cascades of sound descend in which Richard Wagner wanted to recognize a "fanfare of terror". And suddenly, out of nowhere, vocals and choir join in and lead us all, orchestra, soloists, choir and audience per aspera ad astra: from the dead end to the finale. Joy! Joy! Unimaginable how this might have worked at the symphony's premiere in 1824. It is also unimaginable that the completely deaf composer conducted the performance, or rather: pretended to conduct, while the "real" musical director stood a few meters away from him. In several respects, the path to the theater is not far away. The ode to silence that Cordula Däuper and Bas Wiegers develop in their examination of the final movement from the Ninth and other Beethoven compositions is about the in-between, the spaces between. The silence that separates the individual notes from each other and makes them distinguishable. It is also about the silence that separated and isolated the non-hearing composer from his fellow human beings. But also, of course, about the heaven-storming, the heroically triumphant. And about the utopia of all people becoming brothers and sisters. "This kiss to the whole world!"

Concert with scene around the 4th movement of Ludwig van Beethoven's 9th Symphony