Ban Beethoven on his birthday? Autsch!
Musicologist makes case for newer works to honor composer’s legacy
The 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth falls in December this year, and orchestras around the world are celebrating by programming his complete symphonies, oratorical works and concertos.
Amid the frenzy, musicologist Andrea Moore of Smith College in Northampton, Mass., recently argued in an opinion essay in the Chicago Tribune for a one-year moratorium on Beethoven’s works in favor of programming newer, more forward-thinking music to honor the composer’s legacy.
On its face, this seems like a ridiculous argument. Beethoven wrote enduring, capital-G Great music that still brings bodies into
halls. Why not celebrate his birthday? Then again, Ms. Moore writes: “Letting Beethoven’s music fall silent for the duration of his 250th anniversary year might give us a new way into hearing it live again.” Orchestras already frequently program composers that are celebrating birthdays, she noted. This is true. In Pittsburgh. we’ve heard Beethoven’s third symphony as well as the ninth and fifth, all five of the piano concertos and more in the previous two years alone.
Program space is finite. While removing Beethoven’s music is draconian, questioning the opportunity cost seems reasonable. In programming so much Beethoven, what are listeners potentially missing out on? It’s a thought-provoking, controversial question, especially in light of the fact that so many orchestras around the world are programming so much of his music. Prepare for numerous cycles of all nine symphonies, all 16 string quartets, the overtures, the various iterations of “Fidelio,” the Mass in C Major and more next season.
Critics of Ms. Moore’s position argue that Beethoven’s music is the pinnacle of Western musical development and that his name alone helps sell tickets.
True, many listeners have yet to discover the joy of listening to the “Eroica” symphony live. But are all Beethoven compositions equal? (Listen to “Wellington’s Victory” for an example of Beethovenian kitsch.) And does it really matter whether an orchestra plays Beethoven or Bartok?
In 2014, the New Yorker ran an essay by Alex Ross exploring how the concert hall was irrevocably changed by the force of Beethoven’s music. While extolling the composer’s brilliance, Mr. Ross also questioned whether such an indomitable legacy might in fact be suffocating the field. Indeed, part of the genius of Beethoven is his role in shaping classical music into what we still recognize as a meaningful form of artistic expression.
Spending a year pushing music in new directions, as Ms. Moore suggests in her essay, would be an inflammatory way to honor that legacy, and it’s neither advisable nor feasible for large institutions.
“To perform Beethoven to the exclusion of the living is to display a total lack of imagination,” Mr. Ross writes, explaining that prior to Beethoven’s time symphony programs were a menagerie of living composers, all vying for their place in the concert hall. After Beethoven, the classical music concert became a vehicle to venerate the greatness of the dead.
“In the course of the 19th century, dead composers began to crowd out the living on concert programs, and a canon of masterpieces materialized, with Beethoven front and center,” he wrote.
Dropping all Beethoven pieces would be drastic, and “banning” any form of art is a fundamentally distasteful premise. But a little less Beethoven could allow space for more music by wonderful composers who aren’t heard as often in the concert hall.
MacMillan. Bates. Vali. Wolfe. Bartok. Higdon. Mendelssohn. Grieg. Kabalevsky. Hindemith. SaintSaens. These names alone represent a mixed bag of composers that have appeared briefly in recent Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra programs, but they are rarely heard compared to Beethoven. Let’s tip that scale.
A different version of this article appeared on post-gazette.com on Saturday. Jeremy Reynolds: jreynolds@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1634; twitter: @Reynolds_PG. Mr. Reynolds’ work at the Post-Gazette is supported by a grant from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Getty Foundation and Rubin Institute.