Original link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZJ1Tgf4JL8
Well, for the better part of three months now, I’ve been
living in terms of Beethoven, thinking about his life, visiting his houses,
reading his letters, but most of all, living with his music. I’ve studied it
and restudied it, rehearsed and performed it over and over again and I may
report that I’ve never been tired of it for a single moment. The music remained
endlessly satisfying, interesting and moving, and has remained so for all two
centuries and to all kinds of people. In other words, this music is not only
infinitely durable, but perhaps the closest music has ever come to
universality. That dubious cliché about music being the universal language
almost comes true with Beethoven. No composers ever lived, who speak so
directly to so many people, to young and old, educated and ignorant, amateur
and professional, sophisticated and naïve. To all these people of all classes,
nationalities and racial backgrounds, this music speaks a universality of
thought of human brotherhood, freedom and love. In this ninth symphony, for
example, where Beethoven set Schiller’s Ode to Joy in the finale, the music
goes so far beyond the poem. It gives far greater dimension and vital energy
and artistic sparks to these quaint old lines of Schiller. Alle Menschen werden Brüder. All men become brothers. Seid umschlungen, Millionen! Millions
embracing! Ahnest du den Schöpfer, Welt?
The world you sense your creator? In other words, this music succeeds even for
those people for who organized religion fails, because it conveys a spirit of
godhead and sublimity in the freest and least doctrinaire way that was typical
of Beethoven. It has a purity and directness of communication, which never
becomes but now. It’s accessible without being ordinary. This is the magic that
no amount of talk can explain.
Perhaps there was in Beethoven the man, a child
inside that never grew up, that to the end of his life remained a creature of
grace and innocence and trust, even in his moments of greatest despair. And
that innocent spirit speaks to us of hope and future and immortality and it’s
for that reason, that we love his music now more than ever before. In this time
of world agony and hopelessness and helplessness, we love his music and we need
it. As despairing as we may be, we cannot listen to this ninth symphony without
emerging from it, changed, enriched, encouraged. And to the man who could give
the world so precious a gift as this, no honor can be too great and no
celebration joyful enough. It’s almost like celebrating the birthday of music
itself.
-Leonard Bernstein
