The Music prof. Breaks Down Bernstein on Beethoven 7

0:00 Introduction with Loki
0:36 This is one of the most unremarkable melodies
1:14 Bernstein’s showing off
1:31 Allegretto tempo
1:46 “It isn’t a good tune”
2:33 The primary element is rhythm
3:15 Schubert was obsessed with this material
4:00 "Do you like the melody?"
4:36 The chromatic drop
5:10 Is Beethoven a great melodist?
6:00 “There’s nothing there!”
6:21 "He spent his whole life trying to write a good fugue"
7:26 Comparison with Mozart
7:40 The late fugues
8:23 The Archduke trio
8:49 Simplicity is a hugely undervalued quality
9:31 The Russian tradition of melody
9:45 Beethoven learnt his compositional tricks from Haydn
10:08 "Beethoven was a nobody!”
10:49 An example from the Appassionata
12:24 Orchestration? The 8th Symphony
13:04 Beethoven’s deafness affecting his textures
14:21 Bernstein’s hyperbole
14:41 Mahler’s reorchestrations of Beethoven
14:59 Slightly old fashioned gestures in late Beethoven
15:24 Comparison with Berlioz and the younger generation
16:36 Lenny’s really going for Beethoven
17:14 "In Beethoven’s case, the form is all”
18:28 "No composer ever had that - even Mozart!”
18:41 “It’s so unpredictable and so right”
19:09 “He struggled!”
19:31 Works that Beethoven was planning when he died
19:58 A digression about Beethoven’s unfinished String Quintet sketch
21:12 Beethoven’s crazy life
22:28 Struggling with severe disability
23:00 “…phoned in from God!”
23:42 Berio and sculpture
24:02 "But he wrecked himself trying to achieve this inevitability”
24:43 “It could be no other way.”
25:01 Berlioz listening to Beethoven’s 5th symphony

In this video Matthew King reacts to an extract from Leonard Bernstein’s conversation with Maximilian Schell about Beethoven’s 7th Symphony. The focus of the discussion is the famous Allegretto second movement. Bernstein’s comments on the piece are characteristically brilliant and perceptive but also full of hyperbole and exaggeration. Matthew King analyses Bernstein’s remarks, using them as a springboard for a broader discussion about Beethoven’s life and work.

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#Bernstein #Beethoven7 #TheMusicProfessor

[jaydenfung]

"Such music shouldn't be written." I feel like Beethoven would've taken it as a compliment!

[Iceland]

That passage grows and becomes so majestic. I love the 7th. Great video. Thank you.

[aaronpolichar]

The harmony, rhythm, and form are what make the melody good. And the melody and rhythm are what make the harmony good. Beethoven was a composer. He composed pieces, he didn't write any of those elements as an entity in itself. Composers put things together.

[CommonSwindler]

A lot of people are completely missing Bernstein’s tone here. Bernstein is not “critiquing” Beethoven, he is enunciating how from elements. which extricated from each other are limited, are a constellation of sound taken as a whole. Colors are just colors on their own, but arranged in certain way, they’re the Sistine Chapel.

[InfiniteSingularity.]

This video brought back a vivid memory from my college days. I once had a music professor who, during a lecture, sat down and played the opening part of a Beethoven piece. He then proceeded to criticize it extensively. For a long time, I wondered about the basis of his critique. Watching Leonard Bernstein here, I now realize that my professor had merely copied Bernstein's exact critique without any originality. Even back then, I felt that my professor's harsh criticism was unwarranted. After all, he could not compose a piece even remotely as brilliant as Beethoven's works. I should also add that his way of putting Beethoven down was to compare him to Mozart who is one of the greatest composers of all time. To have to use Mozart as a way of putting the other composer down is in itself a compliment. It's fascinating to see how true genius, like Beethoven's, stands the test of time, while pretentious critiques fade away.

[Dazbog]

The scale of Beethoven's genius is simply unimaginable. We forget the fact he started going deaf in his late 20s. And yet composed the late string quartets, etc. while almost stone deaf. As Schopenhauer said: "Talent is the ability to hit a target few others can hit. Genius is the ability to hit a target no one else can see."

[JazzGuitarScrapbook]

Ooh please do Glenn Gould being rude about Mozart!

[haroldsdodge]

What an absolutely brilliant video. Thank you Prof, there are so many wonderful insights in your clip. One other thing about Beethoven is the depth of his emotional connection with the listener, what you could almost call his empathy. A presenter on BBC Radio 3 (can't remember who I'm afraid) put it superbly when he reviewed recordings of Beethoven's 5th for R3's "Building A Library" series. At one point the presenter said something like, "while I was putting this programme together I was going through a very difficult time in my life, and I thought, 'Thank God it's Beethoven'." I know exactly what he meant.

[brianbuch]

I'm a fan of Beethoven's counterpoint. The fugues in Op 110, IMHO is Beethoven's way of making a statement on the topic. Fugue 1 is in a very traditional style, as if he's saying, "Herr Bach, I can write a very good fugue in your style." Fugue 2 is "And this is how I, Beethoven, write a fugue in mine."

[RichardGreen]

Part of excellent teaching is leaving students with something they remember. Bernstein's rhetoric here does that--after all, who else would consider *criticizing* Beethoven. The takeaway--that no individual component of Beethoven is the best ever, but that his music is indispensable because it is so much more than the sum of its parts--is correct. I find both his analysis and his communication of it brilliant.

And FWIW, he was a great Beethoven conductor. I enjoy his second NYPO 7th as much as anyone's, and his Missa Solemnus with the Concertgebouw is a world-beater.

I am glad Youtube led me to your channel.

[Jasper_the_Cat]

I think the last movement of Mahler's 9th falls into the territory, too. It's the beautiful harmonic movement in conjunction with the simple melody that works so well.

[leecornwall]

The deep ness of Beethoven’s music is unique.

[FreakinOutOnAudio]

Few thoughts here:
1. It's a chordal/rhythmic musical idea. In a composition with development, especially, the materials can be just about anything. Tchaikovsky has a ton of these kinds of chordal/rhythmic ideas as well, and like Beethoven's they are as unforgettable as any "tune", but of course, these kinds of ideas lose their special identity when the harmonic component is taken away, while a single-note tune, made to stand alone, can sometimes retain it's identity. But there is no hard line separating the concepts.

2. Beethoven is a good contrapuntist, it's just his usual chunky style shows up here, so it's got his unique character. Definitely late Beethoven (like so many composers) gets the contrapuntal bug, but there are some fun contrapuntal moments in the earlier periods, even before he really sets his mind to renewing study later (as pointed out in the video, Beethoven's early student exercises and such don't show a particularly dedicated student, and he even brags about doing it all on instinct instead, but later on he realized the value of what people had been trying to teach him, and admitted he's got more study to do).

3. Mozart, and in his own words, studied hard (especially JS Bach) and worked himself to the bone to master and enrich his contrapuntal technique, and did so relatively later. These were revelatory studies for him, and the shift in his style and quality is massive. I'm just making the point that it doesn't come for free to anyone, even Mozart.

4. Beethoven certainly is a great melodist. His style is chunky most of the time, but he has his flowing moments. The important thing is that his materials are catchy as heck.

[JimCullen]

If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend the video from...omg 12 years ago...by Thomas Goss on the channel OrchestrationOnline entitled "Defending Beethoven". It's another response to that very same Bernstein interview. He actually points to the same 2nd movement of the Pathetique as a counterexample regarding melody. The two videos are, I think, rather good companions to one another.

[martijn]

In 1812 Rossini wrote an aria on one note in Ciro in Babilonia for a supporting role, because the singer was in tune on only one tone. Beethoven could have heard about it before december 1813, when his seventh was first played. Unfortunately i never could find it, so I suppose it was replaced.
Bernstein was never big in Rossini I suppose.

[roryreviewer]

One of my favorite Beethoven melodies is the slow movement theme of the Op. 127 string quartet.

[BeethovenIsGrumpyCat]

"Beethoven is not a great melodist" really means "Beethoven did not write Italian opera."

[EXISTENCE]

Beethoven's genius didn't need a melody. The absence of a traditional melody makes it a work of genius

[AIainMConnachie]

Watched that Bernstein thing a long time ago. He really enjoys engaging in hyperbole. I really enjoyed your critique. Thank you

[cyberprimate]

Not the first time I hear an accomplished composer say Beethoven wasn't a great melodist. First time I heard it was from film composer Vladimir Cosma. I think by "…not a great…" Bernstein meant "not a virtuosic" melodist, harmonist… My teacher says a great fugue sounds simple even when it's complex behind the curtain. Beethoven's fugues rarely sound simple.