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This is the famous Symphony #6 by Beethoven. It evokes a day in the country, hence its nickname, The Pastoral Symphony" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2VY33VXnrQ There were lots of versions on You Tube. This one is Leonard Bernstein's interpretation. I was raised on the Von Karajan version, but this one is very nice too. I notice a few little nuances of dynamics, but that is what makes it interesting to listen to different conductors. I know I missed last Saturday, so I hope this makes up for it! Enjoy.

When I hear Beethoven's 9th Symphony, I just love it. Trouble is, I can't begin to tell you exactly why his music inspires me so much. And no doubt, that's because music lies outside the sphere of rational thought. What I can tell is that the triumphant parts of Beethoven's 9th symphony thrill my heart. When I hear it, I feel the power of victory and freedom.  It's as if my body could fly across the room! Now H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956) was not your run-of-the-mill music critic: he was simply the finest American newspaper pundit and...

Bad news for anyone celebrating a birthday tomorrow... December 16 is the worst day of the year to be born, according to new research. The study suggests that while July 28 is the best day to celebrate a birthday, December 16 is the worst while January birthdays are the most likely to be forgotten. Famous people born on December 16 include Ludwig van Beethoven, Jane Austen and ZZ Top star Billy Gibbons who turns 66 this year.

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IN CONCERT: BEETHOVEN'S MISSA SOLEMNIS: A CELESTIAL TREAT Beethoven was inspired by the beauty of the Mass when he created this work. It later debuted at St. Petersburg in 1824. Sir Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall in London who deliver a superb performance with 260 members in the chorus! Begins at 7:45 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzQXdWM3J3o Shorter Version with Leonard Bernstein at the Concert Hall in Amsterdam https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5cOfF9ZDAM

“Truly,” Beethoven remarked in 1827, “in Schubert there dwells a divine spark.” Franz Schubert himself worshiped the older composer and was a torchbearer at his funeral. In the following year, he asked for one of Beethoven’s string quartets to be played at his own sickbed, days, if not hours, before he died at the age of thirty-one. Many of Schubert’s works contain homages to Beethoven: the Fate theme of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is the animating motif of Schubert’s terrifying song “Der Zwerg” (The Dwarf). His “Auf dem Strom” (On the River, for voice, piano, and horn) takes up the theme...

HERE goes. This article completes my two-week project to select the top 10 classical music composers in history, not including those still with us. Left, 1. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). From top left, 2. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), 3. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 — 91). 4. Franz Peter Schubert (1797-1828). From middle left, 5. Claude Achille Debussy (1862 — 1918), 6. Igor Stravinsky (1882 — 1971), 7. Johannes Brahms (1833 — 97). From bottom left, 8. Giuseppe Verdi (1813 — 1901), 9. Richard Wagner (1813 — 83), 10. Bela Bartok (1881 — 1945). I am about to reveal my list,...

YOU know that a new year has truly arrived when critics stop issuing all those lists of the best films, books, plays, recordings and whatever of the year gone by. These lists seem to be popular with readers, and they stir up lively reactions. snip... Yet in other fields, critics and insiders think bigger. Film institutes periodically issue lists of the greatest films of all time. (“Citizen Kane” seems to have a lock on the top spot.) Rock magazines routinely tally the greatest albums ever. And think of professional tennis, with its system of rankings, telling you exactly which player...

70 years ago, Britain and America together murdered the industrial capacity of Continental Europe. (I have dared to arrive in Dresden early morning - doing so will rip your heart out, the marks of the bombings still are extremely present, words can't describe what you'll encounter) 50 years ago, Continental Europe stood up very well against America and Britain. 21 years ago, the Berlin wall came down. Today, Communism and Nazism are stone dead in Europe, economic growth is decent in Germany and our school children are not instructed to salute Hitler or Stalin. We Europeans are annoying when we...

Nobody understood Beethoven. Vienna in his own time, the early years of the 19th century, recognized his unruly genius but could not fathom why he wrote so far beyond popular comprehension or what kind of man he was. What they saw in the flesh was a disaster—a musician driven to fits of rage by debilitating deafness, reckless in hygiene and dress, ruinous in human relationships, yet revered by fellow artists as a force of destiny. What they saw, in other words, was a caricature. The image became no clearer after his death in 1827. By midcentury, Beethoven had been put...

...Beethoven's life was as complex and outsize as his art—a roller-coaster ride of willful strife, earthy humor, crushing loneliness, explosive rage and spiritual triumph. Similarly, his music "takes at times the majestic flight of an eagle, and then creeps in rocky pathways," as an 1810 review in the Parisian Tablettes de Polymnie reported. "He first fills the soul with sweet melancholy, and then shatters it by a mass of barbarous chords. He seems to harbor together doves and crocodiles."

Beethoven: Revealing His True Identity   In the 15th and 16th century, written history underwent a massive campaign of misinformation and deception. With the European slave trade in full swing, Afrikans were transported to various parts of the world and were stripped of every aspect of their humanity, and in most of western civilization, were no longer considered human. This triggered a wholesale interpretation of history that methodically excluded Afrikans from any respectful mention, other than a legacy of slavery. This can result in being taught, or socialized, from one perspective. In this instance, historical information tends to flow strictly...

The building of true civilization has always been exposed to various difficulties. But in the end, periods of unemployment, war and political turboil is nothing but small potatoes. Personally speaking, I'll turn 39 years old soon and one of the things that make me get out of bed and drive off to work each morning - a part from the luxury of driving a wonderful Volvo V70 to the place - is the magnificence of toiling in the company of certain younger Swedish work mates who I daily encounter there; people in their 20s who believe in hard work and...

VIENNA, Austria — Did someone kill Beethoven? A Viennese pathologist claims the composer's physician did — inadvertently overdosing him with lead in a case of a cure that went wrong. Other researchers are not convinced, but there is no controversy about one fact: The master had been a very sick man years before his death in 1827. Previous research determined that Beethoven had suffered from lead poisoning, first detecting toxic levels of the metal in his hair and then, two years ago, in bone fragments. Those findings strengthened the belief that lead poisoning may have contributed — and ultimately led...

VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Did someone kill Beethoven? A Viennese pathologist claims the composer's physician did -- inadvertently overdosing him with lead in a case of a cure that went wrong. Other researchers are not convinced, but there is no controversy about one fact: The master had been a very sick man years before his death in 1827. Previous research determined that Beethoven had suffered from lead poisoning, first detecting toxic levels of the metal in his hair and then, two years ago, in bone fragments. Those findings strengthened the belief that lead poisoning may have contributed -- and ultimately...

Beethoven's piano sonatas have been integral to Daniel Barenboim's life in music since he was a kid in knee britches. He began studying them under his first teacher, his father, when he was around 7. Ten years later, he performed all 32 sonatas from memory in public concerts in Tel Aviv. He has repeated the cycle numerous times around the world, including New York, his native Buenos Aires and, most recently, Berlin, where he presented "the 32" in a marathon series of eight recitals in June-July 2005 at the Staatsoper unter den Linden, of which he serves as music director....

Original manuscripts by Bach, Mozart and Brahms form part of a 139-item collection of sheet music donated to the Juilliard School in New York. The artefacts - donated by collector Bruce Kovner, chairman of the music acedemy's board - will be housed in a reading room from September 2009. Highlights include working manuscripts of Beethoven's only opera Fidelio and Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No 9. School president Joseph Polisi said it was "by its very definition priceless". A lifelong music lover, Kovner began collecting manuscripts more than 10 years ago when he noticed a flow of rare artefacts coming onto the...

The President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has decided to ban all Western music from his nation’s state radio and TV stations. The website of the Supreme Cultural Revolutionary Council, of which Ahmadinejad is the head, explained that “blocking indecent and Western music from the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting is required.” Ahmadinejad isn’t just banning Eminem, Fifty Cent, and Arnold Schönberg’s Moses und Aron, which might be reasonable; nor banning the musicals of Andrew Lloyd Weber, which would be positively commendable. No, Ahmadinejad is banning Bach’s St. Matthew Passion (obviously); Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde; the wonderful songs of Harold...

Beethoven’s death made headlines last week when researchers supposedly “confirmed” that Beethoven died from lead poisoning. Now, I don’t doubt that the researchers found “elevated” levels of lead in Beethoven’s skull, but that’s a long way from concluding that lead caused or contributed to his death. First, the researchers stated that their new findings “confirm the earlier work done on [Beethoven’s] hair samples” – which reportedly had lead concentrations on the order of 60 parts per million. But there are significant problems with the researchers’ reliance on the hair lead measurements. Hair lead levels in the U.S. have been measured...

Science Reporter Sophisticated new tests confirm that Ludwig van Beethoven suffered severe lead poisoning, which could explain his cranky personality. But lead poisoning probably is not the reason why the great composer lost his hearing, researchers announced Tuesday. In 2000, tests of Beethoven's hair at southwest suburban Argonne National Laboratory showed he had lead concentrations roughly 100 times higher than levels found in healthy adults today. But hair analysis is not scientifically conclusive. Moreover, skeptics said, hair samples used in the test could have been contaminated by, for example, hair powder, dirt or grease. But a new test at Argonne,...