Podcasts about beethoven's ninth symphony

Some 200 musicians joined up to perform Beethoven's Ninth Symphony along a 2.5-kilometer stretch of rail line. The extraordinary performance was staged to celebrate the year marking Beethoven's 250th birthday.

On today's date in 1875, American conductor Theodore Thomas, a passionate advocate for both old and new music, led the Cincinnati May Festival chorus and orchestra in the first American performance of J.S. Bach's "Magnificat." Bach composed this work in 1723, originally for Christmas use in Leipzig, then revised the score ten years later in 1733. The American premiere, 142 years after that, was also a reworking, since the original instrumentation was expanded for large 19th century orchestra and Bach probably would have been astonished at the size of the Cincinnati chorus performing his music. Bach's "Magnificat" served as the opener for a Festival performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The Beethoven was a huge success, and Cincinnati newspapers of the day referred to "Ninth Symphomania" breaking out in their city. The newspapers were less impressed with Bach's "Magnificat." The Cincinnati Commercial review opined: "The work is difficult in the extreme… most of the chorus abounds with rambling sub-divisions. We considering the 'Magnificat' the weakest thing the chorus has undertaken… possessing no dramatic character and incapable of conveying the magnitude of the labor that has been expended upon its inconsequential intricacies." Well, no one who actually heard that 1875 performance is still alive to ask whether it was really as terrible as all that, and in any case, we suspect American audiences and performers have a gotten a little more used to Bach's "inconsequential intricacies" since then.

On today's date in 1875, American conductor Theodore Thomas, a passionate advocate for both old and new music, led the Cincinnati May Festival chorus and orchestra in the first American performance of J.S. Bach's "Magnificat." Bach composed this work in 1723, originally for Christmas use in Leipzig, then revised the score ten years later in 1733. The American premiere, 142 years after that, was also a reworking, since the original instrumentation was expanded for large 19th century orchestra and Bach probably would have been astonished at the size of the Cincinnati chorus performing his music. Bach's "Magnificat" served as the opener for a Festival performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The Beethoven was a huge success, and Cincinnati newspapers of the day referred to "Ninth Symphomania" breaking out in their city. The newspapers were less impressed with Bach's "Magnificat." The Cincinnati Commercial review opined: "The work is difficult in the extreme… most of the chorus abounds with rambling sub-divisions. We considering the 'Magnificat' the weakest thing the chorus has undertaken… possessing no dramatic character and incapable of conveying the magnitude of the labor that has been expended upon its inconsequential intricacies." Well, no one who actually heard that 1875 performance is still alive to ask whether it was really as terrible as all that, and in any case, we suspect American audiences and performers have a gotten a little more used to Bach's "inconsequential intricacies" since then.

Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio discuss their new film Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. In the ninth film directed by Quention Taratino, set in the late 1960s, DiCaprio plays an actor in the twilight of his Hollywood career, with Pitt as his buddy and stunt double. The Chief Conductor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo, guides Stig Abell in on what to listen out for when listening to a symphony. Oramo will conduct the annual Proms performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony next Monday evening. In a row over colours the Turner Prize winner Sir Anish Kapoor has been banned from an art shop which is employing a full-time security guard with orders to keep him out. The artist and art shop owner Stuart Semple is angry that Kapoor secured the exclusive rights to Vantablack, that in response he's created his own blackest black paint, available to everyone, except Anish Kapoor. Stig Abell made it through the security checks and into his shop to talk to Stuart Semple about why the colour black is so important to artists, and why access to it raises fundamental issues about art and democracy. It's August 14th which seems an ordinary sort of day but, as Front Row reveals, over the last 1,000 years many events of cultural and artistic significance have occurred on this date, so August 14th isn't so nondescript after all. Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Julian May

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (known as, "Ode To Joy") is one of the most famous pieces of classical music ever. It has even featured in movies such as Clockwork Orange and Die Hard. Beethoven wrote it just a few years before his death, when he was profoundly deaf. At its premiere, when the audience applauded, one of the soloists had to turn Beethoven around to face the crowd as he couldn't hear. The crowd threw handkerchiefs and their hands in the air so Beethoven could at least see their jubilant reaction.

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (known as, "Ode To Joy") is one of the most famous pieces of classical music ever. It has even featured in movies such as Clockwork Orange and Die Hard. Beethoven wrote it just a few years before his death, when he was profoundly deaf. At its premiere, when the audience applauded, one of the soloists turned Beethoven around to face the crowd as he couldn't hear. They threw handkerchiefs and their hands in the air so that Beethoven could at least see their jubilant reaction.

Tom Service explores arguably the most famous piece of music in the world: the Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. It's a piece which has been appropriated by everyone from the European Union, to the writer Anthony Burgess, who used it as an unsettling counterpoint to the murderous exploits of the characters in his novel A Clockwork Orange. Tom asks whether Beethoven's original vision of a musical utopia has actually turned out to be far more dangerous than the composer could ever have imagined.

Benjamin Zander's latest recording is of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus on Brattle Media, and it's one in which the conductor has sought to perform the work exactly as he believes the composer original intended. Zander talks to Editor Martin Cullingford about the recording, and also about the importance of reaching new audiences for classical music.

Soprano Ailish Tynan explores the effect different languages have on songs and vocal works. Ailish feels that words are the foundation blocks to unlocking a song, and explores the fascinating way different languages (English, French, German) very often dictate the style of a song or vocal work. Her music choices include Reynaldo Hahn's Bach-flavoured A Chloris, the Irish folk-song The Last Rose of Summer, Handel's Messiah and the Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, as well as works by Stanford, Poulenc and Carl Orff.

The premiere episode of Encore Houston, featuring Mercury Chamber Orchestra performing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with guest soloists and members of the Houston Symphony Chorus.

Michael Berkeley meets Turner Prize-nominated conceptual artist and film-maker Sam Taylor-Wood, whose latest work, Nowhere Boy, documents the early life of John Lennon. Much of her work has been inspired by music, from opera to Bach, and her choices range from the opening of Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Euridice, the Kyrie from Mozart's Requiem and the opening of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony to an Indian raga and Nina Simone singing Wild Is the Wind as well as film scores by Ry Cooder and Michael Nyman. Sig: M Berkeley: The Wakeful Poet (Music from Chaucer) Beaux Arts Brass Quintet (Berkeley/OUP) Duration: 0m26s Mozart: Introitus (Requiem in D Minor, KV626) Marie McLaughlin (soprano) Bavarian Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra Leonard Bernstein (conductor) DG 431 041-2 Tr 1 Duration: 6m39s Ravi Shankar: Prabhati Ravi Shankar (sitar) Yehudi Menuhin (violin) Alla Rakha (tabla) (Shankar, based on Raga Gunkali) Menuhin meets Shankar EMI CDC7490702 Tr 1 Duration: 4m06s Gluck: Ah ! Se intorno a quest'urna funesta (Orfeo ed Euridice) Orfeo ...... Bernarda Fink (mezzo-soprano) Rias-Kammerchor Freiburger Barockorchester Rene Jacobs (conductor) HARMONIA MUNDI HMC90174243, CD 1 Tr 2 Duration: 3m18s John Lennon: Love Lennon/Lenono Music/BMG Muic Publishing Ltd The John Lennon Collection PARLAPHONE CDP7915162 Tr 7 Duration: 3m19s Beethoven: Symphony No 9 in D minor Op 125 (1st mvt - excerpt) Staatskapelle Berlin Daniel Barenboim (conductor) ERATO 4509 94353-2 Tr 1 Duration: 5m25s Ry Cooder: Paris, Texas (Paris, Texas - film sountrack) Ry Cooder, Jim Dickinson, David Lindley (Cooder/Tonopah and Tidewater Music Co BMI) Original Film Soundtrack WARNER 9252702 Tr 1 Duration: 2m56s Nina Simone: Wild Is the Wind Nina Simone (piano/voice) Rudy Stevenson (guitar) Lisle Atkinson (bass) Bobby Hamilton (drums) (D Tiomkin, N Washington arr Nina Simone, Famous Music Corp) Work Song (The 60's vol 3) MERCURY 8385452 Tr 8 Duration: 6m58s Michael Nyman: The Heart Asks Pleasure First (The Piano - film soundtrack) Michael Nyman (piano) Nyman/Chester Music Ltd The Piano VENTURE CDVE919 Tr 4 Duration: 1m33s.

POLL: Should classical music be used to fight crime and loitering? Move along, hoodlums. Antonio Vivaldi is playing at Newark Penn Station. When New Jersey Transit upgraded the public address system at the Newark transit hub a year ago, they began piping in classical music along with the announcements on train arrivals and connections. The authority subscribed to a music service and station agents could select from different channels, which also include easy-listening and jazz. The idea, said a NJ Transit spokesperson, is to relax customers "and make it more pleasant to traverse the facilities." But in cities from Atlanta to Minneapolis and London, there's often a bigger strategy at work: turn on the great composers and turn away the loiterers, vagrants and troublemakers who are drawn to bus stations, malls and parking lots. Last month, the Associated Press reported on a YMCA in Columbus, OH that began piping Vivaldi into its parking lot, and claiming to disperse petty drug dealers as a result. In this podcast, host Naomi Lewin asks why classical music in particular seems to be the weapon of choice – and whether it works. "It's been used as part of a larger strategy of crime prevention through environmental design," said Jacqueline Helfgott, chair of the criminal-justice department at Seattle University. She noted that classical music is often accompanied by upgrades like better lighting, improved traffic flow or trimmed shrubbery in public areas. Studies on the specific effects of music on criminal behavior are lacking. But Helfgott believes classical music is historically associated with "a cultural aesthetic that is pro-social as opposed to antisocial," making it a preferred crime prevention tool. Put another way, rowdy teenagers don't find classical very cool. Nigel Rodgers, the head of Pipedown, a group that campaigns against background music in any form, believes the strategy presents a slippery slope. “Yes, young people commit crimes and it’s a problem," he said. "I do appreciate that. But we must seek out other pro-sociable ways of dealing with the problem rather than just squirt acoustic insecticide at young people. "People who really like music of any sort don’t want to have it piped at them when they’re trying to talk, eat or shop when they don’t want it." It's also worth keeping in mind that not all classical music works as a soothing agent. As anyone who has seen "A Clockwork Orange," knows, even Beethoven's Ninth Symphony has its dark associations. In Columbus, OH, where the YMCA piped in Vivaldi, the strategy is being hailed as a success. A local business improvement district executive told the AP: "There's something about baroque music that macho wannabe-gangster types hate. At the very least, it has a calming effect." .chart_div { width: 600px; height: 300px; } loadSurvey( "classical-music-and-crime-prevention", "survey_classical-music-and-crime-prevention");