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Next season they are doing a whole BUNCH of Beethoven, including the 8th symphony, and in all honesty I might even like that one better than the 9th. I never even listened to it until a couple years ago, I mean with LvB it seems like the focus is always on 3-5-7-9 and sometimes 6, but man when I got a complete cycle on CD I listened to it and it took me DAYS just to get through the first part of the first movement, I would get to the part where it - crap I don't know the technical terms - it all builds up and then you get that big "da da da DUM da da da DUM da da da DUM da da da" and then the last "DUM" bounces you right back to the beginning again. IT BLEW ME AWAY. I just kept listening up to that point and then starting over again, because it's so awesome.
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I know the feeling (which is not the same as "I feel your pain.")...
It does seem a bit strange LvB's seemingly best symphonies are the odd numbered works. It is rather like the first set of "Star Trek" movies...
I have a number of favorite movements in LvB's symphonies; my favorite is actually the melding of the 3rd and 4th movements of the 5th Symphony, particularly the transition. The 3rd is so labored and angst-ridden as it continues, then, just as it transitions into the next movement, there is a slow, hopeful swell in the strings and it burst into a loud, joyful cekebration of what I have sometimes referred to as "free flight"...
I particularly dislike recordings where they separate the 3rd and 4th movement with the standard silent space used between numbers on a disc...
Speaking of the 5th Symphony, some co-workers of mine several years ago were debating "the world's greatest riff". They turned to me as the ancient keeper of long-forgotten rock lore and asked my opinion. I replied "The opening notes of Beethoven's 5th Symphony; just two notes, the first repeated 3 times followed by the second. It is the most identifiable, referenced, imitated sequence of notes in all music history. No other comes close." They looked at me and then decided the greatest riff was the opening to "Whole lotta Love"...
So, Frau, what's new with your house?...
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