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<body class='hmmessage'><div dir='ltr'>Stephen Jablonsky wondered why LvB's 4th seems to live in "a quiet<BR>
oblivion" compared to its temporally closest siblings. My opinion: it's<BR>
simply like one of those traffic jams one hits upon for which there is<BR>
no visible cause--everyone grinds to a halt, you inch along for a while,<BR>
then everyone speeds up again. In other words, it's a traffic jam just<BR>
for the sake of being a traffic jam; and like Jupiter's Great Red Spot,<BR>
has no reason ever to stop (other than, by 3am there's usually too<BR>
little traffic to sustain it). Likewise, the 4th doesn't get programmed<BR>
simply because nobody programs it. I'm pretty sure that anyone<BR>
programming _any_ Beethoven symphony will get noticeably higher<BR>
ticket sales than for, say, _Miraculous Mandarin_... and CERtainly<BR>
higher than anything by Ahnald.:)<BR>
<BR>
>Just for the fun of it, can you put Beethoven's symphonies in<BR>
>order [of] greatness (if that is even possible)?<BR><BR>
The radio show _Performance Today_ about 10-11 years ago did a week<BR>
devoted to the things; and their guest conductor playing tour guide (I<BR>
forget who) said something to the effect of, "There are 8 Beethoven<BR>
symphonies... and then there's The Ninth."<BR>
<BR>
I personally don't believe you can do a meaningful ranking of them<BR>
individually, but you can perhaps separate them akin to geological<BR>
strata: 1-2 are journeyman works--competent, nicely crafted, but Not<BR>
Noticeably Above(tm) the best mature works of Haydn or Mozart. At<BR>
the other end is The Ninth, off by itself--and I'm not sure that _that_<BR>
designation is more than retrospective accumulated cultural baggage.<BR>
(Read Slonimsky's _Lexicon of Musical Invective_ for, ahh, opinions<BR>
contemporary to its premiere.:) For 3-8, I very strongly doubt that you<BR>
could get any statistically significant differences, even if you *could*<BR>
devise some metric for "greatness."<BR>
<BR>
>What do you say about 8?<BR><BR>
For the record, 8 is one of my favorites. More user-friendly than 3, and<BR>
waaay less cloying than 6--although that last may be due to having<BR>
watched _Fantasia_ too often years ago. (And I'm pretty sure I'd like<BR>
4 more if I could hear it more...:)<BR>
<BR>
Art Samplaski<BR>
Ithaca, NY<BR>
<BR>
q.t.: If on the other hand you want to hear a truly -terrible- Beethoven<BR>
piece, make yourself sit through _Leonora #2_. It's exactly the same<BR>
as L3--save that, like Lennie's rewriting the 1st mvt. of K550 for one<BR>
of his Norton Lectures to be utterly 4+4+4+..., it is SO pathetically<BR>
square re phrase rhythm as to border on torture and/or parody. The<BR>
two of them would make a textbook case re shaping phrases for a<BR>
form/analysis class, save that some lawyer might argue it constituted<BR>
student abuse--and definitely *teacher* abuse to have to go through<BR>
it year after year!<BR> </div></body>
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