Beethoven / Brian Wilson

Fran Magazine: Issue #148

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Almost a month ago, over Memorial Day weekend, I took the train down to Philadelphia to see the Philadelphia Orchestra play Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with

Emma

. At some point in my classical music-going journey, I decided it would be fun to see all of the Beethoven symphonies live — there are only nine of them so it feels like a manageable goal. At time of writing, I’ve seen Beethovens 3¹, 4, 7², and now 9. I was completely positive that I’d seen 6 at some point, but I can’t find any evidence of such so I’ll have to go on faith. Every other year the New York Philharmonic programs the Fifth, and for whatever reason I drag my ass and never get affordable tickets in time. Beethovens 1, 2, and 8 have kind of eluded me — but I’ll get them, don’t worry.

Seeing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is kind of a crazy thing to do, in some ways. It is one of the most famous pieces of music in the entire Western world.³ Going to see it live is kind of like, I don’t know, going to see “Hey Jude” live, and only “Hey Jude,” and maybe it’s not even Paul McCartney singing it but a different guy with a slightly more modern interpretation of its tempo. Like, ??? What do you need from that experience, exactly. That’s not a good example — maybe the better one would be “spending money to see “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” — but I spent a lot of my train ride down to Philly thinking about what is to be gained from engaging with something so famous. On one hand, I was excited to see Philadelphia Orchestra conductor and friend of Bradley Cooper Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who taught the titular Maestro to conduct, but otherwise what I was doing was planning to sit for over an hour with a piece that’s very, very old and very, very known. While its fourth and final movement is its most famous, I’d argue the melodies from the whole symphony have played out in some fashion of modern life where you may have encountered these tunes, albeit briefly.

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is also quite a long piece of music, an hour or so long. That’s not necessarily crazy for a symphony,⁴ but it’s certainly a while to sit and focus on one singular piece of work. I’d only ever listened to Beethoven’s Ninth one other time in full when I was in college. I took a survey course on Western Classical music taught three days a week, with two days dedicated to lecture and one day dedicated to listening. For homework, we’d been assigned Beethoven’s Heiligenstadt Testament, a letter he wrote to his brothers in the early 19th century that I always think of in the abstract as a suicide letter but is mostly just venting about how misunderstood he is, his misery surrounding his deafness sapping the joy out of his life. The letter is considered a turning point in Beethoven’s style, written after his first symphony but before the other eight, to say nothing of his extensive catalogue including operas, concertos, piano works, etc. In the letter, he writes:

[…] Ah how could I possibly admit such an infirmity in the one sense which should have been more perfect in me than in others, a sense which I once possessed in highest perfection, a perfection such as few surely in my profession enjoy or have enjoyed - O I cannot do it, therefore forgive me when you see me draw back when I would gladly mingle with you, my misfortune is doubly painful because it must lead to my being misunderstood, for me there can be no recreations in society of my fellows, refined intercourse, mutual exchange of thought, only just as little as the greatest needs command disposition, although I sometimes ran counter to it yielding to my inclination for society, but what a humiliation when one stood beside me and heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing, or someone heard the shepherd singing and again I heard nothing, such incidents brought me to the verge of despair, but little more and I would have put an end to my life - only art it was that withheld me, ah it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had produced all that I felt called upon me to produce, and so I endured this wretched existence - truly wretched, an excitable body which a sudden change can throw from the best into the worst state […]

Rather than lead a discussion of the letter, our professor played a recording of Beethoven’s Ninth in full and we sat listening to it for the whole hour. When it was over, he said, “only art it was that withheld me,” and let us go for the day. I don’t think there was a direct implication being made between Beethoven’s Ninth and this letter — that the Ninth in particular is supposed to be representative of this kind of art that can cement a person to the earth — but because I was taught to associate these things at a young age, the phrase was back of mind for the whole time I sat watching the Philadelphia Orchestra.

I know a lot of people who aren’t too crazy about the music of Beethoven or Mozart, who — when they ask for symphony recommendations — ask for anything but stuff that sounds like that. I get that: it’s a little like not wanting to suffer the Shakespeare sonnets so that you can get to, like, T.S. Eliot or whatever. Just because something is foundational doesn’t necessarily mean it is worthy of appreciation. But whereas I had to work to grow to love Mozart, whose music is playful and mathematical, driven by systems and not so much passion, I’ve always admired the music of Beethoven. Sitting and listening to the Ninth Symphony, however, I was struck mostly by how straightforward it all was. The music does not want you to work to have to understand it. The melodies are easily hummable. The tensions between themes are minimal, if not all building towards the same vision. Everyone in the audience — of all ages — was loving it. A teen girl did this 🫶🏻 during the applause from all the way up in the third tier and I laughed out loud. In that way, the palpable enthusiasm had me feeling as though Beethoven knew this work was good. There was a kind of pre-determined greatness embedded into the music. People convince themselves of delusions of grandeur all the time these days, but that kind of self-awareness did not feel inherent to Beethoven’s work. Still: everything sparkled with a pleasant knowing. This was special. We all knew it. Part of what has always intrigued me about classical music is that it comes from the last era in which the mainstream form of music was built around communicating or paying credit to a higher power. Late baroque and early classical music shifts from a God-centered aspiration to something more narrative, driven by entertainment. Beethoven sits at the final stretch of that time. He wrote something that sounds as though it wants to be heard beyond the symphony hall. To some degree, I think he succeeded.

I meant to write about all this a month ago, but life and commitments and travel got in the way. I had all but abandoned the notion of writing down some notes on Beethoven — the metrics don’t lie: people do NOT want to read about classical music right now — when news broke that Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys had passed away. I have no profound personal connection to the Beach Boys or to the Wilsons. I was not at the Pitchfork show in 2017 or whatever that seemingly every single person I know in Chicago was at to witness Brian and the Cusacks all dancing on stage. My knowledge of their catalogue is basic, rudimentary. I know the hits.

What I’ve always liked about the Beach Boys from a very early age is that you don’t have to work very hard to enjoy what’s there. The melodies are sweet and easy. The lyrics of many songs are approachable for a kid. At the age of 10, I probably knew way more Beach Boys songs than I did any other artist from that time period, including The Beatles. In friend of Harry Styles Rob Sheffield’s obit for Wilson, he talks about interviewing him in 2000, asking questions about songs here and there, writing: “Over the phone, I asked about ‘Good Vibrations’ — where did a song like that come from? ‘God,’ he told me. ‘And Phil Spector. God, Phil Spector, and the Beach Boys all combined.’” Elsewhere, I saw a tweet that said something to the effect of, “it’s crazy to start a song with ‘I may not always love you.’” Not really, I thought. Music sets itself apart as a place where crazy things can be said.⁵ The sentiment is otherwise clear and straightforward: the song presents a possibility, not an inevitability. It sets its own terms. “God Only Know” doesn’t pre-suppose its greatness, but it’s a song that knows better than to reach beyond what it is. The lyrics speak for themselves. You can dig, but the understanding I had of the piece is not much more complicated now than it was when I heard it twenty-something years ago. “The world could show nothing to me / So what good would living do me?” “God Only Knows” asks. Later in the Heiligenstadt Testament, Beethoven just about concludes with: “how glad will I be if I can still be helpful to you in my grave - with joy I hasten towards death - if it comes before I shall have had an opportunity to show all my artistic capacities it will still come too early for me.”

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Odds and ends

I’m not doing enough extracurricularly to justify a dispatch this week, but here and there: I read Molly by Blake Butler in three sittings, I’m deep in Stardew Valley mania still, I figured out what I’m wearing to my wedding (nothing like anything in that post — yay), I made strawberry miso ice cream, I watched two-thirds of Citizenfour. My fire escape garden is thriving.

What’s new with YOU?

1. Too many times at this point.

2. Overrated? Underrated? Debate below.

3. If, in the event, you’re saying to yourself, “it is not FAMOUS to ME,” I’m sorry, but the final movement is “Ode to Joy” and there’s no way you haven’t heard that.

4. Some of my fondest memories of seeing classical music live include going to see Anton Bruckner’s symphonies, which stretch a little longer than those of Beethoven.

5. People who are mad at Sabrina Carpenter, like, as a career seem to really struggle with this.