Research Catalog

Title

Beethoven's ninth symphony : rehearsing and performing its 1824 premiere / Theodore Albrecht.

Author

Albrecht, Theodore

Publication

• Woodbridge : Boydell Press, 2024.
• ©2024

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xxxix, 282 pages : music; 24 cm

Summary

The Ninth Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven with its final choral movement is one of the iconic works of Western classical music. And yet, the story never fully told concerns the months leading to the symphony's world premiere in Vienna on 7 May and repeat performance on 23 May 1824. In his new book, Theodore Albrecht brings to life the day-to-day details that it took to stage that premiere. It's a story of negotiating for performance halls and performers' payments, of hand-copying legible scores and individual parts for over 120 performers, of finding financiers, as well as space and time for rehearsals. Importantly, it is also a story of the relationship between Beethoven and the musicians who performed this symphonic masterpiece. In fact, as the maddening rehearsal schedule towards the symphony's premiere shows, it transpires that many passages of the Ninth have been tailored to specific orchestral players.0Many modern-day musicians will recognize familiar situations in rehearsals, many scholars and students will relish unprecedented new detail. All this comes to the fore by reconstructing the story drawing on the (almost) deaf composer's Conversation Books which Beethoven had been using since 1818. In the performance story of the Ninth Symphony's premiere, Albrecht makes full use of these invaluable documents, which are now being translated for the first time into English in a series of 12 volumes published by the Boydell Press.0Theodore Albrecht, Professor Emeritus of Music at Kent State University, Ohio, is an award-winning Beethoven scholar. He has authored many important articles on the composer and is the editor of Letters to Beethoven and Other Correspondence (1996) as well as translator and editor of Beethoven's Conversation Books (Boydell Press).

Subject

• Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827
• Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827. > Performances
• Symphonies (Beethoven, Ludwig van)
• Performances

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages [233]-245) and indexes.

Call Number

JME 24-226

ISBN

• 1837651051
• 9781837651054

OCLC

1390915610

Author

Albrecht, Theodore, author.

Title

Beethoven's ninth symphony : rehearsing and performing its 1824 premiere / Theodore Albrecht.

Publisher

Woodbridge : Boydell Press, 2024.

Copyright Date

©2024

Type of Content

text

notated music

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages [233]-245) and indexes.

Research Call Number

JME 24-226