Harvey Sachs. The Ninth: Beethoven and the World in 1824

Chapter 1

Who is the most popular composer in Vienna in the 1820s?

What were some of the difficulties the musicians had to overcome in performing the Ninth Symphony?

Why does Sachs say the emotional impact of the symphony is different for us today than it was in 1824 (clue: The Roman Pantheon)

What are the "conversation books?"

What two later famous composers of romantic piano music are mentioned (in 1824, one is 27, the other is 13 - both have the same first name)?

Where did Beethoven first consider premiering the Ninth?  Why didn't he?

How had the role of the composer changed from Haydn's early years through Beethoven's?  What was the new view of the composer?


Points we have already touched upon (but can discuss more)....

    Beethoven's childhood

    His first years in Vienna

    His oncoming deafness

    Beethoven's prolific Middle period



How does Sachs describe the classical style of Haydn and Mozart?  In his view, how was Beethoven different than Mozart?

What does Sachs say about Beethoven's final years as an artist?



Part II.  "1824; or How Artists Internalize Revolution"


The post-Napoleonic oppression and artists' responses to it.  


The Congress of Vienna.  

What is happening in post-Napoleonic Europe?  What were the Carlsbad Decrees?  (p. 76)

What were the authorities view of Beethoven?  What happened to Franz Schubert?  (p. 76)

Who was Lord Byron?  

See comparison of Byron's A-B-A poem content to Beethoven's 9th A-B-C-D content (despair-struggle-acceptance-joy).  (Sachs, page 85-86)  

If Byron's poem is considered anguish to heroism back to anguish again (as Sachs says it is), what Beethoven piano sonata(s) have we heard that follow this pattern of negative to positive to negative?

What does Pushkin say about Byron's death?  (p. 88)  What was Pushkin's background?  What was his Boris Godunov about?  (between 1868 - 1873, Modest Mussorgsky would write one of the great Russian operas about it).  (P. 91)


  Delacroix 


  Stendhal 


  Heine