The year 2017 marks the twenty-eighth anniversary (astrologers please note!) of the fall of the Berlin Wall during the annus mirabilis of 1989.  On Christmas Eve, Leonard Bernstein conducted Beethoven‘s Ninth Symphony in the western part of that formerly divided city.  Then, on Christmas Day, the concert was repeated in the eastern sector, and televised all over the world.

Here is a video of that performance:

As noted in the commentary, the orchestra, aside from German musicians, included players from the UK, the US, France, and the USSR – the four great powers whose armed presences still had yet to be withdrawn from Berlin.  Also novel is the inclusion of children’s voices in the choir.

But the most extraordinary aspect of this performance is the one change Bernstein felt called on to make in Friedrich Schiller ‘s “An die Freude” (“Ode to Joy”), Beethoven’s setting of which is the basis of the fourth movement, and indeed the whole point, of the Ninth Symphony.  There is a myth, even a somewhat valid speculation, that Schiller originally wanted to publish an “An die Freiheit” (“Ode to Freedom”), but was kept from doing so by the political climate of his times.  There is also speculation that the idea of an ode to freedom is what attracted Beethoven to the poem in the first place, possibly making the German word for joy, freude, a coded message of freedom (in German, freiheit) – something in which Beethoven believed very strongly.  For the two performances in Berlin just after the Wall came down, Bernstein had the singers substitute the word “freiheit” (“freedom”) for “freude” (“joy”), to recognize and celebrate the end of that oppressive structure, making this, as the commentary puts it, a “Freedom Concert” indeed…

It must also be noted that the Ninth Symphony is in the key of d-minor, normally considered a “sad” key, as noted by Claudio below.  So where does Joy or Freedom enter in?  Well – and I think this is also the point –the Ninth Symphony actually ends up in D-Major, generally considered a “happy” key.  So, like many pieces by Beethoven, the Ninth Symphony is, in the words of the English (Liverpudlian!) conductor Simon Rattle, “a journey from darkness into light”.

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I still remember this performance from when it was first televised.  The sheer emotionality of the performance, the sense of relief and happiness, indeed of both joy and freedom, at the end of a decades-long nightmare, is still palpable.  All the performers are putting everything they have into it.

When I listened to this performance again a couple of nights ago,  something very strange happened – or perhaps I saw some aspects of it that had heretofore escaped my notice:

I found the opening of the first movement appropriately eerie, even spooky, and settled in expecting to be thrilled.  But then, a while later, I found myself thinking that, if I’d been conducting, I’d’ve taken the whole thing at a somewhat faster tempo.  The music seemed to call out for a lot more oomph – one might even say a certain kind of swing.  I kept on thinking the same thing all through the second movement as well.  I began to wonder why exactly I’d found this performance so remarkable back in 1989, other than because of its historic context.

Then, before the start of the the start of the third movement, the slow movement – at about thirty-five minutes into the performance on this video, with almost an hour left to go – the  the four vocal soloists take their places and there is a certain amount of switching of chairs among the musicians.  It is clear that Bernstein is going to go directly from the third movement into the Finale, skipping any kind of pause.

Once everyone and everything is in place and ready to go, Bernstein stands very still, eyes shut, leaning back against the railing behind him.  Certainly he’s girding himself for the final effort – there’s still a lot of very vigorous music to get through.  But, in watching this performance again, I couldn’t help but get the feeling that some still small voice was telling him, “That’s all fine and well, Lenny.  But still pretty conventional.  You’ve got to pull it together, make this night something really special.”

What follows is remarkable.  Bernstein takes the slow movement really slow – slower than I’ve ever hear it played – before or since.  But instead of falling apart, as one might expect, the music enters a realm of calm and serenity that is hard to describe.  The Finale follows directly, and continues on the same level of the sublime.  In particular, the moment when the bass soloist sings, almost shouting, “FREIHEIT!” (“FREEDOM!”) at the top of his lungs, and the following variations on the Ode for the chorus and vocal soloists, sound to me, even all these many years later, like a great cry of defiance (and triumph!), and are enough to bring tears to these jaded old eyes.

The way Bernstein and his assembled forces handle the second part of the Finale, wherein the music becomes more and more chromatic and moves much more slowly, also deserves mention.  I’ve always had a problem with this part of the Ninth, being so enamored of the rousing melody of the Ode and its variations, but, watching and listening to this performance again, I began to see this slower section in a whole different way.  For a long time, I’d been thinking of it as “star music”, enjoying its increasing chromaticism while still having trouble connecting to it the way I did with the previous section.  This time I realized this slower part of the Finale was actually a matter of “beyond-the-stars” music – music which models the act of piercing the dome of the heavens, of transcending “normal reality”, to reveal the dwelling place of God – the shimmering presence, “under and back of the universe of time, space, and change” (as Thane used to put it), of the Divine.

At the very end, the performance over, Bernstein stands there very still, and for quite a while, before taking any bows.  He looks exhausted of course, but also like a man completely fulfilled – like someone who’s finally accomplished everything he’s set out to do in life.  And indeed, Bernstein passed away less than a year later.

Finally, I must say something about the poor vocal soloists.  If it sounds like they’re straining, it’s because they are.  In Beethoven’s day, orchestras were tuned to a considerably lower pitch.  Also, if there was an envelope around, Beethoven was going to push it, so he wrote some very high and challenging parts for this symphony.  Sadly the comfortable ranges of human voices has remained about the same, so modern-day singers of the Ninth are required to maneuver at the very top of their ranges; this is particularly hard on tenors…

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On a more sombre note, and because the readership of this blog consists mainly of Prosperos – who have an extreme aversion to any kind of sugar coating of reality – said readership is invited to look closely at the documentary footage at the beginning of this video – at the footage of the Berlin Wall being dismantled.   Notice the structure of that wall, how it is put together – particularly its cross section, with its rounded tube-like top.  Then compare those images to the proposed designs for the wall certain people are getting ready to erect along the southern border of our own country – supposedly to protect us from the Mexicans.  Then be reminded that the Berlin Wall had an official name, given to it by those who inflicted it on the world: “The Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart”.

After that, a certain amount of questioning and reflection may be in order…

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Merry Christmas!