then you will vividly remember the scene where Colin Firth as King George VI telling his subjects that they are at war. The music in the background in that dramatic moment is the allegretto movement from Beethoven's 7th Symphony.
Yes, German music.That same musical passage was also effectively used by Frank Capra in "The Nazis Strike," part of the Why We Fight
World War II education films for troops. As the music plays, scenes of Polish victims of Nazi terror--dead bodies and weeping widows--are shown.
Ironic--perhaps a bit, but allow me to lend a bit of historical perspective. It's the musician's curse to carry all these bits of trivia about, since they are needed for work:
ReplyDeleteBeethoven was born in Bonn, but he spent the best part of his career in Vienna, Austria, at that time the musical center of the world. Vienna speaks German (its own version), but it is miles away from Berlin in mindset.
Beethoven was an ardent political liberal of his day-- ardently anti-Napoleon (once Bonaparte showed his true stripes), and his music was viewed with suspicion by the Austrian emperor of the day. Upon hearing the 5th Symphony, he declared 'That sounds revolutionary!'--and he was right, in many more ways than one! He managed to take Western music apart limb from limb and essentially reshape it. This movement is part of that process, one of the most glorious moments of Western history.
Von Karajan, on the other hand, was a known Nazi collaborator. One of my old teachers shared an apartment with him in Salzburg after the war, where young Herbert was 'put on ice' while things were sorted out in the late 40's. He was brilliant, to be sure, but the stain does remain.
The father of another friend, by contrast, survived the war playing violin in one of the Berlin orchestras, all the time hiding his Jewish grandmother in the attic. He emigrated to the US, and lived out his days quietly, playing his violin, grateful to be alive and free.
Thanks for sharing Beethoven with us!
Great comment. And thank YOU.
ReplyDeleteBeethoven was no German. Beethoven was a Rheinlander. Germany, the way we know it today, did not excist in his days.
ReplyDeleteBesides is Beethovens music not German music, but Universal music, used for (to) many perposes.
I like the use of the wonderful allegreto in the Kings Speeche very much. It touches me.
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