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Post by Deleted on Sept 3, 2014 0:58:12 GMT -5
Van Beethoven wrote a lot of uncommonly exciting music, but he also made many mistakes. By far his worst mistake was to write an opera about "The Triumph of Married Love". Over what exactly is "Married Love" supposed to be triumphing? And what sort of "love" can "married love" possibly be anyway?
Wilhelm Furtwängler told us, did he not, that "the conjugal love of Leonore appears, to the modern individual armed with realism and psychology, irremediably abstract and theoretical." He also said that "for us Europeans, as for all men, this music will always represent an appeal to our conscience."
Well! We enlightened twenty-first century men of conscience, who devote, and rightly so, so much energy to ridding the world of the hideous mediæval practice of "wedlock", are unwilling to see our efforts undermined by this almost obscene opera of a nineteenth-century misfit. Let all performances of this travesty of "love" be banned henceforth and for ever!
As the editor of the Spectator reminded us in 1902, the only appropriate and valid kind of "marriage" is a cohabitational arrangement made by the respective parents of a couple, and its only proper purpose is the generation of offspring. "Love" has nothing whatever to do with the matter.
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Post by ahinton on Sept 3, 2014 3:36:58 GMT -5
Van Beethoven wrote a lot of uncommonly exciting music, but he also made many mistakes. By far his worst mistake was to write an opera about "The Triumph of Married Love". Over what exactly is "Married Love" supposed to be triumphing? And what sort of "love" can "married love" possibly be anyway? Wilhelm Furtwängler told us, did he not, that "the conjugal love of Leonore appears, to the modern individual armed with realism and psychology, irremediably abstract and theoretical." He also said that "for us Europeans, as for all men, this music will always represent an appeal to our conscience." Furtwängler was married twice; one might wonder why... Well! We enlightened twenty-first century men of conscience, who devote, and rightly so, so much energy to ridding the world of the hideous mediæval practice of "wedlock", are unwilling to see our efforts undermined by this almost obscene opera of a nineteenth-century misfit. Let all performances of this travesty of "love" be banned henceforth and for ever! As the editor of the Spectator reminded us in 1902, the only appropriate and valid kind of "marriage" is a cohabitational arrangement made by the respective parents of a couple, and its only proper purpose is the generation of offspring. "Love" has nothing whatever to do with the matter. "We enlightened twenty-first century men of conscience, who devote, and rightly so, so much energy to ridding the world of the hideous mediæval practice of "wedlock"? That's you and whose army, perchance? And why only the men? And does marriage date back only to mediæval times? "Sydney Grew and his gang of two (if indeed it consists of that many) ban Ludwig van"; now there's a headline for you! That said, I submit that the likelihood that your operatic censor's diktat would actually occur in practice is about as great as would be a successfull worldwide veto on all future public performances of the same composer's C# minor quartet. In any case, what specific things do you and your fellow "twenty-first century men of conscience" do to "rid the world of the...practice of "wedlock"" and how much success have you had where with this? No one ever "reminded" me of anything in 1902 and, even had it been possible for someone to try to do so, I would first have had to know it but subsequently have forgotten it, which is also not the case; in any event, never mind "love" having "nothing whaever to do with the matter", on what grounds and for wht intended purpose do you invoke "the respective parents of a couple" here? - i.e. what do they "have to do with the matter"? I find your remarks here all the more misplaced in an age in which marriage is on the increase, not least because of the ever more widespread legalising of marriage between partners of the same sex. Dear me! |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 3, 2014 14:36:26 GMT -5
Ludwig van's best mistake, Sydney!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2014 1:10:24 GMT -5
Why kleines c?
Is it likely do members think that the sub-title "The Triumph of Married Love" was invented not by Ludwig/Louis at all but by his publishers?
And I am still bothered by the two questions in my first paragraph, over which Mr. H. has taken the liberty of leaping:
1) Over what exactly is "Married Love" supposed to be triumphing or to have triumphed?
2) And what sort of "love" can "married love" possibly be anyway?
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Post by ahinton on Sept 4, 2014 8:35:11 GMT -5
Why kleines c? Is it likely do members think that the sub-title "The Triumph of Married Love" was invented not by Ludwig/Louis at all but by his publishers? And I am still bothered by the two questions in my first paragraph, over which Mr. H. has taken the liberty of leaping: 1) Over what exactly is "Married Love" supposed to be triumphing or to have triumphed? 2) And what sort of "love" can "married love" possibly be anyway? Publishers often used to "invent" (if you can call it invention) names for their composer's works, just as others do; think, for example, of the "concerto without orchestra" nonsense ascribed to Schumann's F minor piano sonata just because, in its original guise, it comprised five movements. Others have sadly followed suit; think of the examples in Chopin alone, with "his" "Raindrop" prelude, "Ocean", "Æolian Harp", "Butterf ingersly" and "Revolutionary" études, or Beethoven again with "his" "Tempest" and "Moon shinelight" piano sonatas. But to return to your remark, can Beethoven's publishers really be justly accused here when the opera's (German) libretto had been prepared by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly as used for Pierre Gaveaux's 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal? - which could sound rather silly either way in the sense that its "or" might let it be read as two alternatives. As to the rest, I'm not fit enough to leap over anything these days but your first question presumably required you to read the libretto to find the answer before asking the question as though you couldn't find it there and your second is either hair-splitting, dense (though surely not from you?!) or both, given that the term "married love" is clearly intended to - and indeed does - convey the notion of love between the two partners of a married couple, a concept that is surely not so very difficult to grasp? |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2014 13:09:27 GMT -5
The biblical alternative, Sydney, is fornication.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2014 18:14:17 GMT -5
. . . the opera's (German) libretto had been prepared by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly as used for the Pierre Gaveaux's 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal . . . Thanks to Mr. H. for that enlightening nugget of erudition. So, van B. cannot after all be blamed for the inappropriate conjunction of amour and the conjugal - it was some overexcited Frenchman! |
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Post by ahinton on Sept 5, 2014 0:35:57 GMT -5
. . . the opera's (German) libretto had been prepared by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly as used for the Pierre Gaveaux's 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal . . . Thanks to Mr. H. for that enlightening nugget of erudition. So, van B. cannot after all be blamed for the inappropriate conjunction of amour and the conjugal - it was some overexcited Frenchman! Not only would it be unreasonable to blame Beethoven for something that he did not do but it would also be unfair to blame the "overexcited Frenchman" as which you describe Bouilly (and, presumably by association, also Gaveaux) for an "inappropriate conjunction" when none has been proven to exist! |
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