# what annoy me about Beethoven im fairplay, great composer but...my verdict



## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

It most be sacrilegeous or blasphemy to critic a man like Beethoven but as a pretencious critic i would says the two following things:

I dislike fast pace music for a reason that eluded me exception made french chanson genra (franco-flemish)

And i dislike or disaproved his utter joy of life, i'm '' un homme morose et pessimiste'' or if you preffered im grim and pessimistic, but it's ockay i guess hmm?

What your cue on this shawll i get the guillotine for sutch statement from TC menbers 
:tiphat:


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## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

It's all right to criticize any composer, especially if it is just matters of taste that cause the dislike.

1. He has plenty of music of all tempos to choose from. I cannot cherry pick any slower movements or pieces of his to recommend with any certainty. Maybe the romances for violin would qualify?

2. He has a section of music called "Ode to Joy" in the ninth symphony, but I would not call his music uniformly joyful. I might describe Beethoven's music as passionate or emotional.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

deprofundis said:


> And i dislike or disaproved his utter joy of life, i'm '' un homme morose et pessimiste'' or if you preffered im grim and pessimistic, but it's ockay i guess hmm?
> 
> :tiphat:


After op 106 it's less kitsch.


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## mathisdermaler (Mar 29, 2017)

"Beethoven's music is too fast"





"Beethoven's music is too joyful"





(This piece does have joyful and fast sections, but they are the exception and not the rule. I would think you wouldn't want a 40 minute work that is all slow and sad, unless you like Gorecki)


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## Razumovskymas (Sep 20, 2016)

deprofundis said:


> It most be sacrilegeous or blasphemy to critic a man like Beethoven but as a pretencious critic i would says the two following things:
> 
> I dislike fast pace music for a reason that eluded me exception made french chanson genra (franco-flemish)
> 
> ...


Come on deprofundis! Beethoven does "morose" and "pessimistic" very well too (take some time to listen to the examples below). But it's true that he always leaves room for hope and rise after the fall.


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## JeffD (May 8, 2017)

deprofundis said:


> And i dislike or disaproved his utter joy of life, i'm '' un homme morose et pessimiste'' or if you preffered im grim and pessimistic, :


There is a subtle strain of thinking that goes something like this: unless one is pessimistic one is not paying attention. That the true intellectual cannot but acknowledge, like Macbeth, that all of life "is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." That to be optimistic, or joyful, or to even be content, is a sign of ignorance, and perhaps wilful ignorance.

And I deny it all. Absolutely. And I refuse to let a generation of gloomy, lonely, dyspeptic intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals decide how I feel, about me, about being alive, about my future, about the future. I refuse.

So naturally, I think that when and where Beethoven is unashamedly joyful, he is making a grand statement, flying in the face of intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals everywhere.

I know its not cool to be happy. But between being happy or being cool, I chose happy. Every time. Every single time.


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## Razumovskymas (Sep 20, 2016)

JeffD said:


> There is a subtle strain of thinking that goes something like this: unless one is pessimistic one is not paying attention. That the true intellectual cannot but acknowledge, like Macbeth, that all of life "is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." That to be optimistic, or joyful, or to even be content, is a sign of ignorance, and perhaps wilful ignorance.
> 
> And I deny it all. Absolutely. *And I refuse to let a generation of gloomy, lonely, dyspeptic intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals decide how I feel, about me, about being alive, about my future, about the future*. I refuse.
> 
> ...


Isn't it the other way around these days? A generation of "happy", "connected", "annoyingly obsessed with happiness and yolo-*****" that decide that if you're not continuously busy trying to get happy, you're a party pooper?


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

It's okay not to like Beethoven. On one hand his music is indeed among the most life-affirming music ever composed. On the other, his life was far from a happy one -- hardly joyful, and often he was misanthropic, morose, and not well.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Madame Guillotine, this way, please!


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

MarkW said:


> It's okay not to like Beethoven. On one hand his music is indeed among the most life-affirming music ever composed. On the other, his life was far from a happy one -- hardly joyful, and often he was misanthropic, morose, and not well.


This life affirming quality is precisely what makes it kitsch, Beethoven's middle period music is the absolute denial of sh . t.


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## AfterHours (Mar 27, 2017)

In regards to the Ode to Joy movement, if one is only hearing "joy", I would suggest that they're not really listening. Throughout the movement, so many different emotions are traversed that it's hard to grab ahold of and can reveal a new image in its spectrum with each listen. The emotions/themes/melodies/tonalities of the previous movements vary, split, intersect and meld in voice and instrument. This culminates in the final climactic exclamatory fusion at the tail end of the movement, which, if you listen with this in mind, startlingly merges all of the movements in one fell swoop, one concise, torrential line of action, ending the work with a musical "resolution" but also by creating a whole new music, alluding to the never ending "cyclic thematic" strands of the 9th itself while also opening up its infinite future, the future of music.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> This life affirming quality is precisely what makes it kitsch, Beethoven's middle period music is the absolute denial of sh . t.


Except that I would argue that even his late stuff is life affirming -- Missa, the quartets (even opp 95, 131, 132), last piano sonatas, Diabelli Variations . . . If I were horribly depressed and of that temperament (which I'm not) I can imagine listening as my last music before I slit my wrists "Das Lied von der Erde," for instance, but nothing by Beethoven that wouldn't dissuade me., (Kids, don't try this at home.) But that's just my take.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

MarkW said:


> Except that I would argue that even his late stuff is life affirming -- Missa, the quartets (even opp 95, 131, 132), last piano sonatas, Diabelli Variations . . . If I were horribly depressed and of that temperament (which I'm not) I can imagine listening as my last music before I slit my wrists "Das Lied von der Erde," for instance, but nothing by Beethoven that wouldn't dissuade me., (Kids, don't try this at home.) But that's just my take.


There's a mystical quality to op 111 and Diabelli Variations which make them feel different from earlier music he wrote for the piano. I don't know the Missa well enough to comment. I don't think op 132 is life affirming, on the contrary, it seems full of doubt and irony and angst. Op 131 is a great enigma, I don't know what to make of it other than to say that I like it very much, it's my favourite thing by Beethoven.


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

Beethoven's music is life-affirming, but not in a shallow way. He doesn't simply hand us a serving of happiness on a silver platter! His music reminds us that joy is an act of _will_, an accomplishment that we should fight to achieve. He shows us that optimism is a state of mind that must be earned through struggling with dark forces. It takes courage and energy to stare despair in the face and to say, as he does in the Ninth Symphony, "not these tones! Let us have more joyful ones."


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Bettina said:


> Beethoven's music is life-affirming, but not in a shallow way. He doesn't simply hand us a serving of happiness on a silver platter! His music reminds us that joy is an act of _will_, an accomplishment that we should fight to achieve. He shows us that optimism is a state of mind that must be earned through struggling with dark forces. It takes courage and energy to stare despair in the face and to say, as he does in the Ninth Symphony, "not these tones! Let us have more joyful ones."


Nicely written!


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

hpowders said:


> Nicely written!


Thank you! I always enjoy writing about Beethoven!


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## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

deprofundis said:


> What your cue on this shawll i get the guillotine for sutch statement from TC menbers
> :tiphat:


No guillotine for you. This isn't about Berlioz! However, you have been ordered to listen to Beethoven's _Wellington's Victory_ as punishment! 

I actually like _Wellington's Victory_. It's much more full of win than that hideous 4th movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Am I joking? Maybe. Maybe not. Judge for yourself!


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## JeffD (May 8, 2017)

Bettina said:


> It takes courage and energy to stare despair in the face and to say, as he does in the Ninth Symphony, "not these tones! Let us have more joyful ones."


Bingo. What I should have said.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> This life affirming quality is precisely what makes it kitsch, Beethoven's middle period music is the absolute denial of sh . t.


Yeah, the infamous chamber pot under the piano contained his collection of gold coins...


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Bettina said:


> Beethoven's music is life-affirming, but not in a shallow way. He doesn't simply hand us a serving of happiness on a silver platter! His music reminds us that joy is an act of _will_, an accomplishment that we should fight to achieve. He shows us that optimism is a state of mind that must be earned through struggling with dark forces. It takes courage and energy to stare despair in the face and to say, as he does in the Ninth Symphony, "not these tones! Let us have more joyful ones."


Agreed! Beethoven's music is amongst the most humanly honest works I've heard. He displays the struggle to achieve greatness!


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## Ivanbeeth (Nov 30, 2015)

I've got my problems with that optimistic side of Beethoven's music as well. When I'm full of anxiety or sadness it's the last composer I'd hear. I'm more of a reflect-my-feelings with music than a regulate-my-feelings with music guy, so at this period of my life I'm not listening to him very much. But, man, the second movement of his Eroica is a truly dark and beautiful monument to sorrow. And as for the fast paced, listen to his second mov. of the C minor concerto, or the secon of his Pastoral, or the third of his Ninth. Beethoven's not a sad composer but he's in no way a blind euphoric one.


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## JeffD (May 8, 2017)

Razumovskymas said:


> Isn't it the other way around these days? A generation of "happy", "connected", "annoyingly obsessed with happiness and yolo-*****" that decide that if you're not continuously busy trying to get happy, you're a party pooper?


Actually anyone really like that doesn't much care if you are trying to get happy or not. You are (apparently) much more annoyed with them than they are (likely) annoyed with you.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

I would say, each his/ her own taste mate, but you are brave to throw such a stone in the pond Deprofundis


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Bettina said:


> Beethoven's music is life-affirming, but not in a shallow way. He doesn't simply hand us a serving of happiness on a silver platter! His music reminds us that joy is an act of _will_, an accomplishment that we should fight to achieve. He shows us that optimism is a state of mind that must be earned through struggling with dark forces. It takes courage and energy to stare despair in the face and to say, as he does in the Ninth Symphony, "not these tones! Let us have more joyful ones."


Very well put. There is in the middle period the idea that the struggle can be won, this is, i guess, why people talk about heroic Beethoven. This is what I meant by Beethoven's denial of sh.t - he shows us a world of ultimately victorious and happy fighters. Kitsch.


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## Razumovskymas (Sep 20, 2016)

Mandryka said:


> Very well put. There is in the middle period the idea that the struggle can be won, this is, i guess, why people talk about heroic Beethoven. This is what I meant by Beethoven's denial of sh.t - he shows us a world of ultimately victorious and happy fighters. Kitsch.


I think it's rather joy WITHOUT the denial of sh.t.

Also I always feel there's a touch of vulnerability in his ecstatic and joyful music. It's joy with the strong awareness that there always will be struggle and darkness too.


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## Metairie Road (Apr 30, 2014)

Beethoven was a classic (no pun intended) manic-depressive. He suffered from extreme mood swings. It's all reflected in his music. I think it made him a better composer.


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## bioluminescentsquid (Jul 22, 2016)

A small experience I had with Beethoven today:

I was at the National palace museum in Taipei - it's a place chock-full of Chinese art shipped in the 40's from the Forbidden palace to save it from the hands of communist revolutionaries who, by then, have overrun China. In a special display case, with translations projected above (therefore it must have been very special) there was a 11th-century calligraphy scroll by poet Su-Shi containing some verses about a "cold food festival", apparently considered his magnum opus.

Now, I'm no Chinese art connoisseur (I've seen many more Rembrandts than Blue-and-white porcelain in my life, although the museum remedied this shortcoming), and frankly, for the first 30 minutes I spent staring at this damn piece of 900-year old paper I had no idea why this was considered beautiful. I could appreciate the classicism of some scrolls written in regular script, but this was a rather different beast. I only knew that it required a whole new set of eyes to look at and I couldn't judge it by the aesthetic standards I use on say, a Durer engraving, but I had no idea how to look at it.

I looked through the rest of the museum and came back 4 hours later, finding the area around the display deserted. I think I looked at it for 15 more minutes (it was actually fun, almost like an aesthetic puzzle) without much result.

And then, I re-read (perhaps the 7th time I looked at it) the last line of the poem, which translates roughly to "dead ashes cannot fly". I noted the oddly distorted, almost incomprehensible shape of the ideograph for "dead". Immediately, an epiphany hit, and I could, at least momentarily understand how the world weary cynicality of the poem was embodied in the distorted, ragged ideographs, trailing letters...

Oddly, I also started hearing the 4th movement of Beethoven's 7th symphony in my head at that moment. Somehow, that aesthetic leap I made also cued up the famous movement full of "Bacchic fury" - indeed some of the most life-affirming, but at the same time "kitsch" music of Beethoven, something quite different from the 700-years-earlier-half-a-globe-away expression of bitterness I had in front of me. (C'mon now, I would at least have expected some Gesualdo or Shostakovich!) I couldn't help laughing out, loudly and rather boorishly, on the spot, from this droll unconscious association.

I don't know how this relates to the topic on hand. Likely not at all. I will probably regret posting this - so pardon all the sound and fury - but I thought this was an interesting experience that I had to get off me.

Edit: found a link to a description of the scroll, so you know what I'm referring to http://www.chinaonlinemuseum.com/calligraphy-su-shi-hanshi.php


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

bioluminescentsquid said:


> A small experience I had with Beethoven today: I was at the National palace museum in Taipei - it's a place chock-full of Chinese art shipped in the 40's...


Thanks for a very interesting post! I believe the "cold food festival" is a three-day period usually beginning about April 5 by the Western calendar. I asked my wife, though, and she says no cooking fires are lit the first day of the lunar new year (in Taiwan), which would normally be a bit before that.

I was in the National Palace Museum some years ago. Most impressive! I understand only a small portion of their collection is on display at any time, and exhibits are always being changed and rotated through. I bought (and still read) a beautiful boxed set of high-quality books about their holdings: one on paintings, one on jade, and so forth. Don't know if they still sell those.


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## bioluminescentsquid (Jul 22, 2016)

KenOC said:


> Thanks for a very interesting post! I believe the "cold food festival" is a three-day period usually beginning about April 5 by the Western calendar. I asked my wife, though, and she says no cooking fires are lit the first day of the lunar new year (in Taiwan), which would normally be a bit before that.


Interesting, and clarifies much. I know Taiwanese who celebrate the Quiming festival (which I think comes right after Cold food) by doing a ritual cleansing of their family cemetery plots, but not the cold food festival. Wikipedia gives the impression that it is more common in places like Korea or Vietnam.
I actually spent part of my childhood in Taiwan but obviously I don't remember much...



KenOC said:


> I was in the National Palace Museum some years ago. Most impressive! I understand only a small portion of their collection is on display at any time, and exhibits are always being changed and rotated through. I bought (and still read) a beautiful boxed set of high-quality books about their holdings: one on paintings, one on jade, and so forth. Don't know if they still sell those.


Most of the porcelain, jades and other more durable artifacts are on permanent display, but the paintings and scrolls are rotated - preservation concerns, I believe. That's why I was pleasantly surprised to see such an important scroll on display, since the sheer size of their collections probably means that it's pretty rare to come across a given work - at least that's what the website seems to indicate. 
When I was there the store was unpleasantly full of tourists, so I didn't stay long. But I will probably return again this week.

Off topic, but I'm sure I can't get any worse than Bettina on the spouse thread.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I agree Beethoven was a great composer and an important one, who wrote much difficult and challenging music. To my ears he seemed to want the music to sound 'big' and as though it requires a lot of effort to produce.

Beethoven seems to have an aggressive joy thing going, as though he is actually trying to be stormy most of the time but rather than doing it harmonically he does it through dynamics and by playing a lot of notes and often joyful sounding passages in a forceful and aggressive way. To me this does not sound like true joy or balance, but a forceful kind of joy like someone who wishes to take what they want through force or violence.

One of the main difficulties I have is that the very long stretches of melodic material often sound like run on sentences, and to my ears the end result often sounds like the musical equivalent of verbal diarrhea.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Beethoven had a forceful, gruff, aggressive personality and he could burst into laughter right on the spot. Just ask any of his publishers or friends, if any of them are still alive. But that's what the books state.

This forceful, aggressive, jokester personality comes out in his music, and is what makes his music so distinctive to me.

He wasn't a "pretty", cultivated person and neither was his music.


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

tdc said:


> I agree Beethoven was a great composer and an important one, who wrote much difficult and challenging music. To my ears he seemed to want the music to sound 'big' and as though it requires a lot of effort to produce.
> 
> Beethoven seems to have an aggressive joy thing going, as though he is actually trying to be stormy most of the time but rather than doing it harmonically he does it through dynamics and by playing a lot of notes and often joyful sounding passages in a forceful and aggressive way. To me this does not sound like true joy or balance, but a forceful kind of joy like someone who wishes to take what they want through force or violence.
> 
> *One of the main difficulties I have is that the very long stretches of melodic material often sound like run on sentences, and to my ears the end result often sounds like the musical equivalent of verbal diarrhea.*


I haven't seen you on TC for a while...welcome back!

Perhaps Beethoven's Irritable Bowel Syndrome influenced his musical diarrhea. :lol: I agree with you that he could certainly spin out a phrase to epic proportions. In fact, this probably paved the way for Wagner's concept of "endless melody."

I personally love this aspect of Beethoven's music - I love it when he takes charge, throws me down, and hits me with a bunch of melodies!  But I can see why this experience might not appeal to some listeners.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Razumovskymas said:


> Isn't it the other way around these days? A generation of "happy", "connected", "annoyingly obsessed with happiness and yolo-*****" that decide that if you're not continuously busy trying to get happy, you're a party pooper?


On the money. It's exactly like that and it's a desperate façade because everyone knows deep down that the world is not always that joyous. It's not a coincidence that magazines like 'The Optimist' have grown in circulation, people are hungry for escape.

I was a bit confused by the OP. I've never really thought of Beethoven as a particularly 'happy' or joyous composer. He's life-affirming, but not by offering frivolous joy.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Klassik said:


> No guillotine for you. This isn't about Berlioz! However, you have been ordered to listen to Beethoven's _Wellington's Victory_ as punishment!
> 
> I actually like _Wellington's Victory_. It's much more full of win than that hideous 4th movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Am I joking? Maybe. Maybe not. Judge for yourself!


beethoven thought Wellington's Vicotry was one of his greatest works


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Triplets said:


> beethoven thought Wellington's Vicotry was one of his greatest works


Yeah. Beethoven also thought the Titanic would float.

He also left this: "Don't even think about coming to woo me in a time machine! I ain't interested!!"


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

hpowders said:


> Yeah. Beethoven also thought the Titanic would float.
> 
> He also left this: "Don't even think about coming to woo me in a time machine! I ain't interested!!"


Actually, the Titanic did float for a few days


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

hpowders said:


> Yeah. Beethoven also thought the Titanic would float.
> 
> He also left this: "Don't even think about coming to woo me in a time machine! I ain't interested!!"


When he wrote that bitter note, he had no idea that such a charming, intelligent, oversexed woman would come his way! :lol:


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Bettina said:


> ...I personally love this aspect of Beethoven's music - I love it when he takes charge, throws me down, and hits me with a bunch of melodies!


I think it was Tolstoy who said Beethoven grabbed you by the throat and slammed you up against the wall. He wasn't being entirely complimentary!


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

KenOC said:


> I think it was Tolstoy who said Beethoven grabbed you by the throat and slammed you up against the wall. He wasn't being entirely complimentary!


Funny you should mention that...I just bought Tolstoy's novella "The Kreutzer Sonata" a few hours ago. I'm planning to read it as soon as I can tear myself away from TC! :lol:


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Bettina said:


> Funny you should mention that...I just bought Tolstoy's novella "The Kreutzer Sonata" a few hours ago. I'm planning to read it as soon as I can tear myself away from TC! :lol:


You should read it while listening to the eponymous Janacek String Quartet. Nothing like listening to a piece of music named after a book whose title was in turn inspired by another piece of music


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

KenOC said:


> I think it was Tolstoy who said Beethoven grabbed you by the throat and slammed you up against the wall. He wasn't being entirely complimentary!


Tolstoy, like our friend tdc, was listening in third person. It is quite different when one listens in first person.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Bettina said:


> When he wrote that bitter note, he had no idea that such a charming, intelligent, oversexed woman would come his way! :lol:


I translated it from a North German dialect. I may have mis-quoted him, since I am more comfortable translating from German dialects surrounding Munich.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

deprofundis said:


> It most be sacrilegeous or blasphemy to critic a man like Beethoven


sure there are things one must not say.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Zhdanov said:


> sure there are things one must not say.


If you know of anyone on this forum blatently criticizing Beethoven's name, please PM me their name, address and phone number.

This must not be alllowed to continue!!


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## bioluminescentsquid (Jul 22, 2016)

hpowders said:


> If you know of anyone on this forum blatently criticizing Beethoven's name, please PM me their name, address and phone number.
> 
> This must not be alllowed to continue!!


While you're at it, PM me their social security number too.


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## JeffD (May 8, 2017)

Bettina said:


> Beethoven's music is life-affirming, but not in a shallow way. ... His music reminds us that joy is an act of _will_, an accomplishment that we should fight to achieve. He shows us that optimism is a state of mind that must be earned through struggling with dark forces.


Exactly. And that to fight to achieve joy, successful or not, is better than an acceptance of sadness as deserved or unchangeable.



tdc said:


> To me this does not sound like true joy or balance,


I think given the choice between true joy and balance I will go for true joy every time. Balance, if I get you correctly, is an absence of highs and lows. A giving up of the high so as to avoid the low. Not for me. I don't value balance much I guess.

Even if one were to prove I cannot control how I feel, I would prefer feel it exquisitely. Turn up the volume, whatever it is.



> but a forceful kind of joy like someone who wishes to take what they want through force or violence.


I would agree, kind of. It is a taking, through force and through violence, but it is not a taking from some one else. It is a taking from the universe of one's inalienable right to joy.

But part of this might be philosophical. I dunno. There is a kind of strain of thought that holds that joy is a zero sum game, that my happiness necessarily comes at the necessary sadness of someone else. This kind of thinking almost insinuates that one has no right to be happy until everyone is happy. I entirely deny that strain of thought. Entirely.

And my sadness and despondency certainly helps nobody. Exactly nobody. Approximately 0.0 persons are helped by my sorrow.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

bioluminescentsquid said:


> While you're at it, PM me their social security number too.


I asked the mods for perpetrators' SS #'s. They told me "no". Perhaps if I was a TC Premium Member, I would have had more influence.


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