# Beethoven's 9th - Culmination of Everything He Wrote?



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

As I heard Charles Hazlewood's claim in the BBC Mozart documentary: "The Jupiter could be seen as a culmination of everything Mozart wrote.", I thought: "can't the same thing be said about Beethoven and his last symphony?"






Beethoven Symphony No.9 in D minor:

*1st movement* - Beethoven evokes feelings of "fate" in places. Compare the main material of his 5th symphony 1st movement with this section of the 9th symphony 1st movement. It seems to symbolize the "inevitable changes" he brought about in music.

*2nd movement* - Feelings of "agitation and consolation", the kind of which he would revisit with Grosse Fuge some time later. In the BBC Beethoven documentary, Charles Hazlewood opined that Grosse Fuge depicts Beethoven's relationship with his nephew Carl (although being strictly "absolute music"). I get this sort of feeling from the scherzo of his 9th symphony as well.

*3rd movement* - Feelings of "pastoral" - Beethoven evokes moods similar to the slow movement of his 6th symphony. 

*4th movement* - Expression of Beethoven's own religious feelings (deism) - seems to relate to Choral Fantasie and Missa Solemnis. I think this last movement is about Beethoven's deism as much as the last movement of Mozart's last symphony is about Mozart's catholicism. I once cited various sources that claim Mozart was a free-thinking catholic.

_"I remember quite a few musical opinions that Glazunov gave on a variety of subjects, such as: "The finale of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony is like the cathedral of Cologne." Honestly, to this day I can't think of a better description of that amazing music."_
(Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich, Page 62)

[ 8:03 ]


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

I think there's a good case for that assertion. But personally, I believe the Diabelli Variations to be the most stupendous product of his late period, and a work which truly sums up his entire compositional output. It's not discussed as much as the late quartets and sonatas, Missa Solemnis, etc. but despite its somewhat esoteric nature, it is for me a type of artistic experience that I don't think has really been matched in any field. 

As for Mozart, I would say the Great C Minor Mass or the 4th String Quintet. Also works like the Clarinet Quintet and Concerto, which have for me the greatest purity of any of his works.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

No. But that's because I don't think of Beethoven as having a culmination, only a body of work whose average quality gets greater and greater the more he adds to it.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I'd say for Beethoven that his 9th is the culmination of what he (or anyone) wrote for the symphony up till that time. I've listened to it more recently and was amazed at the invention in the first movement. I don't feel a symphony can be easily labelled as the culmination of anyone's output, except Mahler and Bruckner. For Beethoven there are his piano sonatas. For Mozart I feel Don Giovanni or the Magic Flute, or his Clarinet Quintet is more of what he is about than Jupiter.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Beethoven's music is much too varied in both genre and style for any one work to be the culmination of it. What impresses me about the 9th, as it does about many of Beethoven's works, is how fresh and daring it is in form and feeling. Impossible as it is to imagine him "topping" it - I imagine he'd have done something very different for a tenth, as he did in each successive symphony after the second - it doesn't have a feeling of summation or a valedictory quality as do, perhaps, the last symphonies of Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Bruckner, Sibelius and Mahler. Beethoven was only in his fifties and we can assume that he was far from finished.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

Well, I guess it's *a* culmination of sorts, but *the* culmination is debatable. After the Ninth he's still got five of the greatest string quartets ever written in him. Some might argue for that to be another culmination.


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## Bigbang (Jun 2, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> Beethoven's music is much too varied in both genre and style for any one work to be the culmination of it. What impresses me about the 9th, as it does about many of Beethoven's works, is how fresh and daring it is in form and feeling. Impossible as it is to imagine him "topping" it - I imagine he'd have done something very different for a tenth, as he did in each successive symphony after the second - it doesn't have a feeling of summation or a valedictory quality as do, perhaps, the last symphonies of Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Bruckner, Sibelius and Mahler. Beethoven was only in his fifties and we can assume that he was far from finished.


I agree. After the 3rd(eroica) who can guess the order of progressiveness in his symphonies until the 9th symphony? Of course history tells us he worked on various works at the same time (5+6 symphonies) and so on. But I cannot hear any more mature type of advancement until the 9th. I read that when Beethoven was working on the 9th, he knew had to go to the voice to express his new ideas and the back and forth opening of the 4th movement is before the baritone comes in is like a wrestling with where to go from here??...hence the idea for a instrumental finale. Darn it Beethoven how I wish you had done so.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

The 9th is op. 125 from 1824, so was everything he wrote after that all down hill? Well for a start there are the late quartets so I'd say the answer is a definite no, therefore that claim is just someone's careless sound bite.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

the 9th is altogether different from the symphonies Beethoven wrote before.

one might think he was helped by someone to write this one piece.

a work of such magnitude cannot be composed by one man.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

hammeredklavier said:


> *1st movement* - Beethoven evokes feelings of "fate" in places. Compare the main material of his 5th symphony 1st movement with this section of the 9th symphony 1st movement. It seems to symbolize the "inevitable changes" he brought about in music.
> 
> *2nd movement* - Feelings of "agitation and consolation", the kind of which he would revisit with Grosse Fuge some time later. In the BBC Beethoven documentary, Charles Hazlewood opined that Grosse Fuge depicts Beethoven's relationship with his nephew Carl (although being strictly "absolute music"). I get this sort of feeling from the scherzo of his 9th symphony as well.
> 
> ...


1st part portrays war or genocide.

2nd part portrays the so-called Eternal Return, symbolised by the Swastika, with a 'rotating' motif.

3rd part portays life after death, kind of Nirvana maybe.

4th part portays chaos where spiritual and material worlds blend together.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

If the Jupiter culminates everything Mozart wrote it is about technique. The Jupiter symphony is famous for having five motifs all repeated in the finale.

Beethoven's 9th is not so much about technique as content, especially the content of the finale. 

So I'd say if the Jupiter culminates everything Mozart wrote, the 9th symphony culminates everything Beethoven thought … about liberty, humanity and brotherhood … although you could say same for Fidelio and Missa Solemnis if you through in God.

I more likely think the final piano sonata, No. 32, is the culmination of everything Beethoven wrote.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Becca said:


> The 9th is op. 125 from 1824, so was everything he wrote after that all down hill? Well for a start there are the late quartets so I'd say the answer is a definite no, therefore that claim is just someone's careless sound bite.


By "culmination", I don't mean the best thing he ever wrote. I like Allegro Con Brio's expression: _"sums up his entire compositional output"_. Say, if you were to describe Beethoven's creative life to someone who doesn't know Beethoven and you were only allowed to pick only one work as an example - in this case, I think the 9th symphony would be the work that best describes Beethoven's personal, social, religious tendencies.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

hammeredklavier said:


> By "culmination", I don't mean the best thing he ever wrote. I like Allegro Con Brio's expression: _"sums up his entire compositional output"_. Say, if you were to describe Beethoven's creative life to someone who doesn't know Beethoven and you were only allowed to pick only one work as an example - in this case, I think the 9th symphony would be the work that best describes Beethoven's personal, social, religious tendencies.


You could say that.

I'd say this:


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Zhdanov said:


> the 9th is altogether different from the symphonies Beethoven wrote before.


And yet so very much (very, very much) like the Choral Fantasy Op. 80, which appeared 16 years later.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Not the culmination as Beethoven, after the ninth and the Missa Solemnis, went in on himself and composed the last quartets with strange harmonies that could have been written 100 years later.


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## Bigbang (Jun 2, 2019)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> I think there's a good case for that assertion. But personally, I believe the Diabelli Variations to be the most stupendous product of his late period, and a work which truly sums up his entire compositional output. It's not discussed as much as the late quartets and sonatas, Missa Solemnis, etc. but despite its somewhat esoteric nature, it is for me a type of artistic experience that I don't think has really been matched in any field.
> 
> As for Mozart, I would say the Great C Minor Mass or the 4th String Quintet. Also works like the Clarinet Quintet and Concerto, which have for me the greatest purity of any of his works.


OK, the diabelli variations--to me this nonsense of a statement. Beethoven merely used his talents on a theme (thus he is limited in his ability to express himself). What is so wonderful about a work such as this? Have you listened to it again and again?? Personally I do not care much for it and the reason is Beethoven is not using his inspiration from scratch but creating a work for others who would get the ideas. Not exactly a good fit for today's world and I see not much interest in the work but a lot of talk.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Bigbang said:


> OK, the diabelli variations--to me this nonsense of a statement. Beethoven merely used his talents on a theme (thus he is limited in his ability to express himself). What is so wonderful about a work such as this? Have you listened to it again and again?? Personally I do not care much for it and the reason is Beethoven is not using his inspiration from scratch but creating a work for others who would get the ideas. Not exactly a good fit for today's world and I see not much interest in the work but a lot of talk.


Beethoven created an entirely new way of dealing with the form of theme and variations, and the Diabelli are the apex of his achievements in this field. It changed forever the possibilies of variating a theme, and it's influence in later composers is immense: there's the way of doing variations before the Diabelli and the way of doing so after it. It's also the most adventurous composition of Beethoven in terms of harmony according to Schoenberg himself, and according to the renowed pianist Alfred Brendel it's "the greatest of all piano works."

"The theme has ceased to reign over its unruly offspring. Rather, the variations decide what the theme may have to offer them. Instead of being confirmed, adorned and glorified, it is improved, parodied, ridiculed, disclaimed, transfigured, mourned, stamped out and finally uplifted." - Brendel

"Composers in the old days used to keep strictly to the base of the theme, as their real subject. Beethoven varies the melody, harmony and rhythms so beautifully." - Brahms

The work is rich in detail and, as usual in Beethoven, it seems to have a very well planned structure. To me it seems that there's an inner logic governing it in it's entirety in terms not only of micro but also of macro. The Diabelli represents to me a profound, beautiful and brilliant journey through the edges of Beethoven's art in the field of variations.

It's special music for special days in my opinion, like other late Beethoven.


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## Bigbang (Jun 2, 2019)

I see it placed well on the TC piano works (29). Not bad considering the competition (his other works too). I still think that opinion differ in ways we come to a work. For some, it is based on what one likes or not (me) and others use discrimination based on intellectual reasoning and so might be swayed to state an opinion with the crowd. It might grow on me but I will not worry too much as I like Beethoven piano works best anyway.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Allerius said:


> "Composers in the old days used to keep strictly to the base of the theme, as their real subject. Beethoven varies the melody, harmony and rhythms so beautifully." - Brahms


This is grossly taken out of context, depending on how one interprets, it would look as if Brahms was comparing Beethoven with Beethoven's predecessors (since 'composers in the old days' is a vague term) regarding the variation form. In reality, Brahms was not.
This is the actual quote by Brahms regarding the variation form:
"I sometimes ponder on variation form and it seems to me it ought to be more restrained, purer. Composers in the old days used to keep strictly to the base of the theme, as their real subject. . . . But it seems to me that a great many moderns (including both of us) are more inclined-I don't know how to put it-to fuss about with the theme. We cling nervously to the melody, but we don't handle it freely, we don't really make anything new out of it, we merely overload it. And so the melody becomes quite unrecognizable."
Brahms, letter to Joseph Joachim, 1856

Brahms did specifically mention Beethoven's variations 40 years later in a conversation with Richard Heuberger: 
"You couldn't commission great music from Beethoven since he created only lesser works on commission-his more conventional pieces, his variations and the like."
PA134
PA135


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Beethoven was always moving forward into new territory rather than building the power of his perfected achievement to date. I don't really think of the Choral as his greatest late work, anyway.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

Enthusiast said:


> Beethoven was always moving* forward into new territory* rather than building the power of his perfected achievement to date. *I don't really think of the Choral as his greatest late work*, anyway.


Beethoven, his whole life, was walking in a jungle full of gifted snakes and crocodiles. He is exploiting places where nobody before dared to put his foot. And he is doing this with braveness and long vision. You can't really say which work is Beethoven's best. Many, for example, say, that Fidelio isn't a major work of him. But, also there, we have so many musically breath taking moments. Beethoven is a phenomenon. He can not be calculated or measured. I fully agree with you.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Bigbang said:


> OK, the diabelli variations--to me this nonsense of a statement. Beethoven merely used his talents on a theme (thus he is limited in his ability to express himself). *What is so wonderful about a work such as this?* Have you listened to it again and again?? Personally I do not care much for it and the reason is Beethoven is not using his inspiration from scratch but creating a work for others who would get the ideas. Not exactly a good fit for today's world and I see not much interest in the work but a lot of talk.


Beethoven was the greatest improviser of the day and it gives us a glimpse of it. I find it a fascinating work in every way. Try Schnabel's recording, wrong notes and all!


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

hammeredklavier said:


> This is grossly taken out of context, depending on how one interprets, it would look as if Brahms was comparing Beethoven with Beethoven's predecessors (since 'composers in the old days' is a vague term) regarding the variation form. In reality, Brahms was not.
> This is the actual quote by Brahms regarding the variation form:
> "I sometimes ponder on variation form and it seems to me it ought to be more restrained, purer. Composers in the old days used to keep strictly to the base of the theme, as their real subject. . . . But it seems to me that a great many moderns (including both of us) are more inclined-I don't know how to put it-to fuss about with the theme. We cling nervously to the melody, but we don't handle it freely, we don't really make anything new out of it, we merely overload it. And so the melody becomes quite unrecognizable."
> Brahms, letter to Joseph Joachim, 1856
> ...


You have a point. I provided that quote based on brainyquote.com, and looking for it now it seems that *it's propagated elsewhere in sites of quotes outside of it's context*. Brahms meant that Beethoven was part of what he calls as "old days", not a reactionary against it:

"I sometimes ponder on variation form and it seems to me it ought to be more restrained, purer. Composers in the old days used to keep strictly to the base of the theme, as their real subject. Beethoven varies the melody, harmony and rhythms so beautifully. But it seems to me that a great many moderns (including both of us) are more inclined-I dont know how to put it-to fuss about the theme. We cling nervously to the melody, but we don't handle it freely, we dont really make anything new out of it, we merely overload it. And so the melody becomes quite unrecognizable." - *J. Brahms.*


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

hammeredklavier said:


> Brahms did specifically mention Beethoven's variations 40 years later in a conversation with Richard Heuberger:
> "*You couldn't commission great music from Beethoven since he created only lesser works on commission-his more conventional pieces, his variations and the like.*"


The Razumovsky quartets were written on commission, and if they are "lesser works" or "conventional pieces" then I live in Mars. But I can agree that perhaps they were too modern and progressive for Brahms' taste. *Here* is an article about a world-class quartet talking about them.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Beethoven was only in his fifties and we can assume that he was far from finished.


As was Mahler and I don't think he was anywhere near finished either.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Barbebleu said:


> As was Mahler and I don't think he was anywhere near finished either.


The 10th Adagio was definitely heading in the direction of greater things to come. It being great in and of itself. Beethoven, Mahler, Debussy all left this planet in their 50s. Three magnificent bodies of work.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

I'm not certain that any artist, save the few who actually retire after creating what is (in their own minds) a culminate "valedictory" work, ever create a truly culminative work. Of course artists build upon what they've learned, but each work aims to be a separate entity, a "new thing" with its own rules and textures and form and being. Lesser artists tend to have fewer "tools" to work with and so their art tends to be overall more homogenous. The greater artists not only have expanded gifts of skill and imagination, they also learn better and accumulate new "tools" over the course of their practice. And greater artists tend to understand better than do lesser ones that each and every art_ is_ its own world and needs not always demonstrate new techniques or brave new dimensions. More importantly, perhaps, is the _message_ the art is meant to give -- what we stumblingly term "the meaning of the work of art." Difficult issues to pigeonhole. Shakespeare doesn't necessarily provide us with any progressive techniques in his last play, _The Tempest_, but his vision and that vision which is communicated is original.

One of the things we discuss most about Beethoven is the very fact of how each of his symphonies, his piano sonatas, his string quartets, his piano concerti seems _individual_ and _unique_, _distinct_. Each and every one is, in a sense, a cumulative work. And so one might argue of Mozart, or Bach, or Schubert, Mahler or Tchaikovsky.

I often contend that artists prevail as either summarizers or innovators. Bach and Mozart certainly seem to me the great summarizers. Bach takes the heritage of Baroque practice and raises it to its peak; Mozart takes Haydn's style and structure, what we today term "classicism", and defines it to seeming exhaustible heights. These two artists open the door to innovation, for after them one can only imitate (and likely do that poorly in comparison) or move on to something new. Bach's own sons and Haydn reign as innovators, creating a new sound universe; Beethoven picks up from Mozart and carves out the new territory. (My own favorite musical fantasy remains that of speculating about what Mozart's reaction to Beethoven's music may have been; would he have succeeded in keeping up with the new innovator, or would he have stalled to a dead heat. Mozart provides an example of one who shares summarizer and innovator techniques; his symphonies are rather summary in nature while his piano concertos offer innovation. But this is matter for much analysis, speculation, and a longer posting format.)

In an earlier post this day I mused upon Schnittke's First Symphony, a Frankenstein-like Monster work that arguably stands as a culmination of Schnittke's art. Yet, it is his first symphony; he would write much more. But within that monstrous First lies seemingly every element of art in Schnittke's toolbox. Which shows the difficulty of what is being attempted in this post.

So, again, I suspect I have little to offer, and so will take my leave.

But I must point out two notions of a somewhat related topic. The poet William Wordsworth created his greatest (most original and most influential work) early in his career and then spent a remaining 50 or so years penning mediocrity. What is his culminate work if not one of those early works, perhaps his first collection, the _Lyrical Ballads_? On the other hand, Walt Whitman lived a long life, continually revising and adding to his single collection _Leaves of Grass_, which serves in a unique way as nearly a single work of art, one expansive with genius and mediocrity, polar in its nature, just as is life. What work could be considered culminate in Whitman?

Perhaps what I'm suggesting is that each artists oeuvre, his body of work, remains the culminate statement, for therein lies the full humanity of the artist -- not a god, he, but a mere man, albeit a gifted one to whom we all owe a modicum of gratitude for defining not only his art, and art itself, but our very humanity itself. In my favorite (and it is only that, not necessarily his best or his most culminate) poem by William Wordsworth, the Intimations Ode, the poet ends with the lines: "To me the meanest flower that blows can give / Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

For me, too. Who needs but a single work that proves "a culmination of everything" (which likely doesn't exist anyhow) when one can realize "thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears" in those "meanest" flowers that blow?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

^I find as many elements of "individuality" and "uniqueness" between Haydn and Mozart as I do between Mozart and Beethoven. What's also interesting is that there are also common elements between Haydn and Beethoven not shared by Mozart to a great extent (such as exploration of monothematicism in the sonata form). So, I could draw a 3-way venn diagram with Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven denoting each of their unique traits, as well as their common elements.

[ 7:33 ~ 8:59 ]

7m33s





"It is worth dwelling for a while on these works, for of all Beethoven's predecessors Haydn is the one to whom he was most indebted. Neither composer could quite equal Mozart in fluency of melodic invention; both were intensely interested in thematic treatment and possessed an imagination that enabled them to see possibilities in seemingly insignificant ideas."(Beethoven's String Quartets, By Philip Radcliffe, Page 13)






"Stylistically Spohr's and Beethoven's developments as composers took them diametrically opposite directions. The op. 18 quartets are the point which they were closest, but from there their paths diverged. Beethoven moved away from the chromaticism of late Mozart towards a broader harmonic style; it is significant that his only preserved comment about Spohr's music should have been 'He is too rich in dissonances; pleasure in his music is marred by his chromatic melody.'"(Louis Spohr: A Critical Biography, By Clive Brown, Page 99)

I find measure 100 (5:10 in the video) of this rondo to be one of "proto-Tristanesque" passages in Mozart (other examples include the slow movement of concerto K482 and adagio K540: Harmonic Similarities in Wagner and Mozart) 





As for Haydn's uniqueness -- Mozart rarely ever "sustains" the brass in this way, for example (the way to write "introductions" in the beginnning of Haydn's 78th and Missa in Angustiis and are unique from Mozart as well):

[ 0:34 ]

34s





[ 4:38 ]

4m38s





Regarding what Mozart would have felt about Beethoven, I want to believe Mozart had actually said this:
_"Mark that young man; he will make himself a name in the world!" _


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

another interesting video regarding the topic of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven:


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

larold said:


> If the Jupiter culminates everything Mozart wrote it is about technique. The Jupiter symphony is famous for having five motifs all repeated in the finale.
> 
> Beethoven's 9th is not so much about technique as content, especially the content of the finale.
> 
> ...


I think you mean the finale has such motifs - not the whole symphony.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Of course it isn't. No single work is. Given that it's a one off and experimental, I wouldn't even say it's the culmination of his symphonic thought.


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## Pyotr (Feb 26, 2013)

Charles Hazlewood thinks not "culmination" but the "end of the road" for another genre.

75 seconds


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