iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dan Visioni @danvisioni.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

I’m sure is just a coincidence, but the Syracuse Orchestra today is playing Beethoven’s Seventh, which premiered at a concert celebrating Napoleon’s defeat. He dedicated the Third to Napoleon as a champion of liberty, but ripped the dedication from the manuscript when he declared himself Emperor.

Note from the program: True, the Seventh appears to be a work of absolute music, without a program. It doesn't have an explanatory subtitle (as the Third does); it doesn't serve to describe external scenes (as the Sixth, the Pastorale, does); nor does it set a verbal text (as the Ninth was later to do). Nonetheless, since that historically charged premiere, it has had a political edge, sharing the anti-authoritarian spirit of such works as the prison-rescue opera Fidelio (the final version of which was premiered just a few months later). That aura of social commitment has remained for over two centuries. The popular second movement (encored at the premiere) was transformed by activist folksinger Pete Seeger into a song whose opening words (grammar sacrificed in favor of rhythm) are "We'll work together, though we work different"; Daniel Barenboim chose the Seventh to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall.

1112 0

Dan Visioni @danvisioni.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

Here’s the conclusion! #noKings

050 0