0:00:05 > 0:00:09Over the last three summers, conductor Daniel Barenboim
0:00:09 > 0:00:12and his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra have been performing
0:00:12 > 0:00:15all nine Beethoven symphonies across the world.
0:00:15 > 0:00:21Formed in 1999, this is no ordinary orchestra.
0:00:21 > 0:00:24Its members include Israelis and Arabs.
0:00:24 > 0:00:27The idealism of Beethoven's music
0:00:27 > 0:00:30makes it the perfect choice of repertoire.
0:00:30 > 0:00:33Everybody can get into it, no matter what your culture may be.
0:00:33 > 0:00:35So, I think definitely it's very appropriate
0:00:35 > 0:00:39for this orchestra to play, to play specifically Beethoven.
0:00:39 > 0:00:42I think he wanted to change something inside people
0:00:42 > 0:00:47with this music, he wanted them to wake up and not to make war.
0:00:47 > 0:00:50You know, purely as a musician,
0:00:50 > 0:00:53you can find more in Beethoven than in most other composers.
0:00:53 > 0:00:55Actually, that's why he's endured.
0:01:02 > 0:01:07The three-year tour, called Beethoven For All,
0:01:07 > 0:01:11will finish at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall.
0:01:16 > 0:01:20The first time in 70 years that all nine symphonies
0:01:20 > 0:01:21have been played there.
0:01:24 > 0:01:27Two centuries after they were written,
0:01:27 > 0:01:31Beethoven's nine symphonies are a landmark in western music,
0:01:31 > 0:01:36each sets a new challenge to conductor, orchestra and audience.
0:01:36 > 0:01:40Beethoven represents music to the world,
0:01:40 > 0:01:44in the way that Shakespeare represents theatre.
0:01:48 > 0:01:54In the summer of 2011, the orchestra toured China and South Korea,
0:01:54 > 0:01:58where all nine symphonies were performed together
0:01:58 > 0:02:00for the first time.
0:02:02 > 0:02:05We joined the tour to discover why they are regarded
0:02:05 > 0:02:09as one of the pinnacles of classical music.
0:02:27 > 0:02:30The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra 2001 Asia Tour
0:02:30 > 0:02:34culminates in South Korea, with a performance of the Ninth Symphony,
0:02:34 > 0:02:39which ends with Beethoven's call for all men to be brothers.
0:02:39 > 0:02:42It takes place half a mile from the Demilitarized Zone
0:02:42 > 0:02:44that separates North and South Korea,
0:02:44 > 0:02:48it's the most heavily fortified border in the world,
0:02:48 > 0:02:52but Beethoven's music transcends all barriers.
0:02:54 > 0:02:57Beethoven was born in Bonn, Mozart was born in Salzburg,
0:02:57 > 0:03:01but the minute they finished writing their composition,
0:03:01 > 0:03:07they finished being European music, they become universal music.
0:03:07 > 0:03:12They are not any more their private property
0:03:12 > 0:03:15and they are not the property of their nation.
0:03:15 > 0:03:22Everybody who is sensitive is able to take this message
0:03:22 > 0:03:28and make it part of his own biography.
0:03:33 > 0:03:37Daniel Barenboim was born in Buenos Aires in 1942.
0:03:37 > 0:03:42When he was ten, his family moved to Israel.
0:03:42 > 0:03:45Like Beethoven, Barenboim was a child prodigy,
0:03:45 > 0:03:48giving his first concert at the age of seven.
0:03:49 > 0:03:54He has conducted the work of composers from Mozart to Brahms,
0:03:54 > 0:03:55Boulez to Bertwhistle,
0:03:55 > 0:04:00but Beethoven has always been at the centre of his musical world,
0:04:00 > 0:04:05not that everyone approved of his career choice.
0:04:07 > 0:04:11I remember my first personal encounter with Beethoven,
0:04:11 > 0:04:16because we were living in Buenos Aires, together with my grandparents.
0:04:16 > 0:04:21And my grandmother heard me practice one day,
0:04:21 > 0:04:23from the kitchen I suppose,
0:04:23 > 0:04:27and then she said to me, she said, "What are you playing?"
0:04:27 > 0:04:30"Beethoven." "Foy!"
0:04:34 > 0:04:38Undeterred, Daniel Barenboim became not only one of the world's
0:04:38 > 0:04:42foremost interpreters of Beethoven's piano works,
0:04:42 > 0:04:45but also one of the leading conductors of his music.
0:04:45 > 0:04:49The first Beethoven symphony I conducted
0:04:49 > 0:04:54was in the conductor's class in Salzburg,
0:04:54 > 0:04:59at the rather tender age of 11.
0:04:59 > 0:05:03This is something that has accompanied me
0:05:03 > 0:05:07throughout my life and it was part of my very existence.
0:05:09 > 0:05:13There's probably no musician alive who has Beethoven really
0:05:13 > 0:05:16in their absolute being as much as Daniel Barenboim,
0:05:16 > 0:05:18in the sense that this is someone who has been playing
0:05:18 > 0:05:22and who has known, for example, the 32 piano sonatas, for example,
0:05:22 > 0:05:25the five piano concertos and pretty well all the piano chamber music
0:05:25 > 0:05:28as well, in addition to imbibing all the symphonies as a conductor.
0:05:28 > 0:05:31So he...it's one of those strange things where you feel,
0:05:31 > 0:05:33often when you see a conductor or musician perform,
0:05:33 > 0:05:36you feel that they are performing the music somehow,
0:05:36 > 0:05:38that there's a difference between the performer and the music.
0:05:38 > 0:05:41But I think with Barenboim, because this music has been part of him
0:05:41 > 0:05:43for so long, for 40, 50 years,
0:05:43 > 0:05:47there is no difference between him and the music.
0:05:49 > 0:05:54I am not one who believes in, the importance of the connection
0:05:54 > 0:05:57between the biography of a composer and what he writes.
0:05:57 > 0:06:02I think the real biography he writes in his music.
0:06:13 > 0:06:17The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra was formed 13 years ago
0:06:17 > 0:06:21by Barenboim and the Palestinian author, Edward Said.
0:06:21 > 0:06:27Since 2002, it has been based in Seville, in Andalucia, Spain.
0:06:27 > 0:06:29It's a symbolic choice.
0:06:30 > 0:06:33Here, from the 8th to the 15th centuries,
0:06:33 > 0:06:36Muslims, Jews and Christians lived together,
0:06:36 > 0:06:40for the most part, in tolerant and civilised ways.
0:06:41 > 0:06:45The Beethoven For All tour began in summer 2010.
0:06:45 > 0:06:48The orchestra is now assembling again to rehearse
0:06:48 > 0:06:51the South East Asian season.
0:06:53 > 0:06:56Well, this is the first rehearsal this year.
0:06:56 > 0:06:58I will smell them.
0:07:01 > 0:07:05The West-Eastern Divan is an orchestra made up of Israelis
0:07:05 > 0:07:10and also, people from various Arab countries,
0:07:10 > 0:07:13including Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the Palestinian territories.
0:07:13 > 0:07:17We also have Turkish people in the orchestra,
0:07:17 > 0:07:20people from Iran, and we also have Spaniards in the orchestra.
0:07:20 > 0:07:24And basically what it is, is they'll form for dialogue
0:07:24 > 0:07:28between Israelis and people from other countries,
0:07:28 > 0:07:32who normally wouldn't have a way to communicate,
0:07:32 > 0:07:34or a safe place to communicate.
0:07:34 > 0:07:36And that's kind of what this orchestra provides,
0:07:36 > 0:07:38a way for them to communicate with each other
0:07:38 > 0:07:40and to make music with each other.
0:07:42 > 0:07:45When I play even one moment of the Fifth Symphony,
0:07:45 > 0:07:51it's the end you are finishing in symphony,
0:07:51 > 0:07:56beautiful music, with friends, enemies, all together,
0:07:56 > 0:08:00with such a big conductor in front of you, it's...
0:08:00 > 0:08:03Everything is opening and coming up
0:08:03 > 0:08:07and all the emotions are just appearing from somewhere,
0:08:07 > 0:08:10and you don't know even where from.
0:08:10 > 0:08:12So it's a very special moment.
0:08:12 > 0:08:15With each performance, the Divan musicians,
0:08:15 > 0:08:19led by Barenboim's son Michael, need to rediscover the music afresh.
0:08:21 > 0:08:23Good afternoon.
0:08:23 > 0:08:26I'm very happy to see everybody, some new faces,
0:08:26 > 0:08:31a special welcome to this project of the Beethoven Symphonies.
0:08:31 > 0:08:36It's very important that we all think the same
0:08:36 > 0:08:40about how we are going to progress.
0:08:40 > 0:08:43We have to remember one thing and forget the other one,
0:08:43 > 0:08:48we have to remember all the things we were not happy with last year
0:08:48 > 0:08:52and to know why and to try and do them better, and we have to forget
0:08:52 > 0:08:56all the things that we were happy with, otherwise we run the risk
0:08:56 > 0:09:01of just trying to do them again in the same way, as this is not good.
0:09:01 > 0:09:04This is, for me, as the years go on,
0:09:04 > 0:09:08the most extraordinary thing about music is that every day
0:09:08 > 0:09:13you know a little bit more, but you still start from zero.
0:09:14 > 0:09:18Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn in 1770.
0:09:18 > 0:09:22When he was 22, he moved to Vienna,
0:09:22 > 0:09:24the musical powerhouse of Europe.
0:09:24 > 0:09:28He arrived as a virtuoso pianist, the year after Mozart died,
0:09:28 > 0:09:31and studied for a time with Haydn.
0:09:32 > 0:09:36A new middle class audience was changing the way music was written
0:09:36 > 0:09:39and with it, the social status of the composer.
0:09:39 > 0:09:42Beethoven made money from his publications,
0:09:42 > 0:09:45from getting his music published, from getting it disseminated.
0:09:45 > 0:09:48and that was a big thing for a composer to be able to do,
0:09:48 > 0:09:51it meant people were playing your music,
0:09:51 > 0:09:54it meant people were buying your music and it meant that
0:09:54 > 0:09:57he didn't always have to rely on gifts from his friends,
0:09:57 > 0:10:00his aristocratic friends, because he did have aristocratic friends
0:10:00 > 0:10:03who did support him, without whom he couldn't really have lived.
0:10:03 > 0:10:06But Beethoven is on the cusp of being a composer
0:10:06 > 0:10:08who can make their whole life, their whole living
0:10:08 > 0:10:10from being a professional composer.
0:10:10 > 0:10:15In 1800, Beethoven himself put on a concert in Vienna,
0:10:15 > 0:10:19where he improvised brilliantly, played a piano concerto,
0:10:19 > 0:10:23and conducted the first performance of his First Symphony.
0:10:23 > 0:10:26While its shape owed much to Haydn and Mozart,
0:10:26 > 0:10:31already Beethoven was beginning to push the boundaries of the form.
0:10:31 > 0:10:36Just think, just think for a minute, what is the note in the first chord
0:10:36 > 0:10:40that gives the sort of the personality of the chord?
0:10:40 > 0:10:42- B-flat.- The B-flat, OK?
0:10:42 > 0:10:45In Beethoven's time is was usual to start
0:10:45 > 0:10:48and end a piece of music in the home key.
0:10:48 > 0:10:51But Beethoven, from the beginning, was a radical.
0:10:51 > 0:10:54In his very first symphony in C-major,
0:10:54 > 0:10:58he confirms the expectation of what musicians call tonality
0:10:58 > 0:11:03and starts with a chord that suggests a different key altogether.
0:11:06 > 0:11:09Always, in a classical style,
0:11:09 > 0:11:12the feeling of tonality is very important, OK?
0:11:12 > 0:11:16This is why this symphony was so revolutionary,
0:11:16 > 0:11:19because the first chord already is not a normal chord.
0:11:19 > 0:11:22I mean, when people heard his diminished seventh chord,
0:11:22 > 0:11:25with the B-flat in the first chord of the piece,
0:11:25 > 0:11:30they must have thought that this was Tahrir Square.
0:11:30 > 0:11:32Really play the...
0:11:32 > 0:11:33HE HUMS THE NOTE
0:11:33 > 0:11:38and then stay for the whole of the length of the half note.
0:11:53 > 0:11:55That's it.
0:11:55 > 0:11:58The first symphony starts with a dominant seven chord,
0:11:58 > 0:12:01it's quite an unusual chord to start a C-major symphony.
0:12:01 > 0:12:05And today, because of where music has gone since then,
0:12:05 > 0:12:08we wouldn't approach that as such a strange thing.
0:12:08 > 0:12:12But when one really thinks about how strange it was at the time,
0:12:12 > 0:12:15and one performs it as a strange chord, as a shocking chord,
0:12:15 > 0:12:18the way our conductor does, it's still shocking.
0:12:27 > 0:12:30To think of a composer composing his first symphony and starting
0:12:30 > 0:12:34- his symphony that way, the audience in the hall must have gone... - HE GASPS
0:12:45 > 0:12:49While some critics hailed it as a stroke of genius,
0:12:49 > 0:12:52others thought that the opening, in the wrong key,
0:12:52 > 0:12:55was unsuitable for a grand symphony.
0:12:59 > 0:13:06I think he had a very clear sense of order and disorder...
0:13:09 > 0:13:11..but disorder fascinated him.
0:13:22 > 0:13:25The great secret of this symphony is what happens in the first bar,
0:13:25 > 0:13:27in a quiet chord,
0:13:27 > 0:13:32Beethoven has actually opened a window to a new musical universe.
0:13:33 > 0:13:36There's something about it being in 1800, it's a,
0:13:36 > 0:13:40you know, it's a new symphony for a new century and beyond.
0:13:45 > 0:13:49The second quarter in the fourth bar comes too soon.
0:13:49 > 0:13:51One, two...
0:14:00 > 0:14:02You know the great thing about classical music,
0:14:02 > 0:14:06as opposed to let's say, popular music today, is that popular music
0:14:06 > 0:14:10is very repetitive and it's actually designed to give us comfort
0:14:10 > 0:14:14by repetitive elements that repeat again and again and again.
0:14:14 > 0:14:16There's something very comforting about that.
0:14:16 > 0:14:17Go flute.
0:14:17 > 0:14:21He'll start from simple and build on that, so that you, you know,
0:14:21 > 0:14:24we hear a musical element and the next time it comes,
0:14:24 > 0:14:26the ear can already recognise it and focus on another voice
0:14:26 > 0:14:28that comes on top of it.
0:14:36 > 0:14:38What does this show us?
0:14:38 > 0:14:41This shows us, first of all,
0:14:41 > 0:14:46that the human ear is the most intelligent organ that we have,
0:14:46 > 0:14:49because it really remembers vividly,
0:14:49 > 0:14:52it remembers time, cos when you hear...
0:14:52 > 0:14:55HE HUMS TUNE
0:14:55 > 0:14:59..it must be so well thought out
0:14:59 > 0:15:03that it transmits a recollection of the first chord.
0:15:03 > 0:15:06Can you play the beginning of the symphony?
0:15:12 > 0:15:18Now play one, shhh, 188,
0:15:18 > 0:15:20and see what you remember.
0:15:24 > 0:15:26OK?
0:15:26 > 0:15:30It must be so clear in your mind that this is going back to
0:15:30 > 0:15:33the beginning that you get the connection,
0:15:33 > 0:15:37and music really gives us the possibility to connect
0:15:37 > 0:15:42over long spans of times, which we cannot really do outside the music.
0:15:42 > 0:15:43H.
0:15:57 > 0:16:02Beethoven must have been an extraordinarily interesting human being.
0:16:02 > 0:16:08He understood independence of thought was the greatest gift
0:16:08 > 0:16:10one could ever have,
0:16:10 > 0:16:16more than fame, material gains,
0:16:16 > 0:16:21the ability to really think
0:16:21 > 0:16:24this is right and this is wrong,
0:16:24 > 0:16:28and this is a way I think I want to live.
0:16:30 > 0:16:32Enough for today. Huh?
0:16:32 > 0:16:35INDISTINCT CHATTER
0:16:38 > 0:16:40How did they smell?
0:16:40 > 0:16:41HE LAUGHS
0:16:43 > 0:16:45Fresh.
0:16:53 > 0:16:56For the last century or so, improvisation has been more
0:16:56 > 0:16:59associated with jazz than classical music.
0:16:59 > 0:17:04But Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were all famous for their ability
0:17:04 > 0:17:10to extemporise musical pyrotechnics at the keyboard in public concerts.
0:17:10 > 0:17:13So accounts of him improvising aren't just about,
0:17:13 > 0:17:15how good he was at the piano,
0:17:15 > 0:17:18they're about the ferocity with which he played the piano,
0:17:18 > 0:17:21and about the ferocity with which he communicated,
0:17:21 > 0:17:23the bounds that he was trying to break,
0:17:23 > 0:17:25the fact that the piano would break strings,
0:17:25 > 0:17:27the fact that the piano didn't seem big enough
0:17:27 > 0:17:29to contain Beethoven's ideas or musicianship.
0:17:29 > 0:17:32This was new, that was what was different.
0:17:36 > 0:17:41There is a fantastic anecdote about Beethoven writing in a fervour
0:17:41 > 0:17:44in this incredible outburst of creativity and ideas,
0:17:44 > 0:17:48and writing so quickly that his body temperature went up
0:17:48 > 0:17:53and he decided he needed to cool down and he took a bucket of water
0:17:53 > 0:17:57and just poured it over himself, soiling the music in front of him,
0:17:57 > 0:18:00the water going down through the floorboards.
0:18:00 > 0:18:04I'm sure his downstairs neighbours were not too happy about that.
0:18:12 > 0:18:14As he was working on his Second Symphony,
0:18:14 > 0:18:17Beethoven made a terrifying discovery.
0:18:17 > 0:18:20He'd suffered from ringing and buzzing in the ears
0:18:20 > 0:18:22since he was in his late 20s.
0:18:22 > 0:18:27In 1802, he realised the condition was progressive and irreversible.
0:18:44 > 0:18:48Beethoven's deafness was just a gigantic trauma for him,
0:18:48 > 0:18:50in his late 20s, early 30s,
0:18:50 > 0:18:53when he knew he was getting progressively more deaf
0:18:53 > 0:18:57and there was going to be no cure, I mean, terrifying.
0:18:59 > 0:19:02And that terror is reflected in a letter he wrote
0:19:02 > 0:19:05to his brothers, Carl and Johann, but didn't actually send them.
0:19:05 > 0:19:09Parts of it read sort of like a suicide note, never posted,
0:19:09 > 0:19:11and it was only discovered after Beethoven's death.
0:19:11 > 0:19:14It's significant, though, that he kept it at all,
0:19:14 > 0:19:18perhaps he kept it as a reminder that, this is how bad things were
0:19:18 > 0:19:21and that actually towards the end of the life, his attitude
0:19:21 > 0:19:25and the way he lived with his deafness, had changed.
0:19:27 > 0:19:30The Second Symphony, while a critical success,
0:19:30 > 0:19:33was still in the sound world Beethoven had inherited
0:19:33 > 0:19:35from Haydn and Mozart.
0:19:35 > 0:19:40But in his Third Symphony, the Eroica, finished in 1804,
0:19:40 > 0:19:42he left their style behind
0:19:42 > 0:19:45and single-handedly reinvented the symphony.
0:19:45 > 0:19:48Beethoven, as a composer, never stays still.
0:19:48 > 0:19:52And if the First Symphony opens a new universe in some ways,
0:19:52 > 0:19:55the Second Symphony is the biggest orchestral piece ever written
0:19:55 > 0:19:59up to that point, and the third symphony, the Eroica, is...
0:19:59 > 0:20:02I mean, it's music that still sounds as if it comes, in a way,
0:20:02 > 0:20:05from another planet or something.
0:20:05 > 0:20:06He is absolutely finding something
0:20:06 > 0:20:09that had never been found before, in this piece.
0:20:12 > 0:20:15Many composers wrote nine symphonies,
0:20:15 > 0:20:19we're not going to talk about Haydn who wrote 104,
0:20:19 > 0:20:22or Mozart who wrote 41.
0:20:22 > 0:20:28But Beethoven found a different idiom,
0:20:28 > 0:20:33a different musical idiom, for want of a better word, for each symphony.
0:20:33 > 0:20:40The Eroica required him to find a much larger form.
0:20:41 > 0:20:44It's the first cosmic piece.
0:20:44 > 0:20:46THEY ALL CHEER
0:20:46 > 0:20:50Today, at the Seville rehearsals, there's a guest conductor.
0:20:50 > 0:20:52It's Mina, one of the violinists
0:20:52 > 0:20:56who's training to become a conductor.
0:21:18 > 0:21:22I think my favourite bit on symphony is the Third, um,
0:21:22 > 0:21:28because it's, for me kind of, a very revolutionary kind of music
0:21:28 > 0:21:32which just kind of destroys everything that happened before
0:21:32 > 0:21:35and starts a whole new, something completely new
0:21:35 > 0:21:39in the history of music and the history of the orchestra.
0:22:01 > 0:22:04Excuse me. Thank you. At A can you play...
0:22:04 > 0:22:06HE HUMS
0:22:06 > 0:22:10The size of the symphony is already much larger than anything
0:22:10 > 0:22:13that had been written until then,
0:22:13 > 0:22:19and the method of composition,
0:22:19 > 0:22:22the complexity, is much greater.
0:22:29 > 0:22:31Hey, wait!
0:22:31 > 0:22:32This is A, no?
0:22:32 > 0:22:38Play once, slowly, two bars before A, and see how much you can hear.
0:22:38 > 0:22:41One, two, three.
0:22:47 > 0:22:51You have to hear that, you have to hear that, you have to hear
0:22:51 > 0:22:55the clash of the G-flat with the A-natural and the B-flat.
0:22:55 > 0:22:59You have all this tension, and you know, don't push...
0:22:59 > 0:23:02The complexity is, is quite extraordinary
0:23:02 > 0:23:06and it is this complexity and this element of contrast
0:23:06 > 0:23:12and of permanent juxtaposition of conflicting,
0:23:12 > 0:23:15sometimes subversive elements,
0:23:15 > 0:23:18is the very nature of the Beethoven symphonies.
0:23:33 > 0:23:35There's an energy driving you through,
0:23:35 > 0:23:38but the places he takes you makes almost no sense relative
0:23:38 > 0:23:41to conventional ideas about where you're supposed to be
0:23:41 > 0:23:44at any point in the structure of this thing.
0:23:44 > 0:23:47You have to go on this journey with the players.
0:23:47 > 0:23:49If you don't feel that you're being carried along
0:23:49 > 0:23:52on some absolutely unstoppable tide of musical momentum,
0:23:52 > 0:23:55then there's something wrong with the performance,
0:23:55 > 0:23:56or you aren't engaged enough as a listener,
0:23:56 > 0:23:59because that's what the music has to do, that's its reason for being.
0:23:59 > 0:24:01Good, OK.
0:24:01 > 0:24:05Now it's much better, it's much, bravo, Mina, very good, very good.
0:24:10 > 0:24:14The form of the symphony is almost perfect, perfect.
0:24:14 > 0:24:18There is some feeling of inevitability in this symphony,
0:24:18 > 0:24:23you feel like every...the note that is going to be played is a must,
0:24:23 > 0:24:26it could not have been any other note.
0:24:26 > 0:24:30OK, let's take a break now, take a break and then do...
0:24:30 > 0:24:33Very expected, but it was a very visionary,
0:24:33 > 0:24:35both at the same time and I don't know how,
0:24:35 > 0:24:37that's why Beethoven is Beethoven,
0:24:37 > 0:24:40he's the one who could marry these elements together
0:24:40 > 0:24:45without conflict, I guess, it's like the Arabs and the Israelis
0:24:45 > 0:24:49play music together with no arguments, the same thing.
0:24:58 > 0:25:00HE COUGHS
0:25:00 > 0:25:01THEY LAUGH
0:25:01 > 0:25:03Still, I am conducting.
0:25:03 > 0:25:05THEY LAUGH
0:25:19 > 0:25:21As Beethoven was writing his heroic symphony,
0:25:21 > 0:25:26in France, Napoleon was abolishing laws of privilege.
0:25:26 > 0:25:29Beethoven, 19 at the time of the French Revolution,
0:25:29 > 0:25:32was inspired by these ideals.
0:25:32 > 0:25:34The Third Symphony, with its vast scale
0:25:34 > 0:25:37and sense of a heroic human figure at its centre
0:25:37 > 0:25:40was at first dedicated to Napoleon.
0:25:53 > 0:25:57Beethoven always had aristocratic patrons, but he always knew
0:25:57 > 0:25:59that his imagination made his better than any of them.
0:25:59 > 0:26:02Well, we know that Mozart knew that too,
0:26:02 > 0:26:05he just didn't quite have the guts to tell them all the time.
0:26:05 > 0:26:08Beethoven made that pretty obvious in his dealings with them,
0:26:08 > 0:26:10and wanted really to be an independent artist.
0:26:10 > 0:26:13So it's no coincidence, in a way, that he admired
0:26:13 > 0:26:16the person who was ripping up Europe and getting rid of aristocracy
0:26:16 > 0:26:20in the wake of the French Revolution, Napoleon.
0:26:20 > 0:26:23The crisis comes when he's writing the Eroica Symphony
0:26:23 > 0:26:27and on the dedication page, he leaves, there's a huge gap,
0:26:27 > 0:26:30but he...a friend comes round and he can see that
0:26:30 > 0:26:33he's dedicated the symphony to Bonaparte, to Napoleon.
0:26:33 > 0:26:36But on hearing that Napoleon has styled himself emperor,
0:26:36 > 0:26:39he scratches out the dedication, and says,
0:26:39 > 0:26:42"He's just a power-hungry aristo like the rest of them,
0:26:42 > 0:26:44"just wearing different clothes."
0:27:16 > 0:27:20Beethoven is quite revolutionary, in the sense that,
0:27:20 > 0:27:25in the time before him,
0:27:25 > 0:27:28the aesthetic of music was abstract,
0:27:28 > 0:27:33the themes were quite distant, the individual was not in the picture.
0:27:33 > 0:27:37Then comes Beethoven and he puts himself and his music,
0:27:37 > 0:27:41his emotions, his philosophy,
0:27:41 > 0:27:44and how it relates to something bigger than himself,
0:27:44 > 0:27:48and this is why this music is very relevant to us still today,
0:27:48 > 0:27:54maybe the themes that he's talking about are the themes of his time,
0:27:54 > 0:27:58but they can be transmitted to our time as well and to our feelings.
0:28:09 > 0:28:13The Third Symphony divided both critics and audience.
0:28:13 > 0:28:18A reviewer wrote, "There is no lack of striking and beautiful passages,
0:28:18 > 0:28:23"but the work seems often to lose itself in utter confusion.
0:28:23 > 0:28:26"The public may not have been ready for this radical new work,
0:28:26 > 0:28:31"but Beethoven had set a benchmark, not least for himself."
0:28:31 > 0:28:33The problem with writing the Eroica Symphony is that,
0:28:33 > 0:28:35what on earth do you do next as a composer?
0:28:35 > 0:28:36Because if you keep doing that,
0:28:36 > 0:28:39your later symphonies would probably be three hours long,
0:28:39 > 0:28:41you'd have to play them in the Himalayas
0:28:41 > 0:28:42and the whole world would end.
0:28:42 > 0:28:44That probably wasn't going to happen,
0:28:44 > 0:28:46even Beethoven couldn't quite do that.
0:28:46 > 0:28:48For the Fourth Symphony,
0:28:48 > 0:28:51under its apparently more conservative skin,
0:28:51 > 0:28:52it's on a smaller scale,
0:28:52 > 0:28:56is actually doing really strangely destabilising things.
0:28:57 > 0:29:00If the Third Symphony was notable for its scale,
0:29:00 > 0:29:04the opening of the Fourth took a radical new approach to harmony,
0:29:04 > 0:29:07deliberately avoiding obvious resolutions
0:29:07 > 0:29:09to create a sense of tension.
0:29:09 > 0:29:12Now, it's won...it's really wonderful, absolutely,
0:29:12 > 0:29:14it's absolutely wonderful.
0:29:14 > 0:29:18Now I think we have to really, or, think as I look at you
0:29:18 > 0:29:25and I hear, and not everybody's on the same thinking wavelength,
0:29:25 > 0:29:28as far as the harmony's concerned.
0:29:28 > 0:29:32Can you play the first bar, the first bar?
0:29:33 > 0:29:37We know we are in B-flat, or we assume we are,
0:29:37 > 0:29:40and look what happens on the next note.
0:29:42 > 0:29:47Ah-ha, we're already, we're already somewhere else.
0:29:47 > 0:29:53We could be in G-flat-major, we could be in E-flat-minor,
0:29:53 > 0:29:55we could be in all sorts of things,
0:29:55 > 0:30:00and it is this feeling of harmonic instability,
0:30:00 > 0:30:05with an ever-regular movement of the rhythm
0:30:05 > 0:30:10that creates this feeling of total chaos, I would say,
0:30:10 > 0:30:13it's absolutely not, we don't know where we are.
0:30:13 > 0:30:16You could easily argue that it's more daring than the Eroica
0:30:16 > 0:30:19because the very, the very introduction,
0:30:19 > 0:30:23Symphony in B-flat-major, starts absolutely in B-flat-minor,
0:30:23 > 0:30:25and not just in a kind of jokey way,
0:30:25 > 0:30:28so that the major key sounds nice when you get there,
0:30:28 > 0:30:33you know, a place of sort of abject stasis and timelessness.
0:30:33 > 0:30:35Let's play it once more.
0:30:35 > 0:30:39Try to, really, as you play, think where the music is going,
0:30:39 > 0:30:45how he makes the whole thing as unstable as possible.
0:30:45 > 0:30:49So, that then when you get, can you play the beginning of the allegro.
0:30:55 > 0:30:58OK? You understand what I'm saying?
0:30:58 > 0:31:01All this introduction is totally unnecessary if you want,
0:31:01 > 0:31:06but this sounds completely different, the symphony could start like this,
0:31:06 > 0:31:11but all this introduction is precisely in order
0:31:11 > 0:31:14to create this feeling of total chaos,
0:31:14 > 0:31:18and then, of search more than chaos,
0:31:18 > 0:31:21of search, and then when you find it, the light is there.
0:31:21 > 0:31:24But for this, everybody has to be conscious
0:31:24 > 0:31:28and not play even one 16th of a note mechanically. Please.
0:31:38 > 0:31:40I think we are in E-flat-minor.
0:31:44 > 0:31:47No, we're in B-flat-minor, huh?
0:31:52 > 0:31:55Maybe G-flat-major?
0:31:55 > 0:31:59'The Fourth Symphony of Beethoven is in B-flat-major.
0:31:59 > 0:32:01'This is the aural home.
0:32:02 > 0:32:06'So, when you start moving into tonalities'
0:32:06 > 0:32:10that are not in the B-flat-major scale, like G-flat,
0:32:10 > 0:32:13or F-sharp, or things which are from other keys,
0:32:13 > 0:32:17maybe from G-major, maybe from A-flat, which,
0:32:17 > 0:32:20all sorts of keys are in tune with it,
0:32:20 > 0:32:24with it, there you get a feeling of instability.
0:32:24 > 0:32:27It's going to be a repeat of the whole thing,
0:32:27 > 0:32:30and now we will go into F-major, like before.
0:32:34 > 0:32:36Ya, of course.
0:32:39 > 0:32:42But no, no resolution.
0:32:46 > 0:32:50F-sharp-major, in B-flat-major please.
0:32:50 > 0:32:52You understand what I'm saying?
0:32:53 > 0:32:58What Beethoven does is he shares with us
0:32:58 > 0:33:01the instability of not knowing where he is,
0:33:01 > 0:33:07like somebody that is lost, but somehow, at the back of his head,
0:33:07 > 0:33:13he remembers his home was B-flat and he's lost in the woods, or wherever,
0:33:13 > 0:33:17and then he takes every possible turn he can and doesn't find it.
0:33:17 > 0:33:22And Beethoven guides us through all this, what I call search,
0:33:22 > 0:33:25the search for the tonality
0:33:25 > 0:33:28and he goes into all sorts of extreme regions,
0:33:28 > 0:33:33that are so far away you feel you almost need a visa to go into G-flat.
0:33:33 > 0:33:36And then suddenly you find yourself in dominant and you say,
0:33:36 > 0:33:40here we are, you have been lost for three hours
0:33:40 > 0:33:42looking in the woods and suddenly you see the house.
0:33:42 > 0:33:46Now we have to ask ourselves, where is this going?
0:33:49 > 0:33:52A-major.
0:33:52 > 0:33:53A.
0:33:57 > 0:34:00And comes the change.
0:34:15 > 0:34:18See what...you understand what I'm trying to say?
0:34:18 > 0:34:21When the music finally sort of blazes into that very, very fast
0:34:21 > 0:34:22first movement in B-flat-major,
0:34:22 > 0:34:25it's that transition from dark to light,
0:34:25 > 0:34:28it's all the more thrilling because of what's happened before.
0:34:28 > 0:34:32But these really dangerously dark, expressive things
0:34:32 > 0:34:34he's exploring in the Fourth Symphony.
0:34:45 > 0:34:49I think that Beethoven must have felt that music
0:34:49 > 0:34:55had the capacity to make so many things clear.
0:34:55 > 0:35:01I get the feeling from his music that he felt that music,
0:35:01 > 0:35:04the music, and therefore what he was writing too,
0:35:04 > 0:35:06was able to make people understand
0:35:06 > 0:35:09what is a sin and what are the morals,
0:35:09 > 0:35:12and what are the obligations of the human being.
0:35:12 > 0:35:17Their ability and the never ending will to go on fighting
0:35:17 > 0:35:20to better things, that's how he worked,
0:35:20 > 0:35:25his sketch books show you what painful, tormented processes
0:35:25 > 0:35:31he went through, until he found really the solution of that.
0:35:37 > 0:35:43See, if you get that, if you get that, then time stands still.
0:35:43 > 0:35:47If you don't get that, time doesn't stand still
0:35:47 > 0:35:49and creates all sorts of tensions.
0:35:49 > 0:35:52We don't need that. Two before F, two before F...
0:35:52 > 0:35:56This rigour makes the music stronger than anything else I know.
0:36:14 > 0:36:16And now it stops.
0:36:39 > 0:36:43With rehearsals in Spain over, the orchestra prepares to perform
0:36:43 > 0:36:46the Beethoven Symphonies across China.
0:37:02 > 0:37:07For many of the musicians, it's their first trip to China,
0:37:07 > 0:37:11and their first taste of Chinese culture.
0:37:17 > 0:37:22Some of the musicians are invited to a night at the opera, Peking Opera.
0:37:23 > 0:37:27It's a timely reminder that the orchestra is taking Beethoven
0:37:27 > 0:37:31to a country with its own rich, cultural heritage,
0:37:31 > 0:37:34and one with a very different musical tradition.
0:37:34 > 0:37:36SHE SINGS
0:37:40 > 0:37:42Despite the musical differences,
0:37:42 > 0:37:45Barenboim's conviction is that Beethoven can speak
0:37:45 > 0:37:49to the Chinese as immediately as to any Western audience.
0:37:51 > 0:37:55Not so long ago, the Kinshasa Symphony Orchestra from Africa,
0:37:55 > 0:37:58somebody asked one of the musicians, "Wouldn't it be more to the
0:37:58 > 0:38:03"point that you played your music, rather than playing our Beethoven?"
0:38:03 > 0:38:05To which this African musician says,
0:38:05 > 0:38:08"And what gives you to the right to say OUR Beethoven?
0:38:10 > 0:38:12"He's for everybody."
0:38:13 > 0:38:17Beethoven was first played by a student orchestra
0:38:17 > 0:38:19in Beijing in the 1920s.
0:38:19 > 0:38:23Chinese scholars responded to the idealism of Beethoven's music,
0:38:23 > 0:38:26and he became known as the Holy Musician.
0:38:26 > 0:38:32One phonetic translation of his name means "many fragrant treasures."
0:38:32 > 0:38:35But his music was banned in the Cultural Revolution
0:38:35 > 0:38:37of the '60s and '70s.
0:38:37 > 0:38:42Since 1979, he's made a comeback.
0:38:42 > 0:38:44I think because I'm a big fan of Barenboim,
0:38:44 > 0:38:48I mean, he's a great pianist and he is also a really good conductor,
0:38:48 > 0:38:52and I really like his interpretation of the Beethoven 33 sonatas,
0:38:52 > 0:38:56so I came here for his interpretation of the Beethoven symphonies.
0:39:05 > 0:39:08One, two, three, four.
0:39:08 > 0:39:12HUMS OPENING BARS OF FIFTH SYMPHONY
0:39:12 > 0:39:13Sorry.
0:39:17 > 0:39:20The most famous two, or three, or four, or five, six, seven bars,
0:39:20 > 0:39:23the most famous opening of a piece of music of all time.
0:39:23 > 0:39:26The really important thing about it is the journey
0:39:26 > 0:39:28that the whole symphony goes on,
0:39:28 > 0:39:33a trajectory of minor key darkness to major key light.
0:39:33 > 0:39:36Beethoven's Fifth, not surprisingly,
0:39:36 > 0:39:39is the hot ticket in Shanghai tonight.
0:40:39 > 0:40:41If the Eroica was the longest and loudest symphony
0:40:41 > 0:40:45Beethoven had written, the Fourth, the most harmonically subtle,
0:40:45 > 0:40:49in the Fifth, he went further and in the famous first movement,
0:40:49 > 0:40:52stripped music down to its essentials.
0:40:52 > 0:40:55In the sketches of Beethoven, you see that the process
0:40:55 > 0:40:59is from complex to simplicity, not the other way round.
0:40:59 > 0:41:03In other words, he would not say pa-pa-pa-paa,
0:41:03 > 0:41:05how can I make it more interesting?
0:41:05 > 0:41:09And then add and subtract and multiply and all this.
0:41:09 > 0:41:11Not at all.
0:41:11 > 0:41:16It took him a long time to come to the idea was ta-ta-ta-taa,
0:41:16 > 0:41:19and if you ask most people, who never look at the score,
0:41:19 > 0:41:23who don't read his score, they get such a shock from the opening
0:41:23 > 0:41:26of the Beethoven Fifth and they think the whole orchestra is blazing.
0:41:26 > 0:41:30Absolutely not at all, it's only strings and the clarinet.
0:41:30 > 0:41:35In other words, there is a combination
0:41:35 > 0:41:41of extraordinary strength and tension,
0:41:41 > 0:41:48with just an extraordinary economy of means.
0:43:14 > 0:43:16I love Beethoven.
0:43:16 > 0:43:23The ability to take the simplest, most pure, tiny idea
0:43:23 > 0:43:28and make cathedrals, structurally, out of it,
0:43:28 > 0:43:31and put meaning and thoughtfulness,
0:43:31 > 0:43:33the imagination, the insight,
0:43:33 > 0:43:37the things you can do with two notes are just mind-blowing.
0:43:37 > 0:43:42That's when you're thinking about something intellectually,
0:43:42 > 0:43:48but it has also a very deep way of touching people, I believe.
0:43:54 > 0:43:58The fact that Beethoven composed a work of such optimism,
0:43:58 > 0:43:59despite his worsening deafness,
0:43:59 > 0:44:02has led many to believe that he was writing music
0:44:02 > 0:44:07that directly expressed his own struggle against adversity.
0:44:15 > 0:44:19It is more accessible than the Eroica,
0:44:19 > 0:44:23I would not claim that it is a better piece,
0:44:23 > 0:44:26or more interesting than Eroica, but it's certainly more accessible.
0:44:26 > 0:44:33And I think that when you are lucky enough
0:44:33 > 0:44:36to find a way of saying something
0:44:36 > 0:44:41that is very important, in a very accessible way,
0:44:41 > 0:44:46then the strength of the message has no limits.
0:45:13 > 0:45:17It's starting very tragic and you can maybe relate it to his...
0:45:17 > 0:45:22He couldn't hear, and you can really hear in the Fifth Symphony,
0:45:22 > 0:45:26the first movement, how tragic it is for him.
0:45:26 > 0:45:30But then at the end, the fourth movement, is really the light,
0:45:30 > 0:45:35and that he was dealing with this problem and, whatever happens,
0:45:35 > 0:45:39he's going through it and he's keeping composing
0:45:39 > 0:45:42and, whatever happens, there is a light there.
0:46:05 > 0:46:08The thing that audiences in the 19th century
0:46:08 > 0:46:12found so appealing about the Fifth Symphony, was the fact that it does
0:46:12 > 0:46:16a very obvious emotional journey that we can all identify with.
0:46:16 > 0:46:20We all want things to get better and we, ideally,
0:46:20 > 0:46:23we want to be able to feel that we've had something to do that.
0:46:23 > 0:46:25This symphony allows you to do that, it gives you that
0:46:25 > 0:46:28experience in fact, you're, you're responsible for a journey
0:46:28 > 0:46:29which is changing the world from
0:46:29 > 0:46:33a place of storm, tension and darkness,
0:46:33 > 0:46:36and transforming it into a utopia of lightness and joy.
0:46:36 > 0:46:38Who doesn't want a part of that?
0:47:25 > 0:47:29There's nothing, or very little, ornamental in Beethoven's music,
0:47:29 > 0:47:32it's really about the substance.
0:47:32 > 0:47:38You have the feeling you really get to the substance of human existence.
0:47:40 > 0:47:44The Fifth Symphony was premiered in 1808, along with the Sixth.
0:47:44 > 0:47:48The concert lasted four hours.
0:47:48 > 0:47:51The shock people would've felt when they first heard it,
0:47:51 > 0:47:55well, they would have been too knackered to experience the shock
0:47:55 > 0:47:58as the concert it was first done in included the Pastoral Symphony,
0:47:58 > 0:48:00the Fifth Symphony, the Choral Fantasia
0:48:00 > 0:48:02and the Fourth Piano Concerto.
0:48:03 > 0:48:07It was a tough night for everyone, the orchestra was under-rehearsed
0:48:07 > 0:48:11and the hall was freezing, but some musicians quickly realised
0:48:11 > 0:48:14that something monumental had taken place.
0:48:24 > 0:48:27In his Sixth Symphony, the Pastoral,
0:48:27 > 0:48:30Beethoven strode out in another new direction.
0:48:34 > 0:48:36Subtitled the first movement,
0:48:36 > 0:48:40Awakening Of Cheerful Feelings Upon Arrival In The Country,
0:48:40 > 0:48:42he began a tradition of compositions
0:48:42 > 0:48:46that were a description of something, not just pure music,
0:48:46 > 0:48:51we hear a storm, preceded by a nightingale, quail and cuckoo.
0:48:54 > 0:48:59What's radically new is that Beethoven strives to convey
0:48:59 > 0:49:02his own deep feelings about the world around him.
0:49:02 > 0:49:05With the Pastoral Symphony, it's not about nature.
0:49:05 > 0:49:06What is it about?
0:49:06 > 0:49:09It's about the human being, it is about the human being,
0:49:09 > 0:49:12in the sense that music was in Bach's time
0:49:12 > 0:49:15about the human being in relation to God,
0:49:15 > 0:49:18now Beethoven has left God alone and he's now with the human being.
0:49:18 > 0:49:21If you want an oversimplified statement
0:49:21 > 0:49:26of Beethoven's moment in history, it is that.
0:49:28 > 0:49:31Religion is gone, God is gone and now,
0:49:31 > 0:49:34we are faced with own responsibility,
0:49:34 > 0:49:38our own sense of morality, our own sense of justice,
0:49:38 > 0:49:42and all these things that Beethoven stands for.
0:49:44 > 0:49:48I think we are still living in Beethoven's world in a lot of ways.
0:49:48 > 0:49:50If you think about our society today,
0:49:50 > 0:49:53so much of our political society
0:49:53 > 0:49:57is based on the ideals that came into being during this time,
0:49:57 > 0:50:00you know, the Enlightenment,
0:50:00 > 0:50:04the whole basically modern Western idea of government.
0:50:04 > 0:50:07I think we're living in a time
0:50:07 > 0:50:10when there are really big social upheavals.
0:50:10 > 0:50:14I think Beethoven's time was quite similar,
0:50:14 > 0:50:16and I think his music reflects that.
0:51:11 > 0:51:14There weren't that many people who got him.
0:51:14 > 0:51:16I mean, he was a very difficult person to get,
0:51:16 > 0:51:19so this accounts for all the descriptions, especially in his later life,
0:51:19 > 0:51:21that he would go out and take his clothes off
0:51:21 > 0:51:24when he went in the woods, when he went for a walk, when he got hot.
0:51:24 > 0:51:26It's a natural thing to do.
0:51:26 > 0:51:29Unencumbered by having to relate to people and street urchins
0:51:29 > 0:51:32getting in his way and taking the mickey out of him,
0:51:32 > 0:51:34he could probably be as fully himself
0:51:34 > 0:51:36when immersed in the natural world,
0:51:36 > 0:51:39as he was when he was at his composing desk.
0:51:39 > 0:51:41Those two environments were probably...
0:51:41 > 0:51:45were ones that he could know that he could be completely himself in.
0:51:58 > 0:52:03It's how man is related to nature, how the man is, is feeling,
0:52:03 > 0:52:06in the face of nature.
0:52:06 > 0:52:09And, yeah, the, just, depiction actually of, of those feelings
0:52:09 > 0:52:14of beauty and of fear, and this is what makes this music so exciting.
0:52:40 > 0:52:44Beethoven used more instruments than any previous composer of symphonies,
0:52:44 > 0:52:47and he developed a thrilling dramatic charge in his music,
0:52:47 > 0:52:50by the use of dynamics
0:52:50 > 0:52:54and the sudden juxtaposition of loud and soft passages.
0:52:55 > 0:52:58There are very more difficult parts in music out there,
0:52:58 > 0:52:59I mean Mahler, Schumann etc,
0:52:59 > 0:53:02but what makes Beethoven special is the fact that you have to
0:53:02 > 0:53:06constantly shift gears, and you have to do it smoothly, because, I mean,
0:53:06 > 0:53:10there is many different new ideas coming at you at the same time.
0:53:13 > 0:53:17Also, even more importantly, the dynamic shifts in Beethoven
0:53:17 > 0:53:19are very abrupt, so you can, for example,
0:53:19 > 0:53:22be going along with a fortissimo and then suddenly, BOOM,
0:53:22 > 0:53:24you're at piano, right.
0:53:24 > 0:53:28And if you're the one violinist, you know, who is still playing forte
0:53:28 > 0:53:31after the beat, you feel like a complete idiot.
0:53:31 > 0:53:33It's like you're walking into a minefield,
0:53:33 > 0:53:35because you never know when you're going to just hit this
0:53:35 > 0:53:39dynamic moment where you have to just suddenly stop and shift gears.
0:53:39 > 0:53:42In a sense, it's like you're turning on a dime the whole time.
0:53:52 > 0:53:58Beethoven has an ability to deliver these kinds of radical changes
0:53:58 > 0:54:03in feeling and emotions and in experiences that are unexpected.
0:54:05 > 0:54:07You can be at your highest point,
0:54:07 > 0:54:11you can be ten minutes later at your lowest point.
0:54:11 > 0:54:13Even ten seconds later.
0:54:13 > 0:54:15Yeah, it's very condensed, it's very intense.
0:54:15 > 0:54:18And you have to be able to, to make those changes
0:54:18 > 0:54:21and to connect with them emotionally, really quickly.
0:54:31 > 0:54:36I have tried to really understand
0:54:36 > 0:54:41the connection between all the indications that he'd use,
0:54:41 > 0:54:42in other words,
0:54:42 > 0:54:46not just to read this is a bilateral, it is piano.
0:54:46 > 0:54:52What is the relationship within that, and what came about before?
0:54:52 > 0:54:56How did I get here and where am I going?
0:54:56 > 0:55:00I think that every text has a subtext
0:55:00 > 0:55:05and it is the duty of the performer
0:55:05 > 0:55:11to find for himself that subtext.
0:55:14 > 0:55:17The subtext of Beethoven's music has been a moving target.
0:55:17 > 0:55:21His idealism in the past has been subverted
0:55:21 > 0:55:25and turned into a narrow conception of nationalism.
0:55:26 > 0:55:32Beethoven was used and abused for political purposes
0:55:32 > 0:55:35by all sorts of political regimes.
0:55:35 > 0:55:38No other composer was used as that,
0:55:38 > 0:55:42because he deals with the human condition.
0:55:58 > 0:56:02Beethoven's music is human in the deepest sense of the word.
0:56:02 > 0:56:06It deals in sound,
0:56:06 > 0:56:11with everything that exists in the human condition,
0:56:11 > 0:56:12the condition of life.
0:56:14 > 0:56:16Therefore, it has to do with the human spirit.
0:56:41 > 0:56:45When Beethoven completed his Seventh Symphony in 1812,
0:56:45 > 0:56:48he was the most famous composer in the world.
0:56:49 > 0:56:52But his personal life was a torment, not least because
0:56:52 > 0:56:56of his habit of falling for aristocratic women.
0:57:03 > 0:57:06Beethoven's in his early 40s, he's involved, we know,
0:57:06 > 0:57:10emotionally with someone he calls the Immortal Beloved,
0:57:10 > 0:57:12probably the Countess of Brentano.
0:57:12 > 0:57:14Beethoven was clearly infatuated with this woman,
0:57:14 > 0:57:18"Your love makes me the happiest and unhappiest man on earth."
0:57:18 > 0:57:20They're very touching love letters in a way.
0:57:20 > 0:57:23What that actually means about, his capacity for
0:57:23 > 0:57:25consolidating that relationship, he says,
0:57:25 > 0:57:28"Can we actually make this relationship work in the real world?
0:57:28 > 0:57:30"Can we actually make this happen really?"
0:57:30 > 0:57:32Obviously it didn't.
0:57:32 > 0:57:34That obviously caused him great sadness,
0:57:34 > 0:57:35but I think the question is then,
0:57:35 > 0:57:39do you hear that kind of sadness in the music?
0:57:39 > 0:57:42And the answer to that has to be no, you would hear any passage
0:57:42 > 0:57:46of the Seventh Symphony, even that slow movement is filled with this...
0:57:46 > 0:57:50It's got this sort of luminous joy about it, the Seventh Symphony.
0:57:50 > 0:57:54Beethoven didn't just expand the form of the symphony.
0:57:54 > 0:57:57In the Seventh, rhythm becomes ever more important,
0:57:57 > 0:58:01he weaves rhythmic patterns around different sections of the orchestra,
0:58:01 > 0:58:05allowing him to build a sense of unbridled musical energy.
0:58:06 > 0:58:08It's too fast.
0:58:08 > 0:58:09HE HUMS THE RHYTHM
0:58:09 > 0:58:11The 16th is too short.
0:58:11 > 0:58:12HE HUMS THE RHYTHM
0:58:12 > 0:58:14And....
0:58:20 > 0:58:24He manages out of a very small unit, for example, just a rhythm,
0:58:24 > 0:58:26that lasts half a bar out of this small motif
0:58:26 > 0:58:33to create a whole movement based on developing this tiny entity
0:58:33 > 0:58:35into bigger parts.
0:58:35 > 0:58:38For example, in the first movement of the Seventh,
0:58:38 > 0:58:40it's basically just this one rhythm
0:58:40 > 0:58:43and the way this movement develops, with all the varieties,
0:58:43 > 0:58:45but the rhythm is always there,
0:58:45 > 0:58:47he was probably the first one to do that.
0:58:48 > 0:58:50See, we'll play...
0:58:50 > 0:58:53HE HUMS THE RHYTHM
0:58:54 > 0:58:58Once more, please, once more.
0:58:58 > 0:59:01The Seventh, Wagner called it the apotheosis of dance,
0:59:01 > 0:59:05it is absolutely THE rhythm symphony.
0:59:05 > 0:59:08Rhythm is so important.
0:59:08 > 0:59:13The important thing, of course, is then when you play sustained music,
0:59:13 > 0:59:18to have an iron rhythm and silky sound, if you want.
0:59:18 > 0:59:21It's awfully difficult to do and it's awfully difficult
0:59:21 > 0:59:25for everybody to concentrate all the time on doing it,
0:59:25 > 0:59:29and the technical difficulties of doing it softly
0:59:29 > 0:59:32and then loudly, are so different.
0:59:32 > 0:59:36Most times you hear it wrong, it would be...
0:59:36 > 0:59:38HE HUMS THE RHYTHM
0:59:43 > 0:59:45String six.
0:59:45 > 0:59:47HE HUMS THE RHYTHM
0:59:51 > 0:59:53You play...
0:59:53 > 0:59:55HE HUMS THE RHYTHM
0:59:55 > 0:59:59How he rehearses is, is also his personality.
0:59:59 > 1:00:04He's rationalistic and rigorous, yet emotional
1:00:04 > 1:00:09and has feeling and shows feelings and it's both of these things,
1:00:09 > 1:00:14very strongly, that's what makes him who he is, I would say.
1:00:14 > 1:00:16Six.
1:00:16 > 1:00:18HE HUMS THE RHYTHM
1:00:18 > 1:00:22No, no! You played...
1:00:22 > 1:00:23HE HUMS THE RHYTHM
1:00:23 > 1:00:25What is this?
1:00:25 > 1:00:28HE HUMS THE RHYTHM
1:00:32 > 1:00:34You don't want him to be angry with you.
1:00:36 > 1:00:40It's not, it's not a nice feeling, no, no.
1:00:40 > 1:00:42But that's who he is, you know, it's,
1:00:42 > 1:00:46it's like, I think he loves this orchestra and it feels like
1:00:46 > 1:00:51that's his baby and he's treating us like his own kids.
1:00:51 > 1:00:56And he wants it to be the best.
1:01:00 > 1:01:02No, no, no.
1:01:04 > 1:01:08No, impossible, impossible, we're...
1:01:08 > 1:01:11HE HUMS THE RHYTHM
1:01:11 > 1:01:14You don't get to show, please try and concentrate,
1:01:14 > 1:01:15I can't say that every two bars.
1:01:15 > 1:01:18Four bars before H, four bars before H.
1:01:18 > 1:01:22If he sees a musician in the orchestra who is not 100% engaged
1:01:22 > 1:01:24on his own to give everything that he has,
1:01:24 > 1:01:27he'll be extremely upset and that person...
1:01:27 > 1:01:30- And you don't want to see him upset. - You do not want.
1:01:30 > 1:01:32SHE LAUGHS
1:01:32 > 1:01:33You do not want to be the person
1:01:33 > 1:01:36when he shows you the door, you know?
1:01:36 > 1:01:40Is there a special reason why you don't vibrate on the long note?
1:01:40 > 1:01:43I mean, if it is, if you're tired, this is fine,
1:01:43 > 1:01:46but if it's a conception, it's wrong, OK? And...
1:01:50 > 1:01:52With this orchestra,
1:01:52 > 1:01:55do you behave differently than you would of a...?
1:01:55 > 1:01:57No, I'm harsh with everybody.
1:01:57 > 1:01:58HE LAUGHS
1:01:58 > 1:02:00Uncouth is the word.
1:03:05 > 1:03:07I mean, we've played also Schoenberg,
1:03:07 > 1:03:09and we've played Tchaikovsky, we've played many things.
1:03:09 > 1:03:13But when you play Beethoven there's a discipline that's required,
1:03:13 > 1:03:15which is also required in the others,
1:03:15 > 1:03:19but here you can't ever afford to lose 1% of it,
1:03:19 > 1:03:22because once you lose it, the whole rigour of the pieces are gone
1:03:22 > 1:03:25and then it just sounds like nice music, which it shouldn't.
1:03:25 > 1:03:28There should always be a rationality behind it in Beethoven,
1:03:28 > 1:03:30it's always also the head.
1:03:53 > 1:03:56In the slow movement of the Seventh,
1:03:56 > 1:04:02you feel the art of orchestration more obviously than in others,
1:04:02 > 1:04:06because you feel the music walking through the orchestra.
1:04:06 > 1:04:09It starts with the violas and the cellos and then
1:04:09 > 1:04:12comes in the melody and then it goes to the winds etc,
1:04:12 > 1:04:16and you feel as if the music
1:04:16 > 1:04:20is almost taking the shape of the orchestra.
1:04:20 > 1:04:25This is probably the first time where one feels
1:04:25 > 1:04:30the art of orchestration, I wouldn't say as an end in itself,
1:04:30 > 1:04:33but it's a very obvious means that he uses.
1:05:07 > 1:05:12Building a movement and having one high point, there is something
1:05:12 > 1:05:17else in the human experience that's sort of parallel to that,
1:05:17 > 1:05:21the sort of build up of tension and the great release of tension.
1:05:21 > 1:05:25And I think that, I think there is a very strong parallel
1:05:25 > 1:05:29and I remember concerts where we did that especially well
1:05:29 > 1:05:32and there is a real orgasmic element in that.
1:05:32 > 1:05:37And, you know, music is a... we really do touch the audience
1:05:37 > 1:05:40when we play, music actually touches us physically,
1:05:40 > 1:05:43the sound waves actually touch and I think,
1:05:43 > 1:05:46if you really look at it from a different perspective, you know,
1:05:46 > 1:05:49playing a great bit of a symphony
1:05:49 > 1:05:51can be quite tantalising in that way.
1:07:35 > 1:07:38People talk about getting goosebumps in a performance,
1:07:38 > 1:07:40that's surreal,
1:07:40 > 1:07:43the real butterfly feeling in your stomach is the greatest,
1:07:43 > 1:07:47when you have this fully crafted, fully skilled way of writing
1:07:47 > 1:07:50that Beethoven possesses.
1:07:50 > 1:07:54There are things like this in life that do not age,
1:07:54 > 1:07:57they don't belong to a dimension of time in any way,
1:07:57 > 1:07:59and I think Beethoven is one of them.
1:07:59 > 1:08:03It just lives everywhere all the time, it's a monument,
1:08:03 > 1:08:05it's a wonder.
1:08:14 > 1:08:18There is inner strength within the music itself,
1:08:18 > 1:08:24and when you play, you transmit to the audience, a certain kind of,
1:08:24 > 1:08:29of energy, which they can't only hear, but they feel it too.
1:08:29 > 1:08:32It's...I mean, you can hear it in a recording, yes,
1:08:32 > 1:08:36but in a live performance, where you see people moving and sweating,
1:08:36 > 1:08:39that also adds to the, it's the creation of the...
1:08:39 > 1:08:41Of a piece of music at the moment.
1:08:43 > 1:08:47Think of Beethoven's image in popular culture
1:08:47 > 1:08:50and the word serious or even tormented comes to mind,
1:08:50 > 1:08:52rather than humorous.
1:08:52 > 1:08:55But Beethoven was far from being the misery guts some people imagine.
1:08:55 > 1:08:59Beethoven, he looks kind of existentially grumpy.
1:08:59 > 1:09:02This guy does not look like somebody who had a laugh.
1:09:02 > 1:09:04Well, that is absolutely not the case,
1:09:04 > 1:09:06he was a funny person, Beethoven,
1:09:06 > 1:09:09and there are lots of descriptions of Beethoven's smile.
1:09:09 > 1:09:11That, to me, is just one of the most wonderful ideas.
1:09:11 > 1:09:14If you imagine one of those wild-haired, wild-eyed,
1:09:14 > 1:09:17staring old portraits of Beethoven, and just imagine him smiling,
1:09:17 > 1:09:20and the description of perfectly white teeth that he had
1:09:20 > 1:09:22and when he smiled he said, you know,
1:09:22 > 1:09:25there were accounts where the whole room would sort of light up.
1:09:25 > 1:09:27He gets a greeting card from his brother, Johann,
1:09:27 > 1:09:30on the card it says, "Johann Beethoven, Land Owner,"
1:09:30 > 1:09:32and Beethoven signs it on the other side,
1:09:32 > 1:09:35"Ludwig van Beethoven, Brain Owner."
1:09:35 > 1:09:38That should change your idea of who Beethoven is,
1:09:38 > 1:09:40there is wit in him and wit in his music too.
1:09:46 > 1:09:50The Eighth Symphony, completed in 1812,
1:09:50 > 1:09:53was smaller in scale than the five that preceded it.
1:09:53 > 1:09:57It was written at a time when Beethoven's relationship with
1:09:57 > 1:10:01his land-owning brother had reached a low ebb, as had his health.
1:10:01 > 1:10:05He could no longer hear well enough to perform or conduct,
1:10:05 > 1:10:09and yet the Eighth is full of jaunty musical humour.
1:10:19 > 1:10:22One of the greatest pleasures for me and treasures for me
1:10:22 > 1:10:27to find in his music is that he has an amazing sense of humour,
1:10:27 > 1:10:29he's actually much more of an optimist,
1:10:29 > 1:10:32if you look at his music, one by one, than Mozart.
1:10:34 > 1:10:38Beethoven had written eight symphonies in 12 years,
1:10:38 > 1:10:41but it was another 12 years before his monumental
1:10:41 > 1:10:44Ninth Symphony was premiered.
1:10:44 > 1:10:47To many, it's his towering musical achievement.
1:10:50 > 1:10:52Good morning.
1:10:52 > 1:10:55The orchestra Beethoven called for in the Ninth Symphony
1:10:55 > 1:10:58was double the size of that used in his First,
1:10:58 > 1:11:00written 25 years earlier.
1:11:02 > 1:11:06Beethoven had created the modern symphony orchestra,
1:11:06 > 1:11:09and vastly expanded the range of emotions
1:11:09 > 1:11:12that a symphony was capable of expressing.
1:11:12 > 1:11:16OK, beginning of the second movement, please.
1:12:19 > 1:12:21The last fermata before the trio.
1:12:21 > 1:12:24HE HUMS THE RHYTHM
1:12:25 > 1:12:27Are we clear?
1:12:27 > 1:12:30For the first time in the history of the symphony,
1:12:30 > 1:12:35Beethoven added a choir for the last movement, the famous Ode To Joy.
1:12:36 > 1:12:41It is as if, in the end, the music was not enough for him
1:12:41 > 1:12:44and he needed the text and the words.
1:12:44 > 1:12:50My individual feeling is that he used the text and the chorus
1:12:50 > 1:12:57and the singers in order to make his human idea more accessible,
1:12:57 > 1:13:03because the associations, of course, are much easier when you have a text.
1:13:08 > 1:13:10Go! Go!
1:13:21 > 1:13:23THE CHORISTER SINGS
1:13:32 > 1:13:34The choir at the end of the Ninth Symphony
1:13:34 > 1:13:37isn't just a symbol of universal brotherhood,
1:13:37 > 1:13:40it has to actually enact that, it has to be that.
1:13:40 > 1:13:43I mean, the choir is the choir of humanity,
1:13:43 > 1:13:45there should be no difference.
1:13:45 > 1:13:48It's an unbelievably musically ambitious thing,
1:13:48 > 1:13:52but humanly, what it's doing is just cosmically ambitious as well.
1:13:53 > 1:13:57The tour culminates in a performance of the Ninth,
1:13:57 > 1:14:00which has attained almost mystical status,
1:14:00 > 1:14:04ever since its premiere in 1824, three years before Beethoven died.
1:14:05 > 1:14:08The stated aim of the concert is to promote peace
1:14:08 > 1:14:11between North and South Korea, divided since 1950.
1:14:11 > 1:14:15The choice of music is symbolic.
1:14:15 > 1:14:19The Ninth Symphony was played at the fall of the Berlin Wall
1:14:19 > 1:14:23and by the student protestors in Tiananmen Square, Beijing in 1989.
1:14:24 > 1:14:28This is Beethoven's legacy, he wrote symphonies
1:14:28 > 1:14:32not just for entertainment, but to try to change the world,
1:14:32 > 1:14:35not that his music's idealism has always been taken
1:14:35 > 1:14:38in the spirit he intended.
1:14:38 > 1:14:41You can see the barbed wire.
1:14:42 > 1:14:47The idea that Beethoven's Ninth is one of the most abused ideas ever.
1:14:47 > 1:14:52If you take German politics alone, was used by Bismarck,
1:14:52 > 1:14:57was used by Hitler, it was used Ulbricht in the East German Republic,
1:14:57 > 1:15:04it gives the message all people will be brothers, with some exceptions.
1:15:08 > 1:15:10For the Ninth,
1:15:10 > 1:15:14the orchestra is joined by the National Choir of South Korea.
1:15:18 > 1:15:22Don't wait for the politicians, be ahead of them.
1:15:23 > 1:15:27No matter what cynical purposes his music may have been put to,
1:15:27 > 1:15:31its humanitarian spirit is hard to suppress.
1:15:31 > 1:15:35Beethoven continued to, admire the French Revolution,
1:15:35 > 1:15:42the ideas is represents, he was a very political person.
1:15:45 > 1:15:50I think Beethoven had these great ideas of universal values
1:15:50 > 1:15:53and the universal brotherhood of man.
1:15:53 > 1:15:56And it's quite extraordinary that, that the people who came up
1:15:56 > 1:15:59with these philosophies, basically were thinking
1:15:59 > 1:16:04about the difference between Vienna and Munich, and whereas today,
1:16:04 > 1:16:07we grapple with these values as, you know, with the difference between
1:16:07 > 1:16:12Riyadh, Tel Aviv, Beijing and New York, which,
1:16:12 > 1:16:14the differences are much larger,
1:16:14 > 1:16:17and it's much more challenging to find universal values
1:16:17 > 1:16:21and universal truths, that we can all agree on.
1:16:21 > 1:16:25And that is something in the Divan that we live this issue
1:16:25 > 1:16:28when we work together, the periods we spend together.
1:16:28 > 1:16:31It's very easy to, to see the differences,
1:16:31 > 1:16:34and it's often much harder to develop the common elements
1:16:34 > 1:16:37and the common interests, and the common values.
1:16:43 > 1:16:45Because he was too deaf by that stage to conduct the piece,
1:16:45 > 1:16:50he set the speeds and Michael Umlauf conducted,
1:16:50 > 1:16:51did the real conducting.
1:16:51 > 1:16:54And there is a...there's, one of those
1:16:54 > 1:16:57supremely touching anecdotes about Beethoven's life,
1:16:57 > 1:16:59which is that, at the end the symphony,
1:16:59 > 1:17:03his head was still in the score, and he had to be turned round,
1:17:03 > 1:17:06by one of the singers to accept the applause of the audience.
1:17:09 > 1:17:12Beethoven starts the Ninth by destabilising the home key,
1:17:12 > 1:17:15creating a feeling of insecurity.
1:17:24 > 1:17:27In an early draft of the first movement,
1:17:27 > 1:17:30he wrote on the score the single word, despair.
1:17:33 > 1:17:36We know it's in D, but we don't know if it's major or minor.
1:17:36 > 1:17:39And Beethoven, he's really holding our attention on a string,
1:17:39 > 1:17:41we don't know what we're hearing,
1:17:41 > 1:17:44there's a certain ambiguity about the way it starts
1:17:44 > 1:17:47and the way he constructs the whole movement
1:17:47 > 1:17:50out of that place of uncertainty is just extraordinary.
1:18:16 > 1:18:21The Ninth Symphony begins, you don't know where you are,
1:18:21 > 1:18:27it's an open chord in the horns and then trembling strings.
1:18:27 > 1:18:32Beethoven sometimes looked for the way...
1:18:34 > 1:18:38..to make you feel unstable,
1:18:38 > 1:18:42because it is from the unstableness
1:18:42 > 1:18:45that you come to the great sense of stability.
1:18:45 > 1:18:47This is what I mean
1:18:47 > 1:18:51when I say that Beethoven had a great sense of moral responsibility.
1:18:51 > 1:18:58He knew that everything that was dark, negative, unstable,
1:18:58 > 1:19:00had to be solved.
1:19:01 > 1:19:06It is a very positive use of music.
1:19:37 > 1:19:40Usually, in every aspect of culture,
1:19:40 > 1:19:44you have people who summarise everything that's been said until then
1:19:44 > 1:19:48and summarise it so completely that it is...
1:19:48 > 1:19:52That the whole is more than the sum of the parts.
1:19:52 > 1:19:56Or you have those who show the way into something new.
1:19:56 > 1:19:58But Beethoven was able to do both,
1:19:58 > 1:20:01like very few people in the history of music.
1:20:27 > 1:20:29And in comes a slow movement,
1:20:29 > 1:20:33which is just this, kind of, moment of humanity
1:20:33 > 1:20:37with this beautifully lyrical lines, long lines
1:20:37 > 1:20:42and the pulse of the music is slow and sort of very broad.
1:20:42 > 1:20:45And then the harmonic changes
1:20:45 > 1:20:48where all of a sudden the violas come in
1:20:48 > 1:20:52with a sort of B section and how Beethoven creates
1:20:52 > 1:20:56the expectation for this harmonic modulation,
1:20:56 > 1:20:59where the music peters out
1:20:59 > 1:21:02and kind of, the audience, we don't know where we are,
1:21:02 > 1:21:07and he creates this completely ambiguous and foggy atmosphere.
1:21:30 > 1:21:32And all of a sudden out of that comes this theme,
1:21:32 > 1:21:35if we would have played this theme by itself,
1:21:35 > 1:21:38it would never have the same quality as the preparation for it.
1:21:38 > 1:21:40And Beethoven is really the master of that.
1:22:51 > 1:22:55Sometimes he needs ten minutes of music to make a point,
1:22:55 > 1:22:58but he needs to set it up and he does that so beautifully,
1:22:58 > 1:23:00and it's so beautifully notated
1:23:00 > 1:23:04and the directions for the performer are so meticulous
1:23:04 > 1:23:08and when one follows them, something extraordinary happens.
1:23:43 > 1:23:49I believe very, very strongly in the universality of music,
1:23:49 > 1:23:52where the music belongs to everybody in this sense,
1:23:52 > 1:23:58but everybody who is sensitive is able to take this message
1:23:58 > 1:24:03and make it part of his thinking,
1:24:03 > 1:24:07or emotional baggage.
1:24:12 > 1:24:16It's part of you, part of your possessions,
1:24:16 > 1:24:19this is also part of your inner possessions,
1:24:19 > 1:24:23and I strongly believe that this is the case everywhere.
1:24:35 > 1:24:40Written by the German poet, Friedrich Schiller in 1785,
1:24:40 > 1:24:45the Ode to Joy is a paean to universal brotherhood.
1:24:47 > 1:24:51I think it speaks to everyone on a very, very personal level,
1:24:51 > 1:24:54because we all have our own struggles.
1:24:54 > 1:24:59The Ode To Joy, that triumph of the human spirit over all,
1:24:59 > 1:25:01you know, human struggles, basically,
1:25:01 > 1:25:05and so how much more appropriate would the struggle between,
1:25:05 > 1:25:09in the politics, between the Arab and Israeli's conflict?
1:25:10 > 1:25:15It gives me hope to play Beethoven, you know,
1:25:15 > 1:25:18and especially in the end, with the triumphant Ninth Symphony,
1:25:18 > 1:25:21that maybe in the end there's hope.
1:25:42 > 1:25:46It's such a build up that you then wonder,
1:25:46 > 1:25:48the Ode To Joy actually begins,
1:25:48 > 1:25:50you have the feeling that you've gone through a journey
1:25:50 > 1:25:54of so many emotions that this then gets a really deep meaning.
1:25:54 > 1:25:57You know, you can't really put it into words,
1:25:57 > 1:25:59because if you could put it into words,
1:25:59 > 1:26:04he would have written a book, he wouldn't have written a symphony.
1:26:52 > 1:26:57It's just, it's just miraculous, it's really...
1:26:57 > 1:27:00I think it's one of these things that you listen to and really
1:27:00 > 1:27:05feel like this is one of, if not the high point of human creation,
1:27:05 > 1:27:09and it really sums up how amazing what we can do as a species is.
1:27:09 > 1:27:12I think there are few other examples
1:27:12 > 1:27:15of human creation that are that engulfing.
1:27:26 > 1:27:29There is something about the courage,
1:27:29 > 1:27:34he went for what he felt was impossible,
1:27:34 > 1:27:37and he looked for the opposite, as it were,
1:27:37 > 1:27:40almost looked for them in order to overcome them.
1:27:40 > 1:27:44And I think this is something that has spoken
1:27:44 > 1:27:48to the hearts of millions of people for centuries.
1:28:27 > 1:28:30Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd