Dave Lampson wrote:

>If this mythical Beethoven reincarnate cannot communicate with his
>audience - something the original Beethoven had very little problem with
>- then how can this composer be another Beethoven? Beethoven's music was
>wildly popular with music aficionados when he lived - even the difficult
>works such as the late quartets were being performed all over Europe with
>a decade or two of their composition.  Where's the analog to this today?
>Oh, how I wish there was one...

There may well be, Beethoven was unknown in France during his life time,
Haydn was quite old before Paris discovered his works with jubilation.
And who is to say any particular person will recognise the messiah when
he comes.  We would all like to think that we would, but that is conceit
- anyone of us is as likely to be walking the wrong way on the road to
Damascus.

Stirling Newberry
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 [Funny, for being unknown in France Beethoven's music was widely played
 there before his death.  Beethoven even made several disparaging remarks
 in his notebooks concerning the quality of the orchestral playing in
 performances of his works there.  I believe it has been put forth that
 this may be one of the reasons he went back and added metronome markings
 to some of his works.  He was tired of them playing his symphonies
 too slowly.  It might also be noted that two of the late quartets (Op.
 132, 135) were first published in Paris by Schlesinger.  As Beethoven
 generally waited until publishers approached him - he liked to use this
 as a gauge of how far his reputation had spread - we can be reasonably
 sure he was known in France before his death.

 In any case, were talking about the speed of communication here, not
 the acceptance of his music.  Today we have no such problems with the
 communication and the accessibility of music.  -Dave]