Jon Johanning takes off from my post:

>>...  If you read carefully, you'd realize that I wasn't talking
>>about the merits of the music as music at all - simply on Beethoven's
>>mastery of string writing, which, if you talk to string players, is less
>>than idiomatic.  Does it make a difference to the quality of the music?
>>Not at all.  ...
>
>This talk about LvB's "unidiomatic" string writing reminds me of the old
>idea that he "couldn't write for voices." What people who said that really
>meant was that much of his vocal writing was damned difficult to sing.

Amen to that.  The choral finale of the Ninth tends to shred the vocal
chords, particularly the soft sections in high tessitura - the "ueber
Sternenzelt" passage, eg.  How choirs get through live performances of
the Missa Solemnis, I have no idea.

>Of course, some folks even feel that he wrote strange stuff toward the
>end of his life because he couldn't hear what it really sounded like.

Actually, he probably wrote strange stuff at the end of his life, because
he liked writing strange stuff.

>My take on all this is that he was really the Stockhausen or Schoenberg of
>his time: he was constantly pushing the limits of what performers could
>play or sing, and the limits of what was considered "correct" composing,
>because of his prodigious imagination and his indominable drive.  I don't
>think for a minute that he wrote "unidiomatically" for the strings or the
>voice because he didn't know how.  I believe that he could write anything
>he put his mind to; he just refused to write cliches just because they were
>idiomatic.  That is what I admire him for.

I'll never forget the story of Fanny Mendelssohn and her friends hearing
some Beethoven symphony and tsk-tsking among themselves how unfortunate
it was that Beethoven had no taste.  Pretty much what you get with people
who don't bother to listen to new music today.  They usually point out
something obvious - and to which there is no response other than "of
course" - that Stockhausen and Schoenberg aren't Beethoven.  To quote
the head of Sun Microsystems: "Well, duh."

On the other hand, Beethoven also wrote cliches that were unidiomatic,
even in something like the Ninth.  See Vaughan Williams's essay on the
subject, particularly Beethoven's use of vocal ornament in the soloists'
parts.  Fortunately, all this nit-picking remains just that.  It's doesn't
matter to the overwhelming effect of the Ninth.  I suppose what bothers me
more is the notion that great composers write without flaw and we should
bow three times to each of the compass points.  It's not a question of
tearing down something wonderful, but of loving something with clear
understanding of its nature.  Both the love and the understanding are
important.  Sometimes, as in Isaak Dineson's story, it's the flaws that
give life and soul to the work.

Steve Schwartz