Joe Hagedorn wrote:

>The stuff he wrote later in his life is good, but the stuff from his heroic
>phase isn't good.

Be careful with your choice of words.  When you say not good, that is
absolute and you are most probably wrong in saying it.  I suspect you
simply don't like the style ('extraverted' as you put it) which does not
mean it is bad.  Just in the same way that the fundamental simplicity of
Mozart's music does not make IT bad.

Most of his symphonies are pretty random and repetitive

Now this is not true.  He wrote in very strict classical forms.  So it is
hardly random.  His developemts are very taut.  He was the master of making
something out of nothing usually by keeping the harmony shifting or maybe
by contrupuntal devices like inversion or augmentation or something.  Noone
else was capable of it to the same extent as Beethoven.  This is probably
what you are finding repetitive.  Just listen to what IS changing rather
than what is not and it will be infinitely more enjoyable.  The whole of
the fifth symphony is basically 3 repeated notes preceding a fall of a
major third.  A formula for repetitiveness, yes.  But it isn't.  If it is
the inherent repetition in Sonata form that you object to, then you must
then claim that Mozart's Symphonies and Haydn's Symphonies are repetitive.

>and don't make any sense.

to you.

I don't think Beethoven is overrated.  He just seems to be the name
on everyone's lips when someone says CM.  'Oh, yeah.  Like Beethoven's
fifth...Da Da Da Dum' I imagine that phrase is the most difficult bit in
the entire piece to direct, now that it has become such a cliche.

David Stewart
[log in to unmask]