Beethoven's Ninth Symphony

Beethoven's ninth, or choral symphony is a great work, and I have witnessed some great performances of it. The performance that stands out most in my mind, the one I sang in during my choral singing days, probably did it somewhat poorer than what it deserved.


To begin with, the director, a stodgy and inflexible old curmudgeon, insisted that the chorus stand behind the orchestra throughout the entire symphony, despite the fact that we only sing during the final movement. "Its the Choral Symphony so they want to see the chorus, even when you're not singing." Well we were standing there - sopranos and altos in front, tenors and basses in the rear - when some of us in the bass section realized nobody could really see us and we would not be missed if we slipped out for a while.

We figured we had the better part of an hour before the choral movement, and that gave us plenty of time to sneak out for a quick beer. One beer, however, leads to another, and we were thouroughly loaded by the time one of us remembered that there was a symphony we were supposed to be singing in. Well we could sing I'm sure, but not in tune. We managed to stagger back just in time for the intermission.

As the least inebriated member of our little escapade, it became incumbent upon me to come up with some delaying tactic to give us a chance to sober up. My first idea was to steal the conductor's score, but I found he had it tied to the podium so it wouldn't blow away. Rather than try to untie it, I just tied it a little more securely so he couldn't turn the pages. It was at that moment that two of the other basses in our group lost consciousness and hit the floor. - So now it's the second half of the Ninth, the score is tied, and the basses are loaded... with two out!...

I suppose I should have posted this on the humor forum. Sorry, I couldn't resist!

 

I love this symphony! My favourite movement is the second movement!

 

i just saw that performed by the BSO last friday night
surprisingly the symphony wasent very good