Beethoven in NYC, Mass in C Major, and Afro Amer Spirituals June 10th | Harlem Tee Shirts

Beethoven in NYC, Mass in C Major, and Afro Amer Spirituals June 10th | Harlem Tee Shirts



As Beethoven jotted down, while sketching out the “Dona nobis pacem” (Give us peace) section of his mighty Missa Solemnis: “Stärke der Gesinnungen des innern Friedens über alles . . . Sieg!” “Strength of sentiments of inner peace above all else . . .Victory!” which he later transformed into the motto of his entire monumental work: “Bitte um innern und äussern Frieden.” “Plea for inner and outward peace.” It is the same with the immortal Schiller: Among his many poems is his “Song of the Bell,” in which the joint planning, forging, protection, and raising of the bell is a metaphor for the composition of true political freedom. His poem concludes: Come now, with the ropes’ whole might, From her dungeon swing the bell, Till she rise to heaven’s height, In the realm of sound to dwell! Pull and lift—still more! See her move and soar! Joy unto this city bringing, May Peace become her first glad ringing!


More on Beethoven and Schiller

For him, as well as for “Poet of Freedom” Friedrich Schiller, the content and intent of peace is the ennoblement of the human soul, so that the individual can proceed to ennoble others as well. As Beethoven jotted down, while sketching out the “Dona nobis pacem” (Give us peace) section of his mighty Missa Solemnis: “Stärke der Gesinnungen des innern Friedens über alles . . . Sieg!” “Strength of sentiments of inner peace above all else . . .Victory!” which he later transformed into the motto of his entire monumental work: “Bitte um innern und äussern Frieden.” “Plea for inner and outward peace.”

It is the same with the immortal Schiller: Among his many poems is his “Song of the Bell,” in which the joint planning, forging, protection, and raising of the bell is a metaphor for the composition of true political freedom. His poem concludes: Come now, with the ropes’ whole might, From her dungeon swing the bell, Till she rise to heaven’s height, In the realm of sound to dwell! Pull and lift—still more! See her move and soar! Joy unto this city bringing, May Peace become her first glad ringing! The Concert Program The concert will begin with a selection of AfricanAmerican Spirituals which is a hallmark of Schiller Institute NYC Chorus’s efforts to preserve this precious II. Burying the Old, Evil Songs T May 18, 2018 EIR How Many Needless Deaths? 23 assertion of man’s dignity against all efforts to degrade him to a beast. The featured work is Beethoven’s Mass in C, Opus 86, which he composed in 1807 at the behest of Prince Esterházy, son of the late Prince Esterházy who had sponsored Joseph Haydn’s career.


Contrary to some who attempt to cast Beethoven as a product of the “Enlightenment,” which relegates creativity to the domain of the Unknowable, Beethoven was a true Promethean in the tradition of Plato, Kepler, and Leibniz, and was dedicated to making creative discovery intelligible to all seekers of Truth. He was therefore deeply religious in that sense, i.e., not in the sense of doctrine, and thus his approach to setting the Catholic mass.


As he noted in 1818 while working on his Missa Solemnis: In order to write true church music ... look through all the monastic church chorals and also the strophes in the most correct translations and perfect prosody in all Christian-Catholic psalms and hymns generally. Sacrifice again all the pettinesses of social life to your art. O God above all things! For it is an eternal Providence which directs omnisciently the good and evil fortunes of human men. Short is the life of man, and whoso bears A cruel heart, devising cruel things, On him men call down evil from the gods While living, and pursue him, when he dies, With cruel scoffs. But whoso is of generous heart And harbors generous aims, his guests proclaim His praises far and wide to all mankind, And numberless are they who call him good. —Homer Tranquilly will I submit myself to all vicissitudes and place my sole confidence in Thy unalterable goodness, O God! My soul shall rejoice in Thy immutable servant. Be my rock, my light, forever my trust! Sad to say, Beethoven’s passion for Truth was a bit too much for Prince Esterházy to take. Following the first performance on September 13, 1807, the Prince complained to Countess Henriette Zielinska:


Beethoven’s Mass is unbearably ridiculous and detestable, and I am not convinced that it can ever be performed properly. I am angry and mortified. Nevertheless, two movements of the Mass were joyously received in Vienna the following year, along with his Choral Fantasy, Op. 80.

This pairing of the Mass and the Choral Fantasy, by the way, is significant for Beethoven’s creative work in general. Just as his motivic development in his Mass in C foreshadows his Missa Solemnis, so the main theme of the Choral Fantasy points directly to the final choral movement of his Symphony No. 9. And it is no accident that the 1824 premiere concert of the Ninth also premiered three movements from his Missa Solemnis. The New Paradigm and the Sublime All great works of Classical art, whether they be music, drama, poetry, the plastic arts, or all combined, are dynamic ideas which impel the beholder into the domain of the Sublime. This is done through stark juxtapositions or paradoxes which are in the domain of metaphor, in the extended sense of William Empson’s treatise, Seven Types of Ambiguity. (See also Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., “On the Subject of Metaphor,” Fidelio, Vol. 1, No. 3, Fall 1992). As Schiller writes in his essay, “On the Sublime”: The feeling of the Sublime is a mixed feeling. It is a composite of sorrowfulness, which in its highest gradation is expressed as a shuddering; and of joyfulness, which can intensify into delight, and, although it is not properly pleasure, is what cultured souls prefer by far over all pleasure per se. This union of two contradictory sentiments into a single feeling proves our moral self-subsistence in an irrefutable manner.... Through the feeling of the Sublime, therefore, we have the experience that our state of mind is not necessarily governed by the state of our senses: that the laws of nature are not necessarily also our laws, and that we have within us a selfsubsisting principle which is independent of our sense impressions. [emphasis added]

In the 20th Century, the great conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler put the same principle another way when he argued that actual musical ideas are located entirely outside of sense-perception, “between” or “behind” the notes. Beethoven’s evocation of the Sublime is particularly compelling in the concluding “Agnus Dei” (Lamb of God) movement of both his Mass in C and his Missa Solemnis. In this section, the wrenching “Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi” (Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world) assumes a downright warlike cast, as the defenseless Lamb is led to slaughter, only to be interrupted by the gentle, sunny warmth of “Dona nobis pacem,” which emerges victorious. And then, just to make the point clear, Beethoven alternates both episodes a second time. The unifying principle of the Sublime in this concluding movement is reinforced by Beethoven’s Motivführung, i.e., his use of inversions and transformations of the very same “rising fourth” thematic material that opens the entire Mass in the first “Kyrie” movement. Brothers (and Sisters)

The audience’s moral victory upon contemplation of two brothers locked in seemingly irreconcilable conflict is evident not only in Schiller’s famous “Ode to Joy” (“All men become brothers where’er tarries thy gentle wing”), but also in Schiller’s very first drama, The Robbers, and his penultimate play, The Bride of Messina. In the former play, the brothers’ dying father, in words laden with Biblical imagery, yet almost Confucian in tone, admonishes: How lovely a thing it is when brethren dwell together in unity; as the dewdrops of heaven that fall upon the mountains of Zion. Learn to deserve that happiness, young man, and the angels of heaven will sun themselves in thy glory. Let thy wisdom be the wisdom of gray hairs, but let thy heart be the heart of innocent childhood. Those who know and love Johannes Brahms’ A German Requiem will immediately recognize “How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place.” Such is always the dialog of great artists, across time and space. And such is the substance of the New Paradigm.
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Go to My Christmas Concert

Time to go to a great Christmas Concert on Sat. Dec 16, at 6 pm till 8 pm.  Beethoven's Mass in C Major, Handel's Messiah, excerpts, spirituals  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-christmas-concert-tickets-39528000313 at the Brooklyn Co-Cathedral, 856 Pacific Street, NY 11238. Singing is the Schiller Institute NYC Chorus with 4 soloists.

Review of Sylvia Olden Lee Tribute at Carnegie Hall, NYC

On Thursday, June 29, the Foundation for the Revival of Classical Culture put on “Tribute to Sylvia Olden Lee” at Carnegie Hall. Sylvia was an accomplished pianist and voice coach who was the first African American employed as a professional at the NY Metropolitan Opera. This three-hour concert had the hall nearly full with 2000 people, including many high school youth.

Acapella spirituals by Elvira Green and Sheila Harris Jackson opened as they came walking on stage.  Then the Schiller Institute chorus followed with soloist Gregory Hopkins in “Lord, I Don’t Feel No-ways Tired,” followed by “Go Down Moses” and “Soon I Will Be Done.” The chorus had a surprising bell-like tone due to the use of the lower tuning of A=432 and great training.

Many singers were from the Harlem Opera Theater. Indira Mahajan, soprano sang “Ritorna vincitor!” (Return victorious) from the opera Aida. What really was incredible then were the scenes from the Verdi opera Don Carlos, with the 79-year-old baritone Simon Estes giving an incredible performance first as Don Carlos; and then as King Phillip, along with Kevin Short as the Grand Inquisitor.  Then, Rosa D’Imperio sang the heartbreaking aria from Don Carlos “Toi qui sus le neant.”  (You who know the nothingness…).

After the intermission, Robert Sims performed the iconic Schubert song “Who is Sylvia?” accompanied by Jeremy Jordan, who then played the Impromptu Op. 90 No. 3 in G-flat major by Schuber

More spirituals followed with Osceola Davis singing “Guide My Feet,” and Everett Suttle and Frank Mathis singing from the Roland Hayes spiritual song cycle “The Life of Christ.” The dramatic finale had the audience joining in, conducted by Roland Carter, in his arrangement of "Lift Every Voice and Sing.”

What a concert on June 29, Tribute to Sylvia Olden Lee at Carnegie Hall.  There were many notables in attendance including Minister Louis Farrakhan, whom Sylvia supported in returning to his classical violin studies and performance. Written tributes in the program ranged from Jessye Norman to Bobby McFerrin. A proclamation from the office of the Mayor of New York Bill de Blasio and First Lady Chirlane McCray declared it Sylvia Olden Lee Day.  This was a fitting touch for a beautiful musical evening.