The symphonies of Beethoven. Part 1 of 4

Almost since their creation, Ludwig van Beethoven's nine symphonies, each one pathbreaking and stunning, have formed the cornerstone of orchestral literature. Viewed from the unique vantage point that Professor Robert Greenberg offers, 'The Nine' bear witness to Beethoven's artistic brilliance as well as the profound and continuing influence of his achievements.

It is 1802. After six years of progressive hearing loss, a distraught Ludwig van Beethoven pours out his agony and rage in a never-mailed letter. "As the leaves of autumn wither and fall," he cries, "so has my own life become barren." "I Will Take Fate by the Throat!" Yet even as he battles despair, he vows to his friend Franz Wegeler that he "will take fate by the throat" and "embrace the whole world." He writes his brilliant, lighthearted Second Symphony. It is 1812. Beethoven is so deeply depressed over the end of his relationship with the woman he calls his "Immortal Beloved" that he barely bothers to bathe, and lets his clothes go to rags. Yet at the same time, he is writing his sparkling, humorous, and upbeat Eighth Symphony, whose fourth movement is the sprightliest musical joke in the whole Western concert repertoire. It is the early 1820s. After a long period of bitter family turmoil and blocked creativity, the talk around Vienna is that Beethoven has gone mad. He is now almost totally deaf. Yet he rebounds again, this time with his greatest achievement of all, the incomparable, revolutionary Ninth Symphony. Out of Crisis, Triumph Three crises. Three masterpieces. Each time, Beethoven resolved to redeem his suffering through art. Each time, he succeeded. His magnificent symphonic music is the gift we enjoy because of that resolve. Professor Robert Greenberg grasps the intimate links between the man and the music as few interpreters of Beethoven do. His 32-lecture course on The Symphonies of Beethoven explores those links with profound insight while also taking you deeply into the symphonies themselves. After viewing or listening to these recorded lectures, you will understand as never before precisely how and why Beethoven broke new paths, breathed new life into old forms, created fresh ones, and essentially turned the musical world on its ear with nine symphonies, written over a quarter-century, that still form the cornerstone of orchestral literature. "The Nine" offer a unique vantage point by which to observe the progress of Beethoven's astounding and astoundingly influential artistic development. Never has a composer better demonstrated his ongoing compositional, aesthetic, and emotional development and changing worldview as Beethoven does in his symphonies. Perhaps no single body of symphonic work strikes us as so contemporary, so moving, and so stunningly original as Beethoven's symphonies do. They are an enduring legacy.