View Full Version : Beethoven Ninth? In English??
I have just acquired the download of Albert Coates/"LSO" version of this work from Pristine Audio. It was recorded in October 1926 and I find that they sing in English! Does anyone know of any other version with English words to the last movement?
I have just acquired the download of Albert Coates/"LSO" version of this work from Pristine Audio. It was recorded in October 1926 and I find that they sing in English! Does anyone know of any other version with English words to the last movement?
Gordon, there exists a French version as well (by the same translator as Strauss' Salomé [sanctioned by the composer]IIRC), but until your posting I hadn't a clue that there might exist recordings of either of these versions. I never came across one, I'm afraid.
makropulos
14-07-11, 22:25
Roehre, Ithe Koussevitzky Paris Beethoven 9th on Tahra (1950) is sung in French and it's certainly intriguing. I also have a recording of it in Chinese (on LP), but it's fascinating to learn that Coates used English.
Eine Alpensinfonie
14-07-11, 23:08
"Joy" does not fit the 2-syllable "Freude", which is why one English translation uses the word "freedom".
Roehre, Ithe Koussevitzky Paris Beethoven 9th on Tahra (1950) is sung in French and it's certainly intriguing. I also have a recording of it in Chinese (on LP), but it's fascinating to learn that Coates used English.
Thanks Makropulos,:ok: I'm afraid I've got to google better :biggrin:
makropulos
14-07-11, 23:43
You're welcome, Roehre! Despite the oddity of being in French, it's a performance that has quite a lot going for it (as you'd imagine) - one of Koussevitzky's very last concerts.
"Joy" does not fit the 2-syllable "Freude", which is why one English translation uses the word "freedom".
Coates' translator renders Joy as Gladness, a bit clumsy perhaps?:erm: but nearer the meaning of Freude than Freedom! What other words are there in English that mean Joy and have two syllables and, if we are being really fussy, has the important rhetorical and dramatic impact that Freude has in German at that point in the music!? Best stick to the German!!
Gordon, how about Rapture, which perhaps conveys something of the ecstatic quality that Schiller was thinking of?
makropulos
15-07-11, 12:31
I've just been listening to Stokowski's 1934 recording of Beethoven 9 which is also in English. It was also (apparently) the work's first recording in the USA.
The whole thing is online here (with a separate link to each movement):
http://www.stokowski.org/1934_Electrical_Recordings_Stokowski.htm
(scroll down to find it).
Here's a direct link to just the finale:
http://www.stokowski.org/sitebuilderfiles/340430_Beethoven_9_4_K.mp3
Chris Newman
15-07-11, 12:46
"Joy" does not fit the 2-syllable "Freude", which is why one English translation uses the word "freedom".
The thoughts of the Schiller Institute suggest that "Freiheit" (Freedom) was what Schiller originally wrote:
Ode to Freedom
There is evidence that Schiller originally used the word “freedom” (Freiheit) rather than “joy” (Freude) in the poem that became the subject of the last movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. This same evidence indicates that the inspiration for the poem was the American Declaration of Independence. “Freedom” was later changed to “joy” because Prussian censorship was fearful of French revolutionary rhetoric. It may be true. If so, it could be an excuse for using “freedom” in this performance of Beethoven’s last symphony. In the end, it would only be an excuse, and not a reason. The truth is that we believe that the work is improved by making “freedom” and not “joy” the focus.
www.eduardochibas.com/archivos_escritos/Ode%20to%20Freedom.doc
Interestingly Jascha Horenstein gets his Viennese chorus to strongly emphasise the word "fresch" instead of "Streng" on his famous Vox recording at the point
Was die Mode streng geteilt;
Alle Menschen werden Brüder,
thus
Was die Mode fresch geteilt;
Alle Menschen werden Brüder,
changing "what fashion (or tradition) strongly divided" to "what fashion (or tradition) newly divided".
So there has often been some questioning of the wording and emphasis which probably helped the English translator. It would appear that at the Berlin Wall Bernstein was only going back to the original Schiller Ode to Freedom.
Many thanks for inputs various! The use of "freedom" by Schiller as his original idea does seem in keeping with the tenor of the times, and would have appealed to Beethoven too, so the English use of Freedom would be better than Gladness, but there we are.
Thanks for data on Stokowski's version, quite interesting sound quality, as one would expect of these artists at that time but must listen to it all first! Compared to the HMV electrical sound for Coates it's not that different since both would have used the same type of equipment - Western Electric - which both HMV and Columbia used here from before 1925 until it was replaced by Blumlein's royalty free recorder in about 1933. Columbia and HMV were rivals until 1931 when they merged to form EMI.
The Stokowski web site mentions that Coates made another B9 for HMV in 1923 [orchestra not named] but it was an acoustic recording. This would probably have been made at the Hayes studios with reduced forces. In acoustic recordings tubas would have been used to fill out the bass and there is a hint of that in the later electrical one too. The site also says that Weingartner made an electrical recording of B9 for Columbia; this was made at Petty France with the LSO in March 1926. This is in the LSO official discography; I wonder if that was in English too? doesn't seem to be out at present unless there's a downlaod lurking somewhere.
16-17 Mar 1926 Petty France Studios
Miriam Licette (soprano), Muriel Brunskill (contralto),
Hubert Eisdell (tenor), Harold Williams (baritone),
chorus, Felix Weingartner
BEETHOVEN Symphony No.9 in D minor Op.125 “Choral” WAX1350-65
78rpm: (Oct26) L1775-82; set M39 = 67194-01D.
LP: (Jun81) Phoenix ALP1002.
CD: (Dec88) Trax Classique TRXCD125,
(’97) Dante LYS190.
Coates made recordings with the "LSO" including the electrical B9 [at Kingsway Hall and the Queens Hall] but were not official because the LSO was contracted to Columbia between 1920 and 1926 and he had switched to HMV before 1925. HMV and Coates hired LSO players individually which explains why some of the Coates recordings aren't listed in the main part of LSO discography, the B9 is in an annexe but it doesn't list the one of 1923.
......
The site also says that Weingartner made an electrical recording of B9 for Columbia; this was made at Petty France with the LSO in March 1926. This is in the LSO official discography; I wonder if that was in English too? doesn't seem to be out at present unless there's a downlaod lurking somewhere.
16-17 Mar 1926 Petty France Studios
Miriam Licette (soprano), Muriel Brunskill (contralto),
Hubert Eisdell (tenor), Harold Williams (baritone),
chorus, Felix Weingartner
BEETHOVEN Symphony No.9 in D minor Op.125 “Choral” WAX1350-65
78rpm: (Oct26) L1775-82; set M39 = 67194-01D.
LP: (Jun81) Phoenix ALP1002.
CD: (Dec88) Trax Classique TRXCD125,
(’97) Dante LYS190.
Coates made recordings with the "LSO" including the electrical B9 [at Kingsway Hall and the Queens Hall] but were not official because the LSO was contracted to Columbia between 1920 and 1926 and he had switched to HMV before 1925. HMV and Coates hired LSO players individually which explains why some of the Coates recordings aren't listed in the main part of LSO discography, the B9 is in an annexe but it doesn't list the one of 1923.
It is available free to subscribers of Pristine's PADA.
makropulos
15-07-11, 16:36
The 1923 Coates recording - probably the first complete Beethoven 9 on record - I heard a few years ago. It is indeed in English, and it's something of a curio. Christopher Dyment's Coates discography in "Recorded Sound" states that the choir included just 8 singers - 2 sopranos (Valli, Trenton), 2 contraltos (Walker, Peel), 2 tenors (Wilde, Cotham), and 2 basses (Halland, Hubbard) - along with the four soloists - Mme. Salteni-Mochi, Edna Thornton, Frank Webster and George Baker.
Chris Newman
15-07-11, 17:36
Apropos my last message (#10), Roehre has kindly pointed out a misconception about my hearing Jascha Horenstein use "fresch" in the Schiller Ode. He has informed me that I had been hearing "frech" pronounced in the Viennese (or Berlin) manner. This makes a lot of difference as it means impudently or insolently and is also slang. I am very grateful to Roehre as I like the original Ode even more now. It was clearly liberating stuff.
Brassbandmaestro
15-07-11, 18:13
Didn't Lenny Bernstein change that when he did that 'celebratory' concert, with combined forces after the Berlin Wall came down?
Didn't Lenny Bernstein change that when he did that 'celebratory' concert, with combined forces after the Berlin Wall came down?
Yes, he did, and IIRC on the DGG CD released shortly afterwards Beethoven's/Schiller's Ode was called Ode an die Freiheit (Ode to Freedom) as well.
The thoughts of the Schiller Institute suggest that "Freiheit" (Freedom) was what Schiller originally wrote:
www.eduardochibas.com/archivos_escritos/Ode%20to%20Freedom.doc
So there has often been some questioning of the wording and emphasis which probably helped the English translator. It would appear that at the Berlin Wall Bernstein was only going back to the original Schiller Ode to Freedom.
While I don't deny that freedom was an important idea for Schiller, I'd be interested in the evidence that the original ode was about freedom rather than joy. Joy, as a concept encompassing ecstasy, sexual love, the force of creation, 'Sympathie', something that drives all living creatures seems to be a theme running through the poem. If you try to substitute the idea of freedom there, it just makes large parts of the poem incoherent.
For instance:
"Freude heisst die starke Feder
In der ewigen Natur.
Freude, freude treibt die Räder
In der grossen Weltenuhr.
Blumen lockt sie aus den Keimen,
Sonnen aus dem Firmament."
(literally: Joy is called the powerful spring/In eternal nature./Joy, joy drives the wheels/In the global time machine./It calls flowers from their buds, suns from the firmament)
This is surely a more primeval life force than the political idea of freedom - more like Dylan Thomas' 'the force that through the green fuse drives the flower'. And it applies to all creatures, good and bad - not the case with freedom.
So though it may be attractive to a later age to emphasise ideas of liberation, I think it fundamentally changes the poem from what is written.
Brassbandmaestro
16-07-11, 10:29
Yes, he did, and IIRC on the DGG CD released shortly afterwards Beethoven's/Schiller's Ode was called Ode an die Freiheit (Ode to Freedom) as well.
Sounds like typical of LB to do that!
While I don't deny that freedom was an important idea for Schiller, I'd be interested in the evidence that the original ode was about freedom rather than joy........
So though it may be attractive to a later age to emphasise ideas of liberation, I think it fundamentally changes the poem from what is written.
That's a convincing thought and does accord with the times around 1785, perhaps not so obviously in hindsight as freedom with revolutions happening and brewing. Whatever Schiller meant, in the case of Beethoven, what did he see in it 40 years on that led to the finale of the 9th? Certainly the notion of freedom was appealing to him - from before the Eroica and onwards perhaps - but Joy? Probably, given his own life by 1825.
Did he alter anything? It would seem that the original is longer than Beethoven's text so he was selective. So when we come to assess the poem whose version, rather than which of Schiller's, is relevant? Considering we're talking about B9 perhaps we should take Beethoven's view and it's he that has emphasised the joy of freedom as a more personal statement going perhaps beyond what Schiller meant?
Did he alter anything? It would seem that the original is longer than Beethoven's text so he was selective.
This interesting pdf is in German but at the end you can see a schematic representation of what he changed
http://www.hodie-world.com/vohde.pdf
Among points made are that Beethoven had known the text since Bonn days, that many of the ideas are rooted in freemasonry ("Alle Menschen werden Brüder") and that the change to Freiheit is not just due to censorship. Schiller is extending the scope of the poem's central idea. Freude is a state of mind to which we can aspire and of which Freiheit is one key element.
Beethoven wrote his own introduction calling for more joyful tones.
O Freunde, nicht diese Töne !
Sondern laßt uns angenehmere anstimmen,
und freudenvollere !
Beethoven had been interested in setting the Schiller Ode to Joy from as far back as 1793, where there was evidence in a letter from a Professor Fischenich to Charlotte von Schiller that Beethoven was proposing 'to compose Schiller's "Freude", and indeed strophe by strophe'. A setting of a phrase "Muss ein lieber Vater wohnen" also occurs in a Beethoven sketchbook from 1798. I believe the selection that Beethoven used in the setting for the 9th symphony was ultimately taken from Schiller's 1803 revision, but not extensively different from the original poem and nowhere, as far as I can see, emphasising freedom rather than joy. Roehre I am sure is much more knowledgeable about the genesis of Beethoven's setting and could probably clarify these matters.
But I am not even sure that it can be confidently stated that Beethoven was more interested in freedom as an idea rather than joy in the senses in which Schiller was using it (love, union, a life force, the power of creation). Joy coming through romantic love and union, however unattainable Beethoven found it in his own life, was still very important in many of his songs, in Fidelio ("O namenlose Freude") and arguably in the setting of the Schiller ode in the 9th. I don't know why the Schiller institute should think that joy was trivial compared with freedom - perhaps that is a view from the back end of the horrors of the C20 rather than from the German Romantics of the late C18 and early C19.
That's a convincing thought and does accord with the times around 1785, perhaps not so obviously in hindsight as freedom with revolutions happening and brewing. Whatever Schiller meant, in the case of Beethoven, what did he see in it 40 years on that led to the finale of the 9th? Certainly the notion of freedom was appealing to him - from before the Eroica and onwards perhaps - but Joy? Probably, given his own life by 1825.
Did he alter anything? It would seem that the original is longer than Beethoven's text so he was selective. So when we come to assess the poem whose version, rather than which of Schiller's, is relevant? Considering we're talking about B9 perhaps we should take Beethoven's view and it's he that has emphasised the joy of freedom as a more personal statement going perhaps beyond what Schiller meant?
Aeolium, for the complete text (German with English translation) see here (http://www.raptusassociation.org/ode1785.html)
And here for Beethoven and Schiller and a timetable (http://www.raptusassociation.org/odeintro.htm)
Thanks, Roehre. I knew the first link, but not the very useful second.
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