This morning I had the pleasure of hearing APM's "Performance Today." As part of today's show, they played a recording that made me a little emotional: The final movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, played at a concert in front of the broken down Berlin wall on Christmas of 1989. Those in attendance, as well as the musicians and singers, were a mix of East and West, and the conductor, Leonard Berstein, announced that he had changed a single word in the choral symphony.

Instead of the word "joy," they would sing the word "freedom."

I tried to imagine myself there, after the fear of the cold war, listening to great musicians give such a stirring performance.

And then I thought, what would the Jesus of Joseph Smith's first vision say about this performance? About Beethoven?

Joseph Smith attributed all kinds of crazy doctrines to the mouth of Jesus, but perhaps the most important is the first one Jesus allegedly taught him - that all the churches are an abominatin. That their hearts are far from the Lord.

There is a lot of dispute about Beethoven's personal religion. Whatever it was, it wasn't mormon. I would argue that the 9th Symphony is among the most compelling, transcendent, and even spiritual pieces of music in the western world. It was composed at almost the same time as Joseph Smith was telling others that God was unhappy with their religions. That "their hearts are far from me."

But if the 9th does not represent sincere worship of God, I don't know what could.

For anyone who is interested, here is a link to the performance I mentioned. The symphony starts at the 17 minute mark. The Ode to Freedom is sung at 34 minutes.

I just love it.

http://performancetoday.publicradio.org/

As a side note, I always found it interesting that the true church has such a hard time producing any art that transcendently beautiful.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/01/2011 04:11PM by rogertheshrubber.

another one of Joseph Smith's contemporaries was Coriolis.
it all goes to show how among really great ppl Joe Smith is only included as a really great con man / CRIMINAL, & NOT for any veritable contribution to humanity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ccCBERajIo

"I always found it interesting that the true church has such a hard time producing any art that transcendently beautiful."

Your forgot the singing of the much-touted Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Which I spent some time listening to at Xmas and was disappointed at how the hype didn't match the actual product. Sure, they're good, but not spectacularly good like the hypsters say. More misplaced Mormon superiority complex.

But almost everything they sing at those concerts was written by a non-mormon.

Pretty much all of the pictures in the temple are from Friedburg and other Christian artists. They are moving toward mormon artists in the Ensign and other church publications (I noticed this in my son's set of sunday school pictures), to their detriment. The artists seem completely uninspired.

I was disappointed with the MoTab, too. I attended a concert where they sang with the European soprano, Sissel. She was amazing. They were about the quality of any college choir.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/01/2011 04:55PM by rogertheshrubber.

I used to think they were way better. I attended a Xmas madrigal concert in Colorado that was actually way better than they were, lots fewer people but each had a spectacular and I mean star quality voice - and good conducting. After that, I decided the MT choir had gotten worse or my tastes were more critical. Maybe both.