Reflective Essay on The Berlin Celebration Concert: Beethoven, Symphony No 9 Bernstein 1989

Introduction

During Christmas Day celebration in Berlin 1989, the world experienced what can be termed as a celestial gift courtesy of Beethoven. The event was held to celebrate the fall of the Berlin wall in a way that it remained to be memorable in people's minds. Bernstein had the vocalists and chorus sang in the last movement of Beethoven's ninth symphony. As a consequence, this brought too much joy to millions of Germans who recognized freedom as a gift from the gods. Beethoven's Symphony No.6 "Pastorale" had five movements which attracted listeners' attention with a fast, but a leisurely tempo and immense advanced movements. It is easy to develop the image of a noble countryside and nature as well as all the events it encompasses due to the excellent flows that suit the title strikingly.

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The Symphony Orchestra comprised of brass, woodwinds, voices, and strings. This is a depiction of the equipment played during that time. Notably, the ensemble, involving the tone is well represented by over a hundred singers. Ranging from the right, you have the cellos, double basses, and the violas while on the left of the performer, Riccardo Muti there is the concertmaster among other violin players. At the back of the strings, you have the entire woodwind players which involve oboes, flutes, clarinets, piccolos, and bassoons. Beside the woodwind players, there is a representation of bass conductors which entails trumpets, horns, and trombones while the remaining instrumentation is conducted by voices and percussion.

The first movement starts with the strings. It begins with pianissimo and progressively crescendos as additional instruments are played with a sense of a steamroller effect which is ultimately the driving force that is experienced in the entire movement. The melody is heard between the flute, strings, clarinet, and bassoon while the original introduction returns as the movement continue providing a sense of cyclic form. Molto vivace, the second movement provides the theme after playing the strings. Notably, the melody is conveyed between woodwinds and strings which ultimately develops the whole ensemble. The cyclic form is depicted near the end when an accelerando is heard with a reassertion of the original theme tune from the start. Adagio Molto e cantabile, the third movement starts with a piano, bassoon along with other woodwind equipment. However, the tempo in the third movement starts very largo than the earlier movements although it continues to speed up eventually. Ode to Joy is the last movement which starts brusquely through a forte dynamic along with the trumpets and woodwinds which kick starts the movement. The next theme is briefly introduced by the strings while the introduction statement repeated by the woodwinds and trumpets while the movement ends with an accelerando of the Ode to Joy theme.

Conclusion

Conclusively, I particularly loved the presentation of Beethoven. I have regularly loved classical music maybe because I get to play the music myself as an artist. As illustrated in this work, each movement had unique elements making the presentation to be entertaining until the end. The orchestral delivers the theme into the full exposition with a bold and pleasant interjection in every movement. The Ode to Joy movement was amazing, especially when franked with a full choir behind the orchestra. This was indeed a fantastic event listening to one of the biggest orchestras ever lived playing the best-composed pieces of all time.