The most beautiful piece of music I have ever heard.
It has been so since sometime in 1979, when I was living and working in Pittsburgh. The local PBS affiliate presented a series on Beethoven’s symphonies with André Previn, then the Music Director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.
Even though I was tired the night they presented #7, and I had trouble staying awake, I was in awe of the symphony’s gentle grace and beauty.
Which encouraged me to sleep!
But not out of boredom, but due to the piece’s gentleness and lack of any jarring moments.
For many years — several decades, in fact — I settled on the 5th, 7th and 9th as my three favorites. With the 9th as second-favorite, and 5th third.
But as the present millennium progressed, I slowly came to realize that the 9th is highly uneven, so-so in parts, and kind-of gaudy in the parts I previously had liked most. I gradually grew tired of the 9th just as, decades earlier, I eventually finally grew weary of the song “Roundabout”, by Yes, due to having played it into the ground.
Moreover, sometime in 2012, the Cleveland Orchestra visited Nashville, on its way to Florida. I heard they were coming and got a ticket. Their program included Beethoven’s 6th Symphony, which I hadn’t listened to in years or decades.
While I recognized pieces of it, I appreciated the whole of it as though I had never heard it before. I couldn’t believe what I had been missing, and neglecting.
I’m not sure which is my second-favorite now, #6 or #5, but #9 has fallen to fourth place.