Beethoven's 5th symphony - exporting identity

Zeitraum?

Riccardo Minasi, Conductor
Ensemble Resonanz

Idea & dramaturgy: Clemens K. Thomas & Ensemble Resonanz

In 1977, a gold-plated record leaves the Earth with the Voyager spacecraft.

Humankind sends a message into space. The record is supposed to last 500 million years and bear witness to life on Earth in the form of language, images and music. The record also contains – besides Aboriginal songs and Peruvian pan flutes – the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Ta-ta-taaa. (No particular cynicism needed to read in the Voyager mission an act of colonizing.)


Exporting cultural identity in the form of music existed even before space probes and records. Before the invention of sound carriers, music was sent across the oceans together with the appropriate instruments. Together with the Christian religion, the rules of counterpoint, tonality, the practice of notation, the concept of work and author, and the conservatories, another central and almost indestructible component of European music was exported: the piano.

Over the centuries, hybrid musical cultures have emerged that have been influenced by both local and European traditions and musical practices. Despite all the peculiarity and diversity of these hybrid musical cultures, a global phenomenon can be recognized: Compositions for voice and piano exist everywhere. Global Piano Songs is a collective term for any kind of songs accompanied by the colonial piano. A repertoire of enormous quantity and astonishing quality that is barely presented in European concert halls, music academies and professional publications.

Between the movements of the fifth symphony, selected Global Piano Songs are played, some of them arranged for orchestra, and excerpts of the symphony are played as piano reductions. This refers to a historical performance practice that in the musical life of the 21st century seems unusual: Symphonies were rarely played in one piece in the 19th century, and historical program notes attest to arias, ballet music, and other »lighter« genres played between and with the symphonies. In addition, before the invention of the phonograph, new compositions were frequently presented in domestic performances, arranged for the piano.

So, the combination of Global Piano Songs and Beethoven's Fifth is not about a binary juxtaposition of »own« and »foreign«. Listeners who expect an exotic, non-European listening experience next to the familiar Beethoven symphony will be disappointed. If only, because there of course is not the one Non-European listening experience. But also because many Global Piano Songs testify more to the successful export of European tonality than to a simplified but wide-spread idea of »world music«.

On stage, there is an upright piano – not a grand piano. In a way, it is the main protagonist of the evening. It is tourist, perpetrator and piece of furniture at the same time. A testimony to complex aspects of cultural exchange, a symbol of hegemony and oppression, a musical voice that is not as black and white as one would assume at first glance.

The piano is the main protagonist of the evening. It is tourist, perpetrator and piece of furniture at the same time. A testimony to complex aspects of cultural exchange, a symbol of hegemony and oppression, a musical voice that is not as black and white as one would assume at first glance.