Word: beethovens
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...speed to the Commodore Hotel. But even the Commodore has taken a direct hit, destroying Room 617. My room was 605, so I move downstairs. Coco, the hotel parrot, is beside himself with rage at poolside, and keeps whistling the opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Coco is also particularly good at imitating the sound of incoming artillery rounds, and does so to the intense annoyance of everyone...
Those with a hankering to hear, say, Beethoven's Seventh Symphony or his Fourth Piano Concerto this summer not only could encounter these works at Ravinia, where Beethoven runs rampant, but could scarcely avoid them elsewhere: in upstate New York at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, played by the Philadelphia Orchestra (during its Beethoven festival); at Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony's Berkshire retreat (during an all-Beethoven orchestral weekend); and at the Hollywood Bowl (during the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Beethoven festival). Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and Los Angeles are each playing Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra...
Excessive reliance on war horses is hardly limited to the summer. At the turn of the century, European and American orchestras drew on the Beethoven symphonies, the Tchaikovsky concertos and the orchestral music of Brahms to form the foundation of their regular concert seasons. The problem is, they still do. An iron repertory preserves masterpieces but chokes vitality...
...writes his music for player piano. On the programs of the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, works by living composers like John Harbison, Richard Wernick and Yehudi Wyner coexist peacefully with those of Haydn and Smetana. And for devotees who must have their daily dose of Beethoven, the Minnesota Orchestra is staging an imaginative Sommerfest lasting through Aug. 14 that features all 16 of the composer's works for solo instruments and orchestra. The repertory includes such oddments as the Romance in E-Minor for flute, bassoon and piano and Beethoven's own piano arrangement of his violin...
Such events are exceptional. Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff are still the rule, from the rustic expanse of western Massachusetts to the urban refuge of the Hollywood Hills. This summer, like every other summer, is the season of the "Emperor" Concerto and the Fifth Symphony. Perhaps U.S. orchestras take their programming cues from that musical connoisseur Ulysses S. Grant, who once observed, "I only know two tunes; one of them is Yankee Doodle and the other isn't." -By Michael Walsh