10.09.2009

On Beethoven and artistic determinism.

"Beethoven...turned out pieces of breath-taking rightness. Rightness - that's the word! When you get that feeling that whatever note succeeds the last is the only possible note that can rightly happen at that instant, in that context, then chances are you're listening to Beethoven. Melodies, fugues, rhythms - leave them to the Tchaikovskys and Hindemiths and Ravels. Our boy has the real goods, the stuff from Heaven, the power to make you feel at the finish: Something is right in the world. There is something that checks throughout, that follows its own law consistently: something we can trust, that will never let us down."

From Leonard Bernstein's "The Joy of Music" (Simon and Schuster, 2004)

*Feel free to substitute the name Beethoven with Zimmer, Goldsmith, Doyle, Fenton...


Photobucket

2 comments:

Epoem said...

Okay, this is my favorite photo.

Sherrie said...

Why, thank you!

I wish I could have captured it from the angle I really wanted, but the sunlight was fading fast and I ran out of time.