Copying Beethoven (Original Soundtrack)

While there are more than 100 different recordings of the 9th Symphony, music editor Andy Glen says the 1996 Decca recording of Bernard Haitink conducting Amsterdam's famed Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (formed in 1888) struck a chord with the director.

"There are differences in the various recordings of the work, and Agnieszka wanted one with a faster tempo and a lot of guts and oomph,” says Glen. "We listened to and considered about half a dozen recording before selecting the Haitink version.”

Using a special computer program developed by Glen called "Spotting Notes,” the soundtrack is able to be played back from 80 exact reference points and bar measurements. There is also an original composition in the soundtrack that serves as "Anna's Theme” (written by Antonin Gross Lazarkiewicz), and some of the music is performed with early 19th century instruments, which had different designs as well as lower standard tunings. Violin and cello bows, for example, had distinct curves, requiring a different playing technique than is used today.

Some of these period instruments are on stage in the Katona Jozsef Theater during the performance of the 9th. Built in 1895-96 by architects Ferdinand Fellner and Hermann Helmer, the theater is of the eclectic style with neo-Baroque ornamentations. The original audience capacity, 900, was reduced by 300 after a 1986 reconstruction.

For her part, Agnieszka says she tried to remain true to the spirit of the great composer while bringing his extraordinary music to both those who may already love his work, or those perhaps truly hearing it for the first time.

"The music is not an illusion in the film. We're using it, as he did, to capture a period in history with contemporary popular flair. That's Beethoven – his music was of his time, yet timeless.”

Reflecting on the many contradictions in Beethoven's life, Agnieszka pondered how worsening deafness might have affected the composer's music.

"It's a paradox that makes one examine the source and notion of genius,” she says. "It didn't seem to diminish his brilliance. He built a bridge from classical romanticism to modern music, then destroyed it so there would be no going back.”

"It might have caused him to escape contemporary influences and exist solely in his own world perhaps,” reflects Ed Harris. "He began to break molds and utterly change things.”

Ludwig van Beethoven died in Vienna on March 26, 1827. The impact of his music cannot be underestimated. His command of the piano as a means of expression sets the stage for the Romantic exploitation of the piano, making it second in importance only to the orchestra as a musical means of personal expression (Wold, p. 245). His Ninth Symphony opened the door to the Romantic era of 19th century music. He even changed the role of the conductor and the importance of rehearsal time.

Prior to the Ninth, the role of conductor was filled by the first violinist, but because the Ninth required so many changes of tempo and meter within the movements, there was a need for a conductor to keep everyone together. The difficulty and scope of the music required rehearsal time, unheard of previously. Beethoven made it clear that the expressive needs of the artist must take precedence over convention, no matter how time-honored or popular that convention may be. Beethoven founded the basic "anything goes” artistic tenet that still applies today. He changed forever the language of western music (Greenberg, lecture 7).

Considered among the greatest music ever composed, Beethoven's string quartets span his entire career. They are unsurpassed in sheer invention, thematic treatment and heart-rending expressiveness (Kamien, p. 260). The last years of Beethoven's life were dedicated to writing his late String Quartets: #12 in E flat Major, Op. 127; #13 in B flat Major, Op. 130; #14 in C sharp Minor, Op. 131; #15 in A Minor, Op. 132; #16 in F Major, Op. 135; and the Grosse Fugue in B flat Major, Op. 133. With these quartets, Beethoven throws away once and for all any pretense of traditional thematic development.

Written in 1824, immediately after the premier of the Ninth, the first of Beethoven's last quartets is the #12 in E flat Major, Op. 127. It is difficult to understand because its structure is more like a suite than a traditional quartet. It is both symphonic and operatic in scope, with a type of lyricism, dramatic conflict and tension that is more commonly found in opera than a simple string quartet (Greenberg, 2001, lecture 8).

When Beethoven was writing his String Quartet #13 in B flat Major, Op. 130, he decided that the final movement was too huge, too much of a virtuosic fugue to be just a movement within a quartet, so he removed it from #13 to stand alone as the Grosse Fugue in B flat Major, Op. 133. Beethoven's last completed piece was the new final movement of his String Quartet #13, Op. 130, written in November of 1825. When the quartet is played today, the Grosse Fugue is typically played as the sixth movement, as an encore to the 13th (Greenberg, lecture 8).