Symposium: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony: A 200-Year Perspective
“BEETHOVEN’S NINTH SYMPHONY:
A 200-YEAR PERSPECTIVE”
ALL-DAY CONFERENCE, MARCH 27, 2024
at Boston University’s Hillel House
213 Bay State Road, Boston MA 02215
Conference
Boston University’s Hillel House
8:00AM CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST
9:00AM Jeremy Yudkin: Welcome
9:15AM Beate Angelika Kraus: “Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony – On the Edition of a Magnum Opus and its Multiple Manifestations.”
10:00AM Mark Evan Bonds: “Second Thoughts”
10:45 COFFEE/TEA BREAK
11:15AM David Levy: “The Ninth Symphony: Vision, Illusion, or Delusion?”
12-2PM LUNCH (ad libitum)
2PM Elaine Sisman: “A Lexicon of Humor in the Molto Vivace of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony: Composition and Reception.”
2:45PM James Parsons: “What the Choral Fantasy Can Tell Us About the Choral Finale.”
3:30-4:00 COFFEE/TEA BREAK
4-4:45PM Christopher Reynolds: “The Narrative and Musical Debts of Wagner’s Ring to Beethoven’s Ninth.”
Concert
Tsai Performance Center
8:00PM Julia Adams: “Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony: Liszt’s Formidable Transcription for Solo Piano.”
Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphonie No. 9 avec choeur finale sur l’ode de Schiller “An die Freude,” S. 657 Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
I. Allegro ma non troppo un poco maestoso
II. Molto vivace
III. Adagio molto e cantabile
IV. Presto
Chengcheng Ma, piano
Boston University Chamber Chorus, Conductor, John Black
Jaxon Ackerman, Jessica Lamoreux, Sulaf Al Jubal, Michelle Leung. Rachel Brennan, Bianca Lucas, Jerome Boxer, Andrew Mak, Avery Davidson, Aurora Martens, Delaney Finn, Rebeca Nehmeh, Sophia Gaunt, Eli Pekelny, Louisa Gundeck, Natalia Perera, Sadie Habas, Daniel Reid, Vanessa Hudson, Gwyneth Rix
Participants
Julia Adams, Fellowship Advisor, formerly Professor of Music, Franklin and Marshall College, author of Musical Humor and Antonín Dvořák’s Comic Operas.
Mark Evan Bonds, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of North Carolina and author of Beethoven: Variations on a Life and The Beethoven Syndrome: Hearing Music as Autobiography.
Beate Angelika Kraus, Resident Scholar, Beethoven Archive, Beethoven-Haus, Bonn, and editor of the new Ninth Symphony critical edition for the Complete Works.
David Levy, Professor Emeritus, Wake Forest University, and author of Beethoven: The Ninth Symphony.
James Parsons, Distinguished Professor, Missouri State University, and editor of The Cambridge Companion to the Lied.
Christopher Reynolds, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of California at Davis, and author of Wagner, Schumann and the Lessons of Beethoven’s Ninth.
Elaine Sisman, Anne Parsons Bender Professor of Music, Columbia University, author of Haydn and the Classical Variation.
The conference will take place in the second-floor lounge of Boston University’s Hillel House, which is a comfortable and intimate space. A performance of Liszt’s extraordinary arrangement of the Ninth Symphony for solo piano and singers will take place in the evening of March 27 at Boston University’s Tsai Performance Center.