Though there is no hard historical evidence proving that today is Ludwig van Beethoven’s birthday… ye old fount of knowledge, wikipedia, informs me that it is the 16 that is typically celebrated as his date of birth. It’s been quite a Beethoven couple of months for me, actually: I went to a performance of his 9th Symphony in September with my friend Rachel, and Jennifer and I recently saw Houston Grand Opera’s performance of Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio— a first for me!
SO!!! In much the same vein as my previous Bach birthday post here are a couple of my favorite usages and machinations of Beethoven’s music:
The opening titles to one of my top favorite movies, The Fall (Symphony No. 7, 2nd Mvt.)
In my ongoing series to eventually post all clips from both Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 (Symphony No. 5, 1st Mvt.)
And finally, since we haven’t heard from La Voce herself (Mizzzzz Renee Fleming), I figure now is as appropriate a time as any for a video of her singing an arrangement of “My Funny Valentine” set to Beethoven’s “Moonlight” sonata.
Artist: Andrew Lippa / Album: You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown
A couple of weeks ago my friend, Rachael, invited me to go to the opening night of the Houston Symphony’s 2011/12 season. More specifically it was Beethoven’s 9th Symphony (aka: Ode to Joy), which I had never seen in live performance!! This was also a chance to check off another venue from my “Places to See Concerts in Houston” list (having already gone to the Wortham, Alley Theater, Verizon Theater, and Fitzgeralds). This year I’m hoping to make it to the ballet to knock another one off… any takers?
Getting prepped!
Here is the full symphony if you are interested in listening/watching. Conductor Leonard Bernstein leads the Vienna Philharmonic with soloists Gwyneth Jones, Shirley Verrett, Placido Domingo, and Martti Talvela. (This is actually the third of three clips but it’s the finale… watch all of them if you have the time though!)
Rachel and I after the show!
And, because I still listen to this song about once a week, a different arrangement of the above music… and in my opinion, a much more technically demanding version to boot. I mean, did Beethoven ever write a rap? Check and mate.
Sheryl Lee Ralph! Lauryn Hill! Sign language! Jaw tension! Gospel music! And that’s just in the first ten seconds alone!!!
After Clue, the next movie I usually force invite my friends to watch comes in the form of a wildly visually stunning fairy tale of sorts: The Fall. Just LOOK at these amazing stills, and the first three minutes alone (with a little help from the second movement of Beethoven's 7th) are, in my opinion, completely worth the rental fee.
I was going to try and write a synopsis of it, but just watch the trailer instead:
The director, Tarsem Singh, is mostly known for his television commercials but some of you might know his earlier forey to the silver screen, the 2000 Jennifer Lopez movie The Cell. Actually, it is exactly because of his abundant work on TV commercials that The Fall was even able to be made. Due to an extremely small budget (he financed the film himself in order to maintain his vision throughout) he managed to piggybacked on his other corporate jobs and carted the cast along with him to a total of some twenty different countries over a period of four years. Amazingly, the entire film is made without the use of computer generated effects-- a fact made even more astonishing when you see the final product!
The only mildly recognizable actor in the film is Lee Pace, whom you might remember from the sadly yet not surprisingly cancelled Pushing Daisies and the even lesser known gem Wonderfalls. I'll refrain from getting on my high horse about how wonderful that show was... instead I'll let my sister-in-law do it here.
The standout of the film, however, is Cantica Untaru. You will literally want to pull a Christian missionary in Haiti and steal this child from her home country of Romania. I wouldn't recommend it though because, you know, it's illegal and all. A complete unknown, Cantica's performance was a mixture of loosely scripted material mixed with improvised dialogue with the other actors. In fact, the entire cast and crew spent the whole shoot having her belive Lee Pace was actually wheel chair bound in order to get an untaintedly genuine performance. Welllllllllllll it worked.
Next up for Tarsem is Immortals, set during the time of Greek mythology. Basically I couldn't be more excited because I went through a phase when I was younger where all I was interested in was mythology. God bless Edith Hamilton!
So anyway... GO WATCH THE FALL!!
"Tarsem... has made a movie that you might want to see for no other reason than because it exists. There will never be another like it."
