BeethovenFest to feature colonialism, exploitation and LGBTQ+
OrchestrasThe Bonn festival, in October, has booked Belgium’s B’Rock Orchestra to contextualise the first symphony:
The B’Rock Orchestra feels like an integral part of society and wants to contribute to a meaningful discussion. In its artistic concepts, it addresses relevant topics such as colonialism and exploitation, the relationship between man and nature or the role of FLINTA (Frauen, Lesben, Intergeschlechtliche, nichtbinäre, trans und agender Personen) in art over the centuries. Rooted in the past through the core repertoire, all of the orchestra’s artistic decisions are based on their meaning for people here and now.
The conductor of this box-ticking talkfest is René Jacobs.
Another day, another helping of irrelevant vacuous bovine excrement. ‘Relationship between man and nature’? As long ago as 1808, another native of Bonn explored that non-verbally but far more powerfully in his 6th symphony than any outpouring from these self-important morons. His words to a critic serve as the most apt response to these numbskulls: ”O du elender Schuft! Was ich scheisse, ist besser als du je gedacht!”‘
Credit where it’s due though – reading this statement immediately drove me to answer the call of nature.
There we go again. If only it were mud slinging. But no we get a bucket full of hate.
sad and unworthy .
This announcement by Beethovenfest, sounds just like something out of the CBSO’s 2024-5 journal, edited by their CEO Emma Stennng!
The lament of the goners…
Beethoven had such a way with words. But with music, even better!
I cannot top Herbie G. Kudos to you! Ausgezeichnet!
So we can assume you won’t be attending?
Uh-oh, here we go again.
The pathetic self-hating, white, HAMAS-supporting, green haired global warming alarmists bringing crap that literally nobody asked for.
You forgot to say that the other posters are, as well, old, elitist, and racist. If you’re going to start something, finish it, too.
Norman, Norman,, Norman, you and your headline writer are such provocateurs. It also “features” 87 other events that seem to cater to all tastes.
When you look at the overal programming, serious Beethoven concerts take on an absolute minority, more like an excuse than a serious intention. They want to invite young audiences and lure them with dj’s, hiphop, etc. etc. to show that the name of the festival has, fortunately, nothing to do with their educational level.
I looked at the overall programming. I don’t understand your problem. Is it that classical composers other than Beethoven are featured?
They should also make sure Beethoven wasn’t a slave owner.
He treated his housekeepers with contempt, suppressed them, dominated them, forced them etc. etc. – in short; treated them like slaves. His poor nephew suffered comparable treatment, as his copyists. So, he should be cancelled for not conforming to 21C standards of civil behavior and for being a schandalous hypocrite with his 9th symphony. He should have made insertions in the text, like: ‘Alle Menschen werden Brüder wo meine Haushälterin nicht weilt’.
What next? Gaza and the Art of Fugue?
‘The Art of Fugitive: antisemitism in the Passions and the suppression of the countersubjects in the Wohltemperierte Klavier; an Exploration of Liberating Possibilities of Underrepresented Thematic Material’.
We don’t need to consume everything one does with Beethoven.
Isn’t this a strange choice? Because “B’Rock Orchestra has the Baroque era at heart.”
… which is why they have recorded a Schubert symphony cycle.
https://www.beethovenfest.de/de/programm-tickets/beethoven-missa-solemnis/358
Seems like Norman got a little confused about what they were going to play
epidemic of mental illness, clearly. hope Beethoven haunts them.
Wasn’t he Roman Catholic?
I would be very curious to find out how the current academic study and scrutiny of colonialism applies to Teutonic peoples on their own indigenous territory. Certain past ideologies were notably hostile to non-indigenous peoples in that part of the world.
That is why such festivals want to show that they are on the right side of history. That they are not stiff, conservative, gründlich, humourless, racist, antisemitic, elitist, classicist. That is why they want to welcome anything that shows they are not German in the eyes of the world.
Germany is a Kulturnation. It produced much, maybe most, of the basics of modern philosophy and science, and most of the European musical tradition, together with its standards of excellence, and all the musicology born from that tradition, with practitioners swarming-out to England and the US when hounded-out by the nazis. Their orchestras are numerous and of the greatest quality. Their theatres are the best of the Western world. The accumulated cultural achievement is immense. So, what now? How does all of that fit in the modern world? No wonder there is a certain timidity in the German cultural field, and a longing to readjust. But filtering-out the best from the worst of their tradition is difficult and requires quite some courage, hence the abberations like Regietheater and Klangkunst and Beethoven festivals ohne Beethoven spirit.
But also the movement of reconstructing destroyed city centers and lost monuments, to recover precious beauty of their past: Dresden, Münster, the Frankfurter Altstadt reconstruction, the rebuilding of the royal palace in Berlin, etc.
Thanks for the warning.
B’Rock keeps it real for people here and now by beatboxin’ B’toven, yo. B’Rock got swag ‘n steeze.
“The Bonn festival, in October, has booked Belgium’s B’Rock Orchestra.”
That’s enough of a warning there.