{"id":3525,"date":"2013-10-29T08:17:56","date_gmt":"2013-10-29T12:17:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/?p=3525"},"modified":"2020-03-02T17:04:26","modified_gmt":"2020-03-02T22:04:26","slug":"construction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/2013\/10\/construction.html","title":{"rendered":"Construction Zone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cDown below, in the dark of the street lamps, Eusebius said, as if to himself: Beethoven\u2014what lies within this word! Beautifully, within the deep ringing of the syllables, sounds an Eternity.\u201d<\/p>\n

(\u201cUnten im Laternendunkel sagte Eusebius wie vor sich hin: Beethoven \u2014 was liegt in diesem Wort! schon der tiefe Klang der Sylben wie in eine Ewigkeit hineint\u00f6nend.\u201d)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

— Robert Schumann, 1835<\/p>\n

Also, this begins with a statue.<\/p>\n

Every day I’m in the Jordan Hall<\/a> building in Boston, I see it: a massive bronze sculpture of Beethoven. The person Beethoven was about 5 feet, 4 inches tall. This metal one is 7 and a half feet, and stands on a 3-and-a-half-foot-high marble base, in the Jordan Hall lobby.<\/p>\n

\"StatueBoston_ThomasCrawford\"<\/a>
\nThomas Crawford<\/a>: Beethoven, 1854<\/p>\n

During three years that I played chamber music in the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, another imposing (and fanciful) Beethoven stood watch in the lobby there; it’s moved now.
\n\"beethoven_5081_ssm\"<\/a>
\nMax Klinger: Beethoven, 1902<\/p>\n

The Boston Beethoven was on the stage of Boston Music Hall<\/a> until the end of the 19th Century. He shadowed the premiere of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto in 1875…
\n\"MusicHall\"<\/a>
\nWhen Boston’s Symphony Hall was constructed, the statue didn\u2019t move there. Instead, on a gilded medallion, at the apex of the stage\u2019s proscenium is a single word — it\u2019s the stand-in for the statue.<\/p>\n

\"BeethovenBosSymHall\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By the early years of the 20th Century, the big Boston Beethoven was inside the front doors of the new Jordan Hall — a familiar face for concert-going Bostonians entering the venue.<\/p>\n

Other big Beethovens are standing watch…in New York,
\n\"beethoven\"<\/a>
\nin Bonn…
\n\"8257\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There are so many renderings, reception<\/a>s, deconstructions — it’s daunting. Life is short, and Beethoven is tall! His identity and the identity of the music that he scripted grows bigger with each word, every casting, with every next performance.<\/p>\n