Michael Alec Rose | Beethoven and the The Beatles: Hearing the Connection

[Music] [Applause] foreign when i find myself in times of trouble mother mary comes to me speaking words of wisdom let it be [Music] so let's begin with a beat shall we okay what instrument was that someone said it timpani a kettle drum right kettle drum and so let's just hear it again so you can hear this is the way a piece by beethoven begins can anyone actually name that tune yet here it is again he's just counting the beat he's just counting the beat and so there's another piece that begins with just counting the beat and it sort of goes like this [Music] that was one of you ladies wasn't it 1963 do the math okay so they both begin with a beat i mean the beatles that's the joke in england a beetle is a cockroach actually so they just change the spelling of the name to make it beatles with an a but at least beethoven preserves the right spelling because his name begins with a beat too doesn't it it took you a few seconds there didn't you yeah let's just hear a little bit more of the opening of that maybe you might recognize the first piece got a it's so interesting the sound levels on recordings are so different for classical and rock and roll if i kept it at the same sound level for the beatles song you would have all died of overexposure okay here we go there's the beach listen again and that beat saturates the whole piece and it moves to the violin you get it and it's obsessive it's the whole thing it goes on for 27 minutes does anyone recognize this piece this is the violin concerto and beethoven loves it so listen there it is it's all the beat let's do it quadruple time same thing [Music] right [Music] so but we never get tired of it do we i mean i get exhausted but that's different from getting tired so this idea of rhythm of rhythm of the beat itself being the foundation of everything so that almost the melody is just like an afterthought it takes the violin four minutes to enter this piece it's supposed to be a violin concerto that's longer than most rock and roll songs you see the the scope is so different just because beethoven writes longer pieces doesn't mean he's a better composer that's blasphemy but the beatles are just as good as beethoven on their own ground because they're making experiments and exploding things and we'll get to that and hey jude in just a few minutes but let's just hear the beginning of this this is the start of the beatles career this is the very start of their career the first song on their first album and it starts with a count just the beat one two three [Music] been a long day [Music] i wish we had time to listen to all we got to move on with it i got you know i got to get to beethoven's ninth at some point okay so let's start with hey jude i want to tell you that all i'm doing with you right now is i'm just being grateful this song is so good that all we really need to do is pay attention to it that's what you do to anything or anyone you love isn't it you just pay attention but it's so funny my vanderbilt stu i was so happy that cornelius vanderbilt was the most important person in the world right yay go vandy so my students are such snobs i mean they say come on dr rose it's just a pop song so you know it's not just a pop song here's the start of hey jude hey [Music] it jude remember to let her into your heart then you can start to make it better okay so many of you know the story already i mean this is cleveland right you know this is the mother ship on the way from the western hotel to csu i passed by the wjw building right alan fried and leo mintz a couple of linesmen right these jews even wjw seems like a misspelling of jews isn't it these jews are like inventing rock and roll it's so funny brian epstein right inventing the beatles jews because they're jews richard rogers song right okay um so you know here we are in cleveland and we're talking about rock and roll which means we take it very seriously and it is a serious song oh stephen could i have a water please thank you i'm already exhausted you can never get too old for this but sometimes i feel that way it's great this is the seniors hour isn't it right oh sorry it's the senior hour i'm so sorry it's your fourth class right okay um this is about julian lennon this is the little boy who's absolutely devastated that his parents are splitting up and john lennon and cynthia lennon they're getting a divorce and they just told him and so paul like a good friend one day picked up julian from school after school went across london picked up julian and there's julian in the car with paul mccartney just weeping and so paul is like saying oh it's okay it's okay chili and jewels jewels will be like jewels jewels don't make it but jules choo choo hey jews so this particular instance this moment when paul mccartney is reaching out holding out his helping hand to this little boy who is suffering that becomes the occasion for this song which is about a universe of suffering it becomes a love song thank you so much jude is the name jude itself oh my gosh we're just talking about pope francis he's coming to my hometown i'm a philly boy and my mom is so excited she's going to try to sneak downtown and see the pope but you know jude jude is a catholic saint that's why i thought of the pope so anyone know that jude is a saint of lost causes isn't that great so this name is part perfect if you are suffering if you if you have woe grief in your heart it feels like a lost cause and that's what hey jude is about it's trying to bring someone who is lost back and make them found and then there's like this literary reference i don't know if paul mccartney ever read thomas hardy right jude the obscure is the most depressing novel of all time has anyone actually read it it's like so unbelievably depressing that it sold something like 150 copies when it was published and the publisher said i will never publish anything by you again and for the next 40 years hardy wrote poetry instead that was his last novel because it's so depressing so jude has all of these associations with suffering woe lost causes you think was paul really thinking about this i don't care do you know what i mean think about it an artist does something it doesn't matter whether he or she intends it the imagination surpasses logic or knowledge the intuition is boundless this is what we call art so there's no explanation for it you may not know what you're doing but something inside of you knows exactly what it's doing which is always true in art and love isn't it and of course in both mistakes are made but that's part of the process too the mistakes are made in this song too this song is an odyssey not only for paul reaching out his hand for to julian and to help the little boy or jude becomes someone who is so caught up with their own grief and woe that they can't even look around and see where they are anymore they're just lost and so how does paul construct a song to show us what it means for a lost soul to find their way back and join the living again well let's listen to the beginning and we're going to pay attention to every note remember you're going to get your nerd badges at the end of this okay you all be deputized as nerds here we go listen to the melody hey jude don't make it bad take a sad song and think about that melody let's count the number of beats in each phrase hey jude one two one two three four one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven okay it's one sorry two four that's not any kind of like arithmetic progression but it is an adding of notes each time the song comes into being it grows it burgeons it finds its voice it turns into a melody in little bits it finds itself you see what i mean that the actual structure of the melody becomes a template for what paul is asking jude to do what paul is inviting jude to try to grow to allow his soul to become bigger with each phrase like the melody itself and the same thing happens with the song with the actual instruments you remember how one of the instruments played at the beginning who's when paul singing what else is there it's just a piano right it's just a piano let's keep going and see what gets added to let her into your heart then you can start the whole last phrase is like 23. next you see how the song is growing [Music] ringo's always a little bit behind okay right takes him a little while to catch on but in this case it's structurally sound if it makes sense for us to wait for the bridge and then the drums market you see what i mean because when the drums enter it's oh yeah that's where we are now everyone's there now everyone seems to be there we've got who's there now we got the voice the piano the guitar we got the drums not finished yet we've got to have some more it's like this is the first connection to the ninth symphony beethoven wants the ode to joy to be a mention right you know what that means everybody okay and mention it you know mention such a good yiddish word too it's it mensch means a human is a decent person a good person not just a human being but someone who does the right thing you're a mensch what a mensch i'll mention that's what paul is asking jude to consider stop moping around and being a jerk what a schmuck you just like you can't even do anything you're stuck come on so this this moment here structurally is so interesting when the drums start let me take it back a few seconds it actually changes key when the drums come in it moves to a different key [Music] i'm so sorry to stop and start it's so annoying but we've got to do every note and you can go listen to it as long as you want afterwards okay we're going to pay attention now so it's so interesting that the music the harmony leaves its home on the word pain pain becomes a moment of instability of uncertainty i'll tell you technically it starts in f major and it moves to b flat major and it gets lost in b-flat major it gets lost and it has to find its way back home and this is the bridge the bridge of the song the uncertain transition between verses it's so beautiful that paul has structured his harmony to paint the words having to do with pain of getting away from pain of resolving pain and coming home home to where the heart ought to be which is with your fellow human beings go and get her yeah it's a love song it's a romantic song but it's not just a girlfriend her becomes everyone all of us going be a person open your heart so here's the rest of the bridge and you'll you'll see that moment when the music lurches back into the home key [Music] hey [Music] [Music] oh did you hear that i'm sorry there's another paul who's that other paul you're the other paul i'm always going what the hell is going on that's the wrong lyric that's the lyric of the next bridge isn't that cool like the lyric of the next bridge starts tumbling on top of the music of the verse too early it's wrong think about why would paul do that he would actually why would he purposefully discompose the structure of the song and launch the next bridge prematurely it has to do in my estimation with paul's intuitive sense that words themselves just aren't going to cut it words are basically nonsense what do we need not nonsense we need no non-nonsense okay we've already heard one of those odds at the end of the first bridge and they're going to take over the universe in the coda of this song aren't they the song itself is only three minutes long it's four minutes long okay it's not as long as the ninth symphony but it was the longest rock and roll song up to that time and djs actually had trouble playing it because they needed to take their commercial breaks but it was such a good song that they had to so did you make sure you hear that let it out and let it i'm going to pull pick it back put it back a few seconds so you can hear it again you ever noticed that's the right place for those lyrics oops the guitar is too early back [Music] what what what the hell does that mean the movement you need is on your shoulder what okay pretty cool actually paul was very concerned about that line we know this we have we have notes we have documents for every second of every recording session it's like the talmud it's so funny it's like you know commentary and there's like all of this you know scholarly disquisition on beatles recording sessions but at this moment we've got paul asking john the movement the movie you need is on your shoulder what do you think mate and jonathan don't change it it's perfect john just loved it because it's almost nonsense right does anyone have an interpretation of it come on moving it is on your shoulder what would you what would that mean anybody raise your hand go ahead please what's that carry it on your shoulder a parrot [Laughter] so the parrot is actually whispering in his ear or something telling him what to do or possibly an angel right could be please go ahead um oh like atlas atlas shrugged right the only book i ever threw out of a window i did it's still there in the garden in london where i did it's still there okay so yeah the movement used on your shoulder any other ideas i love that get it off your shoulder man you're carrying too much so it does make sense but not really um okay let's go on let's go on we're gonna get to the uh last verse here and they have never sounded better remember [Music] there's like little muttering underneath and actually we know again from the talmud that at that moment paul made a mistake and he actually cursed he said the s word but they actually were able to like edit it so you couldn't hear them say that actual curse word but you they kept the muttering in because he played a wrong chord at that point so why would they keep that little muttering in i don't know it feels like this it's like it's almost like hold on boys and buckle your seat belts it's like that it's like those there's like it's in in the psalms okay today is shabbat shiva okay it's the holiest sabbath of the entire year and i'm violating it with you aren't you honored this is our sacred space [Applause] it's a day when we have to repent for our sins i got one more don't i today but it's like it's the day of return and repentance that we all make mistakes that's what hey jude is about this boy has made such a terrible mistake in his life by closing himself off to his own feelings and so there's this word in the psalms some of you might know the hebrew it's the word selah amen stella it's actually transliterated s-e-l-a-h and nobody knows what it means so whenever they translate it they just put cella because they have no idea but there's a few scholars who think that the word sellout was actually a technical instruction to the orchestra in the temple at jerusalem to pick up their instruments because they were going to start playing isn't that cool because the choir is singing the choir is singing and the instruments are you know they're backing off but they have to pick them up and stella is their cue and this is like really powerful for me because i know that i'm a levite my hebrew name is and you don't mess with that okay if you're a lady that means you know that you're the ancestor of the levites and moses himself and what did the levites do in the days of the temple guess what they played in the orchestra that's where i get whatever talent i might have i'm a levite so i was the one who was playing when they yelled the word stella or they whispered it actually and that's what this muttering is okay sorry for the digression but that's what it is that's what it is it's not a digression at all let's hear that muttering again [Music] [Music] everybody the universe has to think [Music] you keep going you're the brass [Music] [Music] who the hell is that who is that okay it's paul but what's happened to his voice what does it sound like we have to play it again you know i'm sorry i've interrupted your singing but as long but as long as you're being quiet now listen to this alter ball the brass choir [Music] okay so it's like what happens to him what's he doing actually when they were doing the takes of this in the studio he actually ruined his voice he lost his voice for seven weeks he tore his legs doing all that for this part of it and why did he do that why did he do that it's because he's trying to sound like whom he's trying to sound like a black man isn't he little richard absolutely absolutely or james brown a little bit but mostly little richard so he literally literally changes the color of his voice okay and why why would he need a black man's voice at this point because let's face it and we know this because we're in cleveland and any and nashville and philadelphia anywhere else our brothers and sisters who are african-american know a little bit about suffering don't they and that's what rock and roll is about and the beatles knew that and they always paid their dues always paid their dues to the black musicians that went before them always showed their gratitude and this is one way of doing it at very end of their career as a group in 1968 so think about this song in a broader sense in a psychological sense i brought my book so i would be glad if you want to you know if you want to get it on amazon you spike myself if even one of you buys my book at amazon i go up from the ranking of like about 3 million at just something like 400 000 it's so exciting i go up like two and a half million points if i sell one book so please okay audible signs it's fun making up different versions of that title i like oddball zionists but okay okay not part of the 10 most important people in the world okay but audible signs means that actually music gives us signs they give us clues about what's going on like the sound of a black man's voice these are audible signs we just have to read them they're symbols crashing symbols and and it has to do with the unusual extraordinary nature of hey jude itself and i have to read you from my book because i said it better here than i can tell it to you now rock and roll like all songs since the beginning of the world mostly sings in the color blue she left me he's no good to me she's got a ticket to ride oh they're writing songs of love but not for me consider just how rare it is for a pop song to hold out a helping hand to another human being instead of gletching about one here's a game i play i just want to use that we could talk now it's a game i play name another rock and roll song which actually is about the song reaching out a helping hand to somebody else come on you can do it anybody which one is that the name of a pop song we are the world yes that was good sponsored by coca-cola too right right another one we are family is a good one that's more of an affirmation more of an affirmation how about i get by without my friends it's mostly about drugs okay okay yes same that's good yeah it has the hand right in it how about bridge over troubled water people need people that's really good when you're down and troubled and you need right okay you got that's carol king right yes she's jewish i'm very proud of that it's not the theme of the day i promise um okay let's see how about other beatles songs very few another song that's about helping someone else no exactly the opposite help me i'm the one who's important it's totally solipsistic no yesterday is like fetching she loved me and now she doesn't anymore how about dear prudence dear prudence come out and play right there's it's like hey jude it's the female side of hey jude suffering it was actually mia farrow's sister if you could believe it she was suffering they were in their ashram in india and she was having an attack of depression and john wrote this song you know what my favorite one is she loves you yeah yeah yeah this is this is a friend telling his friend that this girl loves him and he better go get her just like jews right it's a fabulous song and it makes it even more poignant if you consider it's so clear to me even though it's implicit the guy who's singing the song john i think he loves her too right and he's letting go of her so that his friend can get her and have her and love her those the only three beatles songs i know that are reaching out a helping hand that's another reason that makes this song so unusual we have to get to beethoven now but let's just listen to a little bit more of this amazing coda [Music] [Music] my and it just keeps going for the next two minutes right okay i just want to show you i've got this little shakespeare sonnet too shakespeare actually uh he's got something to say about this listen to the first lines of sonnet number eight he's talking to a young man who will not seek love who has cloistered himself away from a loving relation music to hear why hear style music sadly just that first line why herestyle music sadly is a lot like it's like a shakespearean translation of take a sad song and make it better sweets with sweets wore not joy delights and joy why love is thou that which thou receives not gladly it goes on he's actually asking his friend the young man to stop moping around and get the girl and get some children too it was actually commissioned by an aristocratic patron whose son refused to get married and the first few sonnets was that commission from that patron so if you look at sonnet number eight it's a shakespearean translation of the lyrics to you okay and it's you know it's it's more elevated language but it's not better language it's just different language okay um okay i gotta put up the volume now let's just hear the beginning of the finale of the ninth we've been sitting in the concert hall for 45 minutes 45 minutes and this is what the orchestra has to say at the beginning of the last movement no voices yet what are those instruments cellos and double basses right i just have to play the beginning of that fourth movement again listen to the chord i'm sorry it's not loud enough i think this chord is terrifying [Music] i mean it just comes out actually i got enough hair to do it don't i it's like it's like someone is really upset about something this is a sad song and the next five minutes of music is beethoven trying to make it better now what i'm going to do for you is i'm going to add lyrics to those cellos and bases okay my warrant for doing so the license that i have for doing so although it's rather unorthodox is that in fact beethoven is is building that pattern of cellos and bases on what we call the restitutives of opera it's like people talking in an opera okay and so i'm going to add lyrics now to it don't try this at home this is very very dangerous i'm going to put this on so you can hear me okay the director of wendy university is talking in the hallway stephen be quiet [Laughter] it's on video now okay are you ready here we go [Music] we've got a lot of very crucial it doesn't work it doesn't work it doesn't work i'm gonna do it without them i'm gonna but i'm just gonna have to shout really loud make sure you can hear me up there now i can shout my friends please stop all that noise we've got a lot of very crucial work to do and i need your attention [Music] what's that you won't shut up well then at least won't you sing something useful an inventory an inventory an inventory and what do we hear we hear the music of the first movement of the ninth century remember a little fragment of the first movement he's doing an inventory of the earlier parts of the city that's enough we've already been through that at least a hundred times before so let's go on to the next as i recall it's something strange some things [Music] that's really marvelous but you'll know it can't be no no it can't be all there was to say the third one oh the third moment it's so beautiful the third moment isn't it ah that was but consolation is not all we need to do the work that we have to do we need a breakthrough we need a breakthrough [Music] you hear it that's it that's the answer the truth we've been seeking and i know that if we sing it with the faithful courage of our hearts and mind then god will list son [Applause] thank you it's so much fun i hear those words the cellos and faces are so eloquent they're singing to us they're encouraging us they have to go through everything we've been through before but it's not enough do you see what beethoven's saying to us he's saying to us that if we want to celebrate if we want to make our way to joy we've got a lot of work to do that's a very jewish concept too i need a little break here so my sister got me this let's see if it works okay put in the tie here see if it works uh ah here it is okay ready [Music] okay it's in the wrong key it's in the wrong key sorry let's put it let's listen now the right key as in any good opera recitative you do all the work of speaking and speaking but what's opera really about it's about the aria that comes next and as long as the cellos and bases did all the work all the schlep of getting through that recitative and tearing their hair out and doing the inventory of the first three movements i think they've earned the right to sing the song themselves let's see if we can get the sound here they get to sing it all by themselves [Music] but listen this has turned been turned into a hymn a protestant him right joyful joyful but it gets really square in church they lose the syncopation listen to how he syncopates it you hear it he syncopates just like rock and roll uh-oh and dandy and then the violas take over and little by little that beautiful song of the ode to joy makes its way up through the different instruments of the string orchestra first it was the cellos and the bases now it's the violas and the bassoons and the cellos are playing a beautiful line against the tune in variation with it don't forget the [Music] syncopation [Music] i feel sorry for protestants just because they don't seek a pain i'm also very jealous of protestants because their music is so much better than mine i mean synagogue music because we're not allowed to use instruments in the conservative shula it's horrible one reason why i'm not in synagogue today i'm with you violins are singing violins are singing everybody's gonna sing after the repeat of the strain don't forget the syncopation don't forget to sync a page [Applause] [Music] don't forget just take a bite [Music] okay sorry we got to move on i only got 10 minutes left now listen something's missing here isn't it we've got about five six minutes i'm using the finale so far uh oh there are 90 people behind the orchestra waiting to sing they've been waiting there fortunately i mean in the old days you had the chorus came on the beginning of the symphony everyone has to go pee it's like horrible they're like there for an hour before they have to sing fortunately now there's a break before the third movement after the scherzo and that's when the chorus comes on it's much more humane but they still have to sit a long time and this also in itself is very dramatic because beethoven is showing us he has to go through the motions of a symphony a symphony is supposed to be just instruments right so we've got a whole first wave trying it out is it going to work with just the orchestra we've got the cellos and basses going through this ordeal of the inventory of the first three movements and then they get to sing the ode to joy and the whole orchestra joins them in this beautiful set of variations on that tune it's still not good enough music alone with instruments isn't going to cut it does that sound familiar it's just the opposite in hey jude because in that song paul dramatized his sense that lyrics weren't good enough they were nonsense everything was tumbling over each other remember how the bridge came in too early words won't cut it the lyrics end the song effectively is done there are no more words because all we need is nah sense right we surpass syntactical language and find just sound noise music itself but that beethoven tells us something seems to be different which is music itself isn't good enough we need words we need words and we need words very badly we need words and here's the rest of the team i was telling you about [Music] german it sounds really pissed off doesn't it oh my friends let's not sing like this anymore not these tones nicht diesel turner in other words we have another translation of let's take a sad song and make it better we now have the beatles shakespeare and beethoven isn't that great now do you see why i did this lecture okay [Applause] thank you it works it works let's see what happens it's it's the second wave it's the second wave the voices have to do it the voices have to do it now let's keep going let's keep going [Music] [Applause] let's sing something [Music] joy is very different from happiness okay joy takes lots of work especially for the sopranos in this symphony singing so higher [Applause] [Music] schiller's words frieza schiller beethoven tried to set this poem for 30 years it took him three decades to figure it out i think he got it right [Music] but you know what so we have a question we have a question if paul mccartney and the beatles are saying words aren't good enough words don't cut it we need something more than lyrics and that's the na na na na and then beethoven's saying oh music isn't good enough the orchestra is not good enough the first three movements aren't good enough we need a taurus we need friedrich schiller we need words who wins who wins words or music what's the answer yes okay the last thing i want to play for you well two more little things there's a whole i mean can we meet again [Applause] there's another half hour here but look just to hear it [Music] this is so joyful look what's happening with the words of shiller [Music] they repeat little fragments of the poem back and forth what does that suggest to you beethoven is ripping apart the poem for his own musical purposes he needs words why so that he can destroy them [Music] [Applause] [Music] all the and all the mention i'll mention if they mention mention one more time i'm going to scream you see beethoven shows us what's important to him he doesn't give a dang for schiller anymore the actual structure integrity of the poem itself collapses in the composer's hands and it gives us the pure few syllables that mean the most to him he takes words and turns them into almost nonsense i'll imagine all imagine i'll imagine allah mentioned so we hear over and again all humanity will be brothers and sisters all of us together all of us because we all need each other everyone's singing because it takes not just a village not just a nation not just the world but the entire cosmos to take a sad song and make it better thank you very much [Applause] any questions i didn't get a chance to go to schule this morning either but i wanted to feel better i feel i want to tell you i had a religious experience here thank you thank you very much thank you okay raise your hand if your question i can tell you professor rose knows everything about the beatles and i know you have questions in every city they do so if you raise your hand i'll certainly bring it right here when paul hurt his throat yes every time they played hey jude afterward what did he do oh they were not performing in public anymore the question was so he didn't have to perform in public anymore actually in 1967 or was it eight you know this better than i actually they actually missed playing in public after they stopped so they went on to the roof of abbey road studios and just started playing on the roof for the entire neighborhood just once but by that time they were only working in the studio so he was able to recover yes no okay there's one don't you say it loud maybe we'll hear it oh almost the former chancellor of vanderbilt was close friends with george harrison and chancellor gee invited mr harrison to come to vanderbilt one reason was so that he could visit my beethoven beatles class but it was right at that same season that harrison fell sick and he died that year so i missed it by that much but listen to this a good friend of mine is very close friends herself with a person who lives next door to sir paul unfortunately next door is like five miles away because they live in these huge manor houses in england right so i'm not sure that's gonna work but we'll see i hope to meet paul still go ahead do you have any comment on the song blackbird blackbird singing in the dead of night what a lovely song i on on that album white album is the most glorious eclectic album of all time what the beatles show in that album is that they can do anything they can take any any genre any kind of song country western i'm in nashville okay and or in this case folk music this is one of the most beautiful musics in the tradition of early bob dylan and the weavers um and uh you know uh peter paul and mary it's a folk song yes with a guitar it's pure acoustic joy and i think it's their it's paul's way of saying i can do that too and i can do it it's not like it's in this case it's a loving thing it's like he loves that sound so much but he wants to show his own take on it i think he did a pretty good job yeah quite the woman over there in the corner we just dig into everything okay we we every song becomes an occasion for profound inquiry okay and it's amazing because their other connections too especially i started out with those beats in the violin concerto and she i saw her standing there you notice there wasn't enough discussion today about rhythm i mentioned the syncopation which should be added to the protestant him okay if you work in an anglican church please give them my suggestion okay so there's a lot of work on rhythm on beat it gets quite technical which is interesting because my a lot of my students in that class have been non-majors and they've been intimidated at first oh dr rose dr rose i don't know anything about music and i say you are my favorite student because you'll have no preconceptions we're going to start from scratch i don't expect you to know anything at the start of this class but you will know everything at the end of it and it's not just because i'm what i mean by that what do i mean by knowing everything what does it mean to have a comprehensive knowledge all it means is that you know that you haven't even begun to plumb the depths of a great work of art and there's so much more you can know and also there are limits to that knowledge you have to have humility and know that that kind of analytical inquiry only goes so far and there's a mystery that cannot be touched but that's part of what i'm talking about in the knowledge of a song that makes sense yes my gosh i've been writing concertos for friends to play um and it's interesting because the concerto as you know is mostly a genre having to do with a superstar like you know like like it's like pearlman playing in front of an orchestra and it's really an occasion for a really glorious virtuoso player to show off but if you really look at the history of concertos that's not what it was about it was always about the relation the communion between an individual and a group of players and that's what i've been investigating with some dear friends and it's been both a musical pleasure and i would say a philosophical one too yeah yeah you know it's the last one i listened to same with beethoven symphonies all nine of them are my favorite while i'm listening to them the first is unbelievable if you don't know the first and second go to your itunes or spotify leonard bernstein new york philharmonic it's the best thing he ever did i'm not kidding and i love a lot of lenny's stuff but his recording with the new york phil of beethoven one and two it's the best one he ever did but i'll be answering your question i do think sort of uh artistically i think revolver is the best album okay just song for song and the way it's put together it's just a knockout song after song rubber stall it comes a close second okay somebody said what about sergeant pepper um i love it too like i'm listening to sergeant pepper of course it's the best okay i hope that helped can i ask a question please sometimes we forget paul mccartney has continued to release albums every few years yes for a long time now and at least in my opinion and a lot of critics they're not that good right you have any thoughts on that how he feels and well i think the same thing happened to john lennon after the beatles i mean his life was tragically cut short of course but in the stuff that he did especially with yoko it's there's this very few really great songs like instant karma no questions about it or imagine of course is a knockout but those are rare instances and we need to think about this this is what same thing having to do with the concertos i'm working on these are these are musicians who flourished as a band and we can see with some poignancy that when they leave that they are not at their best anymore they need each other so much the chemistry is essential and it's like having sodium without the chloride there's no salt and you know who's the acid and who's the base it's been i think john yes he's the acid isn't he and i think you know i think that there's a softness and a sweetness and a kind of a limey that's a good word for a british person too the limey quality of paul that was so sweet that it was saccharine stephen saccharin and he didn't have he didn't have john to say yeah mate that's good leave it in remember leave it in don't touch it movement you need is on your shoulder it's perfect they needed each other that's what i call art yeah but again if it's like two or three songs two or three songs out of 40 or 50 and then you go back to the beatles collection it's like every song is just a golden thing every song is just gold it's unbelievable isn't it it's like beethoven it's like that's the other thing beethoven from opus 1 to opus 135 there's only one or two clinkers in there one or two rotten eggs and every other thing is just glory the quality is extreme one more question here yes i need to go to the hall of fame tomorrow to find out don't i um i don't know if they keep up either my daughter is 20 years old fortunately so she keeps me informed she sends me all of her latest favorites but she tells me herself it's almost impossible for her to keep up because it's so fragmented and there's so many different kinds of music so many different audiences and among that classical music is less than one percent of the market so i'm a classical composer what does that mean what kind of audience can i hope for but so it's hard for me to keep up with the rock and roll audiences or market because i'm pretty concerned about my own market and my own work but i will tell you this i think it has to do right now in a very dramatic way with women i think women are doing things musically and artistically in a way in the 21st century that was not even conceivable in the 20th or earlier certainly there are women songwriters and and composers and bands and artists and architects who are changing the face of music and if i had to give i actually was writing down my list of 10 most important people in the world i i'm not saying these are the best people but they're the most important i think taylor swift i mean for young people i mean you may not like her music but she's so enormously powerful for those young people as a role model and she's a sweetheart you know but you know there are problems with that um and then there's someone like kanye west on his side he's such a role model for young black uh young men you know and of course it's so narcissistic right there's so much narcissism that it's really difficult to think about what it means for these to be important people and and they are important but i think what the importance of such figures is that ultimately it will pass right right and that we will realize that such celebrity and fame is not the important thing that what really matters is what endures beneath the surface and that's what makes the beatles so extraordinary there was a beatlemania there was such a powerful popularity it was impossible for anyone to understand that this music in 1963 was actually going to last my parents didn't think so they hated it right what's that the long hair or whatever you know it's just so anyway i have the rest of my list if you're interested i didn't really answer your oh okay well i didn't finish it i think george lucas uh because i think the star wars myth is so i mean especially this year with the new one coming out but every every person of my generation and my children's generation has internalized the star wars mythology it is part of their spiritual reckoning of life itself i'm not exaggerating um okay i think by the same token jk rowling or rowling i think harry potter has had an enormous you see of course i'm a little biased i'm looking at literature and music and art i think there's an architect named lorenzo piano and he's they just did the whitney museum in in the uh the meatpackers neighborhood in new york city piano is changing literally chase changing the face of manhattan and that has become a center of such not just artistic activity but social activity young people are flocking to the whitney museum as they've never come to a modern art museum before and that is so exciting am i being naive to think that an architect is one of the 10 most important persons in the world i hope not i think he really is he's showing that a livable space is an artistic space it's a place where you can actually experience art and other human beings without any discrepancy at all in fact that's what art has always been about it makes us more human it doesn't cut us off that's why i've shared hey jude in the ninth symphony with you that's what it's about i think restaurants that's we're gonna stop because it's four o'clock [Applause] classy thank you michael [Applause] thank you michael that was amazing amazing class amazing energy you definitely transmitted to the to the whole auditorium here in puebla thank you very much thank you thank you it's a pleasure to be here so we're gonna we're gonna start with a few questions we're gonna first say them in spanish and then ask them to you and we're going to be translating continuously so we're going to start with the first question yes so so the question is who do you think best fulfilled the purpose of getting out the sorrow beethoven with his chorus at the end or the beatles with their energetic music and rhythm at the end of hey jude well when my students ask a question like that i have only one answer for them see the answer is yes uh how can i choose they're just so both of them are so enormously joyful and both of them bring into play into the same space the entire universe of possibilities for human connection and for singing together and for understanding the chance that we have to be joyful together which is so desperately necessary right now at this time when we can't even we cannot even be together so i don't want to um avoid or evade your question i don't want to to be ungenerous i want to answer your question but it is for me a matter of understanding that what beethoven is doing in the ninth symphony depends so much on these large orchestral forces this astounding miraculous combination of orchestra and chorus and solo voices this comprehensive account of classical music at its peak of power and on a completely different ground in a completely different context 150 years later the beatles do it in their way at the peak of their powers with all of the resources the resources that they have including the recording studio and all of the technology that makes possible hey jude as a recording and what they have their limited you know mechanism of a band of the instruments of the piano and the guitar and the tambourine and but then to take the lid off of that to open it up yes to completely surprise us with the brass band at the end and all of the sounds including paul singing like a black man singing like little richard at the end it's the surprise it's the ongoing surprise of the ninth symphony finale and hey jude that makes it impossible for me to say anything else then yes yes which one does it better yes no thank you for that amazing response [Applause] [Music] thank you very much michael the next question is as follows what impact did beethoven had on music and future generation of artists wow that's a good question because it's so difficult um i think the true quality of any artist is just how many different ways he or she or they can be interpreted i would go even further and say the true quality of any artist is just how many different ways he or she or they can be misinterpreted i love the idea that everyone that comes after beethoven willfully deliberately misunderstands beethoven wagner totally messed up beethoven he just didn't get it but because he loved beethoven he did something the world had never heard before and brahms johannes bronze interprets beethoven completely different and you know who else bela bartok one of the great composers of the 20th century and then someone like chuck berry who says to beethoven roll over beethoven you see what i mean that the influence of beethoven is so profound so all-encompassing that everyone who touches beethoven and is touched by beethoven completely understands and misunderstands beethoven differently including me there's not a note of music that i've composed in my entire life as a composer that has not been actively mindfully subconsciously also informed by my love of beethoven i can't blame beethoven for that that is to say what i do with beethoven is my fault but i could not have done it without him i hope i've answered your question thank you thank you that's an amazing answer que clara [Music] is [Music] so question three were the most evident similarities between beethoven's compositions and the beatles songs yes i don't know what the word is in your language for nerd n-e-r-d is there a word for it nerd nerd someone who just loves the technical details right the technical details of anything in this case of music of how a piece of music is put together but for me from the very beginning when i started teaching this class at my univer university at vanderbilt university i knew that the way of bringing my students into the classroom and this was marketing right this was my salesmanship i could bring the students into the classroom by seducing them with bait with the beatles because they were you know everyone knows the beatles but the reason why i wanted to bring the beatles into the classroom was exactly the reason why i teach beethoven which is that the beatles are really really a bunch of nerds they love the details they love putting things together in their songs with infinite care with so much attention to detail with so many interconnections ways of understanding how this event leads to this event and how this chord is answered by a chord later on and how a particular rhythm evolves and grows and changes according to the words according to the lyrics according to the story that's being told in the song and everything that happens is important there's not one thing that happens that shouldn't be there and if you lose one note of it the entire structure collapses and that's true of beethoven too and that regard for putting something together with that kind of loving care is what art is all about and that's what connects these two amazing phenomena and it's why i had to teach that class thank you thank you for the answer [Applause] michael do you think faith owens compositions had direct influence over the beatles or where the similarities in their wear work more of a coincidence oh another good and difficult question um i think in this case we have to give a lot of credit to a man named george martin george martin was the the person who helped the beatles turn their compositions into really gorgeous compositions that is to say he made them classical in fact george martin was the producer of the early albums of the beatles and what's a wonderful coincidence is that george martin was in charge of producing classical recordings for the british broadcasting corporation he was a classical musician and he inspired the beatles to do classical things for instance to put a baroque trumpet in the song penny lane or to do a baroque piano solo in in my life or to add a harpsichord a harpsichord to cry for no one and so at least on the surface of the beatles songs there's a lot of classical stuff going on but there's something deeper i think there's something deeper that connects them in a classical way and that's that's just because they're great artists and i think that all great artists are connected without any coincidence at all or in fact it is the supreme coincidence it's what does coincidence mean literally what does co-incidence mean it's that things happen together and when shakespeare writes a sonnet about a sad boy and when paul mccartney writes a song about a sad boy and when schiller writes a poem about sad people and when the beatles write a song with shakespeare and beethoven about how to turn that sadness into joy it's exactly what the psalmist was singing about in the psalms of the bible that joy will come in the morning after a night of sadness this is an idea that is eternal and all art and all literature and all music belongs to that idea that's the coincidence amazing amazing thank you bueno explica thank you michael thank you michael and professor michael alex rose hello university vanderbilt thank you pleasure it's an honor thank you everybody thank you i hope we meet soon take care thank you [Applause] very gracias

Channel: LaCiudaddelasIdeas

Views: 980

Keywords: andres roemer, roemer, ciudad de las ideas, grupo salinas, poder cívico, congreso, mentes brillantes, ideas, pláticas, conferencia, ciencia, pensar, puebla, conocimiento, pensamiento, idea, cdi, cdipuebla, talks, speakers, ted

Id: CBof0-deAgQ

Length: 85min 46sec (5146 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 06 2021