This commentary is by Michael Caldwell of North Wolcott.
“Hello, Goodbye” played on 101.7 FM as we parked at Elley-Long Music Center at St. Michael’s College in Colchester, for this 14th annual performance. Two New Years’ Day Vermont music traditions converged for us this year — Beatles A-Z on the radio and Beethoven’s Ninth in person, performed by the Green Mountain Mahler Festival Orchestra.
George Harrison’s adaptation of Chuck Berry’s hit “Roll Over Beethoven” greeted us as we reluctantly got back on the road after the concert. We lingered as long as possible to soak in the pool of positive power produced by local instrumentalists and singers wrestled into sublimity by maestro Daniel Bruce.
I’ve always loved the Beatles and Berry. My love for Beethoven grows deeper every year I hear his masterpiece, especially because the performers are local and transcend every high-brow stereotype of the classical music scene. Soloists, instrumentalists and singers dot the hall after the raucous and raptured standing ovation at the end, glad to schmooze with diverse fans gobsmacked with inspiration and hope.
European orchestras have modeled for decades this New Year’s Day performance of the Ninth. Fortunately for Vermont, Daniel Weiss, founder of the Green Mountain Mahler Festival, president of the board and principal double bassist, has led the board and this organization to bring the tradition here. “Too European, too white,” you might say, surveying the concert’s demographic and the symphony’s origin.
But the fact that Beethoven composed his magnum opus as he grew deaf gives us at least one minority to tag and celebrate – the community of the disabled. How did he do it? From the sublime and delicate third movement to the bombastic and prophetic fourth, the audience feels emotion rising and falling from deep grief for the state of a fallen world to the hope of Friedrich Schiller’s poem “Ode to Joy,” adapted by Beethoven’s genius for the climax.
“All people are neighbors” — one paraphrase the German chorus’s “Alle Menschen werden Brüder” — fits for all colors and types of humanity. With the ominous new political challenges of the second quarter of the 21st century, the fourth movement’s brilliant transcendence of its opening foreboding is what more modern music could consistently emulate. We hear the Beatles’ entire catalogue and Beethoven’s Ninth every New Year’s Day here in Vermont. What other music is emerging which merits such repeat performance and translates hope to the masses?
Daniel Bruce conducts the entire piece without a musical score. His unconscious knowing of every nuance polishes this creative gem every time it is performed. I couldn’t take my eyes off this magician waving his wand, pulling rabbit after rabbit out of the hat of the hundred-member orchestra.
Soloists Erik Kroncke, Adam Hall, Nessa Rabin and Annalise Shelmandine wowed us with exalted threads of song echoed by the chorus. Overhearing comments critical of flaws in the overall performance as we got in line to leave, I spoke up. “It was perfect in its imperfection — like the natural world.”
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was first performed in Vienna in 1824; may the Mahler Festival offer this jewel for decades beyond its two-century reign in the hopeful hearts of Beethoven fans. Beethoven himself may roll over in his grave to hear the accolades of hope grow over the years. Roll over, Berry. Hello, inspiration. Goodbye, hopelessness.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Michael Caldwell: Ringing in the new year on a hopeful note with the Beatles and Beethoven.