Several events in New York and Cleveland over the coming weeks focus on Beethoven and his music through concerts, museum exhibits, and film screenings. Between October 22 to 26, the Cleveland Orchestra will perform “Fate and Freedom,” three symphonic programs at Severance Hall that address political issues through the lens of Beethoven and Shostakovich; there will also be screenings at the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque, as well as pre-film and preconcert talks. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is at the center of a new film, Following the Ninth, directed by Kerry Candaele, which examines the symphony’s significance in places like Tiananmen Square, Chile, and Japan. In New York City in October and November, the 80-minute film will have screenings at the Elinor Bunin Monroe Film Center at Lincoln Center, and at the Village Quad Cinema. On display through December 1 at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York is “Beethoven’s Ninth: A Masterpiece Reunited,” two historic manuscript copies of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The presentation is said to be first time since the work’s composition in 1824 that the manuscript from the Royal Philharmonic Society in London will be reunited with the later 1824-26 manuscript, from the Juilliard Manuscript Collection. The Morgan exhibit is part of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s bicentenary celebrations, which also include an exhibit through November 23 at the Bruno Walter Gallery at New York’s Avery Fisher Hall. The latter exhibit will feature materials related to the Ninth Symphony’s 1846 U.S. premiere by the New York Philharmonic.
Posted October 22, 2013
