Reception
Among music critics, the Ninth Symphony is almost universally considered to be among Beethoven's greatest works, and is considered by some to be the greatest piece of music ever written. "Yet early critics rejected it as cryptic and eccentric, the product of a deaf and aging composer." The finale of the Ninth has had detractors. Giuseppe Verdi complained about the vocal writing; in a letter he wrote to Clarina Maffei dated 20 April 1878, he stated that the symphony was:
- "...marvelous in its first three movements, very badly set in the last. No one will ever surpass the sublimity of the first movement, but it will be an easy task to write as badly for voices as is done in the last movement."
Gustav Leonhardt objected to the text itself, saying:
- "That 'Ode to Joy', talk about vulgarity! And the text! Completely puerile!"
Read more about this topic: Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
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—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)