What is meant by "romantic mythologies" regarding Beethoven?

on one hand you have demonstrated the exceptionality of the event, the fact that it was advertised as an incredible and unmissable cycle (the performance mode "opera omnia" would truly deserve a doctoral thesis in sociology), that the thing took place over 9 years (crazy), with the declared and essential participation of one of Europe's wealthiest cities (Milan) and within a CHAMBER season. But I never admit to being wrong, so it is I who am using rhetorical stratagems at this moment ehehe

anyway, really, if we take the discussion in a less orthodox way, we immediately understand how there are genres in music history that today 1) are not successful 2) constitutionally cannot be performed in the same way they were performed (and conceived) in the past 3) and even when they could be performed in that way, they are still "adjusted" (in dimensions, above all, but also in instrumentation, in structure) 4) and, consequently, lose meaning when coming into contact with our current performance world. The widest repertoire on which these problems are visible is that of sacred music. 1) masses are not successful 2) they are difficult to perform as part of a true liturgy with stable and specialized instrumentations 3) much more often they are compressed and performed in concert mode, or parts of them are performed 4) and, consequently, they become ARCHAEOLOGY, that is, rediscovered music, musealized, protected

Dear Thallo,

I disagree with what you are saying regarding the archaeological value of certain works – cantatas, masses – that is, the fact that they are or should be treated as museum pieces.

It all depends on who listens to them.

If I consider the Sanctus and Agnus Dei from the Mass in B minor (for example) as "museum" pieces, then they truly become so. If I want to enjoy them slumped on the sofa, or, why not, with headphones while unloading the dishwasher, those tracks will become something else.

If instead – as I sometimes do – I listen to them with the desire to immerse myself with my whole being in that music – with headphones, yes, but inside what for me is the largest church: the blue sky and the treetops – well, in this case, I don't hear them as museum pieces, but as a living part of my world.

The point you make about the adjustments such works require today is obvious (and right!).

But I do not see a loss of meaning in coming into contact with our current world. Instead, I see an enrichment of meaning: that work – that cantata – composed more than two hundred years ago has grown: through the eras and epochal tastes, it has changed appearance, thoughts, prerogatives. To say that bringing it up to date necessarily causes a loss of meaning is equivalent to saying that a person loses their original meaning as they age.

What is the meaning of a person? The original one? Their face and their thoughts from when they were just "composed"? From when they were at most three or four years old?

I see works – which interest me far more than their creators – and I feel them like this: fascinating "people" (some more than others, each in their own way); "people" to get to know and from whom, in many cases, I have received much.

To clarify (minor points):

the Milanese complete cycle of Bach cantatas did not take place within a chamber music season. The Società del Quartetto, despite its name, organizes other things as well. And it organized the first Italian complete cycle of Beethoven's Nine Symphonies in the second half of the 1800s (the first Italian performance of the Ninth was in 1878).

. . . .

No . . . I do not work at the Società del Quartetto