Eroica

A friend started up a thread about "Sunday classical music" on Facebook this morning, which naturally set me to thinking about Beethoven's 3rd symphony.  I was first immersed in this tour de force of music when I was playing for a local orchestra about 20 years ago.  I wanted to play mallet percussion and/or piano; they were in desperate need of a timpani player so I succumbed to their pleas.  I have to say, though, Beethoven's timpani parts are not for the faint of heart.

Our first chair violinist was rarely gifted - she was young or otherwise she would have already been swooped up by a professional big-city orchestra - so we took advantage of her for this piece / concert.  She would come to rehearsals with her neck and chin red-raw from having the violin tucked against it for hours as she practiced again and again and again.  Classical music takes its toll of you.

We had been working on key passages of all four movements every week, but rarely had put an entire movement together in our early rehearsals.  I will remember forever the first time we played the 2nd movement of "Eroica" from start to finish.  I almost dropped the timpani mallets when we got to about the 8:15 mark - never before and never since have I felt as though I were standing in the heart of a musical creature.  My hair rose up on the nape of my neck; goosebumps pebbled my flesh; tears sprang to my eyes...it felt as though the ground were lifting beneath my feet.

I listened to the below this morning - look at Bernstein's face at about the 10-minute mark: the agony and the ecstasy!  Obviously he feels what I felt, too.  Tremendous.