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Music Talks > 2023 Winter
Music Talk: Monday 9 January 2023
Meeting open for joining at 6:45 pm Beirut Time (GMT+2 or UCT+2)
Talk starts at 7:00 pm and until 8:30

The Finale of Beethoven's 9th Symphony
Speaker: Akram Najjar (English)

Here are three reasons why we are repeating this talk:

1) 56 registered and only 29 joined . . . must be the traffic
2) No video was recorded, so it could not be review it
3) The speaker felt that much material was glossed over . . .

Conclusion: we are repeating the talk but over 2 hours!

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The Profile of the Talk
The Ninth, as it is called, is an icon in classical music. The theme of the Ode to Joy is universally recognized and has been used in a variety of media: films, advertising and national anthems. Beethoven created a milestone with the 4th movement of this symphony by introducing a vocal quartet and a large choir. The finale does not follow a classical structure but has one of its own.

The whole symphony was conceived on the basis of a struggle, expressed in the first 3 movements, reaching a utopic vision of unsersal brotherhood in the 4th movement. Beethoven used the Ode to Joy, a poem by Schiller.
Normally, we would have started with an analysis of the first movements. Since the finale is so well known, it was seen more interesting to start with the finale, hoping we can do the first 3 movements at a later stage.

Akram Najjar

A graduate of AUB in Physics and Mathematics (1966). By 1969, he completed a degree in Electronic Engineering in University of Hertfordshire, UK. His professional life was spent in Information Technology and organizational management. He spent a lot of time on reengineering business and public sector processes.

When Akram was 11, he had a problem with his knee which necessitated his staying in bed for 6 months. To keep him busy, his mother moved their record player to his room and that is when he fell in love with classical music. Akram never studied music, academically. However, it interested him so much that he took an analytic view of classical music always insisting that works must be understood to be really appreciated.

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