Jokes and a 'curse' at the 2023 Beethoven Festival

You may well know that Beethoven was born in the western German city of Bonn. But did you know that pianist Fabian Müller was born there too? Albeit more than 200 years later, in 1990, but still!

Müller studied in Paris with the well-known French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard. His career took off in 2017 when he won five prizes at once at the ARD International Music Competition in Munich. Though he's just in his early 30s, Müller already holds a professorship and he's founded his own orchestra, the Trinity Sinfonia, which is named for the Protestant Trinitas Church in Bonn. He was also an artist in residence at the 2023 Beethoven Festival. 

When he was eight years old, Müller mentioned in a newspaper interview that he actually wanted to be a conductor. He's managed to achieve that too, and also be a teacher, composer, and father, all in addition to his booming career as a soloist.

In this way, Müller's professional trajectory also parallels that of Beethoven — it's safe to say they both go big, or go home.

Beethoven plays a joke

For instance, Beethoven composed five piano concertos, and all five are milestones in music history. In this episode, we hear his Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor. The first sketches for the piece date to 1796, but Beethoven only really began working on it in earnest in 1800. It then took another three years to complete.

Beethoven premiered the piece in Vienna on April 5, 1803 and asked his friend Ignaz Seyfert to turn pages for him during the performance. A straightforward request, you might think. But Seyfert barely knew when to turn because the pages were mostly empty! Just a handful of unintelligible scribbles! Musicologists theorize that Beethoven was largely improvising. Fabian Müller thinks this reveals yet another side of the composer:

"I think it says a lot about Beethoven because he asked him to turn pages for him, and on the pages there was no music written. So it was basically a joke from Beethoven ... he thought it was so funny to see his friend struggling with this exercise to turn pages where's nothing written down. So you see that this man is a man full of light and joyful energy, and everyone is always thinking about Beethoven like he's always angry. But I think that's not true. I think it's a man who was so often so happy."

The 'curse of the ninth'

Many composers have written a ninth symphony. What stands out is how many have completed precisely nine. Beethoven, whose ninth set the bar for all those to follow. Mahler. Dvorak. Schubert — just to name a few. These composers either died while working on their ninth, just after completing it or while working on their 10th. This is the so-called "curse of the ninth," a superstition that states that a composer's ninth symphony is destined to be their last.

Of course, there are plenty of examples of composers who made it to 10 and beyond. But the number nine still awakens a certain fear in the hearts of composers, even today. As the contemporary composer Philip Glass said in 2012: "Everyone is afraid to do a ninth. It is a jinx that people think about."

The Austrian composer Anton Bruckner was terrified of that fateful number nine. Perhaps he'd had a premonition, because he died before he was able to complete the work. The "curse" struck again.

What remains are three completed movements plus an incomplete fourth movement. So while the symphony is thus strictly speaking incomplete, it absolutely stands on its own as is.

The piece opens with a monumental, solemn yet mysterious first movement. The second movement is a scherzo with a rather ominous, pounding rhythmic motif. Some musicologists believe that Bruckner was trying to express the destructive power of industrialization. The second movement also includes a trio. Movement three, the last completed movement, is an elegiac adagio that the composer considered a "farewell to life."

We hoped you enjoyed the works in today's show, which was hosted by Cristina Burack. Thanks to sound engineer Thomas Schmidt and producer Anastassia Boutsko, and thanks to all of you for listening. If you have any feedback, drop us a line at [email protected].

Performances in this recording:

1. Ludwig van Beethoven
Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, op.37
Fabian Müller, piano 
Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich
Paavo Järvi, conductor

2. Johannes Brahms
"Wiegenlied (Guten Abend, gut' Nacht)"
Fabian Müller, piano

3. Robert Schumann
Andantino (movement II) from Piano Sonata No. 2 in G minor, op. 22
Fabian Müller, piano

4. Anton Bruckner
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, WAB 109 
Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich
Paavo Järvi, conductor

Edited by: Cristina Burack