{"id":64023,"date":"2020-11-07T17:08:11","date_gmt":"2020-11-07T22:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/schillerinstitute.com\/?p=64023"},"modified":"2020-11-07T20:39:55","modified_gmt":"2020-11-08T01:39:55","slug":"beethoven-sparks-of-joy-no-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/2.schillermeet.de\/de\/blog\/2020\/11\/07\/beethoven-sparks-of-joy-no-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Beethoven: Sparks of Joy &#8211; No.6"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Beethoven and the Heroic Part 4: The Egmont Overture  <br>Notes by Fred Haight<\/strong>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Beethoven - Egmont Overture - Wilhelm Furtw\u00e4ngler, 1953\" width=\"860\" height=\"645\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ONDQHSy7aEs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Part 4: <em>The Egmont Overture<\/em>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The cause of human liberty and freedom led political discussion around the late 18th-early 19th century, and the poets Goethe and Schiller collaborated to tell the story of Switzerland&#8217;s fight for freedom. In his play <em>Wilhelm Tell<\/em>, Schiller updated the \u201cRutli Oath\u201d (taken in the year 1291), in a manner that echoed the U.S. Declaration of Independence, written almost 500 years later:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>\u201cNo, there is a limit to the tyrant&#8217;s power, when the oppressed can find no justice, when the burden grows unbearable-he reaches with hopeful courage up unto the heavens and seizes hither his eternal rights, which hang above, inalienable and indestructible as the stars themselves.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is no accident that Schiller&#8217;s played was staged, with Goethe directing, in 1804, the same year as Napoleon crowned himself emperor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Both men also wrote about the 16th century fight for the independence of the Netherlands from Spain: Schiller in his \u201c<em>Don Carlos<\/em>\u201d and <em>\u201cHistory of the Revolt of the Netherlands\u201d<\/em>; and Goethe, in his play <em>\u201cEgmont\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you wish to see the level of brutality presented by the Spanish Inquisition in the Netherlands, examine Pieter Breughel&#8217;s 1562 painting, \u201cThe Triumph of Death\u201d. (Painting below).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Count Egmont was a Dutch nobleman who sided both with his people <em>and<\/em> King Phillip of Spain. His peer, the much wiser William the Silent, fled Brussels, and warned him of potential betrayal by Spain&#8217;s treacherous Duke of Alba. Egmont foolishly accepted a dinner invitation to discuss his grievances with Alba. He was arrested at that dinner, and soon executed, along with 1,000 others in 1568.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Though Alba was seeking to dominate through a reign of terror, it backfired on him. \u201cSometimes a long train of usurpations and abuses, leads people to think that they have no recourse, but to throw off such government.&#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Though not immediate, the execution of Egmont contributed to a popular uprising. Beethoven&#8217;s \u201c<em>Egmont<\/em>\u201d Overture to Goethe&#8217;s play, condenses the long historical process into one optimistic moment of change. Listen to this recording, and you will hear the representation of the public executions, beginning at 6:42, with the execution of Egmont coming at 7:02. After a moment of quiet sorrow and reflection, something begins to swell up, out of the silence. Beethoven&#8217;s magnificent ending displays the <em>spirit<\/em> of the people, rising up against tyranny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Beethoven and the Heroic Part 4: The Egmont Overture Notes by Fred Haight Part 4: The Egmont Overture The cause of human liberty and freedom led political discussion around the late 18th-early 19th century, and the poets Goethe and Schiller collaborated to tell the story of Switzerland&#8217;s fight for freedom. In his play Wilhelm Tell, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":63774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[625,1],"tags":[616,617,618],"class_list":["post-64023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-beethoven-sparks-of-joy","category-allgemein","tag-beethoven","tag-culture","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/2.schillermeet.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/2.schillermeet.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/2.schillermeet.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2.schillermeet.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2.schillermeet.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64023"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/2.schillermeet.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64025,"href":"https:\/\/2.schillermeet.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64023\/revisions\/64025"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2.schillermeet.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/2.schillermeet.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2.schillermeet.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2.schillermeet.de\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}