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Culture: Joy of Beethoven's magnificent ninth; In the first of a series profiling masterpieces featuring in the CBSO's new season, Christopher Morley explains why Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is one of the peaks of the repertoire.(Features)

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From: The Birmingham Post (England)
Date: 20021008
Author:

Byline: Christopher Morley

Had Beethoven never composed his ninth symphony most of the subsequent history of music would have been entirely different.

This huge claim is easily justified. Composers such as Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner, Bruckner and Mahler, all of immense importance themselves, fell under the work's spell and let its influence speak through their own compositions and, accordingly, those of their disciples. These included Schoenberg and England's own Havergal Brian, a lonely voice whose 32 symphonies are today mainly relegated to footnotes in text-books.

So ...

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