symphony concert10

Beethoven transported listeners into absolute raptures with his Seventh Symphony. Richard Wagner spun a tale about the symphony: “Melody and harmony coalesce as though forming tangible human figures which, first with the clumsy limbs of giants, and then with delicate, elastic suppleness – slender and voluptuous – conclude the round dance almost before our eyes, until in the last stirring of desire a jubilant kiss seals the final embrace” and gave the work its epithet “the apotheosis of the dance.” Wagner continues by saying: “And yet these joyful dancers were merely tonal imitations of human beings portrayed in sound!” But does this make them any less real? In his rhapsody based on a novella by Nikolai Gogol, Leoš Janácek too emphasizes the dramatic potential of music: The work depicts events in the life of the Cossack Taras Bulba, who loses everything but his faith in the battles against his enemies.