The combative joy of Beethoven’s “Ode to joy” of his 9th Symphony is
again playing out .Not in
Vienna, but in the city that never
sleeps, Lincoln Center. the battle
ground for 69 year old maestro James Levine’s return to the podium strata ..
A motorized wheel chair at his
side, will transcend his 2 year
absence. 3 surgeries of neurosurgeon Dr.
Patrick O’Leary and his team at the Hospital fdor Spoecial Surgery....
”A major surgery”
II
“Two years before the mast”
the beloved Mehtas (Zubin and Z) successors will the grace of God and
technology will groove the elevating transmission. In sync with the wheel
chair, the many manifold rehearsals to
free the fearless flow of notes me11asures themes and motifs of the
glorious music that never wavered not since J S. Bach played out his
fanfares at wakes and funeral homes in Liepzig..
Stowowski’s arrangement of the
Prelude in “Fantasia” at the Coney
Island Avenue Leader movie theater in 1940, never faltered, “Stokie‘s” old age,
beyond his 97 year life, arranging the Prelude in his Philadelphian metrics of
arrangements...to be alive to hear those
rarified earth shaking fusion of sounds from another galaxy.
III
Beethoven at 26, experienced his
first symptoms of going deaf... No electronic cues to pick up the clouds of
darkness that would overwhelm any composer. But a genius... ah that’s another
question.
Beethoven grabbed fate by the throat, deleting Napoleon’s name from
his Eroica, thwarting any recognition or vanity by the Emperor. No patronizing, the growing deaf genuis
transcending his immortality with a stroke of his pen.
“ You phony Emperor. . To Elbaa, farethewell..
IV
Yet his consciousness seemed to be on fire, the throbs of
silence in his ear drums,driving his passion for ferocious energy beyond the
Oracle of Delphi’s sound barrier.
The “Ode to Joy” is a
manifest to life’s ephemera and the of murderous bullies captured in the La Brea tar pits, the MINOTAUR morphing
into survival of the fittest and original sin...
V
May maestro Levine likewise regain the majesty of his
terrain, knowing his role at the podium is blessed. The spinal stenosis, paralysis by his fall, a
damaged dorsal spine into the 4th
vertebrae, three spinal surgeries, the
mild Parkinson’s aggravated by L dopa, has not dampened the audience’s embrace
of his rehabilitating essence
Not unlike Beethoven’s own calling, two hundred and fifty years ago,
may they embrace his own “Ode to Joy” playing out...
The Philharmonic’s promised land, May 2013 ...inscribed 10/
14, 2012
