Bringing the beautiful sounds of Beethoven to Jerusalem

The three-day conference, held November 14 to 16, featured panel discussions by musicologists and Beethoven scholars from several universities.

By ANAV SILVERMAN
A master class held at the conference (photo credit: SMADAR BERGMAN)
A master class held at the conference
(photo credit: SMADAR BERGMAN)
The harmonious sounds of Beethoven made their way to the Holy City this week as a group of international scholars and musicians from Israel and abroad gathered together for a conference at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies on Hebrew University’s Givat Ram campus.
Titled “Beethoven’s Creative Vision: Journeys and Worlds,” the conference focused on the composer’s major instrumental works.
The three-day conference, held November 14 to 16, featured panel discussions by musicologists and Beethoven scholars from Boston University, the University of Arkansas, Wake Forest University, the Hebrew University and Bar-Ilan University. Worldclass English classical pianist Peter Donohoe, winner of the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition, performed for the public for free on Monday night and led a master class for pianists at the Jerusalem Music Center, while American musicologist David Levy taught a string-quartet seminar. Estonian conductor and violinist Andres Mustonen gave a talk about Beethoven’s Third Symphony, “Eroica.”
“I believe that this was the first Beethoven conference of its kind held in Jerusalem – one that brought together scholars and performers who shared their experiences and knowledge of Beethoven with each other,” said organizer Barbara Barry of the University of London. “My goal was to organize a conference that would impact a wide range of people through Beethoven’s music.”
Barry, a musicologist, teacher, writer and pianist, made aliya a year ago. She has five degrees in music, including a PhD from Goldsmiths, University of London, and has taught musicology – the study of music as an academic subject – both in Israel and abroad. She was a professor of musicology at Lynn University’s Conservatory of Music in Florida and was on the music faculty of the Music Department at Goldsmiths prior to coming to the US.
Barry told In Jerusalem that her love of Beethoven’s music began when she was little girl in London.
“When I was four years old, my mother had the radio on and I heard this beautiful music playing. I ran into the room and asked my mom, ‘What was that?’ She told me that it was Beethoven. From then on, I have loved Beethoven’s music.”
With regard to the Beethoven conference, Barry said the experience was a positive one for everyone involved.
“This has been a really great experience for experts in the field and for the public. Beethoven’s music speaks to people across the board.
“It’s great to have such a conference in Jerusalem,” continued Barry. “The event spotlights the cultural aspects of the city and gives people from abroad a chance to experience this unique city.”
For Professor of Music David Levy of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the Beethoven conference was the incentive for his visit to Jerusalem.
“Beethoven finally brought me to Israel,” he joked. “I had always wanted to visit and this was an excellent opportunity to do so.
“The discussions that I am having with colleagues at this conference have been interesting and thought-provoking. There is so much to learn from Beethoven, yet for a long time this composer has been underrepresented in scholarly conferences. The world of Beethoven scholarship is slowly opening up.” Levy has been engaged in Beethoven scholarship since the 1970s and says that there is a wealth of knowledge to be gained from Beethoven.
“No other composer speaks to my intellect and soul in equal measure as Beethoven does with his music,” he told IJ. “Beethoven enables you to experience tears and laughter through listening to his music. It’s hard to verbalize the experience, but it is quite a spiritual one for me.”
Levy, who is the author of Beethoven: The Ninth Symphony, said that Beethoven’s music is something new for many of his college music students, despite the fact that he is widely respected as one of the world’s greatest composers (there is even a crater on planet Mercury named in Beethoven’s honor and the main-belt asteroid is known as 1815 Beethoven).
“It’s sad when students ask, ‘Who is Beethoven?’” he said. “Unfortunately, that is a common question. In the United States, public schools have placed much more emphasis on science and technology than they do on music. It’s a fight today to get classical music into mainstream education,” Levy explained.
Levy, like Barry, fell in love with the music of Beethoven at a young age.
“I grew up in New York City and my parents loved music. Thanks to my parents, I was exposed to classical music at a young age. Our family would go hear the New York Philharmonic play. Once as a young boy at Carnegie Hall, I heard Beethoven’s Violin Concerto.
From that point on, I knew I wanted to learn to play the violin, and took violin lessons.
“In college, I studied musical theory and scores and went on to make musicology my career, which I love. But musicology is not an easy profession in which to find a job,” he lamented.
Even people who are not scholars of Beethoven were able to appreciate the Jerusalem conference. Prof. Michal Linial, the director of the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies, which hosted the conference, explained that although she comes from the field of computational biology and neuroscience, she believes in finding bridges between fields.
“It’s an opportunity for me to learn something new about music; I find this conference an important platform to linking completely different fields.”
Founded in 1975, the Hebrew University’s Israel Institute for Advanced Studies provides an academic environment for scholarly research in a wide range of disciplines, bringing together scholars from around the world to engage in collaborative research projects.
Through the various conferences held at the institute and its advanced schools, international collaboration is also generated on a wide variety of research topics and fields.
Quoting Beethoven on the power of music, Linial told the conference participants that “music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge, which comprehends mankind, but which mankind cannot comprehend.”
“This conference is the essence of building bridges because music itself is an international language,” said Linial.