Speaking of who will be canceled sooner or later, from Vox:
How Beethoven’s 5th Symphony put the classism in classical music
To many, Beethoven’s most famous work is a symbol of exclusion and elitism in classical music.
By Nate Sloan and Charlie Harding on September 15, 2020 9:01 pm
Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony starts with an anguished opening theme — dun dun dun DUNNNN — and ends with a glorious, major-key melody. Since its 1808 premiere, audiences have interpreted that progression from struggle to victory as a metaphor for Beethoven’s personal resilience in the face of his oncoming deafness.
The famous first movement of the Fifth doesn’t do much for me, but the finale …
Or rather, that’s long been the popular read among wealthy white men who embraced Beethoven and turned his symphony into a symbol of their superiority and importance. For others — women, LGBTQ+ people, people of color — Beethoven’s symphony may be predominantly a reminder of classical music’s history of exclusion and elitism …
Today, some aspects of classical culture are still about policing who’s in and who’s out, and much of it started with Beethoven’s Fifth. When you walk into a standard concert hall, there’s an established set of conventions and etiquette (“don’t cough!”; “don’t cheer!”; “dress appropriately!”) that’s more about demonstrating belonging than appreciating the music.
As we all know, straight white men are obsessed with dressing appropriately and policing everybody else into dressing appropriately, unlike women, LGBTQ+s, and people of color. Whoever heard of a gay man or a straight woman or a person of color who was into dressing up?
Oh …
Well, here are 10,000 appropriately dressed people of color, no doubt some of them LGBTQ+-, having a blast with the 4th movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony:
For classical music critic James Bennett II, Beethoven’s popularity and centrality in classical culture is part of the problem. “As you perpetuate the idea that the giants of the music all look the same, it conveys to the other that there’s not a stake in that music for them,” he says.
After such knowledge — that the Fifth Symphony was composed by a white man — what forgiveness?
