Beethoven 4 Cinematographer Pulindu Weerasekara

Beethoven….

What is the first thing most people hear? Da-Da-Da-Dum
Beethoven - Symphony No. 5 opening (42 conductors + 1 pianist)
   • Beethoven - Symphony No. 5 opening (4...  

Beethoven's Fifth: The World's Most Famous Symphony



But what is the most unpopular symphony that Beethoven composed?

Many say it his Fourth.

It was for me until a 14-year-old student violinist motivated me to study it further.



As some of you know, for the 39 years of teaching high school orchestra, my greatest pleasure has always been getting teenagers excited about playing scales and reading through every movement of all 9 symphonies of Beethoven every year. During the spring of 2014, a freshman violinist in the 9th grade orchestra at Great North High confessed to me that she looked forward to the fall when we would read through the Beethoven 9 again so she could play her favorite: the Fourth.



Beethoven’s Fourth is someone’s favorite? This brought back a strong memory from my music history class at Mannes College in the fall of 1975. Professor Charles Kaufman asked the class if anyone did not know all Beethoven 9 symphonies. Sheepishly, I raised my hand. “You don’t know all his symphonies? Which ones don’t you know?” he asked me with an incredulous tone. “Four,” I replied. Quickly, Kaufman barked, “Well, listen to it----TODAY!” Then he paused. A few seconds later, he spoke with a measured tone, “I envy you. I WISH that there was a Beethoven symphony that I never heard, so that I could have the experience of hearing it for the first time.”

Well, I did listen to it a few times. And when I started having my students read through all 9, I appreciated the fourth more…but it wasn’t until this youngster said it was her favorite did I realize how great Symphony No. 4 is.

And thanks to the generosity of my friend, Joseph Tamosaitis (the Stuyvesant HS Orchestra Teacher, professional bassist who performed with the NY Philharmonic and the Met Opera Orchestra) and his supervisor Liliya Shamazov, they share their students with me to satisfy my urge to introduce the 9 symphonies to teenagers who care about playing great music.

Turns out that this 14-year-old violinist graduated high school to become a music major at Oberlin and is now a grad student at Columbia nine years later. I sent her an invitation to sit in with a high school orchestra downtown when they would be playing Beethoven’s Fourth. She got on the subway with her violin and showed up last Thursday to sit in the back of the violin section of musicians 8 or 9 years younger than she. It was a dream come true for me to see a former student still motivated to go out of her way (being a grad student at Columbia University doesn’t give one much leisure time) to play a symphony that she learned to love in Room 218 at Great Neck North High.



The students at Stuyvesant were awestruck that a 25-year-old grad student would sit in with teenagers just to play her violin with others. I think they realized what gold they have. You can’t walk into a department store (or even go online) to buy an ensemble of musicians to play your instrument with for 40 minutes. And they get to do this every day!



Thanks to Cinematographer Pulindu Weerasekara (also an outstanding composer), here is a glimpse at teenagers learning how Symphony No. 4 goes when a veteran student violinist inspires them from within.