by Adam, Philadelphia, PA

Normally I strenuously object to the inclusion in XPN’s countdowns of music that is off-format and would never be played on the station. Not only is it hopelessly pretentious, but the rating becomes hopelessly skewed, because most people have too much good sense to go ahead and vote for a towering giant such as Mozart or Bach on a countdown for a popular music station.

With that being said, from the perspective of a catalog of historical moments, nobody is trying to pretend that the output of a Mahler should be compared to the Sex Pistols, and the lasting cultural impact of what were once memorable moments will tend to attenuate over time, even where the music itself endures. (Because people will, without a doubt, still be talking about the greatness of John Mayer in 150 years, right?) Anyway, in attempting to pull away from the rant I’ve been stewing over since last year: One towering moment in music history is the debut of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony in Vienna in 1824. Similar to what Bob Dylan accomplished in London in 1966, Beethoven stunned the audience by transporting the performance of music into languages and realms that had simply not been considered previously.

In the space of about an hour he shattered virtually every musical convention in existence while still staying (barely) within the traditional forms of the sonata and symphony. He stood on the stage beating time with his staff while completely deaf, and had to be turned around to see the audience so that he could gauge the enthusiasm of their response.

The premiere of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony pretty much closed the door forever on the classical era in music and opened the floodgates of romanticism. There has been very little fundamental change, certainly on a similar scale, since then.