Hegel: Dialectic Made Easy
Excerpts from the Lexicon of Musical Invective by Nicolas Slonimsky
1. "Die Zweite Symphonie ist ein krasses Ungeheur, ein angestochener, sich unbänding windender Lindwurm, der nicht ersterben will und selbst verblutend im Finale moch mit aufgerecktem Schweife wütend um sich schlägt." (Zeitung fŸr die Elegente Welt, Vienna, May, 1804)
2. "The whole orchestral part of Beethoven's 9th Symphony I found very wearying indeed. Several times I had great difficulty in keeping awake... It was a great relief when the choral part was arrived at, of which I had great expectations. It opened with eight bars of a commonplace theme, very much like Yankee Doodle... As for this part of the famous Symphony, I regret to say that it appeared to be made up of the strange, the ludicrous, the abrupt, the ferocious, and the screechy, with the slightest possible admixture, here and there, of an intelligible melody. As for following the words printed in the program, it was quite out of the question, and what all the noise was about, it was hard to form any idea. The general impression it left on me is that of a concert made up of Indian war-whoops, and angry wildcats." (The Orchestra, London, June 20, 1868)
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