"A man in terror of impotence"

 

 Everybody comments on the assertive and heroic qualities of Beethoven’s music. Sometimes, especially in his symphonic climaxes, there is something a bit obsessive (Pieter van den Toorn has called it ‘crazy’) about his interminable, repeated downbeats,like a succession of hammer blows: the music goes bang, bang, bang,and occasionally you have to ask yourself why Beethoven insists on banging away like this. In effect, McClary hears the music going bonk, bonk, bonk, and she asks herself why Beethoven insists on . . . well, you get the point. To be sure, the terminology is a bit different; McClary talks about pounding, about pelvic thrusts, even about rape. (p108 music very short introduction)

 Susan McClary on Beethoven's Symphony #9

Adrienne Rich arrives at a remarkably similar reading of this composition in her poem "The Ninth Symphony of Beethoven Understood at Last as a Sexual Message:"

A man in terror of impotence

or infertility, not knowing the difference

a man trying to tell something

howling from the climacteric

muisic of the entirely

isolated soul

yelling at Joy from the tunnel of the ego

そうなのか？ 

・・・この解釈も・・・ある意味コントだよなああ。

 Susan McClary - The Beethoven and Rape Controversy