FROH, FROH, WIE DIE BEIDEN SONNEN FLIEGEN. Just in time for Beethoven's birthday, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra is performing the d minor, Op. 125 as part of the full symphony cycle (will there be recordings?) Some people don't like the "Turkish Music."

Beethoven bent, folded and mutilated Classical forms at will and worked at a megalomaniacal scale that led the way to Wagner. The raucous passage that opens and recurs in the finale came to be called the "horror fanfare" ("schreckensfanfare") even by its German admirers. Many commentators found the "Turkish" episode, with its cymbal and triangle, vulgar.

I like that section. It puts me in mind of a German drinking song, with a hint of oom-pah music from the contra-bassoon.