Henry and I spent a good hour reading through Beethoven's 4-hand transcription of the 9th Symphony; an incredible way of releasing stress, vocally as well, in bad German.

What is it about classical music's obsession with ancient Greek mythology that somehow, every composer finds a method to allegorically summarize some aspect of life through a Greek program. Even when Nietzsche attempted to simplistically codify all of music into a yin/yang dichotomy, his preference for vernacular still ended up being referred to as the "Dionysian" and "Apollonian". Why? Are we so lost for literary material that programmatic music must fall into one culture?

I'm quite sure that Beethoven wasn't at all thinking about the tragedy of Orpheus when he wrote his fourth piano concerto, yet the slow movement will always be linked to his romance with Eurydice - all because it 'coincidentally' resembles the tale; leave out the fact that Beethoven would probably roll over in his grave at the thought of somebody else programmatizing his own music which by nature, was meant to be absolute.

As a contemporary musician, I'm forced to think in a contemporary way - the next 'great' symphony I'm forced to analyze for a class, I bet I could find a way to relate to it to Tupac's east/west controversy with Biggie, and that fateful romance with Faith.

"That's why I fucked your bitch, you fat motherfucker."
- Tupac Shakur