Charles Haimoff Lecture in German Studies

Beethoven’s Ninth at the Berlin Philharmonic, 1963

“The construction follows the image of a landscape,” architect Hans Scharoun explained at the 1963 consecration of the Berlin Philharmonie. “The auditorium is conceived as a valley, and at its floor, the orchestra resides, surrounded by the rising terraces of a vineyard.” The Philharmonie opening culminated in a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, conducted by Herbert von Karajan. Following Scharoun’s ideal of “organic architecture,” the hall’s vineyard design drew on sociopolitical ideas from the 1920s — ideas that also shaped the reception of Beethoven’s music. In this lecture, Stephen Hinton explores how architecture and music converged at that culturally charged moment in 1963, when both the building and the symphony were enlisted as symbols of a newly imagined democracy.