A couple of big blogs recently highlighted a clip of the Muppets doing Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s Ninth. It’s cute, and I was hardly surprised that the video logged 3.6 million views on YouTube.
Not far behind, at 3.2 million views, is a long video showing Herbert Von Karajan leading a live performance of Beethoven’s Ninth. The fact that Karajan, one of the world’s best-known conductors, lags behind a bunch of puppets is unfortunate, no doubt. But it’s also heartening in some ways. It tells me that high culture is still competing for an audience. So here it goes. Karajan in action:
(You can get Part 2 here, and we’ve added both clips to our YouTube Favorites. Also you can find more vintage Beethoven/Karajan footage in this guy’s video collection.)
Try adding “&fmt=18” to normal Youtube URLs (“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpcUxwpOQ_A&fmt=18” to see the movie in high quality.
-F.