> Not that Beethoven was known for melody. As every Adorno student
> knows, he was all about development. But what about that Turkish military
> march in the middle of an ode to joy?
Central Europe dressing itself up in Ottoman garb (though Beethoven was allergic to the fluffier Orientalisms typical of, say, Bizet).
Actually, the entire Ode is a gigantic contradiction. It's a simple cadence, which shouldn't be interesting. The artistry is in the layers of sound, as one bank of instruments plays the theme, handing it off to another, like a gigantic recreation of the global shock-waves of the French Revolution. But the core is a Hegelian absence: there's no revolutionary subject (nor could there be one, in the tiny, fragmented German principalities not yet become a nation-state). It's an anthem which negates the national anthem.
-- DRR