I’ve just returned from seeing the movie Knowing, staring Nicolas Cage, which I felt was a fairly good (although depressing) film. I’m writing now, however, because I have never, and I mean never heard the Second Movement from Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony slaughtered as it was by the Sydney Studio Orchestra when it was played during at least two scenes in the movie. Without question, this movement is one of the all-time greatest pieces in the entire classical music repertoire and should be very familiar to anyone who is even remotely knowledgeable about music: its sublime, solemn, and absolute pure beauty. As I just walked in the door, I’ve got to admit that I have to listen to REAL recordings of it as the performance in the movie was ghastly (and that’s an understatement).

The performance was so horrible that I thought I’d see if anyone else had yet commented on it and, to my chagrin, I couldn’t find any reviews by real musicians, or even by genuine music aficionados. About all I could discover were assinine comments about the “famous funeral march” from Beethoven’s Seventh (sorry folks, but the 2nd movement ain’t no “funeral march”) – just how ignorant has the world become? One of the all-time great pieces of music is slaughtered, folks then refer to it as “funeral march,” and no one notices? Oh well, these are the same type of people who might think that the Mona Lisa on velvet would look great. 🙂