Music for Meditation-Solti and Beethoven

By Mark George, President and CEO

A weekly recommendation of music for meditation. Find a comfortable chair or lie down, turn on a smart speaker or put in earbuds, and just listen.

This week Music for Meditation recommendation is the second movement of Beethoven’s 7th symphony. Marked Allegretto, the movement has a remarkable quality of combining repetition with constant evolution. It is the rhythm (long-short-short-long-long) that is repeated over and over, anchoring our perception, while melodies weave their way around it. Aspects of the evolution include alternations of loud and soft, minor mode and major mode, strings and wind instruments. Toward the end there is even a fugue. 

This is contemplative music, simple, yet touching a wide range of emotions. Just as the musical elements of dynamics, mode and instrumentation evolve, so does the mood.  Within the space of about 9 minutes, the music seems to express sadness, confidence, caring, determination, hope, and triumph. The performance is by Sir Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from a recording released in 1990.

Allegretto from Symphony No. 7, Op. 92 (1811-12)                         Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, conductor

Celebrated conductor Sir Georg Solti was born in Budapest in 1912. He studied piano and conducting with Bartók, Dohnányi and Kodály and was Toscanini’s assistant at the Salzburg Festival. Solti began his association with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Ravinia in 1954. He became Music Director in 1969 and led the orchestra for 22 years. Among his many honors are 31 Grammy Awards, honorary degrees from Oxford, Harvard, and Yale Universities, and the Dushkin Award from the Music Institute of Chicago in 1989.