Española needs more Beethoven. Sometimes, to get things right, we have to try and try again. Never be willing to think that the first rendition is the best. We must be willing to sacrifice what we think is a perfect masterpiece for constant evaluation, change and adaptation.
That’s what Beethoven thought when he wrote perhaps the most well-known musical piece in world history, his “Fifth Symphony in C Minor.” You undoubtedly know the first four notes well. They are the introduction everyone uses for impending doom … tun tun tun tuuun … You know you’re in trouble and you’re going to get it.
The funny thing about music or songs is that we think the final version we hear is how the artist meant for it to sound, that each word or note came flowing from someone’s imagination all at once in one glorious stream of consciousness. That’s oftentimes how we think about our cities and communities, too. That they are the way they are now because of someone’s imagination and now we’re stuck with it.
Except that the stories we tell are alive. Our communities and our histories are like books; they are like poems, or pieces of music. They all start with a central theme and establish structure. They have a beginning where the story builds. The author introduces characters — some more complex than others. Some stay with us to the end, and other’s fruitfulness wanes.
But this is where Beethoven leads the example of how to change the course of history in two significant ways. One is through grace and the other is through the determined work of rewriting and re-thinking.
First, and this is rather obscure, but significant to me. Beethoven taps into the sublime by adjusting his music to the harmony of the golden ratio. In the first movement, there is a small but significant solo where the clouds lift and a clarinet comes up for air. It floats to the top of what feels like the chaos of a primordial swamp. It is soft, quiet and serene. It almost marks the beginning of the climax to the first movement and it does so at what is called the golden ratio.
At just about five minutes in (about 5 minutes and 20 seconds or so depending on the conductor, orchestra and recording), this marks about 2/3 of the movement.
The golden ratio is the beautiful mathematical expression of relations of about 2/3. It shows how two pieces of the same entity relate to each other in unity.
In nature, you find the mystery of the golden ratio in the proportion of seeds in a sunflower plant for example, or the way a seashell or snail’s shell grow from small to large in a circular pattern.
Leonardo da Vinci used it to model the human body. The golden ratio represents the world of perfect proportions in nature, mathematics and music. Beethoven tapped into the most recognizable relationship that our brains subconsciously absorb, which is what out societies and cities do. We build them from the inside out. We start with the family unit and build around it. From schools to protective services to social and economic engagements.
Yet Beethoven doesn’t stop there. He kept rewriting what could have been left alone. Leonard Bernstein, one of the greatest conductors of all time, studied Beethoven’s notes and found that he wrote 14 complete and different versions of the second movement over an eight-year period. We all know that good things come to those who wait, but perfection comes to those who adapt and change.
In one of his original versions, the music has the same build, tempo and tries to tell the same story. It sounds OK, but he played it safe. The repetition was yawn-inspiring.
The nature of this discarded sketch is so symmetrical that it seems static. It doesn’t seem to want to go anywhere. It doesn’t have mystery to it or the whispering promise of things to come as Leonard Bernstein puts it, “It gets stuck in its own repetitions. It just doesn’t build. Beethoven was first and foremost a builder.”
The City of Española needs Beethoven. It needs a builder. With the rough sketches of discarded politicians, we just intrude ourselves into the living flow of our own histories. It feels like we’re just standing in our own way, repeating what we know because we don’t know what’s next. Like a failed actor calling out his next line in the play, or when you just can’t wait for this chapter to end we’re left grasping, waiting to take flight.
Beethoven freed himself from the perfect symmetry of a seemingly good plot. He had all the right notes and it seemed good enough. But he kept at it. He reworked the notes, the tempo, the ending. We stand to learn to do the same and mold our history into something we can be proud of. We have great stories to tell. he best is yet to come. Don’t stand for good when you can get to great.
Javier Sanchez is a former Española mayor and El Rito Media investor.