The Memory About Skopje and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9

Abstract

In 2013, the International Skopje Summer Festival (founded in 1980) was traditionally opened on June 21, the World Day of Music, with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. The opening ceremony had a symbolic message: the performance of the symphony marked the 50th anniversary of the devastating earthquake in Skopje in 1963. This musical event was the starting-point of the research which is aimed at presenting a contemporary redefinition of Beethoven’s musical legacy and to analyze the meaning of the composition in the context of memory about a particular urban environment. At the same time the primary topic for analysis was expanded with the recent cultural-political project titled “Skopje 2014,” realized in the last decade, with purpose to obtain a more dynamical level of discussion that marks the relationship between music and memory in the urban history of Skopje.