From Benita Bendon Campbell back on 11/1, a joyous diversion from painful times (“Something funny, we need something funny”): Rowan Atkinson playing “distinguished British baritone” Robert Bennington singing the Ode to Joy … until things go awry and he has to improvise a German text to Beethoven’s soaring tune. You can watch the YouTube video here.
And now, much more detail, from the Classic FM site (“the most relaxing music”), “The time Rowan Atkinson ‘forgot’ the words to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in hilarious skit” by Maddy Shaw Roberts on 5/11/21:
The Ode’s progress (picture: YouTube)
When a fictitious baritone took on the work of a classical giant – and it all went terribly wrong.
Here’s the moment Rowan Atkinson hit a nerve with every choral singer on the face of the earth, with a hilarious skit in which he misplaces the lyrics to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
Under the alias of “distinguished British baritone” Robert Bennington, Atkinson cues the glorious choral ‘Ode to Joy’ finale, Beethoven’s famous setting of German poet Friedrich Schiller’s text.
Atkinson’s baritone character launches into the anthem of the European Union, annunciating the triumphant poem with fervour. But at the end of the first verse, disaster strikes, and he realises he has forgotten the rest of his sheet music.
Left with no other option but to wing it, the baritone panics and begins to spout randomly combined German words.
And so, Beethoven and Schiller’s immortal vision of the human race becoming brothers, slowly descends into a shambolic melting pot of apple strudels and lederhosen.
Bennington’s improvisations, from the point where he departs from Schiller’s poem as adapted by Beethoven, on to the bitter end:
Berlin Hamburg Schumacher
Lala lala Baden Baden
Lederhosen – schnell schnell schnell
Ja Ja Nein Nein Apfelstrudel
Hofmeister und Holsten Pils
Achtung Liebfraumilch im Porsche
Umpa Vorsprung durch Technik
Donner und Blitzen britischer Architekt
Schweinhund Dummkopf
Ein Bier bitte
Jürgen Klinsmann ist kaput
Boris Becker Himmel BUM BUM
Ich bin ein Berliner
Lala hol’ in Kindergarten,
Glühwein wo ist sein Skipass
Edelweiss singt captain Von Trapp
Dankeschön – Auf Wiedersehn… Pet
Like a true Englishman, Bennington cannot cope with the unrounded front vowels ü and ö, and produces their rounded English counterparts instead.
Leave a Reply