This choreographic interpretation of Beethoven’s masterpiece has no concept, goal or theme other than the music it encompasses, the music that nourishes it, and is in fact its unique “raison d’être”. The dancers simply follow the languid wanderings of the composer, meandering from dread to joy, from shadow to light. In its refusal to stick closely to the score, this is not a ballet in the general sense of the term but a profound human participation in a masterpiece that belongs to the whole mankind, and is not only played and sung here, but is danced, as were the Greek tragedies of Antiquity and primitive religious rites.

Maurice Béjart