Beethoven Symphony Cycles

[cloughie]

What's wrong with people on these boards - I think I've heard it all now. Another Jonny Mac moment. Beethoven's symphonies (apart from the 9th finale, which I can do without) are all great, all weave their own magic. They were the works from which I learned what proper music was about. They were the works that Scared Brahms into thinking he'd never be able to write a Symphony. Surely the Eroica was the first 'big' symphony! Is there a symphonic movement more beautiful than 2.2?

[Beef Oven!]

What's wrong with people on these boards - I think I've heard it all now. Another Jonny Mac moment. Beethoven's symphonies (apart from the 9th finale, which I can do without) are all great, all weave their own magic. They were the works from which I learned what proper music was about. They were the works that Scared Brahms into thinking he'd never be able to write a Symphony. Surely the Eroica was the first 'big' symphony! Is there a symphonic movement more beautiful than 2.2?

Indeed. When I awoke this thread from it's almost 7 months' slumber in the small hours of the morning 2 days ago with post #118, I had no idea it would lead to heresy, blasphemy and sacrilege. Some people (you know who you are) should be so ashamed.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think all of the symphonies are extraordinary except for No. 1, which is merely very good.

An opinion often expressed - but which doesn't actually stand up to careful scrutiny.

Such as the entirely successful and original use of tonality in the work - nobody had presented C major in as subtle and elliptical way as Beethoven does at the start of the Symphony. Most commentators point out the obvious and least interesting feature - that it begins with a "wrong" dominant seventh, or "in the 'wrong key'". Well, yes, but the sequence of cadences at the start is the point: secondary dominants of F major, G major and an imperfect cadence in C (thus presenting A minor before the eventual Tonic). So the Tonality is made clear by stating not the tonic chord, but the two other primary triads and the relative minor. C major isn't heard, but these triads establish the key just as securely - with these chords, the central Tonality can "only" be C major.

Plus the general avoidance of the Tonic in the rest of the Introduction: only (IIRC) four C major triads appear, and two of those are in first inversion, one in second inversion: just one in root position. AND how this is balanced at the end of the movement with twenty-two bars of nothing BUT a C major chord.

AND how, once the Exposition begins, just when we might be expecting the key to settle down, Beethoven moves away from it with a shift from C major to D minor, and then again to a G7 statement: there is very little C major activity in these first bars. AND how Beethoven connects the events of the Introduction with the harmonic motion of the First Group - and how he makes this clear through instrumentation: the top flute concludes the Intro with a leading note and the second flute on the seventh of the chord below it(B and F - the highest sounds in this chord: nobody else plays these notes at this register) which resolves onto the Tonic and Third (C and E). The chromatic shift to D minor is signalled by the Flutes keeping in this register - the first one continues the chromatic line initiated by the B - C, with a C# moving to D. AND the point of this is that this is an echo of the use of the Flutes at the very start of the piece: in bar one, E and Bb (in the high flute register) moves to F and A, with the first flute continuing the chromatic ascent in bar three by going on to F# and G. The Flute timbre and registration establishes a(nother) link between the opening of the Introduction and the opening of the Exposition.

AND when we reach the transition section, which is where a move away from the Tonic would be expected. Instead, Beethoven begins with a theme based (for the first time) on a broken C major triad, then suggests movement from the home key, but negates this and ends the Transition on an imperfect cadence IN C MAJOR - and then just continues with the Second Group in G major, as if there had been an orthodox tonicisation of the Dominant. EXCEPT that in the Recapitulation - where the retransition is expected to keep the Tonality around the Tonic for the Second Group, Beethoven instead writes a completely new, chromatic section which does move away from the Tonic, and does suggest a movement towards a different key centre - only to continue the Second Group recap in the Tonic. In other words, Beethoven puts the conventions of the Exposition instead into the Recap, and vice versa - this is cubism!

AND the way the Transition of the Second Movement repeats (in F major) this process of non-modulation; ending with an imperfect cadence and then plumping on regardless with the second group in the expected Dominant. (Which is C major - so, the Tonic of the work).

AND (in the First Movement) the slump from G major to G minor in the 'celli & Bass theme in the middle of the Second Group. AND the superb orchestration of the first theme of the Second Group - of the whole work, in fact.

AND the start(le) of the Development with a sudden leap to A major - the "conventional" descent through a cycle of Fifths right down to the point where C major would be reached, then (picking up on the "slump" to the minor in the middle of the Second Group) moving instead to C minor. And the rising "scale" of tonalities - which lead eventually ... to the WRONG Dominant Seventh! (To get back to C major for the Recap, we need G7: Beethoven lands on E7. Commentators again often point out the obvious - "This is the 'wrong' chord" - but don't connect it to what's already happened tonally: this is the V7 of the A major that opened the Development - in the wrong place. Structure is turned upside-down yet again.

AND the fugue that isn't a Fugue that opens the Second Movement. AND the Minuet that isn't a Minuet in the Third.

AND it's all so bloody JOYFUL, and impudent: the tongue in cheek sleight-of-hand switching E7 to G7 for the Recapitulation - Tommy Cooper getting the trick right just when we thought he was going to keep failing to do it right. It's clear that Beethoven was a master of comic timing in this work: but he uses comedy to distract from the subversive essence of the work.

The point is that Beethoven didn't suddenly become a Great Symphonist with the Eroica (or with the Second) - his first Symphonic essay is already a formidable product of a superior Musical brain in full command both of what it wants to do and how it can do this. We miss the full significance of the even greater achievement that is the Eroica if we don't realize the astonishing achievements (way beyond "merely very good") of the First.

[ostuni]

What a superb post! Many thanks, fhg - I look forward to getting out the score, putting on the Krivine, and greatly adding to my understanding of the movement later today.

[Alison]

Yes, you have surpassed yourself Ferns.

I have long had a special fondness for the first. What opportunities for the woodwind to shine.

Were I auditioning for timpani (iv) would be one of my test pieces.

[robk]

I can’t manage a virtuoso performance to match that of Ferney. I don’t play an instrument and have no musical training, but in my teens when I discovered the Beethoven symphonies it was cataclysmic, life changing and wonderful. When I finally amassed a set of records of them all I often played the lot through on Saturday mornings after Record Review. You don’t get that initial thrill back, but with time they become like old friends, still with the ability to surprise and delight. One of the great things about music is that you can feel what is happening with the tonality without having the skills to analyse it. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy the analysis when those with the ability lead me through it. I have just received the Harnoncourt Anniversary set to replace my iTunes download (low res and no longer playable on a PC with MediaMonkey because of the m4p format). I will enjoy listening all the more after the enthusiastic comments on this thread, especially to 'the first'.

[Richard Barrett]

What's wrong with people on these boards - I think I've heard it all now. Another Jonny Mac moment. Beethoven's symphonies (apart from the 9th finale, which I can do without) are all great, all weave their own magic. They were the works from which I learned what proper music was about. They were the works that Scared Brahms into thinking he'd never be able to write a Symphony. Surely the Eroica was the first 'big' symphony! Is there a symphonic movement more beautiful than 2.2?

I wonder if it's possible for people to get into their heads that even Beethoven's symphonies don't appeal to everyone?

Also, FG, I'm quite aware of all the brilliant things he does with harmony and structure; going back to my first contribution to this thread, it's the sound I find offputting. Sound as such is very important to me. The sound of Beethoven's symphonies doesn't affect me in the way the sound of his late quartets and piano sonatas does. I'm not trying to argue that there's something wrong with Beethoven's symphonies, I'm trying to give an honest and considered reaction to them. It hardly seems worth bothering when all people seem to react with is "no you're mistaken, it's all so wonderful."

[Alison]

Your views are always very interesting Richard, keep them coming please!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Also, FG, I'm quite aware of all the brilliant things he does with harmony and structure; going back to my first contribution to this thread, it's the sound I find offputting. Sound as such is very important to me. The sound of Beethoven's symphonies doesn't affect me in the way the sound of his late quartets and piano sonatas does. I'm not trying to argue that there's something wrong with Beethoven's symphonies, I'm trying to give an honest and considered reaction to them. It hardly seems worth bothering when all people seem to react with is "no you're mistaken, it's all so wonderful."

My comments in #153 were sparked by kea's comment, not your own - those in #150 were in response not to your comment that in general I would say his treatment of the orchestra is less radical than his treatment of string quartet or piano. Your response to the sound of the Beethoven orchestra isn't something I can comment upon (other than a basic "my reaction is very different") but the fact of his radically new attitude to the orchestra can be presented in terms that, avoiding expressions such as "it's all so wonderful", demonstrate that it it is as radical an achievement in sound matching what he achieved with the Piano and String Quartet.

Aside from the liberation of the wind band that his contemporaries noticed, there's also the widening of the orchestral compass by the addition of piccolo and contrabassoon; the augmentation of orchestral timbre by adding trombones and an extra horn (or two) when the sound called for it. There's the separation of Double Basses from the 'cello line and the greater call on virtuoso playing from the lower strings than is found in Haydn and Mozart. Second violins have a greater independent contribution to the sound of the orchestra than before. And that - err - wonderful orchestral effect created when string pizzications are combined with sustained wind chords - as at the openings of the First Symphony (forgot to mention - it was late last night) and the Fourth. The Timpani are used for thematic purposes, not just rhythmic support of the home key, supporting the trumpets (with Haydn & Mozart, when you hear the Timps, you know you're in or approaching the home key - with Beethoven the player is required to retune the drums during a piece, for - I believe, the first time.) There are Timpani solos for the first time in the repertoire - every aspect of the orchestra becomes individualised and democratised.

OK - I get that you don't like the resulting sounds: but that doesn't negate the originality and radical nature of Beethoven's orchestral timbres. As you have commented on Alpie's Nineteenth Century response to Bach's tierce de picardie, are you not in danger of downplaying/overlooking the radical use of the orchestra that immediately struck Beethoven's contemporaries when they first heard the works? (And for some time afterwards, if Berlioz's reactions to hearing the Beethoven orchestra are to be taken as typical.)

Anyroadup - get yersel'n a set of the Krivine or van Immerseel Beethoven: radical performances of radical sounds.

[Sir Velo]

Your views are always very interesting Richard, keep them coming please!

Yes, RB follows in a long line of noted musicians who have found Beethoven's symphonies too rumbustious for their tastes: viz Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Britten

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Your views are always very interesting Richard, keep them coming please!

... I don't so much feel that I'm arguing with RB as using his comments to hone my own ideas; finding the words to express feelings and reactions I've held "instinctively" (via my education, of course) for decades.

[vinteuil]

Anyroadup - get yersel'n a set of the Krivine or van Immerseel Beethoven: radical performances of radical sounds.

... the wisest of words.

It was HIPP - and in this case particularly Krivine - which allowed me to 'hear' a Beethoven orchestral sound that - to me - made sense, and was not the vulgar overblown blowsy noise which Big Band Beethoven had always seemed (to me, to me... ) to be.

[HighlandDougie]

It hardly seems worth bothering when all people seem to react with is "no you're mistaken, it's all so wonderful."

Ditto to Alison's comment. Your posts had me spend yesterday thinking, puzzling and listening (to Harnoncourt, Karajan and Immerseel) - and then wondering how changing the instrumentation would change the sound (it was the 4th and 5th symphonies) and thereby the character of one's experience listening to the music. I didn't come to any conclusion and had to go and cut the grass but it was a genuinely stimulating two or three hours for which I am, for one, in your debt.

[verismissimo]

An opinion often expressed - but which doesn't actually stand up to careful scrutiny.

Such as the entirely successful and original use of tonality in the work - nobody had presented C major in as subtle and elliptical way as Beethoven does at the start of the Symphony. Most commentators point out the obvious and least interesting feature - that it begins with a "wrong" dominant seventh, or "in the 'wrong key'". Well, yes, but the sequence of cadences at the start is the point: secondary dominants of F major, G major and an imperfect cadence in C (thus presenting A minor before the eventual Tonic). So the Tonality is made clear by stating not the tonic chord, but the two other primary triads and the relative minor. C major isn't heard, but these triads establish the key just as securely - with these chords, the central Tonality can "only" be C major.

Plus the general avoidance of the Tonic in the rest of the Introduction: only (IIRC) four C major triads appear, and two of those are in first inversion, one in second inversion: just one in root position. AND how this is balanced at the end of the movement with twenty-two bars of nothing BUT a C major chord.

AND how, once the Exposition begins, just when we might be expecting the key to settle down, Beethoven moves away from it with a shift from C major to D minor, and then again to a G7 statement: there is very little C major activity in these first bars. AND how Beethoven connects the events of the Introduction with the harmonic motion of the First Group - and how he makes this clear through instrumentation: the top flute concludes the Intro with a leading note and the second flute on the seventh of the chord below it(B and F - the highest sounds in this chord: nobody else plays these notes at this register) which resolves onto the Tonic and Third (C and E). The chromatic shift to D minor is signalled by the Flutes keeping in this register - the first one continues the chromatic line initiated by the B - C, with a C# moving to D. AND the point of this is that this is an echo of the use of the Flutes at the very start of the piece: in bar one, E and Bb (in the high flute register) moves to F and A, with the first flute continuing the chromatic ascent in bar three by going on to F# and G. The Flute timbre and registration establishes a(nother) link between the opening of the Introduction and the opening of the Exposition.

AND when we reach the transition section, which is where a move away from the Tonic would be expected. Instead, Beethoven begins with a theme based (for the first time) on a broken C major triad, then suggests movement from the home key, but negates this and ends the Transition on an imperfect cadence IN C MAJOR - and then just continues with the Second Group in G major, as if there had been an orthodox tonicisation of the Dominant. EXCEPT that in the Recapitulation - where the retransition is expected to keep the Tonality around the Tonic for the Second Group, Beethoven instead writes a completely new, chromatic section which does move away from the Tonic, and does suggest a movement towards a different key centre - only to continue the Second Group recap in the Tonic. In other words, Beethoven puts the conventions of the Exposition instead into the Recap, and vice versa - this is cubism!

AND the way the Transition of the Second Movement repeats (in F major) this process of non-modulation; ending with an imperfect cadence and then plumping on regardless with the second group in the expected Dominant. (Which is C major - so, the Tonic of the work).

AND (in the First Movement) the slump from G major to G minor in the 'celli & Bass theme in the middle of the Second Group. AND the superb orchestration of the first theme of the Second Group - of the whole work, in fact.

AND the start(le) of the Development with a sudden leap to A major - the "conventional" descent through a cycle of Fifths right down to the point where C major would be reached, then (picking up on the "slump" to the minor in the middle of the Second Group) moving instead to C minor. And the rising "scale" of tonalities - which lead eventually ... to the WRONG Dominant Seventh! (To get back to C major for the Recap, we need G7: Beethoven lands on E7. Commentators again often point out the obvious - "This is the 'wrong' chord" - but don't connect it to what's already happened tonally: this is the V7 of the A major that opened the Development - in the wrong place. Structure is turned upside-down yet again.

AND the fugue that isn't a Fugue that opens the Second Movement. AND the Minuet that isn't a Minuet in the Third.

AND it's all so bloody JOYFUL, and impudent: the tongue in cheek sleight-of-hand switching E7 to G7 for the Recapitulation - Tommy Cooper getting the trick right just when we thought he was going to keep failing to do it right. It's clear that Beethoven was a master of comic timing in this work: but he uses comedy to distract from the subversive essence of the work.

The point is that Beethoven didn't suddenly become a Great Symphonist with the Eroica (or with the Second) - his first Symphonic essay is already a formidable product of a superior Musical brain in full command both of what it wants to do and how it can do this. We miss the full significance of the even greater achievement that is the Eroica if we don't realize the astonishing achievements (way beyond "merely very good") of the First.

So you quite like it, ferney. Me too.

[ahinton]

Your views are always very interesting Richard, keep them coming please!

I second that. I happen not to agree with a fair amount of what he writes about the Beethoven symphonies and his response to them, but then if he'd not posted his thoughts about that I wouldn't even know that I do disagree! Where I do find myself on the same page with his views, however, is with the piano writing (especially in the later sonatas) and in the last five quartets where I think that there can be no doubt that he took each medium even farther than he took the orchestral one. In the late piano music, the influence upon Schumann, Liszt and Alkan - and to a lesser extent Schubert - is palpable and it seems clear to me that one aspect of his means of expression in those works is the kind of pioneering spirit that looks forward to significant developments in piano design as a consequence of the demands that he places on the instrument (not to mention the performer!); the last five quartets are so utterly remarkable and to some extent unprecedented even in his own earlier quartet writing that they sound as though they come from a different age and world from anything else in the quartet repertoire up to and indeed long after their composition.