How many of the Beethoven symphonies do you actually LIKE?

[Bryn]

The artist-hero of the century before last refuses to die!

But at least he was not ahead of his time.

[Alison]

Good posts Petrushka, Tevot, Jayne, Bryn and especially Ferneyhoughgeliebte!

[Nick Armstrong]

As Schoenberg said, there's still a lot of boring music to be written in B flat major.

[Petrushka]

Haydn’s Paris and London Symphonies were indeed famous in his lifetime, performed to great acclaim in the composer’s presence. They were undoubtedly (even if indirectly) an inspiration for Beethoven.
Why should such great artists as Mendelssohn, Schumann, Bruckner, and Brahms feel they had to dutifully compose a symphony to be taken seriously? More likely they were inspired to by Beethoven’s achievement; they could never have achieved their sounds and forms without the Beethoven before them, for imitation (in its broadest sense - love, learn, remake, remodel) and inspiration; and how very distinctively wonderful they all are.

If you call the 9th’s first three movements “unsuccessful” you really have to say something about why (especially in the light of the work’s huge and continuing popularity - its great and continuing success. Not just the finale’s popularity - How often do you see it actually programmed on its own? But this finale, or at least its big tune, is of course very popular in the wider culture, which is fascinating in itself; how do those who dislike it, or feel critical of it, feel about that?).

***

I would absolutely describe the 9 Symphonies as a pinnacle of musical and symphonic art: historically, for those who know their Haydn and their Mozart, they have a frequent extremity about them, an expressive and emotional range and intensity from deepest tragedy to euphoric joy, a sheerly physical power, energy and dynamism (and often a scale) that is very new and very original; perhaps suggested in the later more expansive works of his predecessors (who were following their own distinctly classical paths in any case and are not to be seen as mere precedents - and such expressive instances as the thematic breakdown in the middle of Mozart's 40th's finale are very exceptional); but as fhg exemplified about the introduction to No.1 (despite a possible precedent in the adagio of Haydn's Symphony No.57), Beethoven heads off in his own startling direction from the outset.
All 9 symphonies are very distinct and especially from the Eroica on, all create their own unique musical and vividly imaginative world (often as if each one is a response to, even a critique of, the one before). Of course music couldn’t be the same again, and it’s surely not only symphonic composers who felt, and were inspired by, their influence.

I truly believe that they have the status and fame and position in past and present musical history precisely because of their “actual content” - their artistic quality: their inspiration, intensity, haunting memorability, physical power and excitement; their creation of emotional worlds and imaginative visions, of musical mythologies whether of Pastoral or Fate or The Apotheosis of The Dance - in short their power to move, as apparent in a listening room, or from a table radio, or in a car, as in a concert hall.

Post of the year so far.

Not mentioned up to this point has been the fact that Beethoven created his greatest works under the hammerblow of virtual total deafness. Would the symphonies (since that is what we are discussing) have been much different had he had perfect hearing or was his 'mind's ear' sufficient?

[Once Was 4]

Post of the year so far.

Not mentioned up to this point has been the fact that Beethoven created his greatest works under the hammerblow of virtual total deafness. Would the symphonies (since that is what we are discussing) have been much different had he had perfect hearing or was his 'mind's ear' sufficient?

I have seen the contrabassoon, bassoon and bassdrum notes at the start of the 6/8 Alla Marcia in the last movement quoted as something that Beethoven would not have written if he was not deaf. This is surely daft: to me he knew exactly what he was doing - the military are coming and banishing all those thoughts of brotherhood. In fact war and the talk of war is a theme which runs through this symphony. It would be interesting to know how many soldiers were at the first performance whilst travelling through Vienna to and from wars.

[Bryn]

Post of the year so far.

Not mentioned up to this point has been the fact that Beethoven created his greatest works under the hammerblow of virtual total deafness. Would the symphonies (since that is what we are discussing) have been much different had he had perfect hearing or was his 'mind's ear' sufficient?

My understanding is that of his symphonies, only the ninth was composed after his hearing loss became serious enough the prevent him hearing the music at all.

[Petrushka]

I have seen the contrabassoon, bassoon and bassdrum notes at the start of the 6/8 Alla Marcia in the last movement quoted as something that Beethoven would not have written if he was not deaf. This is surely daft: to me he knew exactly what he was doing - the military are coming and banishing all those thoughts of brotherhood. In fact war and the talk of war is a theme which runs through this symphony. It would be interesting to know how many soldiers were at the first performance whilst travelling through Vienna to and from wars.

I think (can't check at the moment) that the first performance of the 7th symphony was given in aid of wounded soldiers.

[Petrushka]

My understanding is that of his symphonies, only the ninth was composed after his hearing loss became serious enough the prevent him hearing the music at all.

I'll have to check all this out again. Slightly OT, Is there a definitive biography of Beethoven out there that can stand with eg Norman del Mar's Strauss as the one to go for? I have Lewis Lockwood's which seems to be as good as I can find.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I have seen the contrabassoon, bassoon and bassdrum notes at the start of the 6/8 Alla Marcia in the last movement quoted as something that Beethoven would not have written if he was not deaf. This is surely daft

Especially as that is exactly how that instrumental combination was used at the start of the Turkish March adapted for the Incidental Music to The Ruins of Athens from 1809.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The "Turkish" or "Janissary" nature of the scoring/style at this point of the Movement stirkes me not as suggesting that militarism overpowers the hopes for "joy", but that the peoples of other religious faiths are included as part of "Heaven's glorious plan" (the "Himmels prächt'gen Plan" of the verse at this point). But there you go ...

[Serial_Apologist]

Having just now listened to the Eroica in the Clutyens/Berlin Phil version I have on Classics for Pleasure* leads me to corroborate the thought hinted at several posts above to the effect that the ideal performance is the one that brings out the best in the composer's intentions. Here the wonderful clarity with which the multiple thematic strands introduced with a rapidity foreshadowing what Schoenberg would achieve with the condensed exposition to his Kammersymphone No 1 precisely a century later, open the work, engages and primes the attention for what is to come unlike any other Beethoven performance I have encountered. What a magnificent work this is! - probably my favourite of the symphonies now: everything the composer says in it is sufficient and not overstated, and the sense of follow through, in this performance at any rate, keeps the listener gripped to the extent of making that first movement seem to fly by, so that it is over seemingly in less than half the twelve minutes it actually takes. The build up of the slow movement fugue proceeds with measured yet powerful senstivity to its soft dénouement, to be followed by the joyful scherzo 'n' trio and relief of a finale that lacks any of the hectoring tone that can mar some of the middle period music, such as the Appassionato, for this, um, very particular listener.

*I bought this a year ago in my local flea pit market. On it was a WH Smiths price sticker for £1.20 - which was what I actually paid!

[Darkbloom]

I'll have to check all this out again. Slightly OT, Is there a definitive biography of Beethoven out there that can stand with eg Norman del Mar's Strauss as the one to go for? I have Lewis Lockwood's which seems to be as good as I can find.

I thought somebody would have replied, but as they haven't I might as well jump in. I enjoyed the biography by Jan Swafford, which was recommended on here a while ago. It is written from a composer's perspective, and there is plenty of musical analysis, but it felt quite accessible. The 'definitive' biography is probably still the one by Irving Thayer, which I have not yet read. It has the reputation of being exhaustive, but I don't know how readable that makes it. Perhaps somebody else can comment on that.

[Bryn]

I thought somebody would have replied, but as they haven't I might as well jump in. I enjoyed the biography by Jan Swafford, which was recommended on here a while ago. It is written from a composer's perspective, and there is plenty of musical analysis, but it felt quite accessible. The 'definitive' biography is probably still the one by Irving Thayer, which I have not yet read. It has the reputation of being exhaustive, but I don't know how readable that makes it. Perhaps somebody else can comment on that.

"Irving"? "Alexander Wheelock", surely?

[kernelbogey]

OK, likes:

I think the Eroica is one of the greatest of all symphonies, perhaps the greatest. I like it so much I prefer not to hear it too frequently, lest my listening stale.

I have loved the seventh since in my teens buying an LP cond Rowicki who did interesting things with the slow movement, much praised by 'TH' (Trevor Harvey?) in the Gramophone at the time. I sometimes think of Wagner dancing to Liszt's piano.

The eighth, since hearing the Scherchen recording with madcap finale tempo.

The sixth, albeit I have sometimes deliberately used it as a soporific . Although I'm fully aware of all its movements, it often feels like one continuous rhapsody.

I don't really like the ninth, as I don't feel the last movement works in the context of the whole work. But I usually enjoy the first movement.

The canon seems to me one of the pinnacles of Western art.

[vinteuil]

The canon seems to me one of the pinnacles of Western art.

... the fugue's not bad, neither


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