Beethoven's 8th Symphony: Your Opinions

[Maclintick]

Indeed (& thanks!). I don't think all this enthusiasm is going to convince Conchis though...

Pace Conchis, there is one passage in LVB 8 which almost ruined my formative appreciation of the work -- an enthusiastic but consistently flat (amateur) bassoonist here...
[IMG][/IMG]

[Once Was 4]

Ah Wellington's Victory! I was roped in to a performance of this where the conductor had a row with the trumpet section in the rehearsal, walked off and went home! A phone call was made to the conductor concerned "you will be back tonight will not you?" The answer was "no" so three members of the orchestra took a work each (including Beethoven's 5th) and took the concert to great acclaim. If only, if only!!!!

[alycidon]

This is my least favourite Beethoven symphony, by some considerable distance. Whenever I listen to it (which I did, for the first time in years, last week), I ask myself two questions:

1) why did he bother?

and

2) what - if anything - was he trying to prove?

I'm not sure whether I read somewhere once that this symphony was a strictly commercial proposition designed to help market the metronome? It certainly sounds bereft of inspiration. And the final movement has to be the ugliest, most ungainly thing that LvB ever wrote. I'm astonished he put his name to it. The phrase that Beecham (wrongly) applied to the final movement of the Seventh symphony ('like a lot of yaks jumping about') certainly applies here...

It's especially strange that the composer should come up with something so uninspired when his previous symphony is most people's favourite (including mine) and he went on to change history with the 9th.

GBS, of course, argued (with characteristic perversity) that the 8th was 'much better' than the Seventh. But what did he know?

Not even my favourite Beethoven conductors - Klemperer and Szell - can convince me of the merits of this work. To make a pop music analogy: it's as if The Beatles, having made Sergeant Pepper, had decided to follow it up with an album of early rock and roll covers.

Over to you.....

I was most interested to read your comments, Conchis, because I have always felt the same way as you about the 8th. It seems completely out of balance with a crashing first movement - which isn’t bad, actually - but int then fizzles out with the remaining three. I have been acquainted with it for over sixty years and it wasn’t helped by the fact that my first recording was a ten-incher which had to be turned after the second movement.

My perception has always been that it is astonishingly lightweight compared with the 5th, 6th, and 7th which preceded it and hardly a fitting prelude to the D minor which was to follow. I shall be interested to read others’ comments after I have posted this - I wanted to make my statement without being affected by what others have said.

[Conchis]

I was most interested to read your comments, Conchis, because I have always felt the same way as you about the 8th. It seems completely out of balance with a crashing first movement - which isn’t bad, actually - but int then fizzles out with the remaining three. I have been acquainted with it for over sixty years and it wasn’t helped by the fact that my first recording was a ten-incher which had to be turned after the second movement.

My perception has always been that it is astonishingly lightweight compared with the 5th, 6th, and 7th which preceded it and hardly a fitting prelude to the D minor which was to follow. I shall be interested to read others’ comments after I have posted this - I wanted to make my statement without being affected by what others have said.

I have similar feelings. People refer to the 'energy' of the first movement, and I suppose I can understand what they mean. But to me, it creates a sensation analogous to a chance meeting with an exasperating and over-energetic casual acquaintance, whom you can't wait to get shot of! :)

The frist performance I heard was the Cleveland/Szell one on a Sony budget reissue from the early 90s, pared with the Eroica.

[jayne lee wilson]

Beethoven Symphony No.8: one of the greatest creations of the symphonic mind, an inspired and inspiring musical white dwarf, lying between the Red Giant of the 7th and the Thermonuclear Supernova of the 9th.
Or
"essentially a work of comic genius" RO, Gramophone.
Or
A musical equivalent of Odilon Redon’s Smiling Spider - watch out! It’s running loose around your house!…
(A child's-play of excitement, risk, danger and fear...)

Or….

A shapeshifting work of warmth, wit and unsurpassable humanity; the exquisite balance between relaxed cantabile and exhilarating rhythmic crescendo of its first movement - the deft tongue-in-cheek self-commentary of its coda. The symphonic structural innovation of its finale is at the highest level. The contrasts of mood between contented humour in the allegretto, the mindful musical serenity of the trio, the rampant energies of that finale - always happy to undercut its own bursting confidence with a polite little smile at each stop-on-a-sixpence - are as effortlessly wide-ranging, as note-sparingly elliptical, as in any comparable work of symphonic compression (assuming one might propose anything that comes close...)

We should all feel humble before it, inspired by its example, and grateful for its very existence.
But usually - I just laugh for joy when I hear it...at its very recollection...

[Conchis]

Beethoven Symphony No.8: one of the greatest creations of the symphonic mind, an inspired and inspiring musical white dwarf, lying between the Red Giant of the 7th and the Thermonuclear Supernova of the 9th.
Or
"A comedic masterpiece" RO, Gramophone.
Or
A musical equivalent of Odilon Redon’s Smiling Spider - watch out! It’s running loose around your house!…
(A child's-play of excitement, risk, danger and fear...)

Or….

A shapeshifting work of warmth, wit and unsurpassable humanity; the exquisite balance between relaxed cantabile and exhilarating rhythmic crescendo of its first movement - the deft tongue-in-cheek self-commentary of its coda. The symphonic structural innovation of its finale is at the highest level. The contrasts of mood between contented humour in the allegretto, the mindful musical serenity of the trio, the rampant energies of that finale - always happy to undercut its own bursting confidence with a polite little smile at each stop-on-a-sixpence - are as effortlessly wide-ranging, as note-sparingly elliptical, as in any comparable work of symphonic compression (assuming one might propose anything that comes close...)

We should all feel humble before it, inspired by its example, and grateful for its very existence.
But usually - I just laugh for joy when I hear it...at its very recollection...

All that does have the effect of making me want to like it :) .....but...nah....

[Darkbloom]

All that does have the effect of making me want to like it :) .....but...nah....

I'm waiting for the Big Reveal when you tear off your disguise and announce you're Norman Lebrecht. I suppose hunting up stories about the principal flute of the Saskatchewan Symphony ('out for six weeks due to tinnitus. We wish her well') must leave you plenty of free time. ☺

[cloughie]

I'm waiting for the Big Reveal when you tear off your disguise and announce you're Norman Lebrecht. I suppose hunting up stories about the principal flute of the Saskatchewan Symphony ('out for six weeks due to tinnitus. We wish her well') must leave you plenty of free time. ☺

Why? Doesn’t Noorman like B8 either?

[Conchis]

]I'm waiting for the Big Reveal when you tear off your disguise and announce you're Norman Lebrecht.[/B] I suppose hunting up stories about the principal flute of the Saskatchewan Symphony ('out for six weeks due to tinnitus. We wish her well') must leave you plenty of free time. ☺

I like to think I've got a pretty thick skin....but, sheesh, you know how to hurt a guy!


:)

[richardfinegold]

I don’t see the point of this thread. The piece is (I had previously thought) an unchallenged masterpiece, showing a different aspect of Beethoven’s Art than the better known odd numbered Symphonies.
Fwiw, I can detect the Composer of later works such as the Hammerklavier Sonata or the Opus 131 SQ more in the 8th than in any of his other Symphonies

[jayne lee wilson]

All that does have the effect of making me want to like it :) .....but...nah....

The fault, dear Conchis, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

[Richard Barrett]

I don’t see the point of this thread. The piece is (I had previously thought) an unchallenged masterpiece

I really don't think there should be such a thing as an "unchallenged masterpiece"! The point of this thread was to wind people up with a contentious assertion, which it did, and some interesting ideas came up along the way. For example, in order to check that I wasn't talking complete nonsense I listened more or less at random to Giovanni Antonini's recording with the Basel Chamber Orchestra which I ended up liking so much I immediately listened to it again. I may still have been talking nonsense of course.

[Conchis]

I really don't think there should be such a thing as an "unchallenged masterpiece"! The point of this thread was to wind people up with a contentious assertion, which it did, and some interesting ideas came up along the way. For example, in order to check that I wasn't talking complete nonsense I listened more or less at random to Giovanni Antonini's recording with the Basel Chamber Orchestra which I ended up liking so much I immediately listened to it again. I may still have been talking nonsense of course.

None of my threads aim to wind people up: that would be pointless, besides which, I think people would realise the fact and make a point of ignoring them. You won't see me posting threads with titles like 'Bruckner: Talentless?' or 'Beethoven 9: Overrated?' because that would represent looking for an argument (though some people might argue that the 9th IS overrated - I'm not one of them, btw - I don't think the argument gets off the ground when put against the work's influence and impact).

No: the point of this thread was to engage in a discussion by stating my own, clear view at the beginning. Most people seem to be in various degree of disagreement with me, but I've enjoyed reading their rationales and finding out what they like about the piece. Point of fact is, while I like most of Beethoven's output, I'm equivocal about the symphonies (I've never much liked 1 or 2 and I blow hot and cold on 4, though I can let the first two go on the grounds of 'early works/finding his style").

[rauschwerk]

The 8th contains one of my favourite passages in all of music: the bit where that intrusive C sharp finally makes the music go tearing off in F sharp minor. But soon the entry of trumpets and drums wrenches the music back to the home key and no more is heard of that C sharp. That finale is neither sonata nor rondo but a new form!

[Richard Barrett]

None of my threads aim to wind people up: that would be pointless (...) because that would represent looking for an argument (...). No: the point of this thread was to engage in a discussion by stating my own, clear view at the beginning. Most people seem to be in various degree of disagreement with me

And I'm sure you knew they would be! QED