Prom 30 - 7.08.17: Walton – Belshazzar’s Feast

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Mozart's first, for a start, and probably other early Mozart symphonies too. It seems to have originated with G B Sammartini. Not revolutionary in 1800. then.

Well, of course not - now read the rest of the statement you quote from my #15, and then answer the full question.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Stirred, not shaken, I think.

Isn't that Capel Bond?

[rauschwerk]

...and yet has a "retransition" in the Recapitulation that does modulate?

I'm confused by this part of your question. I agree that earlier composers would have at this point generally continued immediately with the second group in the home key after the half close at the end of the transition, rather than writing a modulatory passage (though isn't that passage a 'secondary development' rather than a 'retransition'? Forgive my ignorance).

[Pulcinella]

I'm quite sure I didn't know all this about Beethoven 1 when I studied it (or rather the first two movements) as one of the set works for NUJMB O level back in 1966!
Whether this says more about me or my school music teacher I'm not sure, but I can remember not recognising the quote to identify on the paper (from the introduction) and I think I plumped for answering questions on the Holberg Suite and the Baal scene from Elijah instead.
I must look and see if Annie O Warburton did an analysis.

PS: Yes she did. Revolutionary tendencies mentioned.
With hindsight (trying to remember) I think we concentrated in class on the Grieg and the Mendelssohn.
I can't imagine being expected to study all three works/extracts in depth (even back then!).

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'm quite sure I didn't know all this about Beethoven 1 when I studied it (or rather the first two movements) as one of the set works for NUJMB O level back in 1966!

I remember it well, along with Grieg's Holberg Suite and a late Mozart piano sonata.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm confused by this part of your question. I agree that earlier composers would have at this point generally continued immediately with the second group in the home key after the half close at the end of the transition, rather than writing a modulatory passage (though isn't that passage a 'secondary development' rather than a 'retransition'? Forgive my ignorance).

My declining years, rather than your ignorance, rauschy - yes, I am referring to the "Secondary Development"; the Recap's "equivalent" of the Expo's "Transition". (The "Retransition" is the bit at the end of the Development leading into the Recap. Serves me right for replying to ed's comment whilst my jowls were still wobbling.

What Beethoven has done here is combined an older type of Transition (the "ending in the Tonic on an Imperfect Cadence, but then continuing in the Dominant region as if there's been a 'modulation'") in the Exposition, but then completely removed that material and replaced it with something different - bars 23 - 52 are never heard after the Exposition, completely new material replaces them in bars 188 - 205; the irony being that the chromatically slithering chords in the woodwinds would have been much better suited to a modulation away from the Tonic - the sort of material that a composer who was merely "learning the basics from his masters" would have used in the Expo, not here - and something more like the non-Modulating Transition material in the Exposition more "appropriate" here. (Something closer to Sammartini is presented in the Second Movement, where the First Group similarly ends with an interrupted cadence, from which the Second Group continues in the Dominant as if there had been a "modulation" - the Recap here doesn't involve the replacement of material, but the addition of the Counter-Subject to the return of the fugato theme creates its own deviations from expectations.)

And then there's the balancing out of the Introduction (in which the Tonic is marginalised - appearing only three times, and only once in root position) with the Movement's Coda (which consists of "22" bars of nothing but the Tonic triad) - and that reminds me; I do not know any "Sonata Form" First Group before this work in which the First Group itself is so eager to get away from the Tonic. Beethoven is in complete command of the new ways he wants to explore what a Symphony can do, right from the start. This is a fantastically original and imaginative masterpiece that is often undervalued because the composer went on to even greater things - that makes me mutter sulkily.

[BBMmk2]

I must be the odd one out here.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I must be the odd one out here.

Oh, no, Bbm - Alpie is equally odd

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I must be the odd one out here.

What makes you say that?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Oh, no, Bbm - Alpie is equally odd

We just don't pander to fashion.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

We just don't pander to fashion.

- nor I

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

- nor I

Gosh, you've changed since we last met.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Gosh, you've changed since we last met.

Well, since you left Yorkshire, I thought I'd better up my game for God's own county.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Well, since you left Yorkshire, I thought I'd better up my game for God's own county.

[EdgeleyRob]

Crumbs, Edgey! Careful with the initials there - for a moment I thought I'd missed something!

Oops sorry to build up your hopes !