Beethoven Symponies - Immerseel

There is quite a risk in trying to speculate as why any composer wrote in this or that fashion that all the ends up is a lot of opinion is expressed to little value beyond to the person that expresses them

After the Eroica the Fourth Symphony seems conservative. If the Fourth Symphony had come as the Third, and the Eroica as the Fourth, then we would hardly be speculating as the Fourth shows a steady development over the first two, and the Eroica would still seem revolutionary. The Fifth is revolutionary and concise; the Sixth is in many ways probing the limits of symphonic form even more than the Eroica or the Fifth. Then we have the rather straight forward Seventh, and the completely formally conservative Eighth, before another exploration of the limits - both in length and form - in the Choral Symphony. 

I remember reading something that made me smile by Bertrand Russell on the subject of the Universe and Creation. Russell had no truck with the Creation Story as related in Genesis, and in an explanation for it in Philosophical terms said that it was best to accept the Universe as a Brute Fact!

There are times when after comprehending what the form of a given Symphony by Beethoven actually is, I cease to worry further! What is important is that Beethoven was a master of musical form and filled it with inspirational themes and developments. My trying to explain why one is like this and another be different is beyond me, but I listen to them and am awe-struck! Every listening seems to yield more, and I have known all of them for about 40 years now! Play me any opening chord, and I'll identify the symphony without the second note or chord. I dare say that certain countersubjects [in counterpoint], played in a transposition, and without the harmony or principal melody would have a chance to fox me, but played in key and in context, I bet that I could identify the movement and symphony from a single bar of any of the symphonies, so I would say that I know them. I also love them, but certainly cannot explain them, any more than I could explain Michelangelo’s statue called "David."

I accept them. But I shall read with enjoyment any possible explanation of them posted here, not for the value imparted so much as a valiant effort to explain the inexplicable!

Best wishes from George

 PS: I have never said that the Fourth Symphony is a step back compared to the Eroica, but it is classically proportioned, and entirely conventional in layout, whereas the proportions of the Eroica are expansive and the Finale is quite unlike a normal classical Symphony Finale. The Fourth uses clarinets and is in one of the two typical keys that suited clarinets at the time: B Flat and E Flat, and the Eroica is in E Flat. Beethoven was a very practical man on occasion. Of course the Clarinet in A was best suited to A Major! For myself, I find as much enjoyment in the Fourth as the Eroica! Though the formal layout of Beethoven’s symphonies would vary from conservative to revolutionary in a fairly cyclical pattern throughout the cannon, the important thing is that the decisions about form do seem to allow for the thematic material to be exposed with supreme expressiveness.

First - formally conservative

Second - formally conservative

Eroica - expansive and formally not following former patterns in the Finale

Fourth - formally conservative

Fifth - very compressed thematically in the first movement, and the Scherzo and Finale are bound together with a completely novel structural element of using the bridge passage that joins the two interlinked movements at the point of the sonata recapitulation in the Finale proper, though certainly the bridge passage is exactly that and formally not part of the Finale when first stated.

Pastoral - Unusual in having five movements with the last three being linked together. Beethoven also introduces many onomatopoeic elements here in the bird song imitations and the representation of the Storm.

Seven - formally conservative

Eight - formally conservative, though Beethoven introduces some masterstroke of orchestration previous unused such as a pair timpani who instead of being regularly tuned to the Tonic and Dominant are tuned at the Tonic in Octaves and also the extra-ordinary Scoring of the Trio section of the third movement. Even so the form itself is not something the conservative Haydn would have had trouble calling "correct."

Choral Symphony - Unprecedented in length. And he Finale is a sort that had never been seen before in a symphony, being a sort of free fantasy with clear long term variation tendencies, but it could hardly be called a set of variations; it is not a Rondo, or Sonata-rondo, and certainly not sonata form movement. It has elements that are contrapuntal in a sense of having fugal sections, though no fully worked out fugue as such. It was revolutionary even before you add in the used of a Choir and four Soloists to sing a revolutionary [in the literal sense of politically revolutionary] set of words.

So perhaps in purely formal terms we may note that Beethoven occasionally wrote symphonies that fell outside the conventions of the day, but what is certainly true is for all their variety of form each of the Symphonies we know today has kept each generation since they were written engaged.

There is another pf course! Not well known today outside the limits of a few record collectors as it is only very infrequently performed in concert. Called "Wellington's ~Victory," it was also described as "The Battle symphony!" It has been recorded, and shows that even Beethoven was a fallible human capable of failing to live up to his reputation for music of genius!

Surely the real debate would be if there were evidence that Beethoven "had not" developed. The evidence that he did is very clear, whether it is in the Symphonies, Sonatas [piano and cello especially], and perhaps most of all in the String Quartets, which form and genre offered Beethoven the medium he committed arguably his greatest and most profound music to after he finally tired of the limitations as he saw them of the piano.

ATB from George