Pitts Sanborn

“ The listener is overpowered by the very lavishness of its beauty. In this symphony you feel Beethoven’s genius as something inexhaustible, glorying in its own titanic power, as of a high god ignoring lesser breeds, proud in the knowledge of invincible strength, unfettered, carefree, save where the Allegretto acknowledges a divine melancholy. ”

“ The word “more” is important, for actually the symphony is in part a painting in tone, even if not for the greater part. Instead of keeping to the traditional four movements, this symphony rejoices in five, each carrying an identifying title. The first, “Allegro ma non troppo” in F major, explains itself thus: “The cheerful impressions excited on arriving in the country.” It begins immediately with this theme:
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which really holds the germ of the entire movement and, as Beethoven develops it, becomes as the whole countryside in Maytime bloom. ”

“ Mozart had anticipated Beethoven in his “Linz” Symphony.
The third movement in name is the minuet usual in symphonies of the eighteenth century (“Menuetto: Allegro molto e vivace,” in C major) , but in reality Beethoven was already looking forward to the scherzo (Italian, joke) with which he was presently to replace the minuet. This movement, then, is much less the stately dance in triple rhythm than a scherzo of generous proportions, rich in modulations and glowing color. ”

“ In the three symphonies that successively precede the Sixth, Beethoven, as we have seen, is concerned with man as lover or as hero, for the spiritual conflict of the Fifth Symphony is no less heroic than are the exploits and lamentations of the Third. The Sixth Symphony, however, though quite as personal, treats of man from a totally different angle. ”

“ The Mass is “unchurchly” in the highest degree. According to Bekker, Beethoven “breaks through the walls which divide the church from the world; his church extends to the limits of his vision; his altar is the heart of the universe, and he will suffer no dogmatic limitations.” Above the Kyrie the composer inscribed the words: “From the heart—may it go to the heart.” He intended the work “for the democratic concert hall rather than for polite social circles.”
The peak of the Missa Solemnis is undoubtedly the great fugue “Et vitam venturi” of the Credo. ”

“ He spent a great deal of time in the lovely Viennese countryside, especially at Heiligenstadt, but here the country is no battlefield as it had been in the summer of 1802, the summer of the “Heiligenstadt Will”; it is rather the cheerful, sunlit province of Nature’s healing power.
Copious and quaint is the verbal testimony to Beethoven’s pleasure in Nature. A lodging had once been bespoken for him at the coppersmith’s at Baden (near Vienna) . When he saw there were no trees around the house, he exclaimed, “This house won’t do for me. I love a tree more than a man.” ”

“ The Scherzo (“Allegro vivace” in E-flat major) is an enormously energetic movement and is interrupted by a Trio, prophetic in its turn of the Ninth Symphony and including a particularly brilliant and difficult passage for the horns.
The theme of the concluding variations (“Allegro molto” in E flat major) Beethoven had previously employed in his ballet, The Creatures of Prometheus. This theme, simple as it appears, contains the germ of one of the most remarkable sets of variations ever put down on paper. ”

“ The scherzo, like the minuet, always includes a trio section. Listen in this trio to the delicious dialogue between wind instruments and strings and to the rousing crescendo that ends it just before the repetition of the minuet.
The Finale, in C major, opens with seven measures of Adagio devoted to the gradual release of a scale passage. So much accomplished, the music plunges into an “Allegro molto e vivace,” beginning with this sprightly theme which races along to the conclusion in a whirl of merriment and humorous sallies.
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Beethoven as a young man. ”

“ Beethoven had settled permanently in Vienna in the autumn of 1792 and the body of his work originated, of course, in the Austrian capital. We cannot, however, dismiss the compositions preceding the First Symphony as wholly negligible. The creations of this period are to a large extent relatively small in scale. There is a quantity of piano music largely in the form of variations, a number of songs and several arias, odds and ends of chamber music, dances, marches, and such. Some of the variations for piano and strings are based on melodies of Handel, Mozart, and a number of lesser lights. ”

“ The sonatas for cello and piano, in F major and G minor, were composed as early as 1796 and performed in Berlin before the King of Prussia by Beethoven and the Court cellist, Duport. But the memorable cello sonatas of Beethoven’s are the one in A major, opus 69, one of his most lavish and magnificent works; and the C major and D major, opus 102. The first named, like the “Kreutzer” Sonata or the “Appassionata” of the piano series, is a creation that needs no defense and no far-fetched explanations. ”

“ Memorable is the feeling of tension in the opening measures, the distant grumbling of the thunder, the first staccato raindrops. The disappearing tempest is followed directly by the last movement: “Shepherd’s Song; joyous and thankful feelings after the storm.” Happiness settles on the landscape once more, as this light-hearted tune abundantly proves:
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Some of the melodies in this symphony are said to be derived from Carinthian or Styrian folk songs. As we have observed, the work was originally brought out at the same concert in Vienna (December 22, 1808) with the Fifth Symphony. ”

“ Though not entitled Scherzo, the third movement, Allegro in F major, is one in fact. Here the human beings that people this countryside possess the picture. Beethoven labels the movement “Jolly gathering of country folk.” Its downright gayety brings in its train an amusing takeoff on a village band, especially the befuddled bassoon. The middle part of the movement, “In tempo d’allegro,” corresponding to the usual trio, has been construed by some as a quarrel among the dancers, by others as just a rude episode in the dance. ”

“ The character of the Sixth Symphony Beethoven immediately makes plain on the dedicatory page. “Pastoral Symphony,” he calls it, “or a recollection of country life. More an expression of feeling than a painting.” ”

“ No greater mistake could be made than to compare it with the Missa Solemnis of a much later date and of basically different premises. “It expresses in the region of sacred music the joyful and victorious mood of the overture and the Symphony,” says Paul Bekker. “An atmosphere of simple piety pervades the Mass; no inner disunion, no brooding doubt, no unsatisfied thirst for knowledge finds expression here. The Mass in C is a confession of the composer’s faith and is at the same time liturgically practicable ”

“ The two Romances are fluent, lyrical movements, but without special depth or originality. The “Mount of Olives,” a sort of dramatic cantata which at first enjoyed an almost incredible popularity, for which it has paid with speedy and wholesale neglect, is a score of extremely uneven value, which handles a religious subject in a superficial, operatic fashion scarcely in keeping. Here and there it is possible to find in it interesting details but the chances for a revival of this work (which Beethoven’s intelligent contemporary, Rochlitz, criticized in spots as “comic”) are remote. ”

“ Aside from the above-mentioned oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives, Beethoven’s major religious compositions consist of the Mass in C major, written in 1807, and the stupendous one in D—the overpowering Missa Solemnis—begun in 1817 but not completed till 1825. The C major Mass must not be thought of as an early creation or a thing in the manner of the Mount of Olives. Actually, it is a work of the composer’s maturity, virtually contemporaneous with the great “Leonore” Overture and the Fifth Symphony. ”

“ It is the drama in tone of man’s victorious struggle with destiny and it was largely composed at Heiligenstadt, Beethoven’s own spiritual battlefield. In 1801 Beethoven had made himself this promise: “I will take Fate by the throat; it shall not wholly overcome me.” The C minor Symphony opens with an intensely dramatic figure of four notes which Beethoven explains as “Fate knocking at the door”:
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This rhythmic group not only dominates the concise first movement, but appears in every succeeding movement. ”

“ The meaning of the symphony as a heroic work is clear enough to anyone who hears the first movement and the Funeral March. Perhaps only Anton Rubinstein has ever questioned the heroic quality of the first movement and nobody has or could doubt the heroism of the mighty threnody that follows. ”

“ Charles Neate, one of the founders of the London Philharmonic Society, who was on intimate terms with Beethoven in Vienna in 1815, assures us that he had “never met anyone who so delighted in Nature, or so thoroughly enjoyed flowers or clouds or other natural objects. Nature was almost meat and drink to him ”

“ As the work stands it is gratifying to the performer and offers pleasant, not over difficult problems to the listener.”
The finest part of the work is undoubtedly the second movement, an “Adagio affetuoso ed appassionato.” It is the richest in texture and certainly the most poetic and emotional of the four. When the composer played it to Amenda he is said to have inquired what the music suggested to him. “It suggests a lover’s parting,” replied Amenda; whereupon Beethoven replied, “Well, the tomb scene from Romeo and Juliet was in my mind.” ”

“ Quartet by reason of the numerous passages of plucked strings in the first movement; the second is the tremendous opus 127. The former is the dreamier, less challenging of the two; it is rich not only in a sort of romanticism that looks forward to the age of Schumann, but also in unexpected effects bearing the unmistakable stamp of the Beethoven of the “Emperor” Concerto period, though in its way it is rather less venturesome than the “Rasoumovsky” trilogy. But the quartet that was written down in 1810—the F minor, opus 95—is in another category. ”

“ According to the Countess Therese von Brunswick, his one-time betrothed, “he loved to be alone with Nature, to make her his only confidante. When his brain was seething with confused ideas, Nature at all times comforted him. ”

“ However, there are students of the Seventh to whom it has yielded a quite definite meaning. Two of the most eminent are Richard Wagner and the French composer Vincent d’Indy. To Wagner the Seventh Symphony is the “apotheosis of the dance.” To d’Indy it is a second “Pastoral” Symphony, full of bird-calls and other country sounds. Of course Wagner’s definition recognizes the great part played in it by rhythm.
The Seventh Symphony begins in its title key of A major with a long introduction (“Poco sostenuto”) , which almost has the importance of a separate movement. ”

“ As for the “unvocal” character of his writing for voices, it is necessary to remember that, for all the opera’s undeniable exactions, generations of great dramatic singers have repeatedly triumphed in the chief roles of Fidelio.
Beethoven composed four overtures to his opera—the three so-called “Leonore” Overtures in C and the one in E major, known as the “Fidelio” Overture. The last-named was written in 1814 for Treitschke’s new version of the piece. It is the slightest of them all and is the one that invariably prefaces performances of the opera. ”

“ We know as good as nothing of the public reaction to the work. We do know, however, that the composer was far from satisfied with it and revised the score before playing it in Prague in 1798. At that, he confided to the publisher, Franz Hoffmeister, that he “did not consider it one of his best.” The first movement has a vigorous and arresting first theme, followed by a tranquil, songful one. Some of the cantabile phrases that follow have a rather Mozartean character. The Adagio begins with a devout, rather hymnlike melody, on which the piano subsequently embroiders. ”

“ The earliest specimens of it date from his Bonn days, from around his fifteenth year. From then on they continued (intermittently, it is true) almost up to the time of his death—indeed, the last composition he completed was a new finale 44 for the B-flat Quartet, opus 130, to replace the original one, the Great Fugue, now opus 133, which early audiences could not grasp and which, to this very day, is a stumbling block for most hearers although one of the most extraordinary and transcendent pages Beethoven ever produced. ”

“ Spiritually, of course, he had traversed cycles of experience and had become, in an intellectual and artistic sense, another being.
It is almost inevitable, therefore, that the next great masterpiece of chamber music, should lift the curtain on a new creative realm. ”

“ Overtures written in connection with it; the Violin Concerto (which the composer also arranged as a sort of piano concerto) ; and the “Coriolanus” Overture.
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Fidelio, which Beethoven originally called Leonore, was begun in 1804. A child of sorrow to its composer, it was not to achieve the form in which we now know it till 1814. In the odd century and a half of its existence it has been attacked for countless reasons in spite of which it lives on with an incredible tenacity and obstinately refuses to die. ”