(Born at Bonn, December 16 (?), 1770; died at Vienna, March 26, 1827)
Why debate whether the music of this First symphony is wholly Mozartian; whether there are traces of the “greater” Beethoven? Let the music be taken for what it is, music of the end of the eighteenth century. At the same time let us recall the fact that when this symphony was played in Paris a hundred years ago, two or three critics protested against the “astonishing success” of Beethoven’s works as “a danger to musical art.” “It is believed,” said one, “that a prodigal use of the most barbaric dissonances and a noisy use of all the orchestral instruments will make an effect. Alas, the ear is only stabbed; there is no appeal to the heart.”
In spite of pages of mere routine, the music still has a certain freshness and a quaint beauty. The symphony will always remain a charming work with trivial passages, not to be compared as a whole with the three great symphonies of Mozart or the latter symphonies of Haydn.
The symphony in C major, No. 1, probably originated in 1800, was sketched at an earlier period, and elaborated in 1799.
The first performance was at a concert given by Beethoven at the National Court Theater, “next the Burg,” Vienna, April 2, 1800.
The concert began at 6:30P.M.The prices of admission were not raised. It was the first concert given in Vienna by Beethoven for his own benefit. A correspondent of theAllgemeine Musikalische Zeitung(October 15, 1800) gave curious information concerning the performance. “At the end a symphony composed by him was performed. It contains much art, and the ideas are abundant and original, but the wind instruments are used far too much, so that the music is more for a band of wind instruments than an orchestra.” The performance suffered on account of the conductor, Paul Wranitzky. The orchestra men disliked him and took no pains under his direction. Furthermore, they thought Beethoven’s music too difficult. “In the second movement of the symphony they took the matter so easily that there was no spirit, in spite of the conductor, especially in the performance of the wind instruments.... What marked effect, then, can even the most excellent compositions make?” The parts were published in 1801 and dedicated to Baron von Swieten.
Berlioz[3]wrote concerning it as follows: “This work is wholly different in form, melodic style, harmonic sobriety, and instrumentation from the compositions of Beethoven that follow it. When the composer wrote it, he was evidently under the sway of Mozartian ideas. These he sometimes enlarged, but he has imitated them ingeniously everywhere. Especially in the first two movements do we find springing up occasionally certain rhythms used by the composer ofDon Giovanni, but these occasions are rare and far less striking. The firstallegrohas for a theme a phrase of six measures, which is not distinguished in itself but becomes interesting through the artistic treatment. An episodic melody follows, but it has little distinction of style. By means of a half cadence, repeated three or four times, we come to a figure in imitation for wind instruments; and we are the more surprised to find it here, because it had been so often employed in several overtures to French operas. Theandantecontains an accompaniment of drums,piano, which appears today rather ordinary, yet we recognize in it a hint at striking effects produced later by Beethoven with the aid of this instrument, which is seldom or badly employed as a rule by his predecessors. This movement is full of charm; the theme is graceful and lends itself easily to fugued development, by means of which thecomposer has succeeded in being ingenious and piquant. Thescherzois the first-born of the family of charmingbadinagesorscherzi, of which Beethoven invented the form and determined the pace; which he substituted in nearly all of his instrumental works for the minuet of Mozart and Haydn with a pace doubly less rapid and with a wholly different character. Thisscherzois of exquisite freshness, lightness and grace. It is the one truly original thing in this symphony in which the poetic idea, so great and rich in the majority of his succeeding works, is wholly wanting. It is music admirably made, clear, alert, but slightly accentuated, cold, and sometimes mean and shabby, as in the finalrondo, which is musically childish. In a word, this is not Beethoven.”
This judgment of Berlioz has been vigorously combated by all fetishists that believe in the plenary inspiration of a great composer. Thus Michel Brenet[4](1882), usually discriminative, found that the introduction begins in a highly original manner. Marx took the trouble to refute the statement of Ulibichev,[5]that the first movement was an imitation of the beginning of Mozart’s “Jupiter” symphony—a futile task. We find Dr. Prof. H. Reimann[6]in 1899 stoutly maintaining the originality of many pages of this symphony. Thus in the introduction the first chord with its resolution is a “genuine innovation by Beethoven.” He admits that the chief theme of theallegro con briowith its subsidiary theme and jubilant sequel recalls irresistibly Mozart’s “Jupiter”; “but the passagepianissimoby the close in G major, in which the basses use the subsidiary theme, and in which the oboe introduces a song, is new and surprising, and the manner in which by a crescendo the closing section of the first chapter is developed is wholly Beethovenish”! He is also lost in admiration at the thought of the development itself. He finds the true Beethoven in more than one page of theandante. The trio of thescherzois an example of Beethoven’s “tone-painting.” The introduction of thefinaleis “wholly original, although one may often find echoes of Haydn and Mozart in what follows.”
Colombani combated the idea that the symphony is a weak imitation of symphonies by Haydn and Mozart. Ulibichev wrote that Beethoven, in order to reveal himself, waited for the minuet. “The rhythmic movement is changed into that of ascherzo, after the manner instituted by the composer in his first sonatas.” When the symphony was first performedat Leipsic, a critic described it as a “confused explosion of the outrageous effrontery of a young man.” At Vienna in 1810, the work was described as “more amiable” than the second symphony.
The symphony is an answer to those who insist that the inner emotions of a composer must find a vent in the music composed at the time. Never was Beethoven more wretched physically and mentally than when he wrote this symphony, music that breathes forth serenity, beauty, gayety, and courage.
In 1801 Beethoven’s deafness, which had begun with a roaring in his ears, grew on him. He suffered also from frightful colic. He consulted physician after physician; tried oil of almonds, cold baths and hot baths, pills and herbs and blisters; he was curious about galvanic remedies, and in his distress he wrote: “I shall as far as possible defy my fate, although there must be moments when I shall be the most miserable of God’s creatures.... I will grapple with fate; it shall never pull me down.”
Dr. Schmidt sent him in 1802 to the little village of Heiligenstadt, where, as the story goes, the Emperor Protus planted the first vines of Noricum. There was a spring of mineral water—a spring of marvelous virtues—which had been blessed by St. Severinus, who died in the village and gave the name by which it is known today. Beethoven’s house was on a hill outside the village, isolated, with a view of the Danube valley. Here he lived for several months like a hermit. He saw only his physician and Ferdinand Ries, his pupil, who visited him occasionally.
Nature and loneliness did not console Beethoven. He had been in dismal mood since the performance of the First symphony (April,1800). The powers of darkness, “finstere Mächte,” to quote Wasielewski’s phrase, had begun to torment him. He had already felt the first attacks of deafness. It is possible that the first symptoms were in 1796, when, as a story goes, returning overheated from a walk, he plunged his head into cold water. “It would not be safe to say that the smallpox, which in his childhood left marks on his face, was a remote cause of his deafness.” In 1800-01 Beethoven wrote about his deafness and intestinal troubles to Dr. Wegeler, and to the clergyman, Carl Amenda, in Kurland. It was at the beginning of October, 1802, that Beethoven, at Heiligenstadt, almost ready to put an end to his life, wrote a letter to his brothers, the document known as “Beethoven’s will,” which drips yew-like melancholy.
Furthermore, Beethoven was still passionately in love with Giulietta Guicciardi, of whom he wrote to Wegeler, November 16, 1801: “You can hardly believe what a sad and lonely life I have passed for two years. My poor hearing haunted me as a specter, and I shunned men. It was necessary for me to appear misanthropic, and I am not this at all. This change is the work of a charming child who loves me and is loved by me. After two years I have again had some moments of pleasure, and for the first time I feel that marriage could make me happy. Unfortunately, she is not of my rank in life, and now I certainly cannot marry.” Beethoven, however, asked for her hand. One of her parents looked favorably on the match. The other, probably the father, the Count Guicciardi, refused to give his daughter to a man without rank, without fortune, and without a position of any kind. Giulietta became the Countess Gallenberg. Beethoven told Schindler that after her marriage she sought him out in Vienna, and she wept, but that he despised her.
Yet during the sad period of the winter of 1802-03, Beethoven composed the Second symphony, a joyous, “a heroic lie,” to borrow the descriptive phrase of Camille Bellaigue.
The first performance of the Second symphony was at the Theater an der Wien, April 5, 1803. The symphony was performed at Leipsic, April 29, 1804, and Spazier characterized it as “a gross monster, a pierced dragon which will not die, and even in losing its blood (in thefinale), wild with rage, still deals vain but furious blows with his tail, stiffened by the last agony.” Spazier, who died early in 1805, was described by his contemporaries as a learned and well-grounded musician and a man of sound judgment.
A Leipsic critic found that the symphony would gain if certain passages were abbreviated and certain modulations were sacrificed. Another declared that it was too long; that there was an exaggerated use of the wind instruments; that thefinalewas bizarre, harsh, savage. Yet he added that there was such fire, such richness of new ideas, such an absolutely original disposition of these ideas, that the work would live; “and it will always be heard with renewed pleasure when a thousand things that are today in fashion will have been long buried.”
The sketch of Berlioz may here serve as an analysis: “In this symphony everything is noble, energetic, proud. The introduction (largo) is a masterpiece. The most beautiful effects follow one another without confusion and always in an unexpected manner. The song is of a touching solemnity, and it at once commands respect and puts the hearer in an emotional mood. The rhythm is already bolder, the instrumentation is richer, more sonorous, more varied. Anallegro con brioof enchanting dash is joined to this admirableadagio. Thegruppettowhich is found in the first measure of the theme, given at first to the violas and violoncellos in unison, is taken up again in an isolated form, to establish either progressions in acrescendoor imitative passages between wind instruments and the strings. All these forms have a new and animated physiognomy. A melody enters, the first section of which is played by clarinets, horns, and bassoons. It is completeden tuttiby the rest of the orchestra, and the manly energy is enhanced by the happy choice of accompanying chords.
“Theandante[larghetto] is not treated after the manner of that of the First symphony: it is not composed of a theme worked out in canonic imitations, but it is a pure and frank song, which at first is sung simply by the strings, and then embroidered with a rare elegance by means of light and fluent figures whose character is never far removed from the sentiment of tenderness which forms the distinctive character of the principal idea. It is a ravishing picture of innocent pleasure which is scarcely shadowed by a few melancholy accents.
“Thescherzois as frankly gay in its fantastic capriciousness as theandantehas been wholly and serenely happy; for this symphony is smiling throughout; the warlike bursts of the firstallegroare wholly free from violence; there is only the youthful ardor of a noble heart in which the most beautiful illusions of life are preserved untainted. The composer still believes in immortal glory, in love, in devotion. What abandon in his gayety! What wit! What sallies! Hearing these variousinstruments disputing over fragments of a theme which no one of them plays in its complete form, hearing each fragment thus colored with a thousand nuances as it passes from one to the other, it is as though you were watching the fairy sports of Oberon’s graceful spirits.
“Thefinaleis of like nature. It is a secondscherzoin two time, and its playfulness has perhaps something still more delicate, more piquant.”
It is interesting to note the difference in the expression of heroism between this symphony and Strauss’sHeldenleben. To be sure, Beethoven had Bonaparte at first in mind, while inHeldenlebenthe hero is—Richard Strauss, defying his enemies, rejoicing vaingloriously in his immortality as a composer. It is not necessary to accept the theories of Beethoven’s commentators. The excellent Nietzel finds that, in the second theme of the first movement, “the hero, having for the first time exerted his force, turns about to look at the path he has trod.” Wagner sees Man, not merely a triumphant soldier, the hero. Schindler believes the symphony to be the celebration of the French Revolution. And so on and so on. It is enough that the structure and the spirit of the symphony are heroic, that there is the grand gesture, that even in the Funeral March there is no whine of pessimism, no luxury of woe. It is a heroic lamentation over heroes slain in defence of freedom, a lamentation in which there is exultation, even in grief.
At Nussdorf in the summer of 1817, Beethoven, who had then composed eight symphonies, and the poet Christian Kuffner were having afish dinner at the Tavern Zur Rose. Kuffner asked him which of his symphonies was his favorite.
“Eh! Eh!” said Beethoven. “TheEroica.”
“I should have guessed the C minor,” said Kuffner.
“No, theEroica.”
Anton Schindler wrote in his life of Beethoven:
“First in the fall of 1802 was his [Beethoven’s] mental condition so much bettered that he could take hold afresh of his long-formulated plan and make some progress: to pay homage with a great instrumental work to the hero of the time, Napoleon. Yet not until 1803 did he set himself seriously to this gigantic work, which we now know under the title ofSinfonia Eroica: on account of many interruptions it was not finished until the following year.... The first idea of this symphony is said to have come from General Bernadotte, who was then French Ambassador at Vienna and highly treasured Beethoven. I heard this from many friends of Beethoven. Count Moritz Lichnowsky, who was often with Beethoven in the company of Bernadotte, ... told me the same story.”[7]Schindler also wrote, with reference to the year 1823: “The correspondence of the King of Sweden led Beethoven’s memory back to the time when the King, then General Bernadotte, Ambassador of the French Republic, was at Vienna, and Beethoven had a lively recollection of the fact that Bernadotte indeed first awakened in him the idea of theSinfonia Eroica.”
“First in the fall of 1802 was his [Beethoven’s] mental condition so much bettered that he could take hold afresh of his long-formulated plan and make some progress: to pay homage with a great instrumental work to the hero of the time, Napoleon. Yet not until 1803 did he set himself seriously to this gigantic work, which we now know under the title ofSinfonia Eroica: on account of many interruptions it was not finished until the following year.... The first idea of this symphony is said to have come from General Bernadotte, who was then French Ambassador at Vienna and highly treasured Beethoven. I heard this from many friends of Beethoven. Count Moritz Lichnowsky, who was often with Beethoven in the company of Bernadotte, ... told me the same story.”[7]Schindler also wrote, with reference to the year 1823: “The correspondence of the King of Sweden led Beethoven’s memory back to the time when the King, then General Bernadotte, Ambassador of the French Republic, was at Vienna, and Beethoven had a lively recollection of the fact that Bernadotte indeed first awakened in him the idea of theSinfonia Eroica.”
These statements are direct. Unfortunately, Schindler, in the third edition of his book, mentioned Beethoven as a visitor at the house of Bernadotte in 1798, repeated the statement that Bernadotte inspired the idea of the symphony, and added: “Not long afterward the idea blossomed into a deed”; he also laid stress on the fact that Beethoven was a stanch republican and cited, in support of his admiration of Napoleon, passages from Beethoven’s own copy of Schleiermacher’s translation of Plato.
Thayer admits that the thought of Napoleon may have influenced the form and the contents of the symphony; that the composer may have based a system of politics on Plato; “but,” he adds, “Bernadotte had been long absent from Vienna before the Consular form of government was adopted at Paris, and before Schleiermacher’s Plato was published in Berlin.”
The symphony was composed in 1803-04. The story is that the title page of the manuscript bore the word “Buonaparte,” and at the bottom of the page “Luigi van Beethoven”; and “not a word more,” said Ries, who saw the manuscript. “I was the first,” also said Ries, “to bring him the news that Bonaparte had had himself declared emperor, whereat he broke out angrily: ‘Then he’s nothing but an ordinary man. Now he’ll trample on all the rights of men to serve his own ambition; he will put himself higher than all others and turn out a tyrant!’” There is also the story that when the death of Napoleon was announced, Beethoven exclaimed: “Did I not foresee the catastrophe when I wrote the Funeral March in theEroica?” Vincent d’Indy argues against Schindler’s theory that Beethoven wished to celebrate the French Revolutionen bloc. “C’était l’homme de Brumaire” that Beethoven honored by his dedication. The autograph score, sold at auction in Vienna in 1827 for three florins, ten kreutzers, shows the erasure of two words under “Sinfonia grande” on the title page: one is plainly “Bonaparte”; under his own name, Beethoven wrote, in large characters, “Written on Bonaparte.” Paul Bekker, arguing that theEroicais not the portrait of any one hero, but that the symphony represents his concept of human heroism, believes that the first movement is the only one of direct connection with Napoleon: “The hero’s deeds have resulted in victory, the restless will has achieved fulfilment.”[8]
There can be nothing in the statements that have come down from Czerny, Dr. Bartolini, and others: the firstAllegrodescribes a sea fight; the Funeral March is in memory of Nelson or General Abercrombie, etc. There can be no doubt that Napoleon, the young conqueror, the Consul, the enemy of kings, worked a spell over Beethoven, as over Berlioz, Hazlitt, Victor Hugo; for, according to W. E. Henley’s paradox, although, as despot, Napoleon had “no love for new ideas and no tolerance for intellectual independence,” yet he was “the great First Cause of Romanticism.”
The first performance of the symphony was at a private concert at Prince Lobkowitz’s in December, 1804. The composer conducted, and in the second half of the firstAllegrohe brought the orchestra to grief, so that a fresh start was made. The first performance in public was at a concert given by Clement at the Theater an der Wien, April 7, 1805. The symphony was announced as “A new grand Symphony in D sharpby Herr Ludwig van Beethoven, dedicated to his Excellence Prince von Lobkowitz.” Beethoven conducted. Czerny remembered that someone shouted from the gallery: “I’d give another kreutzer if they would stop.” Beethoven’s friends declared the work a masterpiece. Some said it would gain if it were shortened, if there were more “light, clearness, and unity.” Others found it a mixture of the good, the grotesque, the tiresome.
The symphony was published in October, 1806. The title in Italian stated that it was to celebrate the memory of a great man. And there was this note: “Since this symphony is longer than an ordinary symphony, it should be performed at the beginning rather than at the end of a concert, either after an overture or an aria, or after a concerto. If it be performed too late, there is the danger that it will not produce on the audience, whose attention will be already wearied by preceding pieces, the effect which the composer purposed in his own mind to attain.”
The theme of the first movement is note for note the same as that of the first measures of the Intrade written by Mozart in 1768, at Vienna, for his one-act operetta,Bastien et Bastienne, performed that year in a Viennese garden house. Beethoven’s theme is finished by the violins and developed at length. There is a subsidiary theme, which begins with a series of detached phrases distributed among wood-wind instruments and then the violins. The second theme, of a plaintive character, is given out alternately by wood-wind and strings. The development is most elaborate, full of striking contrasts, rich in new ideas. The passage in which the horn enters with the first two measures of the first theme in the tonic chord of the key, while the violins keep up a tremolo on A flat and B flat, has given rise to many anecdotes and provoked fierce discussion. Thecodais of unusual length.
The Funeral March,Adagio assai, C minor, 2-4, begins,pianissimo e sotto voce, with the theme in the first violins, accompanied by simple chords in the other strings. The theme is repeated by the oboe, accompanied by wood-wind instruments and strings; the strings give the second portion of the theme. A development by full orchestra follows. The second theme is in C major. Phrases are given out by various wood-wind instruments in alternation, accompanied by tripletarpeggiosin the strings. This theme, too, is developed; and there is a return to the first theme in C minor in the strings. There is fugal development at length of a figure that is not closely connected with either of thetwo themes. The first theme reappears for a moment, but strings and brass enterfortissimoin A flat major. This episode is followed by another; and at last the first theme returns in fragmentary form in the first violins, accompanied by apizzicatobass and chords in oboes and horns.
M. d’Indy,[9]discussing the patriotism of Beethoven as shown in his music, calls attention to themilitarisme, the adaptation of a warlike rhythm to melody, that characterizes this march.
Scherzo:allegro vivace, E flat major, 3-4. Strings arepianissimoandstaccato, and oboe and first violins play a gay theme which Marx says is taken from an old Austrian folk song. This melody is the basic material of thescherzo. The trio in E flat major includes hunting calls by the horns, which are interrupted by passages in wood-wind instruments or strings.
Finale:allegro molto, E flat major, 2-4. A theme, or, rather, a double theme, with variations. Beethoven was fond of this theme, for he had used it in thefinaleof his ballet,Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus, in the Variations for pianoforte, Op. 35, and in a country dance. After a few measures of introduction, the bass to the melody which is to come is given out, as though it were an independent theme. The first two variations in the strings are contrapuntal. In the third the tuneful second theme is in the wood-wind against runs in the first violins. The fourth is a long fugal development of the first theme against a counter subject found in the first variation. Variations in G minor follow, and the second theme is heard in C major. There is a new fugal development of the inverted first theme. The tempo changes topoco andante, wood-wind instruments play an expressive version of the second theme, which is developed to acodafor full orchestra, and the symphony ends with a joyful glorification of the theme.
First performances: London, 1814. Paris (at a rehearsal in 1815 everybody laughed after the first and second movement; this happened at another attempt some years later), Conservatory Orchestra, 1828. St. Petersburg, 1834. Rome, 1860. Madrid, 1878.
Of the nine symphonies of Beethoven the Fourth and Sixth are the least impressive. The First is historically interesting, and itsfinaleis delightfully gay. The Second is also interesting as showing the development of Beethoven’s musical mind. After theEroica, the Fourth seems a droop in the flight of imagination. Yet there are noble and strange things in this symphony, things that only Beethoven could have written: the introduction, the mysterious measures with thecrescendothat majestically reëstablishes the chief tonality in the first movement; the superbadagio.
The old theory that the Fourth was inspired by Beethoven’s love for Therese Brunswick; that he was betrothed to her, which made happiness the keynote to the music, has been disproved, if ever it was accepted by students of Beethoven’s life. As a matter of fact, nothing is known about the “origin” of the music. A German commentator has recently spoken of “indecisiveness of mood” as “part of the imaginative scheme of the whole work”; he even sees in theadagio“the stimulus of some tense emotion” such as inspired the love letter, whether aroused by the “Immortal” or some other beloved. Is it not enough to hear the serene, nobly emotionaladagiowithout vain speculation as to why Beethoven was so deeply moved? Nor is it necessary to see Berlioz’s Archangel Michael, who, by the way, was the warlike leader of the angelic hosts, sighing and overcome by melancholy, as “he contemplated the worlds from the threshold of the empyrean.” One might ask why shouldMichael grow melancholy at the glorious sight? Nor can Beethoven’sadagiobe justly characterized as melancholy.
The composition of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor was interrupted by work on the Symphony in B flat major, No. 4, a symphony of a very different character. The symphony was probably planned and composed in the summer of 1806. “Having been played in March, 1807, at one of the two subscription concerts at Lobkowitz’s,” Thayer is justified in adding solemnly that “it must have been finished at that time.”
After the performance of theEroica, Beethoven also worked on his opera,Fidelio. The French army entered Vienna November 13, 1805; on the 15th, Napoleon sent to the Viennese a proclamation dated at Schönbrunn, and on November 20, 1805,Fideliowas performed for the first time, before an audience largely composed of French officers. There were three performances, and the opera was withdrawn until March 29, 1806, when it was reduced from three acts to two. The opera was again coldly received; there were two performances; and there was no revival in Vienna until 1814.
Beethoven, disturbed by the disaster which attended the first performances of hisFidelioin Vienna, during the French invasion, went in 1806 to Hungary to visit his friend, Count Brunswick. He visited the Prince Lichnowsky at Castle Grätz, which was near Troppau in Silesia. It has been said that at Martonvásár, visiting the Brunswicks, he found that he loved Therese and that his love was returned. Some, therefore, account for the postponement of the Fifth symphony, begun before the Fourth, “by the fact that in May, 1806, Beethoven became engaged to the Countess Therese.... The B flat symphony has been mentioned as ‘the most tenderly classical’ of all works of its kind; its keynote is ‘happiness’—a contentment which could have come to the master only through such an incident as the one above set forth—his betrothal.” We do not see the force of this reasoning.
It is better to say with Thayer that nothing is known about the origin of the Fourth beyond the inscription put by the composer on the manuscript which belongs to the Mendelssohn family: “Sinfonia 4ta1806. L. v. Bthvn.”
This we do know: that, while Beethoven was visiting Prince Lichnowskyat the latter’s Castle Grätz, the two called on Franz, Count Oppersdorff, who had a castle near Grossglogau. This count, born in 1778, rich and high-born, was fond of music; he had at this castle a well-drilled orchestra, which then played Beethoven’s Symphony in D major in the presence of the composer. In June, 1807, he commissioned Beethoven to compose a symphony, paid him two hundred florins in advance and one hundred and fifty florins more in 1808. Beethoven accepted the offer, and purposed to give the Symphony in C minor to the Count; but he changed his mind, and in November, 1808, the Count received, not the symphony, but a letter of apology, in which Beethoven said that he had been obliged to sell the symphony which he had composed for him, and also another—these were probably the Fifth and the Sixth—but that the Count would receive soon the one intended for him. The Fifth and Sixth were dedicated to Prince Lobkowitz and Count Rasoumowsky. Oppersdorff at last received the Fourth symphony, dedicated to him, a symphony that was begun before he gave the commission; he received it after it had been performed. He was naturally offended, especially as the Fourth symphony at first met with little favor. He did not give Beethoven another commission, nor did he meet him again, although Beethoven visited again the Castle Grätz in 1811. The Count died January 21, 1818.
The Fourth symphony was performed for the first time at one of two concerts given in Vienna about the 15th of March, 1807, at Prince Lobkowitz’s. The concert was for the benefit of the composer. TheJournal des Luxus und der Modenpublished this review early in April of that year:
“Beethoven gave in the dwelling house of Prince L. two concerts in which only his own compositions were performed: the first four symphonies, an overture to the tragedyCoriolanus, a pianoforte concerto, and some arias fromFidelio. Wealth of ideas, bold originality, and fullness of strength, the peculiar characteristics of Beethoven’s Muse, were here plainly in evidence. Yet many took exception to the neglect of noble simplicity, to the excessive amassing thoughts, which on account of their number are not always sufficiently blended and elaborated, and therefore often produce the effect of uncut diamonds.”
Was this “Prince L.” Lobkowitz or Lichnowsky? Thayer decided in favor of the former.
Berlioz writes of this symphony:
“Here Beethoven abandons wholly the ode and the elegy—a referenceto theEroicasymphony—to return to the less lofty and somber but perhaps no less difficult style of the Second symphony. The character of this score is generally lively, nimble, joyous, or of a heavenly sweetness. If we except the meditativeadagio, which serves as an introduction, the first movement is almost entirely given up to joyfulness. The motive in detached notes, with which theallegrobegins, is only a canvas, on which the composer spreads other and more substantial melodies, which thus render the apparently chief idea of the beginning an accessory. This artifice, although it is fertile in curious and interesting results, has already been employed by Mozart and Haydn with equal success. But we find in the second section of this sameallegroan idea that is truly new, the first measures of which captivate the attention; this idea, after leading the hearer’s mind through mysterious developments, astonishes it by its unexpected ending.... This astonishingcrescendois one of the most skillfully contrived things we know of in music: you will hardly find its equal except in that which ends the famousscherzoof the Symphony in C minor. And this latter, in spite of its immense effectiveness, is conceived on a less vast scale, for it sets out frompianoto arrive at the final explosion without departing from the principal key, while the one whose march we have just described starts frommezzo-forte, is lost for a moment in apianissimobeneath which are harmonies with vague and undecided coloring, then reappears with chords of a more determined tonality, and bursts out only at the moment when the cloud that veiled this modulation is completely dissipated. You might compare it to a river whose calm waters suddenly disappear and only leave the subterranean bed to plunge with a roar in a foaming waterfall.
“As for theadagio—it escapes analysis. It is so pure in form, the melodic expression is so angelic and of such irresistible tenderness, that the prodigious art of the workmanship disappears completely. You are seized, from the first measure, by an emotion which at the end becomes overwhelming in its intensity; and it is only in the works of one of these giants of poetry that we can find a point of comparison with this sublime page of the giant of music. Nothing, indeed, more resembles the impression produced by thisadagiothan that which we experience when we read the touching episode of Francesca da Rimini in theDivina Commedia, the recital of which Virgil cannot hear ‘without weeping in sobs,’ and which, at the last verse, makes Dante ‘fall, as falls a dead body.’ This movement seems to have been sighed by thearchangel Michael, one day when, overcome by melancholy, he contemplated the worlds from the threshold of the empyrean.
“Thescherzoconsists almost wholly of phrases in binary rhythm forced to enter into combinations of 3-4 time.... The melody of the trio, given to wind instruments, is of a delicious freshness; the pace is a little slower than that of the rest of thescherzo, and its simplicity stands out in still greater elegance from the opposition of the little phrases which the violins throw across the wind instruments, like so many teasing but charming allurements.
“Thefinale, gay and lively, returns to ordinary rhythmic forms; it consists of a jingling of sparkling notes, interrupted, however, by some hoarse and savage chords, in which are shown the angry outbursts which we have already had occasion to notice in the composer.”
As for the Fifth symphony, what words can be said of its composer more fitting than those of De Quincey’s apostrophe to Shakespeare; “O mighty poet! Thy works are not those of other men, simply and merely great works of art, but are also like the phenomena of nature, like the sun and the sea, the stars and the flowers, the frost and the dew, hailstorm and thunder, which are to be studied with entire submission of our own faculties, and in the perfect faith that in them there can be no too much or too little, nothing useless or inert, but that the farther we press in our discoveries, the more we shall see proofs of design and self-supporting arrangement where the careless eye had nothing but accident!”
In all modern music there is no page more thrilling than that of the mysterious, unearthly transition from thescherzoto thefinale, and the preceding pages are the triumph of absolute music over that which needs a programme or is the translation of somethinginto music. Here is music that was not suggested, but it suggests that which can only be imagined, not spoken, not painted, not written in lofty rhyme or passionate prose.
Beethoven sketched motives of theAllegro,Andante, andscherzoof this symphony as early as 1800 and 1801. We know from sketches that while he was at work onFidelioand the pianoforte concerto in G major—1804-06—he was also busied with this symphony, which he put aside to compose the Fourth symphony, in B flat.
The Symphony in C minor was finished in the neighborhood of Heiligenstadt in 1807. Dedicated to the Prince von Lobkowitz and the Count Rasoumowsky, it was published in April, 1809. It was first performed at the Theater an der Wien, Vienna, December 22, 1808.
Instead of inquiring curiously into the legend invented by Schindler—“and for this reason a statement to be doubted,” as Bülow said—that Beethoven remarked of the first theme, “So knocks Fate on the door!” (it is said that Ferdinand Ries was the author of this explanation and that Beethoven was grimly sarcastic when Ries, his pupil, made it known to him), instead of investigating the statement that the rhythm of this theme was suggested by the note of a bird—oriole or goldfinch—heard during a walk; instead of a long analysis, which is vexation and confusion without the themes and their variants in notation, let us read and ponder the words of the great Hector Berlioz:
“The most celebrated of them all, beyond doubt and peradventure, is also the first, I think, in which Beethoven gave the reins to his vast imagination, without taking for guide or aid a foreign thought. In the First, Second, and Fourth, he more or less enlarged forms already known, and poetized them with all the brilliant and passionate inspirations of his vigorous youth. In the Third, theEroica, there is a tendency, it is true, to enlarge the form, and the thought is raised to a mighty height; but it is impossible to ignore the influence of one of the divine poets to whom for a long time the great artist had raised a temple in his heart. Beethoven, faithful to the Horatian precept, ‘Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna,’ read Homer constantly, and in his magnificent musical epopee, which, they say, I know not whether it be true or false, was inspired by a modern hero, the recollections of the ancient Iliad play a part that is as evident as admirably beautiful.
“The Symphony in C minor, on the other hand, seems to us to come directly and solely from the genius of Beethoven; he develops in it his own intimate thought; his secret sorrows, his concentrated rage, his reveries charged with a dejection, oh, so sad, his visions at night, his bursts of enthusiasm—these furnish him the subject; and the forms of melody, harmony, rhythm, and orchestration are displayed as essentially individual and new as they are powerful and noble.
“The first movement is devoted to the painting of disordered sentiments which overthrow a great soul, a prey to despair; not the concentrated, calm despair that borrows the shape of resignation; not the dark and voiceless sorrow of Romeo who learns of the death of Juliet; but the terrible rage of Othello when he receives from Iago’s mouth the poisonous slanders which persuade him of Desdemona’s guilt. Now it is a frenetic delirium which explodes in frightful cries; and now it is the prostration that has only accents of regret and profound self-pity. Hear these hiccups of the orchestra, these dialogues in chords between wind instruments and strings, which come and go, always weaker and fainter, like unto the painful breathing of a dying man, and then give way to a phrase full of violence, in which the orchestra seems to rise to its feet, revived by a flash of fury; see this shuddering mass hesitate a moment and then rush headlong, divided in two burning unisons as two streams of lava; ... and then say if this passionate style is not beyond and above everything that had been produced hitherto in instrumental music....
“Theadagio” [andante con moto] “has characteristics in common with theallegrettoin A minor of the Seventh symphony and the slow movement of the Fourth. It partakes alike of the melancholy soberness of the former and the touching grace of the latter. The theme, at first announced by the united violoncellos and violas, with a simple accompaniment of the double-bassespizzicato, is followed by a phrase for wind instruments, which returns constantly, and in the same tonality throughout the movement, whatever be the successive changes of the first theme. This persistence of the same phrase, represented always in a profoundly sad simplicity, produces little by little on the hearer’s soul an indescribable impression....
“Thescherzois a strange composition. Its first measures, which are not terrible themselves, provoke that inexplicable emotion which you feel when the magnetic gaze of certain persons is fastened on you. Here everything is somber, mysterious; the orchestration, more or lesssinister, springs apparently from the state of mind that created the famous scene of the Blocksberg in Goethe’sFaust. Nuances ofpianoandmezzofortedominate. The trio is a double-bass figure, executed with the full force of the bow; its savage roughness shakes the orchestral stands and reminds one of the gambols of a frolicsome elephant. But the monster retires, and little by little the noise of his mad course dies away. The theme of thescherzoreappears inpizzicato. Silence is almost established, for you hear only some violin tones lightly plucked and strange little cluckings of bassoons.... At last the strings give gently with the bow the chord of A flat and doze on it. Only the drums preserve the rhythm; light blows struck by sponge-headed drumsticks mark the dull rhythm amid the general stagnation of the orchestra. These drum notes are C’s; the tonality of the movement is C minor; but the chord of A flat sustained for a long time by the other instruments seems to introduce a different tonality, while the isolated hammering of the C on the drums tends to preserve the feeling of the foundation tonality. The ear hesitates—but will this mystery of harmony end?—and the dull pulsations of the drums, growing louder and louder, reach the violins, which now take part in the movement and with a change of harmony, to the chord of the dominant seventh, G, B, D, F, while the drums roll obstinately their tonic C; the whole orchestra, assisted by the trombones, which have not yet been heard, bursts in the major into the theme of a triumphal march, and thefinalebegins....
“Criticism has tried, however, to diminish the composer’s glory by stating that he employed ordinary means, the brilliance of the major mode pompously following the darkness of apianissimoin minor; that the triumphal march is without originality, and that the interest wanes even to the end, whereas it should increase. I reply to this: Did it require less genius to create a work like this because the passage frompianotoforteand that from minor to major were the means already understood? Many composers have wished to take advantage of the same means; and what result did they obtain comparable to this gigantic chant of victory in which the soul of the poet-musician, henceforth free from earthly shackles, terrestrial sufferings, seems to mount radiantly towards heaven? The first four measures of the theme, it is true, are not highly original, but the forms of a fanfare are inherently restricted, and I do not think it possible to find new forms without departing utterly from the simple, grand, pompous character which isbecoming. Beethoven wished only an entrance of the fanfare for the beginning of hisfinale, and he quickly found in the rest of the movement and even in the conclusion of the chief theme that loftiness and originality of style which never forsook him. And this may be said in answer to the reproach of his not having increased the interest to the very end; music, in the state known at least to us, would not know how to produce a more violent effect than that of this transition fromscherzoto triumphal march; it was then impossible to enlarge the effect afterwards.
“To sustain one’s self at such a height is of itself a prodigious effort; yet in spite of the breadth of the developments to which he committed himself, Beethoven was able to do it. But this equality from the beginning to end is enough to make the charge of diminished interest plausible, on account of the terrible shock which the ears receive at the beginning; a shock that, by exciting nervous emotion to its most violent paroxysm, makes the succeeding instant the more difficult. In a long row of columns of equal height, an optical illusion makes the most remote appear the smallest. Perhaps our weak organization would accommodate itself to a more laconic peroration, as that of Gluck’s ‘Notre général vous rappelle.’ Then the audience would not have to grow cold, and the symphony would end before weariness had made impossible further following in the steps of the composer. This remark bears only on themise en scèneof the work; it does not do away with the fact that thisfinalein itself is rich and magnificent; very few movements can draw near without being crushed by it.”
When justly read, this symphony is indeed pastoral, light-hearted, something more than a fearsome length relieved only bythe little ornithological passage in which nightingale, quail, and cuckoo are neatly imitated; at least, it is fair to suppose this; we have never heard the nightingale sing. Jean Cocteau, in his amusing little book full of aphorisms designed to make the bourgeois sit up, says that the nightingale sings badly. So we must not be unduly prejudiced by praise of the bird coming from Milton, Matthew Arnold, and other poetical enthusiasts. Then there is the thunderstorm—the tempest, to use the good country term that has come down from Shakespeare and before him. And how charming the first two movements! To borrow the Host’s characterization of Master Fenton, the symphony smells April and May.