Beethoven
Baptized Dec 17, 1770 [Bonn] - Died March 26, 1827 [Vienna]
A Brief Biographical Note Complete List of Works
The German
composer of Flemish ancestry. He is the first composer who never had an official position during his
adult life. For him, music was not merely a means for self-expression but it
was also a moral and ethical power. His first published work was a set of nine
Variations on a March by Dresser for piano (WoO63, 1782/3, Mannheim). The
Cantata on the Death of Emperor Joseph II (WoO87, 1790) is the beginning of a
new and highly productive phase in Beethoven's life as a composer. It is one of
the extraordinary leaps in Beethoven's creative powers similar to those like the
Eroica (1803) and the Hammerklavier sonata (1817/8). His Opus 1 was
published in 1795. His lifetime covers the transition from the Classical to
Romantic period. The balance between form and emotion he achieved in his music makes
him a more Classical period composer. The song cycle An die ferne Geliebte
(1816) and the Sonatas Op.102 (cello) and Op.101 (piano) (1815) opened the door
for Romanticism for Beethoven. With the last quartets of Beethoven, music
enters into the Romantic period. Throughout his career, he repeatedly bid
farewell to the Classical tradition but never said a firm goodbye. His last
complete composition, the String Quartet in F, Op.135 is the most Haydnesque of
the last quartets. Beethoven links the classic feeling of Mozart and Haydn to
the romantic freedom of imagination. His music is often described as
larger than life. Sometimes, as Stravinsky pointed out, the message in his
music is greater than the music itself. After he died, his most profound influence
on the following generation was in changing the role of composer in the
society. He was the first successful freelance composer in Vienna. The old
style composer working for Church or aristocracy was replaced by a freelance
artist producing work for his own artistic needs and earning a living through
publication and performance of his own works. His another achievement was to
raise the instrumental music to the highest plane. Especially the symphony and
quartet reached their peak. This situation caused extreme difficulty for the
younger composer to write in these mediums. The most obvious example is the age
Brahms 'eventually' published his first symphony and string quartet.
His creative life is
usually divided into three periods
1. First period - establishment as a
major composer (till 1802): His early (Bonn) works show the signs of Mannheim
preoccupation with extremes of piano and forte. This remained a
fundamental element in Beethoven's music. The sudden pianos, the unexpected
outbursts, the wide leaping arpeggio figures known as 'Mannheim rockets'
are central to his musical vocabulary and helped him to liberate instrumental
music from its dependence on vocal style. The sharp conflicts of mood that
characterize the sonatas of CPE Bach appear much more powerfully in Beethoven.
The Piano Sonata Op.31/3 has a non-tonic opening, rich harmonies, and
scherzo-like slow movement with sforzandi in unexpected places. His
piano writing was more dynamic than melodic. His first period compositions are mainly
for the piano, alone or with other instruments (important exceptions are:
String Trios Opp.3 & 9, String Quartets Op.18, and the First Symphony).
During the first period, his art kept closely within the bounds of eighteenth
century technique and ideas. He was more a performer -a pianist- than a
composer in the first period. The major terminal works are: the Spring
Sonata for Piano and Violin, Op.24, the Kreutzer Sonata, Op.47, Symphony
No.1, and Piano Sonata in D, Op.28. The typical features of this period's works
are expansion in form (long and polythematic expositions), long and
lyrical slow movements, contrasted dynamics and improvisatory
writing for the piano. C minor is a favorite key in this period (the Pathetique,
Piano Concerto No.3).
2. Middle -heroic- period (1803-12):
This period starts with the Eroica which is a landmark in Beethoven's
musical development, and ends with the Emperor Concerto and the Egmont
Overture. Most of the works were his masterworks, including Piano Sonata Op.57
(Appassionato), Piano Concerto in G No.4 (Op.58), String Quartets
Op.59 (Razumovsky), Symphony No.4 (Op.60), Violin Concerto in D (Op.61).
The most heroic of his works, Fidelio, also belongs to this
period. In the Piano Concerto No.4, the improvisatory writing was more
marked than the first period. He started to depart from the norm in this
period. Structural innovations included the Eroica, the Moonlight
sonata (Op.27/2), the Fourth and Fifth Piano Concertos. In sonata form
movements, the exposition is now shorter and the development and coda are
longer. The third movements are now always a scherzo with unexpected
accents and syncopations. Slow movements became shorter and finales gained more
weight. His most accessible works are from this period.
3. Last period (1813-27): The last
period works are a mere fraction of his total output, but, they have a density
of musical thought surpassing anything that he had composed before. Growing
concentration of musical thought is combined with a wider range of harmony and texture.
The final period of Beethoven musical life starts with Op.102 Cello Sonatas and
Op.101 Piano Sonata (1815/6). His last five Piano Sonatas and String Quartets,
best Bagatelles, The Diabelli variations, the Missa Solemnis and
Symphony No.9 were written almost in the final decade of his life. Lyricism
is one feature of this period which became evident with Piano Sonatas Opp.90
& 101, and Cello Sonata Op.102/1. Longyear calls this period Beethoven's
contrapuntal period. Several features characterize most of his mature works:
increased use of counterpoint (fugues in the finales of Cello Sonata
Op.102/2, Piano Sonatas Opp.101, 106 'Hammerklavier', 109, 110 and String
Quartet Op.130 (Grosse Fuge); the first movements of String Quartet Op.131,
Piano Sonatas Op.106 and 111; the overture Die Weihe des Hauses, Missa
Solemnis, Diabelli Variations, first, second and last movements of
Symphony No.9); avoidance of obvious dominant effects; preoccupation
with (harmonically controlled) Variations (finale of Piano Sonatas Op.
109 and 111, Diabelli Variations, third and last movements of Symphony
No.9, middle movements of String Quartets Op.127, 131, 132 and
135), inclusion of recitative in an instrumental work (finale of
Piano Sonata Op.110, Choral Fantasy Op. 80, finale of Symphony No.9, third
movement of String Quartet Op.131), use of modality (Lydian mode in the
third movement of String Quartet Op.132), programmatic elements
(Cavatina in String Quartet Op.130, Song of a Convalescent's Thanksgiving to
God in String Quartet Op.132), finale-oriented pieces (Symphony No.9,
String Quartet Op.131), unusual number of movements (two in Piano Sonata
Op.111, six in String Quartet Op.130, seven in String Quartet Op.131), together
with weakening of the sense of discrete and closed movements, tendency
to use simple melodies like folk tunes, nursery rhymes, increasing use
of flat submediant as relaxation in slow movements (the A major slow
movement of String Quartet in C# minor, Op.131; String Quartet, Op.135; the
classic example being the Ab major slow movement of Symphony No.5 in C
minor). It is not rare that in this period, Beethoven combines an extremely
slow tempo with a highly ornate texture and the simplest of harmonies (second
movement of Piano Sonata Op.111). It is in this period that Beethoven
overwhelmed the limits of Classical form in his sonata form movements -a
process started with the Eroica- by blurring the demarcations between
sections and theme groups and in creating huge structures (as in the Razumovsky
Quartet No.1, the Hammerklavier Sonata and Symphony No.9; interestingly
No.8 is just the opposite in this respect which also has a Minuet instead of
Scherzo which make it very Classical). It is also notable that there are
frequent tempo and key changes in such movements (the most typical example is
the first movement of String Quartet in Bb Op.130 in which there are
sixteen tempo and six key changes). Fusion of forms is another feature
of the last period. The first movement of the last Piano Sonata Op.111 is a
profound fusion of the contradictory principles of sonata and fugue. String
quartet is the most essential medium of Beethoven's last period, as the piano
was of his first, and the symphony orchestra of his middle period. Finally, his
last period is when he best achieved the integration of highly contrasting
ideas in one piece. There is no better example of this than the String Quartet
in C# minor, Op.131 in his total output. He uses seven movements in six
distinct keys, changes the tempo 31 times and the result is still his most
unified piece.
The last period of
Beethoven's life should be considered in the light of the following facts: his
total deafness after 1819, his subsequent isolation from outside world, thus
increased importance of his inner world, his permanently failed attempts in
having a relationship with a woman, social and political situation in Vienna
after 1815 (Biedermeier's Vienna), his difficulties about his nephew Karl, the
disturbance of Austrian finances owing to the wars, and the Rossini fever in
Vienna which influenced Beethoven's popularity. It was clear that he had to
make necessary adjustments in his musical language and expression. His formal
innovations seem to be a result of these factors. The freedom of form he was
striving in the last Piano Sonatas was fully attained in the last String
Quartets.
Personal fingerprints
He usually sticks with diatonic,
triadic simplicity. Most of the themes have derived from the tonic triad.
Thematic variety and lyricism of some of his themes brings Beethoven closer to
Mozart (than Haydn). This is most obvious in the Septet, Eroica and the
first Razumovsky quartet. Emphatic tonal disjunction is an
essential element of Beethoven’s musical vocabulary. He juxtaposes
unrelated tonal areas without any preparation. Haydn used remote keys
unprepared in the beginning of development and so was Beethoven. Although his
great contemporaries used unrelated keys in successive movements (as in Haydn's
last Piano Sonata in Eb H.52 which has a second movement in E) or in
trios or their minuets, neither Mozart nor Haydn assigned a remote key an
essential function within the unity of a continuous and organized movement as
Beethoven did (incidentally this is a very Schubertian feature). Examples of
this can be seen in the Egmont overture when he suddenly switches to A
major from Ab major in b.91/2. He does the same in the String Quartet
Op.131 where he moves to D major (second movement) from C# minor (first
movement) without a break between the movements. In the first movement of
String Quartet Op.18, No.1, the exposition finishes in C major and the
development continues in A major. Four bars later another big leap, this time
to Bb, follows. In the opening ritornello of Piano Concerto No.2 in Bb,
he moves to Db without modulating. Similarly, at the end of the fifth
variation in the finale of Symphony No.9, he moves from A major (dominant of
the tonic) to F major (dominant of the new key, Bb). The first three
songs of the song cycle are in Eb, G and Ab; between them there
is hardly any preparation for the next key, especially remarkable when moving
from G to the Neapolitan key Ab.
Beethoven is one of the
supreme masters of long-range handling of harmony. Not keys but
key-relationships are an important source of harmonic color effects in his
music. Moving from a dominant seventh to a chord on the flat submediant
is an established resource Beethoven uses for creating surprise (In Fidelio,
b.49-50 of Florestan's Aria; b.333 of the first movement of the Piano Concerto
No.2 in Bb; b.217-218 of the first movement of the Piano Sonata Op.2/3).
He frequently uses flat-submediant as the key of the slow movement (Symphony
No.5, String Quartets Opp.131 & 135). The whole Symphony No.7 is obsessed
with the contrast between tonic (A) and flat submediant (F) / flat mediant (C).
The tonality of the Piano Sonata in F minor, Op.57 (Appassionato) frequently
veers to the flat submediant but even more significantly to the flat supertonic
(Neapolitan key). He even used sharp-submediant as the key of a slow movement
(in the String Quartet Op.95 in F minor, the slow movement is in D
major). Perhaps the most personal mark of Beethoven in his music is the
consistent use of third relationships. The first movement of
String Quartet in Bb Op.130 contains six key changes ranging from six
flats (Gb major) to two sharps (D major); these two keys are the flat
submediant and the major mediant of the in the Bb major scale. He uses
this intervallic relationship to create unity in An die ferne Geliebte.
Both in this song cycle and in the String Quartet in C# minor, Op.131, the keys
used follow a circle-of-thirds (Ab, C, Eb, G in the song cycle;
B, D, [F#], A, C#, E, G# in the Quartet). In the development of the Scherzo of
Symphony No.9, tonal motions are in thirds: D, B, G, Eb, C, Ab,
F, Db, Bb, Gb, Eb,Cb, Ab [G#], E, C#
and A. The Mass in C has a tonal plan based on mediant (E)
and submediant (A). Mass in C is one of the works in C major that prominent use
of the mediant E major is made (like the Piano Sonatas Opp.2/3 and 53; Leonore
Overtures No.2 and 3).
Rhythmic vitality in
Beethoven's music is unmatched. He creates this with his motifs, the use of harmonies,
anacrusis, syncopations, offbeat accents and the masterly use of dynamics. For
example, the famous turn motif of String Quartet No.18/1 appears in the
development on different beats of the bar. The best examples of the typical
rhythmic drive in symphonies are the first movement of the Eroica and
the whole Symphony No.7. The relentless rhythmic drive of Brahms's Symphony
No.1 is believed to be a result of a Beethovenian model he adopted for this
symphony. Sudden changes in dynamics are a typical feature in Beethoven's
music. In particular, the return of quiet main themes fortissimo at
recapitulation is worth noting. He is also very good in dramatic use of
silence.
He likes to use inversions
of chords frequently, especially the dominant seventh; and contrary
motion in thirds even at the risk of dissonance. Sometimes, he presents more
music in recapitulation than in the exposition (as b.167-173 of the first
movement of Waldstein Sonata; Piano Sonata Op.111; the first movement of
the String Quartets Opp.59/2 & 130; and the last movement of the String
Quartet Op.131). Especially in his middle-period, Beethoven presents a
harmonic puzzle or instability at the outset of a piece. From the very
first published work (Dresser's March, WoO63), C minor was a key
Beethoven favored a lot (Piano Trios, Op.1/3; String Trio, Op.9/3; Piano
Sonata, Op.10/1; Pathetique Sonata, Op.13; String Quartet, Op.18/4;
Piano Concerto No.3, Op.37; Coriolanus Overture, Op.62; Symphony No.5, Op.67;
first movement of the final Piano Sonata, Op.111). With Beethoven C minor
is usually the key for drama and tension. He chose this key for monumental
tragic-heroic works (like the Funeral Cantata WoO 87 and the principal section
of the Funeral March of the Eroica). He attached supreme suffering to F
minor (Fidelio, Egmont) and heroic emotion to Eb
major (the Eroica, Emperor).
Towards the end of his
life the use of trills came to have a significant importance. This started with
the last movement of the Piano Sonata in E minor, Op.90. The best example of
expressive trills can be found in the last variation of the last movement of
the last Piano Sonata (Op.111). The slow movement of the String Quartet in C#
minor, Op.131 (the beginning of the coda) is also very rich in trills.
Beethoven's fondness of
countryside is well-known. His tendency to write pastoral music culminated in
the Pastoral Symphony in 1808. He also wrote less known music with
pastoral connotations. His most pastoral composition written before the
Symphony was a song published in 1804. Der Wachtelschlag (WoO 129) in F
major is about a quail (also featured in the Symphony). There is also a
Pastoral in the ballet music Prometheus (1800-1). This is in C major
with 6/8 meter and uses almost exclusively tonic and dominant harmony. The Piano
Sonata in D (Op.28) has been nicknamed Pastoral by an English publisher.
This is because of the extended tonic pedal in the opening theme and in the
(6/8) finale. It was not Beethoven's idea to call it Pastoral. Another pastoral
sounding piece by Beethoven is a Bagatelle in F major from the Op.33 set
(1802). The musical features of the Symphony No.6 that give it a pastoral
character can be listed as follows: the key of F major and the extensive use of
woodwind, especially oboe which has originated from the shawm (a shepherd's
instrument); the use of fast triple (3/4), compound duple (6/8) and compound
quadruple (12/8) time in the third, last and second movements, respectively
(but not Siciliana rhythm); widespread use of pedal basses, simple diatonic harmonies
(mainly tonic-dominant) avoiding minor key modulations and chromatic chords;
upper parts moving in thirds; bird-song imitations; second movement in
subdominant; significant repetition; playing down the dramatic features of
sonata form in the first two movements (like the lack of dominant preparation
before recapitulation in the first movement) and lack of sudden dynamic
changes.
Beethoven's vocal works
are often underestimated. More than 40% of his Bonn works are for voice. This
proportion is very similarly represented in his total 600 works. His Lieder
compare favorably with those of his contemporaries, although, as with most
pre-Romantic Lieder, few have entered the modern repertory. Beethoven changed
the minuet to scherzo in his compositions. The scherzo is a less graceful and
more violent minuet and in much more rapid triple-meter. The rhythm of
Beethoven's scherzos is usually heard as a three-in-one beat. In slow
movements, like Haydn, he uses double variation form frequently. The most typical
example is Symphony No.5: the slow movement in variation form has two themes.
The rhythm of the second corresponds to the rhythm of the 'fate knocking on the
door' theme. The slow movements of Symphony No.4 & No.9 and String Quartet
Op. 132 'Song of a Convalescent's Thanksgiving to God' are also in double
variation form. His interest in the variation form is well-known. Towards the
end of his life, this interest became more than just elaborating a theme. As in
the Diabelli Variations (Op.120), he dissects the theme to discover new
meanings in it. He wrote 32 variations on a theme by Diabelli (eight groups of
four variations each one following the theme's eight four-bar
phrases). Sometimes the theme itself becomes unrecognizable. From the
middle period onwards, his large scale works represent triumph over threat or
adversity best seen in Symphony No.5 (also in Fidelio and the Adagio of
the first Razumovsky Quartet, Op.59). Even his darkest music usually
ends happily the rare exceptions being the Pathetique and the String Quartet in
C# minor, Op.131.
Structural innovations
From his Opus 1,
Beethoven started to make his mark on classical style. He is best remembered
for changing the minuet to scherzo. He even placed the scherzo as the second
movement in Symphony No.9. From the beginning, he increased the number of
movements to four in classical sonata (his first Bonn sonatas have four
movements). Later on, however, he also brought flexibility to the number of
movements and indeed his last Piano Sonata (Op.111) has only two movements
(after him, Liszt brought it down to one in his Sonata in B minor). The slow
introduction to a symphony was already known from the examples of Mozart and
Haydn but he did the same in his Piano Sonatas (Piano Sonata in F minor (1783),
WoO 47; the Pathetique). He revolutionized the symphonic concept.
The turning point in the history of symphony is the Eroica. It has an
unprecedented length, which was heralded in Symphony No.2, and the expansion of
sonata form in the first movement must have been hard to believe for his
contemporaries. The richness in themes and tonality, extraordinary development
which starts from the beginning and extended coda as a second development are
the main features of the first movement of the Eroica. He also widened
the scope of the piano sonata to symphonic proportions with the Waldstein, Appassionato and Hammerklavier
sonatas. With his Op.18 String Quartets (No.5-6) and Opp.26, 27/1-2 and 31/3
Piano Sonatas (all from 1800-1802), a tendency towards shifting the weight of a
multi-movement piece to the end emerged. He applied the same to the symphony
from the Eroica onwards. This trend culminated in the choral finale in
No.9. In No.6, he used five movements as opposed to the norm of four movements
and as he had done in No.5, he joined the last three movements together (in his
penultimate String Quartet in C# minor, all seven movements are played without
a break). Having exhausted the tools of the classical style, he started to
combine them. This is first seen in the fusion of forms in his music: in
Op.18/4, he combined the fugue and sonata form in the second movement; in the
finale of the Eroica, variation and fugue are combined; in the finale of the Pastoral
symphony, the rondo theme is varied at each return; in the last movement of
Piano Sonata, Op.111, the section after variation 4 may be seen either as an
extended coda or as two further variations surrounded by transitional material
and ending with a coda. His innovations in the use of sonata form are discussed
in the next section. See also Evolution of
Symphony and the Finale Problem after Beethoven.
Use of sonata form
As a Classical Period composer,
he used sonata form in first movements of most of his works. All four movements
of the String Quartet in F major Op.59/1 (Razumovsky) are cast in sonata
form. He sometimes used sonata form in last movements (Piano Sonatas Op.10/1
and Op.27/2; String Quartets Op.18/5, and Op.131 -the only sonata form movement
is the last movement in this quartet). He expanded the sonata form
movements to massive dimensions as in the first movements of Symphonies No.3
& 9. He generally observes the sonata principle. Sometimes his second
subjects are in unexpected keys or have more than one tonality but the whole
group usually establishes one single key and they are recapitulated in the
tonic (or tonic major). Not infrequently, he approaches the second subject
through an intermediary key (like from F to C through Ab in String
Quartet Op.18/1). Some exceptions violating the conventions of Classical sonata
principle are: the second subject of Symphony No.1 in C is recapitulated in the
subdominant (F); in the Piano Sonata, Op.10/1 (first movement), the
recapitulation of the second subject is also in the subdominant and
moves to the tonic minor (there are deviations from the sonata principle in all
three sonatas in this set); in the Pathetique Sonata (C minor), the
second subject is in Eb minor (mediant minor) and first recapitulated in
the subdominant before reaching the home key; the Egmont overture
(in F minor, Op.84) in which the second subject is in the relative major (Ab)
and recapitulated in the submediant key (Db); also in String Quartet in
F minor Op.95, the second subject is first recapitulated in Db and then
in F major; in the first movement of Symphony No.9 (in D minor), the second
subject is in the submediant (Bb) and is recapitulated in F# minor (a
third above the tonic); in the Piano Trio, Op.70/2 (finale), a double
recapitulation is the outcome of an unusual key structure which begins with the
exposition; in the finale of the String Quartet in C# minor, Op.131, the finale
is in sonata form and its second subject is recapitulated in the remote key, D
major (flat supertonic); in Piano Sonata in C Op.53 (Waldstein), the
second subject is in E and recapitulated first in A and then reaches the tonic,
later on in the coda it turns up again fully in tonic.
Other examples of the use
of remote keys (usually a third relationship to the tonic) for the second
subjects in sonata form movements: the flat submediant (Piano Sonata, Op.111;
String Quartet in Bb, Op.130); the mediant major (Waldstein); the
submediant major (String Quintet in C, Op.29; Archduke Trio in Bb,
Op.97; Hammerklavier Sonata in Bb, Op.106); the submediant
(String Quartet in F minor, Op.95); the mediant (Sonata in G, Op.31/1) in which
the second subject begins in the mediant (B) major but most of the rest of the
second group is in B minor. In the Scherzo of Symphony No.9 in D minor, the
second subject is in C major (flat-seventh). In the late period, it is rare to
see the second subject in dominant.
One of the hallmarks of
Beethoven's way with sonata form is his love of well-contrasted first and
second subjects. This was not unusual in the Classical period. The first and
second subject groups of the first movement of the Eroica and Egmont
are good examples of contrasting subjects in a sonata form movement
(rhythmic/masculine vs lyrical/feminine). The D major - B minor key
relationship was one of his favorite ones (Pastoral sonata Op.28, finale
of Symphony No.2). He also used the specific juxtaposition of D major and Bb
major in his works (introduction of Symphony No.2, the first orchestral tutti
of the Violin Concerto, the first turn towards the second thematic area in Archduke
Trio Op.97, the first theme of the third movement of Symphony No.9). He is very
fond of motivic development and he does it very concisely. He uses one or two
small motives to construct a whole movement. In the first and last movements of
piano sonata Op.10/3, he builds large structures from motifs of just a few
notes. His dominant preparations are sometimes massive (as in the Pathetique
sonata) and the recapitulation comes back after a long expectation and
usually in fortissimo. On the other hand, the development section of the
Scherzo of Symphony No.9 merges into the recapitulation without any dominant
harmony and, the first movement of the Pastoral Symphony does not have
any dominant pedal at the end of the development. The coda is generally a
further development section (first movement of the Eroica). Another
common procedure in Beethoven's sonata form movements is that a cadential
phrase from the first theme ends the exposition and opens the development
(String Quartet in G, Op.18/2).
The coda was no more than
a summing up in most Classical works before Beethoven. There were only a few
grand codas (as in Haydn's Symphony No.44, Mozart's large instrumental works in
C major and C minor). Beethoven raised the coda to the status of a second
development section. His largest codas are those in the finale of Trio Op.97
(157 of 410 bars), Symphonies No.3 (first movement), No.5 (finale), No.8
(finale; 236 of 502 bars), and in the finale of String Quartet Op.131 (125 of
388 bars).
Thematic links in
Beethoven's works
The main theme of the Eroica
may have been inspired from the Prometheus theme. The new theme that appears in
b.284 of the first movement seems to have been derived from the first and
second subjects. The funeral march theme in C minor is the retrograde
derivative of the main theme of the first movement. The horn theme in the Trio
is an anagram of the main theme (incl. the Db). In Symphony No.5, the
theme of the Scherzo is related rhythmically to the opening of the work. The
Scherzo theme appears in the finale. In No.9, the themes of the first three
movements are quoted in the beginning of the last movement. The Ode to Joy
theme is foreshadowed all the way through in the symphony. An example of
the intervallic relationship as a means of creating unity appears in the song
cycle An die ferne Geliebte. The interval sixth and its inversion the
third are used consistently in melodically important material throughout.
Semitonic interval is used as a unifying agent in Symphony No.2 and String
Quartet in C# minor. In the Pathetique sonata, the rondo theme is
related to the second subject of the first movement. He uses a rhythmic motive
to unite all sections in the first movement of Symphony No.4. All his last five
string quartets are united by the same pitch relationships in their themes
(most use the top half of the minor scale) and show some signs of key
relationships as a whole. As in the Eroica and Symphony No.5, the themes
of different movements of the String Quartet in C# minor (Op.131) are
interrelated. As an example, the theme of the last movement in sonata form is
an interversion of the first movement's fugal subject.
Orchestration in
Beethoven's work
Beethoven was not
interested in introducing novelties for their own sake. He follows the
conventions of Classical period orchestration with slight expansion. He shared
his contemporaries' taste for generally expanding the use of woodwind and
brass. He used the Classical period orchestration in most of his orchestral
music: double woodwind (pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons), pairs
of horns, trumpets, timpani and the standard strings (first violins, second
violins, violas, cellos, and double basses). Typical Beethovenian touches in
his scores are the sudden and unexpected fortes and pianos as well as sudden
silences. Adam Carse comments on examples of bad balances in orchestration in
several of his symphonies as a result of strings, or strings or brass,
overpowering the essential matter played by the wood-wind in loud passages. In
his first symphony, clarinets are still only harmony or tutti instruments but
gradually gain importance and are given solo parts from the Eroica onwards.
His horn parts also show gradual change. The number of stopped notes increased
starting with the Eroica. He used three horns in the Eroica and Fidelio
(1805) and four in Symphony No.9. He exploited the possibilities of the brass
group very little. The timpani, however, enjoyed prominence and even thematic
importance (as in the Scherzo of Symphony No.9) more than ever before in
Beethoven's music. Another novel use of the timpani was tuning them in the
extended interval of octaves in the same Scherzo (as well as in the finale of
Symphony No.8), and in the interval of diminished fifth in Florestan's F minor
aria in Fidelio. From his middle period onwards, he was getting
impatient with the instrumental technique of his time. His demands on the horn
players in the Eroica, Fidelio, Symphony No.9 (fourth horn), and
on the string bass players in the third movement of Symphony No.5 were probably
a little too much at the time.
Romantic tendencies in
Beethoven's music
Both Classical and
Romantic tendencies co-exist in Beethoven's music. In the case of Beethoven at
least, it would be more appropriate to see Classicism and Romanticism as
concurrent tendencies rather than consecutive periods. When exhausted the tools
of the Classical style, Beethoven turned to new ways of expression and new
kinds of content. In contrast to Romantics, Beethoven found these in his own
imagination. The great interest taken by many Romantic composers in their
national heritage was a characteristic of Beethoven too. His interest in folk
songs is very well known not only because of the arrangements he made for
British and Irish folk songs, but also because he wrote a lot of German Dances.
As his expressive purposes changed, he sometimes found it necessary to increase
the length of single movements as in the Eroica, Symphony No.9, and
String Quartets Opp.130 & 131. He also used the cyclical form (An die
ferne Geliebte song cycle). Like his follower Romantic composers would do,
he turned to the past in search of new expressive means. The amount of fugal
writing increased in his later works. The slow movement of the A minor quartet
(Op.132) bears the superscript 'Song of a Convalescent's Thanksgiving ... in
the Lydian mode'. The overture to the Consecration of the House
resembles the French overture type. He also created the short, lyrical piano
pieces called bagatelles. He provided examples for the traits often described
as Romantic: Program music (Pastoral Symphony), Extra-musical
suggestions (Eroica, Pastoral Symphony, Symphonies No.5 and 9,
Piano Sonata Op.81a Les Adieux), longing for the unattainable (An die
ferne Geliebte), finishing minor key works with major mode movements
(Symphonies No.5 and 9; Piano Sonatas Opp.90 & 111; String Quartet Op.95) [incidentally,
the opposite of this does not occur in Beethoven's music but there are later
examples: Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony in A and Brahms's Trio in B,
Op.8], merging of separate movements into a single span (Symphonies No.5 and 6;
Piano Concerto No.5 'Emperor'; Piano Sonata Op.111 'No.32'), tonal
innovations in sonata form-movements (in Appassionato in F minor, the
second subject is both in Ab minor and Ab major; in the Scherzo
of the Eroica, the second subject is recapitulated in the dominant first
and then in the tonic; in the finale of String Quartet in C# minor, Op.131, the
second subject is in relative major (E) and recapitulated in the Neapolitan key
'D major'). This Quartet (Op.131) is highly structured and in this sense
Classical. Whatever innovations, modifications and revolutions he has brought
into music, he never forgot to keep the balance and order. He appears to have
remained a Classical composer throughout his life, but the instinctive
imagination Beethoven shows for the form, texture and tonality is more
characteristic of Romantics. See also Romantic Music.
Beethoven's influence
During the nineteenth
century, those composers not influenced by Beethoven were the exception rather
than the rule. The model of Beethoven was a prototype for the Romantic artist
as he was not conservative in creativity and, tried new ways in expression and
communication with no recognition of boundary. His life style and humanistic
opinions also provided new models for the Romantics. Beethoven’s legacy
was immensely rich and varied. Many of the following composers could not avoid
his influence. His influence made especially symphonic writing a difficult task
for his followers. From the Eroica onwards, Beethoven redefined the
concept of symphony. He created new concepts in symphonic writing: the
metaphysical, exemplified by the heroic-tragic (funeral march from the Eroica,
the first movements of Symphonies No.5 and 9) and the heroic-victorious (first
movement of the Eroica, last movement of No.5, the Emperor); the
down-to-earth (the Pastoral); concision and neatness (Symphonies No.4
and 8); expansiveness (the Eroica, Symphony No.9); music with a message
(the Eroica, Symphonies No.5 and 9); or still abstract music (Symphonies
No.4 and 8) were the new and wide-ranging elements in the new symphonic style
as defined by Beethoven. In the new style, the weight shifted to the end (to
the finale) and, the concentrated motivic development and long-range tonal
planning became the norm. His immediate German successors Schumann and
Mendelssohn were undoubtedly Romantic composers but in their symphonies it was
Beethoven the Classic to whom they owed most.
As a brief summary, his
influence on other composers are as follows: Schubert: the expansive
dimension of his own No.9 (the Great), similarity of the rhythm in the
opening of the Wanderer to Beethoven’s Hammerklavier; Schumann:
the adoption of the song cycle as a model, the quotation of the closing song of
An die ferne Geliebte in his Piano Fantasy Op.17, placing of the scherzo
as the second movement in his Second Symphony, thematic cross-references and
the lack of breaks between movements in the Fourth Symphony (as in
Beethoven’s No.5 and 9, and No.5 and 6, respectively), thematic
cross-links also in the first movement of the Piano Concerto; Mendelssohn:
the parallels between his String Quartet Op.80 in F minor and Beethoven’s
F minor Quartet Op.95, his Piano Sonata Op.6 and Beethoven’s Sonatas
Opp.90 & 101, choral finale in Symphony No.2, the similarity of the Andante
con moto in D minor from the Italian Symphony to the Allegretto
of Beethoven's No.7, the Adagio of the Scottish Symphony has
similarities to the Harp Quartet Op.74, the connection of the first
two movements of the Violin Concerto by a single bassoon note modeled on the Emperor;
Berlioz: Programmatic content and thematic transformation in the
symphonies Symphonie fantastique and Romeo and Juliette, also
chorus in the finale of Romeo and Juliette; Liszt: inspiration
from the Egmont and Leonora Overtures No.2 and 3 to write his 13
Symphonic Poems, programmatic symphonies (Dante and Faust) and
use of chorus in the finale of them, thematic transformation in Faust
(similar to the transformation of the slow introduction theme in the Pathetique),
Piano Sonata in B runs without a break; Brahms: the relentless rhythmic
drive, beautiful breadth of melodies, originality of modulations, dramatic
treatment of the main structural landmarks and particular expressive content in
Symphony No.1 (1876) which was dubbed 'The Tenth', the tonal relationships
between the movements of this Symphony is another reminder of Beethoven (and
Schubert): they are separated from each other by a major third (C minor, E
major, Ab major, C minor), the symphonic nature of Piano Concerto
No.1 in D minor (1859) and the structure of its rondo (aspired from
Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.3), his second Piano Concerto in Bb
(1881) was even called 'a symphony with obbligato piano', the rhythmic
similarity of the opening theme of his Piano Sonata No.1 (1853) to the Hammerklavier’s
first theme and the reference to Bb
near the opening of a C major sonata movement (similar to Waldstein),
particular emphasis on this Bb as Beethoven did the same for G in the
first movement of String Quartet Op.59/1 and D and A in the whole of Op.131,
similarities of his Violin Concerto and Double Concerto to Beethoven’s
Violin Concerto (1878) and Triple Concerto (1887), the intervallic contour of
the first theme using descending thirds (cf. Hammerklavier) and dual
tonality of the second subject in B minor and major (cf. Appassionato
Op.57 and Sonata in G Op.31/1) in the Fourth symphony, the freedom he allowed
himself in variation writing can be traced back to Beethoven, his addition of a
fourth movement in his second Piano Concerto may have been inspired from
Beethoven's similar innovation in piano sonata; Bruckner: Hugely
expansive symphonies, simplicity of motifs and creating great structures from
these simple motifs (Urmotive), the use of the first movement of
Beethoven’s No.9 as a model in many symphonies (especially in his Third
Symphony, also the Eighth starts with a theme rhythmically identical to the
opening of Beethoven's No.9), use of the slow movement of No.9 as a model for
some his symphonic slow movements (especially the last three), in the finale of
his Symphony No.5, themes from the earlier movements re-appear and alternate
with new themes and they altogether become the first subject proper; Mahler:
The resemblance of the Resurrection March in his Second Symphony to the march
episode in the finale of Beethoven's No.9, extreme similarity of the opening of
the third movement of the Fourth Symphony to the quartet from Act 1 of Fidelio,
the opening of the Adagio finale of Mahler's Third Symphony resembles to the Lento
assai from the String Quartet Op.135 and the second part of the main theme
from Marcia funebre of the Eroica; Wagner: He
considered himself as the successor of Bach of Beethoven. His early instrumental
works are based on Beethovenian models. Wagner aspired to compose symphonic
opera. He at the end infused opera with Beethoven’s symphonism. He
combined literary drama and the Beethovenian symphony in musical drama. Thus,
he used large-scale tonal planning and thematic-motivic working (with more
emphasis on transformation) in his operas; Franck: Apart from
finishing his only Symphony in D minor in major mode, the first phrase of the Grande
Piece Symphonique is related to Muss es sein? (Beethoven's String Quartet
op.135); Martinu himself stated that the Eroica lay behind the musical
language of his Symphony No.3; Bartok: He was a great fan of
Beethoven’s last quartets. These quartets formed the inspiration for
Bartok’s six mature quartets. No.1 starts with a fugue like
Beethoven’s Op/131, intellectual concentration (similar to the finale of
the Hammerklavier and Grosse Fugue) can be seen in the opening of
his String Quartet No.4. A motif only uses semitonic intervals forms the
generative nucleus in this quartet; Tippett: He was impressed with the
vitality of the formal process and the creation of ebb and flow in
Beethoven’s music. He frequently started with a sonata-allegro movement
and finished with a sonata-rondo in his compositions. His Symphony No.2, for
example, consists of a dramatic sonata-allegro followed by an expressive slow
movement, a vigorous scherzo and a climaxing finale. So has his String Quartet
No.1 a similar structure. He used the model of Beethoven’s String Quartet
Op.95 to integrate widely differing material such as the lyrical opening
folk-like theme with a homophonic accompaniment, a fugue with a chromatic tail
into his Concerto for Double String Orchestra. Like the Hammerklavier and
Grosse Fugue, he concluded his String Quartet No.3 and Symphony No.1 with
fugues. Similarities extend to the use of expressive trills and increased speed
of figurations (as in the finale of Beethoven’s Op.111) in his Piano
Sonata No.3. He even quoted the alla marcia from the finale of the Ninth Symphony
in the third act of his opera The Midsummer Marriage. Also in the finale
of his Third Symphony, he quotes the opening bars of the finale of Symphony
No.9. If not his music, the humanism Beethoven pictured so positively in
masterpiece after masterpiece will continue to influence each generation.
See also Naxos 4-CD Set
with Narration on Beethoven's Life and Works (Cat. No. 8.558024-27)
Beethoven: The Music and the Life by Lewis Lockwood
Link to the
Ludwig van Beethoven Website
M.Tevfik
Dorak, B.A. (Hons)
Last updated on May 4, 2003