Part 2
Nevertheless, the tremendous series of thirty-two sonatas, which began, roughly speaking, in 1795 and continued more or less intermittently till 1822, are among his most moving, gracious, original, adventurous, and completely extraordinary achievements. They range all the way from the so-called “Pathétique,” “Pastoral,” and “Moonlight” to the “Waldstein,” the “Appassionata,” and the programmatic “Les Adieux, l’Absence et le Retour,” to the mighty series beginning in 1816 with the A major, opus 101, and culminating in the gigantic B flat, opus 106 (universally known as “for the Hammerklavier”), the extraordinarily imaginative ones in E major and A flat, opera 109 and 110, and the transcendent, Promethean C minor, opus 111. Within the cosmic limits of this stupendous succession there stretches a whole world of emotional experience and an incalculable diversity of invention. And we may as well mention here (though it was not composed till 1823) that prodigious set of Thirty-three Variations on a Waltz by the publisher Diabelli, which has not its like in the whole range of Beethoven’s output. Looking back over the immense panorama of the composer’s piano works (including variations, bagatelles, and solo sonatas) stretching, let us say, from the awesome summits of the “Hammerklavier,” the C minor, and the “Diabelli” Variations backward to the comparative simplicities of the sonatas Opera 2, 22, 26, and 27 leaves one with the dizzy impression of surveying a whole Alpine panorama.
Symphony No. 5, in C Minor, Opus 67
As we have seen, Beethoven interrupted work on a symphony in C minor to write his Fourth Symphony. That done, he returned to the C minor Symphony, finishing it late in 1807 or early in 1808. Both this Fifth Symphony and its successor, the Sixth, were brought out in Vienna at the same concert on December 22, 1808. The Fifth Symphony has turned out to be the most unreservedly admired, the most generally beloved, and the most frequently performed of all Beethoven’s nine, in fact, of all symphonies. 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”:
This rhythmic group not only dominates the concise first movement, but appears in every succeeding movement. The second movement (“Andante con moto” in A-flat major) consists of a graceful, flowing set of variations on a brave and lovely theme:
The uncanny Scherzo (Allegro in C minor), introduced merely by the common chord of C minor in arpeggio, is the musical embodiment of the terror that walketh by night. Berlioz said of the opening, “It is as fascinating as the gaze of a mesmerizer.” An extraordinary bridge passage, a supreme example of musical suspense, leads from the nightmare of the Scherzo finally in a breathtaking crescendo to the triumphant proclamation of the C major Finale. The effect produced by this symphony on a contemporary composer is indicated in the frenetic outburst of the veteran composer Lesueur to the youthful Berlioz: “Ouf! Let me get out; I must have air. It is unbelievable! Marvellous! It has so upset and bewildered me that when I wanted to put on my hat, _I could not find my head_!”
Symphony No. 6, in F Major, “Pastoral”, Opus 68
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. This symphony, which the composer himself called “Pastoral,” is Beethoven’s monument to Nature. It expresses his personal devotion to the country and to what life in the country meant to him. 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.” 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. Often when his friends visited him in the country in summer, he would rush away from them.” 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; he seemed positively to exist upon it.” Michael Krenn, Beethoven’s body-servant during the last summer of his life when he was staying at his brother’s house at Gneixendorf, relates that Beethoven spent most of his time in the open air from six in the morning till ten at night, ranging over the fields, often hatless, shouting (he had long been completely deaf), gesticulating, and in general quite beside himself from the torrent of ideas in his mind.
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.” 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:
which really holds the germ of the entire movement and, as Beethoven develops it, becomes as the whole countryside in Maytime bloom.
The second movement, “Andante molto moto” in B-flat major, is more definite in its treatment of Nature. Beethoven calls it “Scene by the brookside,” and from the very first note you hear the purling of the water in the lower strings.
Against this murmurous background lovely melodies bud and flower and the whole orchestra seems filled with the tiny, numberless noises of summer. Near the end occurs a specific imitation of the call of birds, nightingale, cuckoo, and quail. Beethoven himself said that he meant these measures as a joke, and others have termed them parody or caricature. But, joke or parody, the unconquerable artist in Beethoven has made them of one substance with the heavenly summer light and shade that pervade this interlude of leisure by the brook.
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 jolly character of the movement is evident in these consecutive tunes, in the contrasting keys of F and D, that start it off:
The last three movements of the symphony are continuous. A dominant seventh of F ends the “Jolly Gathering,” but, instead of its resolving, an ominous drum roll on D flat immediately ushers in the fourth movement, “Thunderstorm; Tempest” (Allegro in D minor), the storm without which no country scene is perfect. In spite of the formidable title, this is by no means a devastating outburst, though quite sufficient to postpone festivities. 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:
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. Since it had an earlier place on the program, it was known for a while as the Fifth and the Fifth as the Sixth, but the mistake was soon rectified.
_Fidelio_ and the “Leonore” Overtures
The period of Beethoven’s Second, Third, and Fourth Symphonies covers, roughly speaking, a number of other compositions, some of them relatively trifling, others of greater moment, still others of altogether sovereign importance. Among the first type we can mention the Romances in G and F for violin and orchestra, composed in 1802; the oratorio “Christ on the Mount of Olives,” from the same year; and the Triple Concerto for piano, violin, and cello, which dates from 1805. 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. The Triple Concerto, though not a masterwork of the first order, has been somewhat too harshly dismissed by many and therefore seldom visits our concert halls.
Otherwise the principal productions of these years include a quantity of the brightest jewels in Beethoven’s crown. Leaving aside the chamber music, which we prefer to consider by itself, they comprise the opera _Fidelio_ and the three “Leonore” Overtures written in connection with it; the Violin Concerto (which the composer also arranged as a sort of piano concerto); and the “Coriolanus” Overture.
_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. It has been reproached for being poor theater, undramatic, unvocal, patchy, and countless other things. The book, originally adapted from _Leonore, ou l’amour conjugale_, by the Frenchman, Bouilly, and translated into German by Joseph Sonnleithner, was cast into its definitive form by Friedrich Treitschke. For a variety of reasons the work failed when it was first performed at the Theater an der Wien in November 1805. A bold attempt at revision the following season did not manage to keep it afloat and it was not till eight years later that the composer, with the clever dramatic surgery of Treitschke, made a final attempt to salvage it. Just how drastic were the alterations that the composer and librettist made in the piece can best be appreciated by those who have had the opportunity to examine the reconstruction of the original version which Erich Prieger published in 1905 on the occasion of the centenary of the work. From this it can be seen that not only have entirely new musical numbers supplanted the old but the opera (or rather _Singspiel_) has been reduced from its original three acts to two and that the dramaturgy betrays a vastly more experienced hand. The musical changes and condensations of Beethoven have, in their way, been no less thorough.
Far from being bad theater or unoperatic as sometimes charged, _Fidelio_ is basically one of the most dramatic and profoundly moving masterpieces the lyric theater can show. The 1805 version lacked a number of its most striking musical features. The original, for example, shows no trace of the great outburst, _Abscheulicher_, which introduces Leonore’s tremendous _scena_ in the first act; and in the second, Florestan’s dungeon air lacks its present “Und spür ich nicht holde, sanft säuselnde Duft,” which took the place of the long-winded bravura phrases the composer originally gave the presumably starving prisoner to sing. Even the present touching close of the dungeon episode was originally quite different.
It has often been claimed that the previous “failure” of the work so discouraged the composer that his operatic achievements ended then and there. As a matter of fact, Beethoven to the end of his days never gave up his search for another libretto. That he never found it was due to the very special slant of his requirements. 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. For years controversies have raged as to the order in which the “Leonore” Overtures were written and for what reason one supplanted the other. The Second Leonore was the first used to preface the drama at its 1805 hearing; the Third introduced the 1806 revision. Theories have been bandied about for generations to account for the First Overture, which was issued as Opus 138 only some years after the composer’s death. The researches of Dr. Joseph Braunstein in his exhaustive study _Beethovens Leonore-Ouvertüren, eine historischstilkritische Untersuchung_ have settled the problem for us. The overtures were composed in the order of their numbering. “Leonore” No. 1 was found too light for its purpose and, after a private try-out, was discarded before being publicly performed. “Leonore” No. 2, less polished and formally perfect than the more structural and popular No. 3, ranks if anything as more dramatic, modern, and powerful, even if it does lack the brilliantly jubilant coda that is the particular glory of No. 3. Neither of these two, however, is a wholly well-conceived introduction to _Fidelio_, for the reason that both overpower the opera as a whole and might almost be said to render the drama superfluous. Actually, a _Fidelio_ representation profits by the omission of all the “Leonore” Overtures, though practically every audience these days expects the “Leonore” No. 3 quite as a matter of course and ordinarily gets it as a sort of interlude between the dungeon and the concluding scenes.
A word as to the “Fidelio” Overture of 1814, which has none of the features of the “Leonore” tone poems, either thematically or otherwise. It is more in the character of a _Singspiel_ overture and has as good as no dramatic connection with the opera itself—no reference to Florestan’s dungeon song nor to the off-stage fanfare of the rescue scene; yet it leads quite properly into the light moods of the opening episodes of the chattering Marzelline and Jacquino in the first scene and does not, like the Second and Third “Leonore,” completely overweight the remainder of the score. At that, it is structurally and otherwise fully worthy of its composer and is a more logical adjunct to _Fidelio_ than any one of the “Leonore” Overtures. Actually, it is a good deal more interesting in its own right than the average person imagines and merits far closer study than it ordinarily receives.
The “Coriolanus” Overture virtually coincides, in point of time, with the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Symphonies. One of its creator’s most striking, yet economically fashioned works, it is in no way related to Shakespeare’s _Coriolanus_ as has frequently been imagined, but was derived from a Coriolanus tragedy by Heinrich von Collin. Yet many (including Richard Wagner) have interpreted it in terms of Shakespeare’s drama, the basic emotional pattern of which it can suggest.
Symphony No. 7, in A Major, Opus 92
After the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, Beethoven let several years pass without giving the world another, though he continued to compose diligently in spite of uncertain health and ever-increasing deafness. At length, in 1812, he finished two symphonies, which were probably played in private for the first time at the house of the Archduke Rudolph in Vienna on April 20, 1813. He was unable, however, to obtain a public performance for either of them till the Seventh Symphony was given in the great hall of the University of Vienna on December 8 of the same year.
Beethoven himself spoke of this work as his “most excellent” symphony, an opinion that not a few have echoed. He composed it in all the exuberance of his creative maturity, and each of its four movements brims over with the fiery essence of his inspiration. 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.
Coming after the “Pastoral” with its avowed meaning, does this symphony “mean” anything in the sense in which that work and the “Eroica” do? Beethoven has not helped us with the clue of a title. 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. The second theme of this introduction—a capricious, tripping melody, first given out by a solo oboe—is not only one of the most captivating that Beethoven ever invented, but might very well be taken for an invitation to the dance or, perhaps equally well, for the caroling of a bird:
The principal theme of the main body of the movement (Vivace in A major), first announced by the flute, dominates the whole movement with its dotted dactylic rhythm. This theme, in its turn, might be a further invitation to the dance or again the piping of a bird.
The second movement, an Allegretto opening in A minor on a long-held, mysterious 6-4 chord of the tonic, is one of the most remarkable pages in all Beethoven. Here, if the dance simile is to be preserved, it must be a solemn, ritual dance. Thus the movement has been likened to a procession in the catacombs. But it has been likened as well to the love dream of an odalisque!
The third movement is a brilliant Scherzo, though marked only “Presto” (in F major). Twice it is interrupted by the fascinating strains of the somewhat less rapid Trio (“Assai meno presto” in D major), enshrining a melody that is said to be taken from a pilgrims’ hymn of Lower Austria:
The Finale is an Allegro of enormous energy and rhythmic incisiveness, whose tumultuous measures have been specifically compared to widely diverse dances. Some have heard here the rough jollity of dancing peasants, a “Bauertanz” or “Dance of Peasants,” while to others it is nothing less than the ceremonial dance of those priests of Cybele, the Corybantes, around the cradle of the infant Zeus.
Overtures
In 1809-10—or only two or three years before the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies—Beethoven was commissioned to write incidental music for Goethe’s tragedy of the Netherlands under Spanish oppression, _Egmont_. The F minor Overture ranks indisputably as one of his finest, if it is less spare and less dour than the one to _Coriolanus_. It is a dramatic tone poem, but not a theatrical compendium in the manner of the “Leonore” Overtures. Yet it has an exultant coda not wholly dissimilar to the tremendous close of “Leonore” No. 3. This coda is identical with the so-called “Triumph” Symphony which concludes the play and was actually composed before the overture proper.
The greater Beethoven overtures might be termed off-shoots or by-products of the symphonies. Let us consider them briefly at this stage irrespective of their precise dates of composition. Not all the rest, to be sure, rise to the heights of the “Leonore” Overtures, the “Egmont,” or the “Coriolanus.” But it is only proper to allude to such symphonic prefaces as the early overture to the _Creatures of Prometheus_ ballet (from the period of the First Symphony), the tenuous ones for the Kotzebue plays _The Ruins of Athens_ and _King Stephen_, the “Namensfeier” Overture (an “occasional” piece, written in 1814), and the magnificent, if slightly known and largely undervalued, “Consecration of the House,” composed as late as 1822 for the opening of the Josefstädter Theater in Vienna. The influence of Handel is powerfully manifest in this late creation, which is strongly contrapuntal in its texture but at the same time strangely suggestive from a dramatic, even a pictorial, standpoint.
Having paid something of a compliment to Handel in the “Consecration of the House” Beethoven was on the point of composing an overture on the letters of Bach’s name a couple of years later. The formula B-A-C-H represents in German notation B flat, A, C, and B as employed contrapuntally not only by Bach himself but by countless other masters since Bach’s epoch. Unfortunately, though he worked on studies for such an overture till 1825, Beethoven was too occupied with other schemes and never lived to complete it.
Symphony No. 8, in F Major, Opus 93
Although played privately in Vienna at the Archduke Rudolph’s on April 20, 1813, the Eighth Symphony had no public performance till it was brought out at the Redoutensaal (Vienna) on February 27, 1814. The Seventh Symphony was on the same program and its Allegretto was encored, as it had been at its world première of the previous December. But the new work was received with less favor. A reviewer generously remarked that it was a mistake to place it after the manifold beauties of the Seventh. He had no doubt that it would be well received in future if given alone. Nevertheless this symphony was long neglected, in spite of attempts to make it succeed with the public by interpolating the popular Allegretto of the Seventh!