Transcript Beethoven: Life and Works

Beethoven: Life and Works
An Overview
First Period: 1792-ca. 1802
• Early works for fortepiano
– First three sonatas reminiscent of works by Joseph Haydn
– Four movements rather than (more normal) three
– Beginning with second Sonata ff, Beethoven replaced the
more traditional “Minuet” with the “Scherzo”
– Extensive use of minor mode, bold modulations
– Sonata in E-flat, Op. 7: eloquent pauses in the slow
movement (Largo con gran espressione)
– Sonata in C minor, Op. 13: stormy, passionate character of
outer movements; frequent use of octaves and full, thick
textures, showing influence of Clementi and Dussek
First Period: 1792-ca. 1802
• Chamber music
– Quartets, Op. 18, show indebtedness to Haydn
– Beethoven’s contributions:
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motivic character of the themes
unexpected turns
unconventional modulations
subtleties of formal structure
First Period: 1792-ca. 1802
• First Symphony
– Slow introduction, which approaches main key
from both subdominant and dominant directions
– Unusual prominence given to winds
– Long and important codas, esp. first and last
movements
• Second Symphony
– Long Adagio foreshadows a work of
unprecedented scale; esp. the Larghetto, with its
many themes and rich, singing style
Second (“Heroic”) Period: ca. 1802-ca.
1815
• Beethoven was acknowledged to be the
foremost pianist and composer for piano of his
time, especially known for his improvisations;
and a symphonist equal to Haydn and Mozart.
• He was befriended by noble families, who
became his patrons.
“It is well to mingle with aristocrats, but one
must know how to impress them.”
Second (“Heroic”) Period: ca. 1802-ca.
1815
• Third Symphony (“Eroica”)
– “Heroic Symphony…composed to celebrate the memory of
a great man” (Sinfonia Eroica…composta per festeggiare il
sovvenire di un grand Uomo)
– Unprecedented length, but also difficult for audiences to
understand.
– First movement built from small motives (all heard in first
36 measures), grows by avoiding obvious cadences, filled
with peculiarities (e.g., “new” theme in development,
expansive coda, premature horn entrance), dramatic and
insistent syncopations
– Second movement: Funeral march in C minor, full of tragic
grandeur and pathos. At opening, thirty-second notes of
strings suggest muffled drums of Revolutionary burial
Second (“Heroic”) Period: ca. 1802-ca.
1815
• Fidelio
– Shares Revolutionary character with Symphony 3
– Glorification of Leonore’s heroism, and of great
humanitarian ideals of Revolution
Second (“Heroic”) Period: ca. 1802-ca.
1815
• “Rasumovsky” Quartets, Op. 59
– Dedicated to Count Rasumovsky, Russian
ambassador to court at Vienna and an excellent
amateur violinist
– Russian melodies in first and second quartets
– Rasumovsky’s quartet first thought Beethoven was
playing a joke on them with this music
– Clementi to Beethoven: “Surely you do not
consider these works to be music?” Beethoven’s
response: “Oh, they are not for you, but for a later
age.”
– Use of pedal points, frequent changes of texture,
Second (“Heroic”) Period: ca. 1802-ca.
1815
• Beethoven worked on Fourth and Fifth
Symphonies at same time, contrasting joviality
of Fourth with expression of fate in Fifth.
• Fifth Symphony
– Insistent use of four-note motive in first
movement, and recurring in 2nd and 3rd movements
– Noteworthy: use of timpani, playing rhythm of
opening motive, as transition to last movement
– C major “triumph” of last movement, with piccolo,
trombones, and contrabassoon added
Second (“Heroic”) Period: ca. 1802-ca.
1815
• Sixth Symphony (“Pastoral”)
– Hector Berlioz on the “storm” movement:
“Storm, lightning. I despair of trying to give an idea of this
prodigious piece. You have to hear it to conceive the degree of truth
and sublimity that musical painting can reach at the hands of a man
like Beethoven. Listen, listen to these gusts of wind charged with
rain, these deaf growlings of the basses, the high whistling of the
piccolos that announce a terrible tempest about to unleash. The
storm approaches, it spreads; an immense chromatic stroke starting
in the higher instruments rummages down to the last depths of the
orchestra, hitches on to the basses and drags them with it and climbs
up again, shuddering like a whirlwind that overturns everything in
its path. Then the trombones burst forth, as the thunder of the
tympani redoubles in violence. This is no longer rain and wind; it is
an appalling cataclysm, the great flood, the end of the world”
Second (“Heroic”) Period: ca. 1802-ca.
1815
• This period dominated by orchestral works
– Symphonies 3-8
– Piano Concertos 4 and 5, Op. 58 and Op. 73
– Violin Concerto, Op. 61
• Works from this period display an increasingly
individual character.
• Beethoven’s innovations were bolder and more
radical than in early works.
• Beethoven responded to criticism by saying that
future generations would understand his music—the
first indication that a composer realized that his
works would be performed by future generations.
Third Period: ca. 1815-1827
• Generosity of patrons and steady demand for new works from
publishers
• Deafness became more of a trial; communicates with
“Conversation Books”
• Beethoven retreated more and more into himself, became
morose, irascible, and suspicious of others.
• Family problems, ill health, and unfounded fear of poverty
plagued him.
• Characteristics of late works
– Compositions become more meditative. Urgent and
intensely passionate character of middle-period works
becomes more tranquil and calm.
– Development of thematic material until seemingly all its
potential is exhausted
– Increased use of counterpoint
– Blurring of demarcations between sections of a movement,
and between movements
Third Period: ca. 1815-1827
• Last five piano sonatas, 1816-1821
• Missa solemnis, 1822
– Indebted to Handel
– Written to celebrate the elevation of Archduke
Rudolph to Archbishop of Olmütz
• Ninth Symphony, 1824
• Last string quartets, 1825-26
• These works show increasing use of variation
technique, counterpoint (esp. fugue) and
continuity.
Posthumous assessments of Beethoven:
E.T.A. Hoffmann: “Beethoven’s music sets in motion
the lever of fear, awe, of horror, of suffering, and
awakens just that infinite longing which is the essence
of romanticism. He is accordingly a completely
romantic composer….”
Richard Wagner, after hearing the Seventh Symphony:
“The effect on me was indescribable. To this must be
added the impression produced on me by Beethoven’s
features, which I saw in the lithographs that were
circulated everywhere at that time….I soon conceived
an image of him in my mind as a sublime and unique
supernatural being…”
Wagner believed that in the Fifth Symphony
Beethoven had succeeded in intensifying the
expression of music almost to the point of moral
resolve; and that with the Ninth Symphony he
had released music from its own unique
language into the realm of universal art. And for
Wagner, the necessity of adding voices to the
Finale of the Ninth Symphony confirmed [for
Wagner] the supremacy of vocal music.
For Brahms and Bruckner, Beethoven’s
symphonies were models of the greatest type of
pure instrumental music. Brahms’ First
Symphony is often nicknamed “Beethoven’s
The poetic and especially the programmatic
character of other works by Beethoven,
especially the Sixth Symphony, served as a
model for the “symphonic poems” of Liszt and
Richard Strauss, and the programmatic
symphonies of Berlioz and Tchaikovsky and
others.
Beethoven thus stands as a bridge between
Classical and Romantic composers, and between
the worlds of absolute and programmatic music.
Films available on-line, for review:
Click here for a
film on Beethoven
Click here for a
film on Beethoven
as a revolutionary
composer
Click here for a
film on nationalism
and revolution in music,
including Beethoven
Click here for a
Film about Mozart
and Vienna
Films, continued
Click here for a
film on Mozart,
Beethoven’s
predecessor
Click here for a
film on Haydn,
Beethoven’s
predecessor
Click here for a
film on Romantic
composers who followed
Beethoven