A Tale of Two Symphonies - Birdsong:Deafness Theme

A Tale of Two Symphonies: Converging Narratives of Divine Reconciliation in Beethoven's
Fifth and Sixth

Author(s): Raymond Knapp
Source: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 53, No. 2 (Summer, 2000), pp.
291-343
Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the American Musicological Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/832010 .
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A Tale of Two
Symphonies: Converging
Narratives of Divine Reconciliation in
Beethoven's Fifth and Sixth
RAYMOND KNAPP
The birdcalls at the end of the second movement of Beethoven's
Pastoral
Symphony
disturb more
through
their
interruption
of
a
seemingly
abstract musical flow than
through
their introduction of
descriptive
musical material.
By
that
point
in the
symphony,
we have
already
heard a fair number of "characteristic" musical
gestures
of an
easily
identified
pastoral kind, including birds, sheep, water,
and
shepherds.' Always before,
however,
these were absorbed into a
conventionally
modulated musical
discourse,
so that the musical
flow,
if not the musical
substance,
remained
"absolute." With the labeled birdcalls at the end of the "Szene am Bach"
("Scene by
the
Brook"),
Beethoven
disrupts
this
flow, insisting
that we
hear,
in that
moment,
his simulation of birdcalls as
such, dismaying
those who es-
teem the music's more abstract
qualities
above all
else,
and
puzzling
those
who have
already
noted and
enjoyed
the
many subtly
interwoven allusions
to the sounds of the
countryside,
and thus have little need for such an overt
topical
reference.
I wish to thank
my colleagues
who have
helped
in various
ways
to
shape
this
project:
Frank
D'Accone,
Susan
McClary,
and
especially
Mitchell
Morris
for his careful
reading
and
thoughtful
comments. Because so much of this
study
derives from
teaching
these
pieces
to
large
classes on
Beethoven over a
period
of more than ten
years
at
UCLA,
I would be remiss if I did not also
thank,
however
anonymously,
that succession of
captive
audiences who witnessed its
gradual
evo-
lution.
1. The birds in the Pastoral
Symphony
have been much
discussed, especially
in the wake of
Schindler's much-ridiculed claims about the Goldammer in the second movement
(of which,
more
below). Regarding
both brook and birds in that
movement,
see
especially
Owen
Jander,
"The
Prophetic
Conversation in Beethoven's 'Scene
by
the
Brook,'
"
The
Musical
Quarterly
77
(1993):
508-59. Numerous
high-lying
trills in the first
movement,
such as those in the flute in
measures
42-52, signal
the
presence
of birds in that movement as well. The
shepherd's pipe
is
most
prominent
in the first
movement, especially
in measures
29-33,
while the
repeated
notes tra-
ditionally
used to
represent sheep (or goats?) may
be heard in measures 53-64 and 328-41 of the
first
movement,
and measures 18-20 of the second
(unless,
in view of the
predominance
of birds
in this
movement,
we take the latter to
represent
the
cooing
of
doves).
One
may
also "hear" birds
taking wing throughout
the second
group
of the first
movement,
but
perhaps
this
possibility
owes
more to the
suggestive
influence of the
winged
horses in
Disney's
Fantasia than to Beethoven's
own intentions.
[ Journal of the
American
Musicological Society 2000,
vol.
53,
no.
2]
?
2000
by
the American
Musicological Society. All rights
reserved.
0003-0139/00/5302-0002$2.00
292
Journal
of the American
Musicological Society
Attempts
to
ground
this
passage
in conventional musical
procedure-to
downplay
its
enigmatic qualities by calling it, typically,
a cadenza or coda-
inevitably
stumble. To
explain
it as a
cadenza,
even if this does
partly
describe
its
function
and
manner,
raises more
questions
than it answers:
Why
should
there be a cadenza in this
movement,
or for that matter in a
symphony
at all?
Why
should a cadenza
employ
three instruments in a manner that is
clearly
not
improvised? (For
Beethoven's
precise repetition
of the entire
passage,
in-
cluding every
detail of the orchestral
lead-in,
the
improvisatory flute,
and the
closely
coordinated duet for oboe and clarinet that
follows,
marks it unmistak-
ably
as a
composed structure.) Why
these three instruments?2
Why
are
they
assuming
the
personae
of birds? Is
this, indeed,
a cadenza for three birds or for
three wind instruments? If the
latter, why
is there no technical
display?
And
why
are these
particular
birdcalls labeled while other
depictive passages
in the
symphony
are not? Nor does
classifying
the
passage
as a coda
(again,
with
some
justification) provide adequate explanation.
Even if we conceive a
coda,
in
general,
to be
exempt
from the more
rigorous logic
that
governs
the
"movement proper,"
codas in Beethoven
symphonies
are
consistently preoc-
cupied
with
settling
unfinished musico-narrative business. If we are to
identify
the
passage containing
the
birdcalls
as a
coda, then,
we need to consider how
its introduction of new material
may
be construed as
addressing
other con-
cerns of the movement.
In so
dramatically disrupting
the musical flow of the
symphony,
the
birdcalls
impart
a sense of
urgent
communication without
clarifying
what is
being
com-
municated,
from whom the communication
comes,
or to whom it is directed.
In
this,
the
passage aligns
itself with the instrumental recitative that launches
the finale of Beethoven's Ninth
Symphony,
which-not
coincidentally-rivals
the
birdcalls
in its
capacity
to
dismay purists;
for
them,
the
disturbing
direct-
ness of these
passages
undermines their
legitimacy
within Beethoven's
sym-
phonic
discourse. There
are, however, important
differences between the two
passages:
whereas the finale of the Ninth
projects
a human voice
by imitating
recitative,
and
eventually
offers clarification
through
the addition of words
written
by
Beethoven
himself,
the "voice" heard in the Sixth is
decidedly
nonhuman,
an
enigmatic presence
whose
identity
is
(apparently)
never
fully
clarified.
Yet,
as Owen
Jander
has
recently shown,
the
message
of the birdcalls
may
be at least
partly deciphered,
to the extent of
providing
a rationale for the
pas-
sage
itself and for the
specific
birds chosen to
convey
the
message.3
Within the
rich tradition of birds
playing
the role of
cryptic prophets,
he
notes, "nightin-
2.
Here,
David
Wyn Jones
offers an
explanation obviously
informed
by
a
Toveyesque
desire
to
enfold
the
passage
into
purely
musical concerns: "The material
emerges
unforced
from its con-
text of
trills, duplet quavers
and melodic
emphasis
on the submediant.
Moreover,
the instruments
themselves are
precisely
those that had taken concertante roles in the
development
section"
(Beethoven:
Pastoral
Symphony [FCambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995], 66-67).
3. See "The
Prophetic Conversation," esp.
525.
A Tale of Two
Symphonies
293
gales
are the birds who
lament,
while cuckoos are the birds who warn." More-
over, citing
the close association of the
quail's
distinctive
rhythmic cry
with
references to God in Beethoven's 1803 Lied "Der
Wachtelschlag" ("The
Call
of the
Quail"), Jander
securely
identifies the source of the
message.4
To sum-
marize this
part
of
Jander's
argument, then,
the
prophetic
trio of birds con-
veys
a
cryptic, melancholy warning
from
God,
made more insistent
through
repetition.
We
may, however,
wish to
modify
this account
slightly,
since the
nightingale appears
not as
part
of the
message proper (the warning cuckoo,
consistently
and
alone,
follows each call of the
quail),
nor even with a
particu-
larly melancholy tone,
but rather more in the manner of a herald
setting
the
stage.
More
convincingly, then,
the
nightingale
here
filfills
another of its tra-
ditional functions
by marking
the arrival of
nightfall. Accordingly,
in a modi-
fied version of
Jander's account,
the
prophetic
trio of birds
conveys
a
cryptic
warning
from God at the end of an otherwise harmonious
day spent "by
the
brook."
The
presence
of God is
surely signaled by
more than the
quail, however,
for
it
may
also be sensed in the
very
hush that
precedes
the birdcalls. Within the
context that Beethoven indicates for the "absolute" musical flow of this move-
ment,
that flow must itself be seen to
represent; specifically,
it
represents
the
flow of the brook. There is a
long
tradition of unnatural events
serving
as to-
kens of
divinity
in association with
prophetic messages (i.e.,
the
burning
bush
that is not
consumed),
a tradition that this sudden cessation of
flowing
water
would seem to invoke. In some
ways, then,
the
nightingale
acts as more than
a
herald, functioning
also as the
apparent agent
for the wondrous effect of
silencing
the brook.
But
what, precisely,
is the
warning conveyed by
the birdcalls?
Here, Jander
offers a less
plausible explanation based, however,
on a
truly startling (and
little
noted)
feature of the
warning's
melodic
profile. Putting
aside the
layer
of
lamenting commentary provided by
the
nightingale (even
more
easily put
aside within
my
emendation to his
account,
since the
nightingale
does not
contribute to the
message itself),
Jander
maps
the
overlapping
combination of
quail
and cuckoo-three
repeated
notes and a
falling major third-directly
onto the
opening
four notes of Beethoven's Fifth
Symphony,5
a motive
widely
understood to
represent
Fate
and,
more
specifically,
Beethoven's
particularly
4. The association of the
quail
with God in "Der
Wachtelschlag"
is also noted
by Wyn Jones,
who links Beethoven's use of the distinctive
rhythmic figure
to
Haydn's
The
Seasons,
first
per-
formed in
1801, during
Lent
(Pastoral Symphony, 23-24).
5. See
Jander,
"The
Prophetic Conversation,"
exx. 14 and 15. We
may reasonably query
this
similarity,
since
rhythmic stress, duration,
and scale
degree
do not
correspond (thus
5-3 is
here rendered
3-1).
But
Jander,
who calls attention to the
rhythmic differences,
finds
interpretive
nuance
therein,
while Beethoven's use of the motive in the Fifth
Symphony
takes
frequent
advan-
tage
of its inherent modal
ambiguity,
even at the
very beginning (which temporarily
retains the
orientation of E6
major
when it returns with the
repeat
of the
exposition).
More to the
point,
scale
degree
is but one of
many points
of
similarity
that can
trigger
an allusive association of this
kind;
here, repetition
and
separating
rests serve to reinforce the connection.
294
Journal
of the American
harsh fate as a musician who knows that he is
growing
deaf. For Jander, then,
the Pastoral
Symphony,
no less than the
Fifth, directly expresses
Beethoven's
need to come to terms with his
deafness,
and on this basis he elaborates a
pro-
grammatic reading
of the movement as a dramatization of its
composer's pro-
gressing
deafness, presented
in the form of a
three-way
conversation
involving
Beethoven,
the
brook,
and the birds of the forest.
Jander's interpretation
has
not,
so
far,
been well received.
Thus,
Richard
Will,
in his
"Time, Morality,
and
Humanity
in Beethoven's
Pastoral Sym-
phony,"
finds
Jander's reading
of the movement
"unsupportable"
while
ac-
knowledging (if
rather
vaguely)
Jander's
demonstration that the
movement
"may
have
triggered
associations connected with the
symbolic meanings
of
birdcalls."6
Regrettably,
Will does not take the
opportunity
in his earlier
dis-
cussion of Schindler's "Goldammer" anecdote to
acknowledge
Jander's
im-
portant
clarification
regarding
this identification: the
English
tradition
for
ridiculing
Schindler's claims is based on a mistranslation of "Goldammer"
as
"Yellow-hammer"
(a
kind of
woodpecker)
instead of
"Goldfinch,"
a bird set
to music
by
Vivaldi with a
figure
almost identical to
Beethoven's,
and within a
similarly layered
texture.
Will's lapse
here is all the more unfortunate since
he
recounts that tradition with
approbation
and cites
approvingly
the
point-by-
point
dismissal of Schindler's anecdote
by Barry Cooper,
which
appeared
in
the same
year
as
Jander's study.7
But an even more serious
consequence
of
Will's
general
dismissal of
Jander's
line of
inquiry
is that it
keeps
him from fol-
lowing up
on the latter's
insight
into the communicative nature of the con-
cluding
birdcalls,
which
might easily
have
provided
him with additional
support
for his own
reading
of the
symphony.
According
to
Will,
the storm movement
represents
a manifestation of
God,
in line with a
long-standing theophanic
tradition.
Thus, God, through
the
storm, disrupts
the secular
pleasures
of the Landleute in the third move-
ment and receives their thankful devotion in the
hymnlike
finale.
Surely,
as an
6. This
Journal
50
(1997):
277 n. 32.
7. See
Will, "Time, Morality,
and
Humanity,"
273 n.
12; Jander,
"The
Prophetic
Conversa-
tion," 520-21;
and
Barry Cooper,
"Schindler and the Pastoral
Symphony,"
The Beethoven
Newsletter 8
(1993):
2-6. The near-simultaneous
appearances
of
Cooper's
and
Jander's
discus-
sions of Schindler's
anecdote
provide
a
useful
reminder
that,
however
inaccurate
and untrustwor-
thy
Schindler
may be,
he cannot
simply
be dismissed.
Wyn Jones,
in his
monograph
on the Pastoral
Symphony published
two
years
after
Jander's
article, acknowledges
Jander's
clarification
regarding
the Goldammer
(which, oddly,
he consis-
tently spells "Goldhammer"),
but this does not
stop
him from further
elaborating Tovey's
dis-
dainful dismissal of Schindler's
claim,
when he later refers to "the
steroid-eating, giraffe-throated
yellowhammer"
in one of
Beethoven's
earlier sketches for the movement
(Pastoral Symphony,
65-66). Wyn Jones
also discusses
Jander's
more elaborate
points
in a
note,
but
only
in order to
reject
them with the
plausible (if simplistic)
claim that in the Pastoral
Symphony,
"Beethoven is
dealing
with universal values not individual torment"
(ibid.,
94 n.
9).
While this view of the mat-
ter would seem to resonate with much of Will's discussion,
the tone and context of
Wyn Jones's
dismissal seem calculated to
discourage any
and all
particularities
of
interpretive
detail that
might
serve to undermine the status of the Pastoral
Symphony
as "absolute"
music,
a
perspective
as
in-
compatible
to Will's
reading
as it is to
Jander's.
A Tale of Two
Symphonies 295
extension of this
reading
and in view of
Jander's
compelling explanation
for
the constitution of Beethoven's
aviary,
the birdcalls
ought
to be understood
as
a
heavenly warning, foretelling
not Beethoven's
deafness,
but the storm
to
come.8
Such an extension of Will's
reading
falls more
clearly
within
the
prophet-bird
tradition as
Jander
discusses it than does the "conversation" that
he himself
proposes, since, according
to the tradition he
cites,
the
prophecy
of
birds is
inherently cryptic,
not to be
fully
understood until clarified
by
subse-
quent events,
whereas in his scenario their
"prophecy"
acts to
clarify,
more or
less after the fact.
Thus,
if we
layer
the most
persuasive part
of
Jander's
expla-
nation onto Will's
reading,
we
may
understand the birdcalls as
providing
the
first intimation of future troubles:
through
their advance
warning, they
miti-
gate
the
seeming
arbitrariness of the "extra" storm movement.
Accordingly,
the manner in which
they
disturb is a
consequence
of this
prophetic
function:
as an
interruptive, "extra-symphonic"
utterance
imposed
on the movement
"from
above," they represent-in
terms as literal as nontexted music
permits-
a
harbinger
of the more
devastating interruption
to
come,
which will
impose
on the
symphony
as a whole the more extended
"extra-symphonic"
utterance
of an "extra" movement that behaves like no other movement in Beethoven.
The
previously
noted
parallel
with the Ninth
may
thus be extended. In
both
cases,
an extreme violation of
symphonic normalcy
is
prepared by
a less
overt
disruption
that soon reverts to a more conventional discourse. More-
over,
in both
cases,
it is
ultimately
the need to establish an
appropriate
rela-
tionship
between God and
humanity
that
provides
motivation for the
disruption, although
the two
symphonies
force the issue from
opposite
direc-
tions. Within Carl Dahlhaus's characterization of the double
meaning
of
"Absolute Music"-that
is,
music as
pure,
abstract discourse and music as
pro-
viding
access to the "Absolute" in a
theological
sense9-both of these works
present
a curious
irony,
for it is
by breaking through
the
"purity"
of more
conventional
symphonic discourse-by introducing
an
enigmatic presence
that stands
apart
from the music's "absolute" flow-that Beethoven most
vividly suggests
the
presence
of a transcendent
power.
8.
Compare, however, Wyn Jones's
rather
knotty
declaration
regarding
the
labeling
of the
birdcalls: "The
labeling
of the three birds is not a casual
indulgence by
the
composer,
much less a
hint that there are further
literalisms;
rather it is an
acutely
conscious moment in a movement that
is otherwise
overwhelmingly
subliminal in its
working" (Pastoral Symphony, 62).
To be
sure,
he is
referring
here to "literalisms" in the second movement and does not
overtly
rule out the
possibil-
ity
that the birdcalls
anticipate
future
"literalisms."
But the tone of the
passage
makes it clear that
such a notion would be
unacceptable, especially
since the rather
fussy wording
of the
passage
seems to be
designed
in
part
as a
way
to
sidestep
an
engagement
with
Jander's
programmatic
reading
of the
movement,
which
Wyn Jones
later dismisses in a
note,
on somewhat
different
grounds (see
n. 7
above).
9. See "The Twofold Truth in
Wagner's
Aesthetics: Nietzsche's
Fragment
'On Music and
Words,'
" in his Between Romanticism and Modernism: Four Studies in the Music
of
the Later
Nineteenth Century,
trans.
Mary
Whittall
(Berkeley: University
of California
Press, 1980),
19-39.
A more extended discussion of this
dichotomy
and its historical roots
may
be found in
Dahlhaus's
The
Idea
ofAbsolute Music,
trans.
Roger Lustig (Chicago: University
of
Chicago Press, 1989).
296
Journal
of the American
But
why,
if their
prophecy
concerns the storm to
come,
do the
quail
and
cuckoo in the "Scene
by
the Brook" combine to
sing
the
opening
motive
from the Fifth
Symphony?
To answer this
question satisfactorily,
we must un-
derstand the avian
allusion,
not as an
isolated,
focused
invocation,
but as one
of a number of intricate links between the two
symphonies, operating
on
many
levels. We
must,
in other
words, step
back from the
immediacy
of the
apparent
allusion in order to consider its
place
within the
larger picture.
Beethoven's Fifth and Sixth
Symphonies
are
easily
the most
intriguing
of
his
symphonic "pairs." Although they
are
fundamentally
different from each
other in
many respects, they
are nevertheless linked
through
historical circum-
stance and a number of shared musical
features, ranging
from the overt and
striking
to the
extremely
subtle.10
Determining
how much and in what
way
these works
"belong together," however,
is no
simple task, although
several
approaches
are
readily suggested.
For
example,
we
may
consider the two
sym-
phonies
within the
larger patterns
of Beethoven's
symphonic career;
we
may
place
them
against
their common historical
background;
or we
may
focus on
internal details in order to define more
precisely
their
relationship
to each
other.
(Two
other
approaches
will be taken
up later,
one more
abstractly
musi-
cal,
the other
concerning
their
implicit narratives.)
However we choose to
ap-
proach
this
oddly
matched
pair,
Beethoven's
extraordinary ability
to redefine
the
symphony
as a
genre,
both within individual works and over the course of
his
symphonic career, gives relationships
of this kind a
special significance.
The tradition for
linking adjacent
Beethoven
symphonies
into
pairs
is
predicated
in
part
on the elevated status of his odd-numbered
symphonies
composed
after
1802,
which
encourages
us to view his even-numbered
sym-
phonies
as
adjuncts
to their more ambitious
neighbors.
The
resulting
mental
construct, supported by
the circumstances of
compositional genesis
in the
later
pairs (Symphonies
Nos. 5 and
6;
and 7 and
8), helps
us to
perceive
a con-
tinuity
in Beethoven's
symphonic
career and
provides
an
explanation
for his
apparent inconsistency
in
being
able to achieve
"great"
works
only
on
every
other
attempt.
Within this
pattern, however,
the Sixth
Symphony presents
an
anomaly,
since it does not fade
modestly
into its
companion's shadow,
even
though
that
companion
is no less
daunting
a work than the Fifth. Part of this
has to
do,
of
course,
with the sheer
length
of the Sixth
Symphony
relative to
the
intensely
concise Fifth. And
part
of it
undoubtedly
stems from our
enjoy-
ment of its evocative and
programmatic aspects,
even
though many
of us-
following
Beethoven's lead-are somewhat ill at ease in
accepting
their
legiti-
macy
in a
genre
of abstract art music. The most
important factor, however,
is
probably
the historical
position
of the Pastoral
Symphony:
the
programmatic
10. See F. E.
Kirby,
"Beethoven's Pastoral
Symphony
as a
Sinfonia Caracteristica,"
The Musi-
cal
Quarterly
56
(1970): 623,
for a brief
exploration
of this
relationship. Kirby usefully
addresses
the
problem
of
reconciling programmatic
concerns with the
generic requirements
of the
sym-
phony (see esp. pp. 622-23),
a
problem
also
tellingly
addressed in
Philip
Gossett's "Beethoven's
Sixth
Symphony:
Sketches for the First
Movement,"
this
Journal
27
(1974):
248-84.
A Tale of Two
Symphonies
297
traditions of the nineteenth
century,
in the
symphony
as well as other orches-
tral
genres,
are
frequently
traced to this
work,"
whether as a
general example
or as a model for
particular
effects
(for example,
the
suspension
of
temporal
urgency
in the
development
of the first
movement,
or the rustic-dance
topic
of the
third).
From this
standpoint, then,
we would
apparently
do well to
forgo
the
urge
to consider this
particular pair
of
symphonies together,
whatever
organiza-
tional
utility
there
may
be in
considering larger patterns
within Beethoven's
symphonic output.
But much more than tradition and convenience link them
together,
and we do a considerable disservice to the Sixth
Symphony
if we
ig-
nore its
proximity
to the Fifth.
Indeed, many
of its central features are
signifi-
cantly
illuminated when we consider the works
together,
both
against
their
shared
compositional background
and with an
eye
for musical detail.
There
is,
first of
all,
much to indicate that Beethoven
may
have
planned
the
Fifth and Sixth
Symphonies
as a
complementary pair.
He worked on them
over the same
period
of
time,
first
offering
them to the
public
in his famous
concert of December 1808. For this
spectacularly
miscalculated
event,'2 they
were numbered and
presented
in reverse order
(with respect
both to their or-
der of
composition
and to their later
numbering). Thus,
in a manner
sugges-
tive of a
symbiotic relationship
between the two
symphonies,
the Pastoral was
at that
point presented
first and numbered
"5,"
a circumstance that continued
to cause confusion until
publication. (Jander argues
that Beethoven's
ordering
of the works at their
public premiere
indicates that he intended for the
Pastoral
Symphony
to serve as a
preparation
of sorts for the
Fifth;
this claim
will be taken
up below.)'3
On a structural
level,
the two
symphonies present
parallel experiments
in inter-movement
continuity,
with the finale in each case
dissolving
instabilities introduced in the
preceding
movement.
And,
like the
11.
See,
for
example, Wyn Jones,
Pastoral
Symphony,
81-88.
12. The
apparent extravagance
of the 1808 concert has
perhaps
been
exaggerated,
for its
pro-
gram
conforms in
many respects
to conventions of the
time,
in terms of both the number and
type
of
pieces
and the overall
length.
What
proved
to be a more
telling
miscalculation was the
ambitious nature of the
program itself, aggravated by
Beethoven's
mismanagement
of his
players;
thus, inadequate
time to
prepare
works that were almost
entirely unfamiliar,
Beethoven's much-
discussed alienation of his musicians in
rehearsal,
and his last-minute
completion
of the
evening's
elaborate finale
(the Choral Fantasy) nearly
derailed the entire
enterprise,
both before and
during
the
evening itself. Length, then,
was a
relatively
minor issue.
Indeed, contemporary complaints
regarding
its
length curiously
echo similar
complaints
leveled
against
Salomon and others in
London a few
years earlier, indicating
that this kind of
extravagance
was common
enough,
even if
sometimes
judged excessive;
we should resist the
temptation
to read these
complaints against
the
backdrop
of modern standards of concert
length. (The specific makeup
of the concert is discussed
in more detail below.
Regarding complaints
about Salomon's concert
lengths,
see Simon
McVeigh,
Concert
Life
in London
from
Mozart to
Haydn [Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1993], 101.)
13. "The
Prophetic Conversation,"
558 n. 32. For a useful discussion of the confused num-
bering
of the two
symphonies,
see
Wyn Jones,
Pastoral
Symphony, 1, 39-42,
and 45-46.
Wyn
Jones argues convincingly
that
they
were
probably performed privately
before the December con-
cert
(specifically,
for Prince
Lobkowitz,
who had
apparently
commissioned
them).
298
Journal
of the American
nearly contemporaneous
Fourth Piano
Concerto,'4
both
symphonies
encour-
age programmatic interpretation, although only
in the Sixth
Symphony
is that
possibility actively (if warily) encouraged by
Beethoven in the score
itself.'5
Despite
obvious shared characteristics of this
kind,
the Fifth and Sixth
Symphonies
have
generally-and persuasively-been
understood as
opposites,
paired
more
through
their
mutually contrasting
characters than
through
their
surface similarities.16 Once
again, however,
the traditional view does not
pene-
trate beneath the surface. Whatever obvious differences exist between the
works, they
also have an
affinity
that extends well
beyond
their
packaging
as
quasi-programmatic symphonies
with inter-movement
continuity.
Parallels
between them run
deep, ranging
from the nature and role of their
principal
motives to features of overall
design,
and
involving
the
very
manner in which
motivic detail
supports
and vitalizes
larger gestures.
We need look no further
than their
respective openings
to confirm the
urgency
of
examining
the
many
compositional
details that link the two
symphonies.
Both works
begin
with an
introductory
half
cadence, placing
the
point
of
arrival on the downbeat of the fourth measure and
extending
it with a fer-
mata. Essential features shared
by
the two
openings
include a melodic descent
from the dominant to the
supertonic;
an
opening
anacrustic
melodic
gesture
of three
eighth-notes (both opening
movements are in
2/4 meter);
an initial
reliance on
strings
rather than
winds;
and a continuation that both
replaces
the
earlier
emphasis
on a
single
melodic line with melodic interaction
among
mul-
tiple voices,
and
displaces
the melodic arrival on the tonic to the lowest
voice,
where it is sustained for four measures
(see
Ex.
1).
14. The Fourth Concerto was
composed during
the same
period
as the two
symphonies
and
introduced
along
with them to the Viennese
public during
the concert of
1808;
it too moves di-
rectly
into the finale from the
previous
movement. A more
telling point
of reference for the mid-
dle movement of the Fourth Concerto
may perhaps
be found in the Waldstein
Sonata;
the
concerto movement lies somewhere between the Introduzione that serves as a middle movement
in the Waldstein and the linked inner movements of the Fifth and Sixth
Symphonies,
which are
considerably
more autonomous.
15. Owen
Jander
proposed
a
programmatic reading (and context)
for the second movement
of the Fourth Concerto in "Beethoven's
'Orpheus
in Hades': The Andante con moto of the
Fourth Piano
Concerto," 19th-Century
Music 8
(1985):
195-212.
Jander
has since extended his
argument
to include the outer
movements;
see his "Beethoven's
'Orpheus' Concerto,"
notes for
Beethoven:
The Five Piano
Concertos, 22-25,
Steven
Lubin, Christopher Hogwood,
and the
Academy
of Ancient
Music,
Editions de
L'Oiseau-Lyre,
CD 421 408-2
(1988);
and
"Orpheus
Revisited: A
Ten-year Retrospect
on the Andante con moto of Beethoven's Fourth Piano
Concerto," 19th-Century
Music 19
(1995):
31-49. The
relationship
of this
reading
of the con-
certo to the two
symphonies
will be discussed further
below,
in the context of what I
project
to be
a thematic basis for the concert as a whole.
16. In this
view,
the Fourth Concerto
might
be seen as a kind of mediation between the tur-
bulent Fifth and the
(mostly) placid Sixth, putting
a more
benign
face on the motivic
intensity
of the Fifth-an
interpretation encouraged by
the
frequently
noted motivic similarities between
the Fourth Concerto and Fifth
Symphony--and offering,
as the structural
premise
of its middle
movement,
the reconciliation of a
similarly
conceived
opposition (of
which more
below).
A Tale of Two
Symphonies
299
Example
la
Symphony
No.
5,
first
movement,
mm. 1-10
Allegro
con brio
Vn.I
Vn.
2
.
.-
ff p
Cb.
V .
i I '- I l I
In
noting
these
parallels-which encompass
similarities in formal
devices,
musico-dramatic
strategies,
and basic musical materials-we must also note
the enormous difference between the dramatic and affective ends these ele-
ments are made to serve. The differences that result from these
opposed
ends
are at least as
striking
as the similarities listed
above;
in the
opening
half ca-
dence of the Sixth
Symphony,
for
example,
a tonic
pedal,
a more elaborate
melody,
and the introduction
along
the
way
of an inner voice
provide
a har-
monic
clarity
and
stability notably lacking
in measures 1-5 of the
Fifth,
with its
stark octaves and indefinite tonal center
(we
hear a half
cadence,
but cannot
be
entirely
sure of the
key).
And the three-note anacrusis is
employed
to much
different effect in the two
openings, creating
metrical
ambiguity
in the
Fifth,
but
establishing
a clear sense of both
pulse
and meter in the
Sixth,
where it is
launched
by
the downbeat
opening
of the tonic
pedal. Despite
the
parallels
between
them,
the
openings
are
perfectly
matched to their
respective tasks,
establishing
two
vastly
different
symphonic
worlds.
The unusual
relationship
between these two
openings,
in which surface
contrasts and structural similarities are stated with
equal clarity, speaks directly
to the
larger relationship
between the two
works,
to be echoed time and
again
in both structure and details.
Thus,
if we
may reasonably
ask
why
Beethoven
adhered in these
openings
to a
single pattern,
even
though
his aim in each was
so
markedly different,
then
we
may just
as
reasonably repeat
versions of this
300
Journal
of the American
Example
lb
Symphony
No.
6,
first
movement,
mm. 1-8
Allegro
ma non
troppo
Vn. i A
,t
Vn. 2 IS_ _ _
Va.
Vc.
LO,
SO" I
6
__
O
question
at
every
turn. In
tracing
below the
many
additional
points
of contact
between the two
symphonies,
we will find ourselves
delineating
a
pattern
best
explained
as a
process
of deliberate
modeling. Moreover,
we
will
find that a
great many
of their musical
parallels
involve the most
striking
and innovative
features of the earlier
symphony,
so that the
following survey
looks
remarkably
like a list of
"highlights"
of the Fifth
Symphony,
coordinated with
parallel
features of the Sixth.
While the rationale for this
process
of
modeling
is
surely complex,
it
may
be seen in
part
as an emblem of Beethoven's uneasiness as he
approached
the
project
of a
symphonic "pastoral." Thus,
much-though scarcely
all-of
what the two works have in common
may
be
explained
in terms of how
Beethoven
perceived
and
approached
the
special problems
he faced in
writing
a
symphonic pastoral
that would also
qualify
as a bona fide
symphony,
accord-
ing
to his
ongoing
redefinition of the
genre.7 Equally telling, however,
is the
net effect of these
many points
of
procedural
contact between the two
works,
17. See
Wyn Jones,
Pastoral
Symphony, esp.
14-24 and
31-43,
for a useful discussion of
this issue. As
Wyn
Jones notes,
the
problem
was
compounded
in
part by
the fact that the title
Beethoven
finally
settled on
("Pastoral Symphony") figured already
in traditions of church
A Tale of Two
Symphonies
301
which,
taken
together,
create within each a shadow version of its
companion
that belies their
sharply contrasting
affective surfaces.
Thus,
if the
possible
allu-
sion to the head motive of the Fifth
Symphony provides
a
cryptic
focus to the
already enigmatic
birdcalls in the
Sixth,
the
many
additional connections be-
tween the two link them more
generally
and
deeply.
The
following, then,
is a
listing
of unusual musical features shared
by
the
two
symphonies-an
even dozen in all-elaborated in
approximate
chrono-
logical
order.
(If
we include the
introductory gestures,
as
already discussed,
but
put
aside for now the allusive
birdcalls,
which do not constitute a shared
feature as
such,
then the list becomes a full baker's
dozen.)
1.
Motivic
organization (first movements).
In both
symphonies,
the
openings
do much more than set
quite
different
stages
with similar structural
gestures.
As has
always
been
recognized,
the
opening
of the Fifth
Symphony provides
the essential motivic substance of the first movement and remains
motivically
relevant
throughout
the work. The Sixth
Symphony forcefully
echoes this or-
ganizing feature, along
with
many
critical details in its elaboration.
In the
Fifth,
the
rhythmic
motive of three anacrustic
eighth notes, usually
repeating
a
single pitch (Ex. 2a),
carries over into
virtually every phrase
in the
movement, giving
the movement the sense of "motivic saturation" for which
it is famous. Additional motivic kernels within the
opening phrase
also remain
relevant
throughout, including
the
repeated gesture
of a
falling
third
(Ex. 2b),
the
larger shape
created
through
the
repetition
of this motive a
step
lower
(Ex. 2c),
the internal
rising
second
(Ex. 2d),
and the
embracing span
of a de-
scending
fourth
(Ex. 2e;
the latter
is,
as
already noted,
one of the
specific
links
to the
opening
of the Sixth
Symphony). Retracing
the familiar
ways
in which
Beethoven
develops
these motivic elements is
scarcely necessary here, beyond
indicating briefly
some
key
moments at which the less
commonly
identified
elements
(the rising
second and
descending fourth)
are
given independent
importance
in
ways directly
relevant to the Sixth
Symphony.
The
rising
second is the
unifying
locus for the
expansion
of the
original
contour to become the
introductory
motto for the second
theme-group;
as
may
be seen in
Example 3,
the new motto retains the central
rising second,
on
the same
pitch
level
(EK-F),
and
expands
the
flanking
descents from thirds
to fifths. The continuation-a variation of the
motto,
as has often been
music. In "The
Symphonic Ideal," Joseph
Kerman
gives
a succinct and useful account of
Beethoven's transformation of the
symphony
as a
genre,
even if he does not rise above the im-
pulse
to deliver an ill-conceived
swipe
at the
seemingly
modest ambitions of the Pastoral
Symphony: "[The Third, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh,
and Ninth
Symphonies]
all contrive to create the
impression
of a
psychological journey
or a
growth process.
In the course of
this, something
seems
to arrive or
triumph
or
transcend--even
if,
as in the
Pastoral,
what is
mainly
transcended is the
weather"
(Joseph
Kerman and Alan
Tyson,
The New Grove
Beethoven [New
York:
W. W.
Norton,
1983], 105-10,
at
107).
302
Journal
of the American
Example
2
Symphony
No.
5,
first
movement,
mm.
1-5,
with abstracted motivic kernels
4
1
.. . .
I
(a)
?9"r"
(b)
0,)
(c)
.
,
0,)
(d)
.,
(e)
0,),
(e) Ok 0
"
(bi5-------------
Example
3
Symphony
No.
5,
first movement
(a)
Mm. 1-5
(reduction)
Allegro
con brio
ff"M
.
-,
_
I
,l
j
I'
J J
_
Q)
if
(b)
Mm. 59-66
(reduction)
AI Vn.i
p dolce
Hn.
(concert
pitch)
sf
Y Sf
sf -p
noted-alters this melodic contour to
give
added
emphasis
to the
rising
sec-
ond. In a
particularly striking passage during
the
retransition,
measures
195-248,
the
second-group
motto reverts back to the contour of the
opening
motto
through
a
prolonged
focus on this central two-note ascent
(cf.
mm.
195-97 and
228-31,
Ex.
3c).
The famous oboe cadenza that
immediately interrupts
the
recapitulation
at
measure 268
(Ex. 4b) explores
the tension between a scalar descent from G to
D
(Ex. 4a)-offered initially
as a
simplified
alternative to the
opening
contour
A Tale of Two
Symphonies
303
Example
3 continued
(c)
Mm. 195-232
(reduction)
195
Winds
fd
Strings
204
_
j.a
r
,,
-,
.
-
_ _ h
-

_
, ,-
lor our
-
Windsdim.
Strings
dim.
P semprepi
+t- v [ IIN
IL
I/
304
Journal
of the American
Example
3 continued
224 _
Winds
f_
Strings
__
I
,
Example
4
Symphony
No.
5,
first movement
(a)
Mm. 14-18
(reduction)
14 (Allegro con brio)
(b)
Mm. 261-68
(reduction)
261
() cresc.
Vn.
WcI,-
(P)
cresc.
268
t"N
Ob.
,
f
-and the
opening
contour itself.
Specifically,
the cadenza reconstitutes the
original
contour within an elaboration of the more
straightforward
descents
just heard, simply by restoring
the internal movement
upward
to F. Like the
retransition,
this motivic reversion
provides
a focal
point
for the dramatic
tension of the
movement,
which will never
effectively
break
away
from the
A Tale of Two
Symphonies
305
original
mode and motivic
shape.
In both
passages,
it is the internal
rising
sec-
ond of the
original
motto that is at issue.
The
equally impressive
motivic
organization
in the
opening
movement
of the Sixth
Symphony employs
similar
strategies,
with an
important
reversal
of
emphasis:
in this case it is the overall
span (the
fourth between C and
G)
that
provides
the
unifying
locus for the
movement,
with smaller motivic ker-
nels-mainly neighbor
notes and
appoggiaturas (see
Ex.
5)-taking
on an es-
sential but
secondary role,
somewhat
analogous
to the
repeated-note
motive
and
falling
third in the Fifth
Symphony.
This reversal of
emphasis explains
why,
even
though
one can find within this
opening phrase
the
larger shape
of
the
opening
motto of the Fifth
Symphony (cf.
Exx. 2c and
5d),
the
shape
is of
almost no real
consequence here, being merely
one of the
many ways
in which
the basic melodic
span might
be elaborated.
As in the Fifth
Symphony,
the
original pitch
level of the
unifying
locus
(the
fourth between C and
F)
is retained across the modulation of the
exposition;
and, again,
the
strategic parallel
is
accompanied by
a fundamental reversal.
Thus,
whereas in the Fifth
Symphony
the ascent from
E?
to F in the second-
group
motto
(Ex. 3b) rejects
the initial arrival on the new tonic in favor of a
subsequent
arrival on its
dominant,
the
preservation
of the C-G
pitch
level in
the Sixth
Symphony
reinforces the new tonic triad
(on C).
The harmonic
sig-
nificance of the motive thus
changes
over the course of the
exposition,
from
an
emphasis
on the dominant in the first
group
to an
emphasis
on the tonic in
the second
(see
Ex.
6).8
This shift
provides
a subtle
point
of balance
against
the
fundamental
teleological
element in the
exposition,
the modulation to
the
dominant,
whose
dynamic impulse,
if not
mitigated
in some
way,
could
easily pose
a threat to the
complacent
stasis of the
pastoral.
The "resolution"
of the
motive,
from dominant in the first
group
to tonic in the
second, exactly
18. The motivic
emphasis
on C and G
against
a
background F,
an effect
obviously
related to
the
overlapping
drones in measures 5-8 of the finale
(F-C
added below the
already
established
C-G),
makes one of Gustav Nottebohm's extended
speculations
all the more
tantalizing.
In
Zweite Beethoveniana,
Nottebohm discusses
possible
sources in nature for some of Beethoven's
musical ideas in the Pastoral
Symphony, quoting
Albert Heim
(Nottebohm's contemporary,
not
Beethoven's)
to the effect that
running
water
produces
a
C-major triad,
albeit with a weak
third,
above a
deeper
F
(Nottebohm, Zweite Beethoveniana:
Nachgelassene
Aufsiitze
[Leipzig: Verlag
von
C. F.
Peters, 1887], 375-78, esp.
376 n.
2).
In different
ways,
the first and last movements of the
Pastoral
Symphony
do indeed
reproduce
this effect
(although
in neither is
running
water
part
of
the
explicit pictorial dimension).
Nottebohm's observations were made in reference to an
early
sketch that has been
traditionally
understood as
relating
to the Pastoral
Symphony
in
light
of the
accompanying
words
("Murmeln
der
Biche,"
and
"je
gr6sser
der Bach
je
tiefer
der
Ton").
The
passage presents
a
"murmuring" figure
on middle C with an internal descent to
G,
which is then
transposed
down to F
(ibid., 375;
both
Wyn
Jones
and
Jander
reproduce
the
figure
in their dis-
cussions of the
movement).
For a discussion of the confused
relationships among
Nottebohm's
various
essays
on the sketches for the Pastoral
Symphony,
see Alan
Tyson,
"A Reconstruction of
the Pastoral
Symphony
Sketchbook
(British
Museum Add. MS.
31766),"
in
Beethoven
Studies,
ed. Alan
Tyson,
67-96
(New
York and London: Oxford
University Press, 1973),
69.
306
Journal
of the American
Example
5
Symphony
No.
6,
first
movement,
mm.
1-4, with
abstracted motivic kernels
I dnkI N E- I I I (a) 02
(eb)
9)?
(c)j
Example
6 Reductions from
Symphony
No.
6,
first movement
(exposition), showing
use of
C-G motive:
(a)
mm.
1-4, (b)
mm.
16-26, (c)
mm.
67-70, (d)
mm.
93-101, (e)
mm. 115-28
(a)
Allegro
ma non
troppo
16
(b)
fAI
r-
ir
" r"
A I
(p) cresc.
21
dim.
I
i i i
- -P . -
A Tale of Two
Symphonies
307
Example
6 continued
(c)
67
etc.
(d)
98e
f I I
etc.
I _ 0I
coincides with the harmonic shift to the
dominant;
in this
nearly
seamless sub-
stitution of one source of harmonic tension for
another,
the fundamental har-
monic
disruption
of the
exposition
is
neatly
counterbalanced
by
the more
stable harmonic orientation
given
to the basic motive.19 The kind of harmonic
19. See
Gossett,
"Beethoven's Sixth
Symphony," 253,
for another
perspective
on the "effort-
less" modulation in the
exposition.
If "the sketches show that this
aspect
of the Pastoral's first
movement was never in
doubt,"
as Gossett
claims,
this
merely
reflects the fact that the effect was
built into the
material;
this
particular problem,
it would
seem,
was solved in advance.
See,
as
well,
Wyn Jones,
who
provides yet
another
perspective
on the
problem
of
maintaining
a sense of
pas-
toral stasis across the
change
of
key (Pastoral Symphony, 57).
Will sees the effacement of a
strong
tonic-dominant
polarity
in this movement
(referring
as
well to the subdominant
approach
to the
recapitulation)
as a
manipulation
of "the rate at which
time
passes";
for
him,
this rate
begins slowly,
increases
dramatically
in later
movements,
and slows
again
for the finale
(Will, "Time, Morality,
and
Humanity," 312-16).
308
Journal
of the American
Example
6 continued
(e)
115
F-
Winds
Strings,
Harp (f)
119
Winds
(
WiindIsIdiI
I ? 1 -
Strings,
-)-iV
\
Harp
f)
3
123
Winds
dim.
Strings, A
_.-
_.,
Harp 3 3
:):JJJ
J
;J
J
jj
.l
j~r
A Tale of Two
Symphonies
309
Example
6 continued
127
Winds
Strings,
Harp
etc.
reinterpretation
involved in this
transaction,
wherein I becomes IV and V be-
comes I
(especially
favored
by Haydn
in the second
groups
of his sonata-form
expositions
as a
clarifying gesture), provides
in this case a
particularly graceful
re-entry
into the
repeat
of the
exposition (m.
123
through
m.
4),
as the de-
scending
fourth of the
closing group becomes,
in
expansion,
the
opening
phrase
of the
exposition.
Given the
quite
different effect at the
analogous place
in the Fifth
Sym-
phony,
this
particular parallel might
well be understood in another
way.
In
each
symphony,
the return to the
opening
is
given
an unusual
emphasis,
mak-
ing
a dramatic
point
of a structural
given. By
the end of the
exposition
in the
Fifth
Symphony,
the
opening
four-note
motive,
restored to its
original pitch
level,
has been absorbed into a fuill arrival on the new
tonic,
E
(mm.
110-11
and
114-15).
The return to the
opening rejects
this reorientation in the first
of
many
reversions to the
opening
motto and its
implications,
with each rever-
sion
signifying,
in the context of this
movement,
a dramatic reversal of for-
tune. In the Sixth
Symphony, nearly
the same device confirms rather that we
have
simply
arrived back at the
starting point;
we have traced a circle rather
than been
pulled
back to the
beginning
of a linear
progression.
Yet even
within this
sharply
drawn
contrast,
there is an essential
parallel:
in each
case,
the basis for the link between the end of the
exposition
and the
opening-the
harmonic
ambiguity
in the
opening phrase
of the
Fifth,
and the skeletal
melodic descent from C to G in the
opening phrase
of the Sixth-is
only
latent at first
hearing;
it has to wait until the return for full articulation.
2. Dramatic structure
of
the
development
section
(first movements).
The devel-
opment
section in the first movement of the Fifth
Symphony
is laid out in
three
spans,
with the third
serving
as the retransition. Each
span
has a
specific
function in
re-enacting
the dramatic
opposition
of the two main themes.
The first
(mm. 125-78)
is based on the
opening motto/theme complex,
enhancing
the relative level of tension inherent in this material
by ascending
310
Journal
of the American
Example
7
Symphony
No.
6,
first movement
(a)
Mm.
1-12
(reduction)
Allegro
ma non
troppo
L7e
f
7
v
systematically upward along
the circle of
fifths,
from F minor to G minor. The
second
(mm. 179-95) presents
a concise reversal of that harmonic
motion,
based on an elaboration of the
second-group motto,
falling
back
harmonically
from G
major
to F
major.
The third
span
then resolves the thematic conflict in
favor of the first
theme,
as
previously
noted.
Like the Fifth
Symphony,
the Sixth
Symphony
also follows a
three-span
structure in the
development
section of the first
movement, relying similarly
on the emblematic
qualities
of circle-of-fifths modulations
(favoring,
with the
exception
of two coloristic harmonic
shifts,
the downward direction: B
/
D-G/E-A-D-g-C-F).
As in the
Fifth,
the retransition
hinges
on a thematic
reversion,
from the theme first introduced in measures
9-12,
which
provides
the substance for the third
span
after measure
243,
back to the
original theme,
which dominates the first two
spans;
once
again,
the reversion
hinges
on two
adjacent
notes shared in the
original presentations
of the two
themes,
in this
case D and C
(Ex. 7).
In both
symphonies,
Beethoven focuses attention on a two-note melodic
complex
to enact an
unexpectedly powerful
return to the
opening
material. In
the Fifth
Symphony,
the further reduction to a
single
reiterated
pitch (mm.
196-240) suspends
motion at the same time that it
prepares
the
single-note
reiterations of the
opening
motto. In the Sixth
Symphony,
the focus on the
two notes in
question
is
accomplished gradually,
first
through
the accelerated
harmonic motion and brief introduction of the minor mode
(for
the first time
in the
movement)
at measure
257,
then
through
a continued insistence on
an
appoggiatura
D
against
the melodic
pedal C,
which
eventually
forces that
pedal upward
to restate the
appoggiatura
on a broader
level,
as
part
of the
A Tale of Two
Symphonies
311
Example
7 continued
(b)
Mm. 263-89
(reduction)
263
Sf sf
LAO3
268
i F
273
rAK
OxJ
6l
Sf
f
3 3
3
-IN-
PE
278
~ - ~ JR-
?---
A
I I I
I
283 _
r
#r r40
-p
..
312
Journal
of the American
mammoth
plagal
cadence that announces the
recapitulation (mm.
271-82;
see Ex.
7b).
The
"power"
in this
passage
is turned
against
the dramatic thrust
of the
return, replacing
a dominant arrival with an
approach through
the sub-
dominant,
and
cloaking
the actual thematic return to the
opening
in measure
279. Once
again, parallel
structural devices are
put
to
opposing
ends.
3. Cadenza
interrupting
the
recapitulation (first movements).
The oboe ca-
denza in the Fifth
Symphony
has its
counterpart
in the Sixth
Symphony,
in
the
arpeggiated
descent of the first violins from a trill in measures 282-88
(Ex. 7b).
This elaboration of the dominant is a
spillover
from the resolution of
the melodic
pedal
on C and serves to broaden even further the cadential re-
entry
to the
tonic, compensating
somewhat for the lack of an authentic ca-
dence at the arrival on the tonic
just
before. The effect is thus
diametrically
opposed
to that of the oboe cadenza in the Fifth
Symphony,
since it serves to
relax the
urgency
of the discourse rather than to underscore a thematic crisis
and its
unhappy
resolution.
4. Motivic
background
(second movements).
Both second movements
begin
with a melodic
leap
to the tonic of the
preceding movement,
followed
by
a de-
scent
along
a
cycle
of thirds
(Ex. 8);
the first melodic culmination in each case
recalls the
principal
motive from the first
movement, transposed
to the new
tonic
(E6l falling
to C in the Fifth
Symphony,
mm.
7-8;
F
descending
to C in
the Sixth
Symphony,
m.
5).
In both
opening themes,
there are other
signifi-
cant motivic recollections as
well,
for
example,
in the three-note anacrustic
fig-
ures introduced in measures 14-15 in the Fifth
Symphony
and in the
extensive use of
neighbor-note figures
in the Sixth
Symphony,
most elabo-
rately
evocative across measures 5-6
(C-EV-G-F,
a
nearly
exact
transposition
of the
opening
melodic
gesture
in the first movement-A-B -D-C-with an
identical
rhythmic profile;
see Ex.
8b).
5. Structural
parallels (second movements).
Both second movements involve
a variational
approach
to the main
theme,
in each case
combining
thematic
variation with more elaborate formal structures. In otherwise
fairly
uneventful
harmonic
contexts,
both movements introduce exotic modulations to
keys
a
major
third
away
from the tonic
(to
C in the Fifth
Symphony,
mm.
31-38,
81-88,
and
148-58;
to G6 in the Sixth
Symphony,
mm.
78-80).
6.
Concluding gestures (second movements).
Near the close of each slow
movement,
the
upper
winds
(flute, oboe, clarinet)
are
given special emphasis
in
repeated passages
that interact in
dialogue
with the
strings;
in each
case,
the
exchange hinges
on a distinctive melodic
drop
of a third
(see
Ex.
9).
In the
Fifth
Symphony,
the winds take over from the
strings
the
emphatic falling
third that concludes the
opening phrase
of the main theme
(discussed
above
as a motivic recollection of the
opening movement), softening
it
through ap-
A Tale of Two
Symphonies
313
Example
8a
Symphony
No.
5,
second
movement,
mm. 1-8
(melodic reduction)
Andante con moto
Va. 1
Vc.
6
Pf
Example
8b
Symphony
No.
6,
second
movement,
mm. 1-7
(melodic reduction)
Andante molto moto
Vn. 2i Vn.
z
Va.

LII"
dot.
.
cresc
cresc.
cresc.
fp cec
poggiaturas
and
carrying
it down to a scalar arrival on the tonic
(mm.
191-94
and
220-24).20
In
the Sixth
Symphony,
the focus of the
passage
is the series of
labeled birdcalls
already discussed;
in a reversal of
roles,
the
repeated
melodic
drops
of a third are
given
to the
winds,
and the
strings respond
with scalar ca-
dential
figures. Correspondingly,
there is also a reversal in effect: in the
Fifth,
the winds
impose
a tone of mournful
resignation
on the assertive
descending
figure,
while in the
Sixth,
the
strings project
a
complacent
comfort in their
more
symmetrical
scalar
response.
7.
Opening gestures (third movements).
Each third movement
begins
with
pianissimo strings sounding
a triadic theme in
octaves,
launched with an as-
cending fourth;
in each
case,
a
partial string
choir
opens
the
movement,
is soon
joined by
the
remaining strings,
and is
subsequently augmented by winds,
all
20. This
exchange
between
strings
and winds
represents
a restoration of the
original configu-
ration of the theme in the
opening passage
of the
movement,
which has
long
since been lost
among
the variations
undergone by
the theme.
314
Journal
of the American
Example
9a
Symphony
No.
5,
second
movement, mm.
191-99
(reduction)
191 (Andante con moto)
Winds
Strings
193
Winds
Strings
_
Winds sf
dolce
Strings
A Tale of Two
Symphonies 315
Example
9b
Symphony
No.
6,
second
movement, mm.
129-33
(reduction)
129
Nachtigall
Fl.
___ _
_ SK
cresc.
K
-
Ie
sW achtel
Ob.
,
"1-',
'
.I
131
tr
etc.
Ob.
f,,
'
"
-=
a2Kuckuk
Str.,
Bssn.p
"-7:-7
the while
maintaining
a subdued
dynamic
level.
Despite
these unmistakable
similarities,
the two
openings
have
starkly
different thematic
profiles:
a
compla-
cent, high-
to
mid-range
theme
descends,
with a staccato
articulation,
to
open
the scherzo in the Sixth
Symphony,
while a
mysterious, low-lying, ascending
theme with
legato
articulation
opens
the scherzo in the Fifth.
8. Structural
parallels (third movements).
Both third movements retain some
aspects
of the
spirit
and form of more traditional
scherzos,
but
place
them in
the service of
quasi-narrative patterns
so as to articulate a double-trio structure
in which the return to the
opening
after the second trio is
surprisingly
cur-
tailed and
ultimately
left
incomplete (most audibly,
it is the level of
dynamics
that is curtailed in the Fifth
Symphony;
in the
Sixth,
the return is first
abridged
and
eventually
cut
off).
As detailed in
Figure 1,
the structural
parallels
thus
operate
on two
levels,
the most obvious
being
the curtailed double-trio structure
(only recently
has this
pattern
been restored to the Fifth
Symphony,
in
recognition
of
316
Journal
of the American
Typical
scherzo with
repeated
trio
I:
Scherzo Trio
:I
Scherzo
I:
A
AA / B A' B A' II C C / D C1 D CI
:I
(Scherzo repeated)
Fifth
Symphony
"scherzo"
II:
A A' /
B A2
B1 A3-B2 II C C / C1 C1 :11 (Scherzo')
m. # 1 9 19 45 71 97 141 141 161 198 236
#/mm.
8 10 26 26 26 44 20 20 37 38
Sixth
Symphony
"scherzo"
II:
A A
A'
/
B B
B1 II
C
C
/ C1
C2
:1
(Scherzol)
m. # 1 17 33 87 106 123 165 173 181 189 205
#/mm.
16 16 54 19 17 42 8 8 8 16
Note:
Superscripts designate
non-trivial variants of the same material.
Figure
1
Symphonies
Nos. 5 and 6: formal
plans
of "scherzos"
compared
to a more
typical plan
for a scherzo
with
repeated
trio
Beethoven's intention and to correct an error that arose in
publication).21
More
subtly,
each
symphony
elaborates a narrative over the
typical binary
structure of the
scherzo,
in which the first
phrase
serves as an introduction to
what would
normally
be the
beginning
of the second
phrase,
but which func-
tions,
in dramatic
terms,
as the main thematic "event" of the scherzo
(in
the
Fifth
Symphony,
the
fortissimo,
marchlike recollection of the
rhythmic
motive
from the first
movement,
measures
19-34, presented
as an "answer" to the
"question" posed by
the
opening;
in the Sixth
Symphony,
the "amateur con-
cert" that
begins
after measure
87).
In both
movements,
which in detail re-
flect
quite
different
approaches
to the traditional
structures,
the basic
binary
dance
patterns
are most
clearly
stated in the trio: each trio sustains this formal
clarity,
which
provides
the
only
real sense of "relaxation" from the
preceding
scherzo, despite
a more frenetic
rhythmic impulse
at a
generally
louder
dy-
namic level.22
21. For an extended discussion of this
issue,
see
Sieghard Brandenburg's
"Once
Again:
On
the
Question
of the
Repeat
of the Scherzo and Trio in Beethoven's Fifth
Symphony,"
trans. David
L.
Schwarzkopf
and Lewis
Lockwood,
in
Beethoven
Essays:
Studies in Honor
of
Elliot
Forbes,
ed.
Lewis Lockwood and
Phyllis Benjamin (Cambridge:
Harvard
146-98.
22.
Many analyses
of the scherzo in the Sixth
Symphony place
its trio at the
beginning
of the
"amateur
concert," quite reasonably taking
as decisive the return to the tonic and textural climax
that occurs
just before, along
with the
sharp drop
in
dynamics
that sets the
stage
for the
concert;
the
fiery duple-meter
dance
may
then be heard either as an extension of the trio or as a second
trio.
Will,
for
example,
advances a
persuasive
double-trio
description
of the movement while not-
ing
the
tendency
of
many (such
as
Tovey)
to
gloss
over
peculiarities (Will, "Time, Morality,
and
Humanity," 313-15). Wyn Jones,
on the other
hand,
also
argues strongly against Tovey's posi-
tion,
but
unequivocally places
the
beginning
of the trio at measure
165;
he also notes the struc-
tural
parallel
with the Fifth
Symphony
and the "nervous
pianissimo"
that marks not
only
the
openings
of these two scherzo
movements,
but also that of the Eroica
(Pastoral Symphony,
68-69). Against
the
backdrop
of the Fifth
Symphony,
and with the
sense,
as in the
Fifth,
that the
secondary
idea is
posed
as a narrative
consequent
of the
first,
we
may
most
appropriately
hear
these
segments
as
complementary parts
of a
single
narrative
span, especially
since the
duple-meter
A Tale of Two
Symphonies
317
The thematic structure of the third movement of the Fifth
Symphony
is
fairly
conventional
(as
shown in
Fig. 1); although
there are few literal
repeats,
and
although
the harmonic structure is far from
conventional,
there are few
surprises
in the
presentation
and succession of
themes, beyond
the extraordi-
nary emphasis given
to "B." In this
sense,
the Sixth
Symphony
is more
daring,
as the harmonic resolution of A
(Al
in
Fig. 1)
takes
place
before the second
phrase
rather than
after,
and so cannot
fulfill
its traditional function of round-
ing
out the
binary
form of a more traditional scherzo. This
displacement
en-
hances the narrative
aspect
of the
movement, leaving
to the
parallel
structures
of A and B
(a fairly
literal
repeat
of an
opening phrase
followed
by
an extensive
elaboration)
the task of
establishing
formal
clarity.23
As in the first movements of these two
symphonies,
a
generic
structural
feature-the
repeat
of the
opening
section-serves
strikingly
different ends.
The return to the
opening
of the scherzo in the Fifth
Symphony,
in
parallel
to the first movement of that
symphony, represents
a new
engagement
within
an
ongoing,
linear
process.
This
time,
the
process
has a
happier
outcome
since,
the third time
around,
it leads to the
celebratory
finale. In the Sixth
Symphony, however,
the return
expresses something quite different,
in
large
part
because of the
differing topics
evoked in the two movements.
Thus,
while
the scherzo of the Fifth oscillates between its
questioning opening
and a res-
olute marchlike
figure
before
erupting
in the conflicted textures of an ener-
getic fugue
in the
trio,
that of the Sixth unfolds a
leisurely
succession of solo
"spots" (oboe, clarinet,
and
horn)
before the combined band launches its cul-
minating
ecstatic dance in
2/4.
In what is
surely
meant to
convey
a rather in-
consequential cycling
between these two
activities,
the combination is
simply
replayed
in the Sixth
Symphony
in a
potentially
endless and
increasingly point-
less
cycle,
until it is
interrupted by
the storm. In both
scherzos,
we are made to
wait,
but in the Fifth we wait to see if
projected goals
will be
achieved,
whereas
in the Sixth we wait for
intervention,
and for a
higher sensibility
and
purpose
to be
imposed
on the
empty merrymaking
of the Landleute.24
section--again
as in the trio of the
Fifth--is
more
sharply
defined and
self-contained, articulating
a more
recognizably
traditional
binary
form and
embodying
more
clearly
the
contrasting
nature
of a trio in relation to what has come before.
My
use of the
descriptive phrase
"amateur concert" conforms with the tradition of
hearing
the
many peculiarities
of this
part
of the movement
(mm. 87-164)
as Beethoven's
attempt
to
re-create the effect of
inept (or inattentive) village musicians;
see
Thayer's Life of Beethoven,
ed.
Elliot Forbes
(Princeton:
Princeton
University Press, 1967), 438-39,
for a substantial translation
from Schindler's account.
23. The narrative
aspects
of this
movement,
which are somewhat
inferential,
must be distin-
guished
from those of the scherzo of the Fifth
Symphony,
which are
entirely inferential,
however
essential
they might
be to a coherent
understanding
of the succession of musical events within the
movement.
24.
Compare
Will's
quite compatible reading
of the scherzo of the Sixth
Symphony,
which
"populates
the
countryside
with
decidedly profane inhabitants,
Landleute so frantic in their revel-
ing
that
they
cannot finish one dance
properly
before
beginning
another"
("Time, Morality,
and
Humanity," 325).
318
Journal
of the American
9.
Projection of
a basic interval in the trio
(third movements).
After the initial
upward surge,
the
fugal subject
in the trio of the Fifth
Symphony
consists of a
chain of
descending
thirds
(Ex. 10a), reproducing,
not
only
the structure of
the main theme of the second
movement,
but
also,
in
self-generating replica-
tions,
the basic interval from the motto
opening
of the first movement. In the
Sixth
Symphony,
the
opening
melodic
figure
in the trio articulates the fourth
between dominant and
supertonic, again recalling
the most
prominent
motive
in the first movement
(Ex. 10b). (Two
other referential motives are
projected
at the climax of the
trio,
as discussed
below.)
10. Transition to the
finale.
The oboe
melody
that secures the
major
mode
at the end of the storm movement
(Gewitter, Sturm)
in the Sixth
Symphony
(Ex.
11la)
has
long
been understood as a
quotation
from Bach's chorale
"Brich
an,
o
schines
Morgenlicht,"
from the second
part
of the Christmas
Oratorio
(see
Ex.
11b),
with the
appropriateness
of both text and
gesture
en-
hancing
the
credibility
of the claim that Beethoven was
making
an intentional
reference.25 But the
phrase
has at least two other
points
of reference.
Programmatically,
it should be
understood, by
virtue of its
archlike
shape,
its
placement
after the
storm,
and the traditional associations of C
major
with sun
and
light,
as a musical
representation
of a rainbow.
Indeed,
a
pictorial repre-
sentation of a rainbow
apparently accompanied
this
phrase
in nineteenth-
century
dramatizations of the
symphony.26
The
representation
works even on
a mechanistic level:
just
as rainbows result from the combination of sun and
raindrops,
the oboe line results from the combination of the musical
represen-
tations of those
elements,
that
is,
C
major
combined with the
opening
melodic
figure
from the onset of the storm
(Ex.
11c).27
And,
in line with
Will's
theophanic reading
of the storm
movement,
Beethoven's musical rain-
bow
may
be seen to
represent
the covenant between God and
humanity
en-
acted after the Flood: "And God
said,
This is the token of the covenant which
I make between me and
you
and
every living
creature that is with
you,
for
per-
petual generations:
I do set
my
bow in the
cloud,
and it shall be for a token
of a covenant between me and the earth"
(Genesis 9:12-13, King
James
25. While
sketching
this
passage,
Beethoven
experimented
with various chorale
phrases
that
could lead into the
finale;
see
esp.
fols. 36r-37r in the Pastoral
Symphony Sketchbook, tran-
scribed
on
pp.
73-75 in vol. 2 of
Dagmar
Weise's edition
(Beethoven: Ein Skizzenbuch
zur
Pastoralsymphonie Op.
68 und zu den Trios
Op.
70
[Bonn: Beethovenhaus, 1961]).
In these ex-
periments,
Beethoven was concerned not
only
with
appropriate phrases,
but also with thematic
links within the
symphony,
which will be discussed
below.
A connection with "Brich an" is
by
no
means
certain, although likely, especially
since some of the
experimental phrases suggest
"Ich
will
dich mit Fleiss bewahren" and "Wir
singen
dir in deinem
Heer,"
two other chorales from the
Christmas
Oratorio that also have
appropriate
texts. On historical
grounds,
the connection is en-
tirely plausible,
as Beethoven
probably
became
acquainted
with the
Christmas
Oratorio
through
Gottfried
van Swieten in the
1790s
(see Thayer's Life ofBeethoven, 158).
26. See
Wyn Jones,
Pastoral
Symphony,
84-85.
27.
Regarding
the
long-noted
derivation from the
opening
of the
storm,
see
ibid.,
76.
A Tale of Two
Symphonies
319
Example
10a
Symphony
No.
5,
third
movement,
mm. 140-47
(reduction)
140
(Allegro)
f1
146
1
Example
10b
Symphony
No.
6,
third
movement,
mm. 165-68
(reduction)
165 (Allegro) sf
sf
s
ff
sf sf Sf sf
Version). Thus,
the "covenant" is
positioned
between the
receding
storm and
the
finale,
as the decisive link between God and a
newly
reverent
humanity.28
More relevant in the
present context, however,
is the
prominence given
the
melodic contour of the rainbow
melody long
before it is
put
to use to
suggest
raindrops
at the
beginning
of the fourth movement. The
shape
is
presented
most
obviously
at the
beginning
of the "Szene am Bach"
movement, again
in
association with water-related
imaging (Ex. 12a). Twice,
climactic
phrases
in
the
"Lustiges
Zusammensein der Landleute" movement retrace the
shape
(Exx.
12b and
12c),
in the second
case,
at the climax of the
trio, recalling
the
thematic
sequence
from the first movement in which similar oscillations out-
lining
a fourth
yield
to
descending
scales
(cf.
Exx. 6d and
12c).29
And of
par-
ticular interest is the manner in which the
shape evolves,
over the course of the
first
movement,
as a
crystallization
of central motivic material.
The structural basis for the
shape
as
presented
at the end of the fourth
movement is a descent of a
fourth,
from G to
D,
which is a
transposed
version
of the central
unifying
motivic
element in the first movement. In this later
28.
Curiously,
Will does not note this
symbolic significance
of the transition into the
finale,
even
though
he
grounds
his
reading
of the
preceding
storm movement within biblical
examples
of
a wrathful Nature
serving
to indicate the
presence
of
God, going
back
beyond
the Great Flood to
the
original
fall from
grace.
29. The main theme of the trio also
suggests
the
shape
of the oboe
solo,
as it
expands
the
oscillating
fourth between dominant and
supertonic
to include a resolution to the tonic and an
upper-neighbor figure
to the dominant
(Ex.
11c);
see the discussion below about similar
strate-
gies
in the first movement.
320
Journal
of the American
Example
11a
Symphony
No.
6,
fourth
movement,
mm. 146-55
(reduction)
(Allegro)
146
Oboe
pp
dolce
150l
!51.
!
A.,t
I
,
":J
3
Example llb Bach, Christmas Oratorio,
"Brich
an, o
sch6nes
Morgenlicht,"
mm. 10-12
(re-
duction)
10
und letzt- lich Frie- de
bring- en!
Example Ilc Symphony
No.
6,
fourth
movement,
m. 3
(reduction)
Allegro
A Tale of Two
Symphonies 321
Example
12a
Symphony
No.
6,
second
movement,
m.
1 (reduction)
Andante molto moto
"
LIZ
Example
12b
Symphony
No.
6,
third
movement,
mm. 59-75
(reduction)
59
(Allegro)
--- I
I
t

67
Y~~~~~~
"
"
'I r : lB I
Nc
I
%' = I I LA I ~
;~ =: I: I : II.?
i~~~~~ i "* . . I " I
Example
12c
Symphony
No.
6,
third
movement,
mm. 165-68 and 189-97
(reductions)
165
(Allegro)
sf sf f
sf
189
194
'"f 1%I "
M
I
Y,
elaboration,
the
descending
fourth
(dominant
to
supertonic,
as
before)
is
launched with an
and
resolved,
after a
pause
on the
supertonic,
to the tonic. The
shape represents
a natural
development
of the
opening phrase
of the first movement: not
only
does the
opening phrase
itself
yield
in each of its two
appearances
to a
displaced
resolution to the tonic
(orig-
inally displaced
to the
bass, then,
at the
recapitulation,
in time as
well;
see Exx.
7a and
7b),
but it also
gives
melodic
play
to the
upper neighbor
of the domi-
nant,
a feature
greatly
intensified at the
recapitulation
in the
plagal
arrival on
the tonic
(traced above;
see Ex.
7b).
The
only
feature of the oboe solo that is
not
fiully prepared
in these
passages
is the
straightforward
scalar
descent,
which
makes the
opening
of the second movement the first
point
of
emergence
for
the
shape
as it will later be used. But scalar descents are used
prominently
in
322
Journal
of the American
the first movement at several
points,
most
notably
after the first cadential
ar-
rival in the second
group (mm. 97-99;
Ex.
6d),
in an
expanded retrograde
inversion of what will later
prove
to be the definitive version of the
shape.
In
giving
new
emphasis
to the most
prominent
material from the first
movement-already
revisited in all
intervening
movements-as a
way
of dra-
matizing
the central moment of transcendence in the
symphony,
the transition
into the finale of the Sixth
Symphony closely parallels
the
procedure
followed
in the Fifth
Symphony
at the
analogous
moment. Within a more local con-
text,
Beethoven in both cases transforms a
mysteriously threatening
melodic
figure
from the
beginning
of the movement into the actual
agent
of transcen-
dence, mainly through
a
change
in mode and a
broadening
of
gesture.30
Re-
garding
the references to earlier
movements,
there
is,
as with
many previous
parallels,
an
important
reversal. In the Fifth
Symphony,
the
rhythmic figure
that recalls the
opening
movement first recedes into a
threatening background
before
being
transformed into an
energizing pulsation;
it is then
effectively
superseded
in the final
stage
of a linear
progression
from the
despair expressed
in the first and third movements to the alternatives elaborated in the finale. In
the Sixth
Symphony,
the
pattern
is more circular: we return to a
frequently
heard
shape
after the
benign
nature of that
shape
has been called into
ques-
tion,
so that its restoration is
placed
in the
foreground
of the musical discourse.
11. Thematic basis
ofthe finale.
In both
finales,
two distinctive triadic themes
mark the tonic area of the
exposition (from
mm.
1
and 26 in the Fifth
Sym-
phony,
and from mm.
1
and 60 in the Sixth
Symphony);
the second of these
themes in each case is first stated in a lower
register
before
being
elaborated in
higher registers.
The triadic basis
provides,
for each
finale,
a
symbolically
un-
complicated
thematic
presentation,
with an essential difference in affect
(cele-
bratory
and
triumphant
in the
Fifth, piously
thankful in the
Sixth).
12.
Re-enacted
transition
within the
finale.
One of the most celebrated fea-
tures of the finale of the Fifth
Symphony
is the
retreat, just
before the
recapit-
ulation,
back to the thematic material of the
previous
movement in order to
30. With somewhat different
emphases,
Leonard Bernstein also claims an
affinity
between
the storm movement of the Sixth
Symphony
and the transition to the finale in the Fifth
(in part
to
argue
for an
overriding
musical coherence in the
former, although
one
might easily
invert the
argument
in order to make
programmatic
claims about the
Fifth);
see The Unanswered
Question
(Cambridge:
Harvard
186. In
arguing against
this claim of
affinity,
Will
writes: "The transition
[in
the
Fifth] essentially prolongs
the final dominant of the
preceding
scherzo until the finale arrives. Because the storm resolves the
corresponding dominant,
its own
concluding
dominant is heard not as a
prolongation
of the scherzo's final chord but as the domi-
nant of the
new,
F-minor tonic"
(Will, "Time, Morality,
and
Humanity,"
293 n.
51).
But this line
of
thought
errs in two
ways:
first in
assuming
that a
striking
difference
mitigates
a
striking
similarity-it
is
surely
better to hold both in view than to use one to
eclipse
the other-and sec-
ond,
because the
concluding
dominant of the storm does not remain
V/f throughout,
but rather
shifts,
like the transition in the Fifth
Symphony,
from a minor-mode orientation to a
major-mode
one.
A Tale of Two
Symphonies
323
retrace the
original
transition to the finale
(mm. 153-206).
Even this seem-
ingly
one-of-a-kind effect is refashioned for the finale of the Sixth
Symphony.
Although
the recollection is less overt and is absorbed more
fully
into the dis-
course of the
finale,
the
parallels,
once
noted,
are unmistakable.
Part of what Beethoven achieves in
revisiting
the transition to the finale in
the Fifth
Symphony
is a renewed focus on the material that recalls the first
movement. This is
accomplished by purging
the transition of its most
dynamic
element-the transmutation of the
mysterious opening
melodic
gesture
of the
third movement-and
by recalling
a substantial
portion
of the section
preced-
ing
the
transition,
which is based on the
rhythmic
reminiscence of the first
movement. The new
prominence given
to this reminiscence
paves
the
way
for
a new
integration (in
the
coda)
of the three-note anacrustic
gesture
with the
thematic material of the finale
(see especially
mm.
350-52,
and
compare
with
previous presentations
of the
material).
A similar
strategy
is at work in the Sixth
Symphony, although
the
setting
demands a somewhat different
profile
for the recollected transition. Here it is
the transmuted melodic
figure
that is the
issue,
since it
provides
the
unifying
link to
previous
movements.
Consequently,
no substantial
quotation
from the
preceding
movement is
necessary, only
that the
figure
be
given
a new form so
as to be more
easily
absorbed into the fabric of the finale. The continuous run-
ning
sixteenth-note
accompaniments, employed
to this
point
in the move-
ment
only
with
secondary material, provide
the vehicle for
absorption (see
mm.
32-41, 46-53, 80-98). Accordingly,
the arrival on the dominant in
measure 99 introduces a new sixteenth-note
figure
based on the oboe solo
from the transition to the finale
(see
Ex.
13).31
This then
overlaps
various ver-
sions of the
yodeling figure
from the
beginning
of the
movement,
which con-
tinue to echo in the C horn even after the arrival on the drone
tonic,
as before.
The first two new variations of the main theme heard in the
recapitulation
represent
the first
stage
of thematic
integration (of particular
interest is the in-
verted
counterpoint
in the violins across the two
variations;
see Ex.
14).
The
variation is based on the new sixteenth-note
figure (altered,
but
preserving
and even
highlighting
the referential
shape),
which
pushes
the
original high
point
of the
melody upward
to include an
to the domi-
nant across measures 119-20. When the
counterpoint
is inverted in
repeti-
tion,
we are then made more aware of the
descending
line that forms the basis
for the remainder of the
melody,
which is
carried
this time all the
way
to the
tonic
(see
the first
violin,
mm.
128-32).
We are thus
encouraged
to hear the
main theme of the movement as a broadened form of the oboe
solo, tracing
at
its
peak
and
through
its
subsequent
descent the fundamental melodic
shape
of
the
symphony.
31. In the Fifth
Symphony,
the return to the
previous
transition takes
place
well after the
arrival on the
dominant,
which
helps
make the
gesture
of thematic return more of an event unto
itself.
324
Journal
of the American
Example
13a
Symphony
No.
6,
fourth
movement,
mm. 146-50
(reduction)
(Allegro)
146
1-7
0)O%
Example
13b
Symphony
No.
6,
fifth
movement,
mm. 99-102
(reduction)
99 (Allegretto)
p
101
,. ... . .
~
f 1
L
,'
i 1V I
"
I I
L;;
I.
:
i
r,-
A
A
Sf
Z
KI4
As in the Fifth
Symphony,
further thematic connections between the outer
movements are
forged
in the coda. After a unison
presentation
of the
integra-
tive
figuration
in measure
206, originally
without
accompaniment,
the coda
proceeds
to
afortissimo upper-neighbor figure presented
over several measures
(mm. 219-28), culminating
in a
long
scalar descent. The
pattern,
heard lo-
cally
as an
augmentation
of the sixteenth-note
figure,
recalls not
only
the
broad
at the
recapitulation
of the first
movement,
but
also the
long
scalar descent in the coda of that movement
(mm. 458-68),
which
similarly
receded from
fortissimo
to
pianissimo.
The
concluding
mea-
sures of the
symphony (mm. 260-64)
are
occupied,
not with the main the-
matic material of the
movement,
but with the re-enacted transition to the
finale,
heard for the first time in the tonic.
Beethoven's concern for the kind of inter-movement motivic connections
discussed here is
amply
documented in the sketches.32 The new
figuration
in-
troduced with the retransition in the
finale,
for
example, may
be traced to one
32. See
Gossett,
"Beethoven's Sixth
Symphony," 261-68,
for additional
examples
of this
kind of confirmation in the sketches for the Pastoral
Symphony.
A Tale of Two
Symphonies
325
Example
14
Symphony
No.
6,
fifth
movement,
mm. 117-33
(reduction,
violins
only)
(Allegretto)
117
plZZ.
p dolce
120
cresc.
stacc.
T
T
132
,Sim.
129
"
132
""
of several
figurational
variations Beethoven devised for the second movement
(Ex. 15a;
from fol. 27r in the Pastoral
Symphony Sketchbook).33
Beethoven's
intention that there be a
perceivable
motivic connection between the
opening
and close of the storm
may
be ascertained from a
staged augmentation
of the
opening
motive he worked out at the bottom of folio 29r
(Ex. 15b).
If
Beethoven
eventually rejected
this
fairly
obvious
device,
his concerns
along
33.
Examples
14a
through
the first line of
14e
are based on Weise's
transcription
of the
Pastoral
Symphony
Sketchbook.
326
Journal
of the American
Examples
15a-d Transcribed sketches for
Symphony
No. 6
(a)
(b)
ro-P

7f
,,0-
.
l!-, /
,,-p-
,,-1-
's -
-J
J
,
_.
.
(c)
(
d)F
FII,
(d)
I',
l.'.r
-
;
Example
15e Transcribed sketch for
Symphony
No.
6,
shown as an elaboration of the
"rain-
bow" motive
JI
ji
these lines remain evident. On folio
37r,
for
example,
he worked out
(above
and below a
nearly
final version of the chorale
melody,
Ex.
15c)
not
only
the
figuration
he would need for the retransition of the finale
(Ex. 15d),
but also a
climbing sequence
of six-note scalar descents
(Ex. 15e, top line;
the derivation
from the chorale
melody
is shown
below),
which he then tried without much
success to coordinate over the next few
pages (fols. 37v-39v)
with
passage-
work from the fourth movement.
(The
ultimate results of this effort
may
be
found in two
passages
of the storm
movement,
the second of
which,
from
just
before the final
dissolution,
is shown in Ex.
15f.)34
The extensive sketch work
34. In the first
appearance
of this material in the movement
(m. 78),
it is
presented
as a dra-
matic
augmentation
of the basic
motive,
the
culmination,
in
fact,
of the most sustained crescendo
of the
movement,
which also involves the most extensive
presentation
of the
opening
motive.
Beethoven reinforces the connection
by letting
the new material take over the
pitch
level achieved
in the final two
presentations
of the faster version of the motive
(mm. 76-77).
The material
plays
a
pivotal
role in the
"shape"
of the
storm,
providing
a climax at its first
presentation
whose
logic
depends
on its derivation from the
opening motive,
and
signaling
at its second
presentation,
with
A Tale of Two
Symphonies 327
Example
15f
Symphony
No.
6,
fourth
movement,
mm. 119-30
(reduction)
119
(Allegro)
() sempre
dim.
125-T...
. T
122
...,,
Thl
T T T T
h,,
T
.?
,,g ,
T
-
T
- T- kTh.
125
_
M-
_1
-A
tf
1
.
"'
1..
10,
-
,
_
:
,,
I
i
IT T
i732
l4
&d -, o4
lp-of
? eema~lal
i
over these
pages
not
only
documents Beethoven's concerns for
devising
and
articulating
motivic
relationships,
but also
explains
to some extent
why
he in
essence
replaced
the fourth-based motive that dominates the first movement
with the
arching accompanimental
line that
opens
the
second,
since the latter
evidently proved
to be a more fertile referential
shape
as he
proceeded
with
the later movements.
its
retreating dynamic
level and
anticipation
of the chorale
melody,
the
approaching
end of the
storm. The
capacity
for the material to act as a
pivot
is built into it-its
rising sequential pattern
continues the
preceding rising sequence
in its first
presentation,
while its
fundamental basis in a
descending
scale
(or, perhaps, descending cycle
of
thirds) naturally supports
the
gesture
of retreat
projected by
its second
presentation.
328
Journal
of the American
The
preceding exploration
of the nature and extent of the
parallels
between
the Fifth and Sixth
Symphonies
establishes not
only
the considerable extent
to which the two works
belong together,
but also the
commanding
role that
processes
of
modeling
must have
played
in their
composition.
This
modeling
was
often,
but not
exclusively,
a
reinterpretive process,
wherein similar struc-
tures were
put
to
quite
different uses.
What, then,
was the
model,
and what
was its function?
That the Sixth
Symphony
was not the model for the Fifth
scarcely
needs
elaborate
argument,
since it was not
begun
in earnest until the Fifth was virtu-
ally complete.
The
possibility
that an exterior model was
used,
whether a
preceding
work
(the
Fourth
Concerto,
for
example)
or some kind of
fully
elaborated abstract
conception,
must also be
put
aside. The above
survey
con-
firms not
only
that the
parallels
between the
symphonies generally
involve the
more unusual elements of the Fifth
Symphony,
but also that this is not a
two-way street;
few of the more unusual elements of the Sixth
Symphony
find
parallels
in the
Fifth, and,
when
they do,
the
parallel passages
in the Fifth
Symphony generally appear,
in
application,
even more unusual. The Fifth
Symphony
has no birdcalls
(unless,
of
course,
we
accept
Carl
Czerny's
claim
that the main theme itself derives from the call of the
finch),35
no amateur
instrumentalists,
no
storms,
no extra
movements,
no
harmonically
static de-
velopment sections,
no overt
program; yet
almost
every similarly arresting
ele-
ment in the Fifth
Symphony
does have some
point
of reference in the Sixth. In
these
circumstances,
the
possibility
of an exterior model seems as
unlikely
as
the notion that the
(projected)
Sixth
Symphony
could have
provided
a model
for the Fifth. The
remaining possible modeling relationship--which is,
after
all,
the
simplest-represents
the
only
credible
explanation:
the Fifth
Sym-
phony provided
a model for the Sixth.
What was
it, though,
that
impelled
Beethoven to use the Fifth
Symphony
as a model on so vast a scale? Was it the
specific
nature of the
copious
innova-
tions offered
by
the Fifth
Symphony,
the
symphony itself, or, perhaps,
the ac-
35. Uber den
richtigen Vortrag
der
sdimtlichen Beethoven'schen Klavierwerke,
nebst
Czerny's
"Erinnerung
an
Beethoven,"
ed. Paul Badura-Skoda
(Vienna:
Universal
Edition, 1963),
18
(see
also the discussion in
Jander,
"The
Prophetic Conversation," 524).
Even if we
accept Czerny's
testimony (as
we will consider
doing, below),
we must assume that it is the initial
falling
third or
its distinctive
rhythm
that is so
derived,
since the
larger
four-note
shape
was constructed
by setting
out a chain of
descending
thirds and
cutting away
the lower members
(as
established
by
Notte-
bohm in
Beethoveniana:
Aufsditze
und
Mittheilungen [Leipzig: Verlag
von C. F.
Peters, 1872], 11;
his
transcription
from Beethoven's sketches has been
reproduced
in
Thayer's Life of Beethoven,
431,
and Beethoven:
Symphony
No.
5
in C Minor
[Norton
Critical
Score],
ed. Elliot Forbes
[New
York and London:
W.
W. Norton, 1971], 119).
The end of the second movement of the Fifth
Symphony
does seem to
provide
a
parallel
to
the birdcalls
passage
in the Sixth
(see
section 6 and Ex. 9
above),
a rare instance in which a
fairly
unremarkable
passage
in the Fifth
may
be
usefully
matched with a
truly startling
one from the
Sixth; here, however,
we
may easily imagine
Beethoven
making
a
place
for his avian
prophets by
recasting
the much
simpler passage
from the Fifth.
A Tale of Two
Symphonies
329
tual
process
of
modeling
that was at issue? One must
suspect
that all three
were of some
relevance;
in
any case, convincing
rationales can be advanced
from all three
perspectives.
Beethoven
surely realized,
for
example,
that the
possibilities
of
many
of the innovations of the Fifth
Symphony
were not ex-
hausted
by
that
work,
and he would have been
eager
to revisit the devices in
other contexts. But this could not be the
only rationale,
or he would
surely
have found a more
obviously appropriate
context for
exploring
those
possi-
bilities. The fact that Beethoven chose the
project
of
composing
a
pastoral
symphony
as the
unlikely
arena for
revisiting
the innovations of the Fifth
Sym-
phony speaks
to the
presence
of
larger
concerns.
Beethoven's first
approach
to the ideas and material of the Pastoral
Sym-
phony
was
apparently
made at about the time he was
composing
the Third
Symphony (late
1803 to
early 1804);
he
may perhaps
have been
planning
a
companion symphony
for the Eroica that never reached
fruition.36
There
are,
indeed,
at least two
compelling
reasons to
suppose
that such a
project
would
have
appealed
to Beethoven at that time. His recent
experiences
at
Heiligen-
stadt,
as
projected
in the
Heiligenstadt
Testament of
1802,
left him with both
the heroic
imperative (hence
the Eroica and the onset of the so-called heroic
period)
and a wistful
longing
for the
pastoral refuge
he had
sought
at
Heiligenstadt. Thus,
Beethoven
may
have
toyed
with the idea of
producing
a
second, contrasting sinfonia
caracteristica to
go
with the Eroica. More
specifi-
cally relevant, Haydn
had
recently completed
the second of his oratorios con-
ceived after the
Handelian model,
and the
appeal
of The Seasons
lay largely
in the
strong
dose of
pastoral
elements it
offered-including
a storm and an
36. These
early
sketches are discussed
by
Nottebohm in
Ein
Skizzenbuch von Beethoven aus
dem
Jahre
1803
(Leipzig: Breitkopf
und
Hirtel, 1880); reprinted
in Zwei Skizzenbiicher von
Beethoven aus den
Jahren
1801 bis
1803,
ed. Paul Mies
(Wiesbaden:
M.
S&indig, 1970),
55-56.
Rachel Wade dates the earliest of these sketches "before November 1803"
("Beethoven's
Eroica
Sketchbook,"
Fontes artis musicae 24
[1977]: 271).
The
only
one of these
early
sketches that
may
be
definitively
attached to the Pastoral
Symphony
involves the
melody
of the trio
(p.
64 of the
sketchbook), apparently
worked out as a
possible option
for the trio of the Eroica
(the original
version of the
melody
is in
Eb).
Although
there is thus little to indicate that Beethoven
actually
had in mind a
full-fledged pas-
toral
symphony
in
1803,
he was nevertheless
actively engaged
with the
problems
of
including
pastoral
elements within a
symphonic
context. For the trio of the
Eroica,
his aim
clearly lay
in that
direction,
and
eventually
carried him to a
pastoral
solution after an
unusually high
number of
failed
attempts. (Thus, significantly,
Beethoven achieves a similar
"bustling"
effect in the
opening
sections of the two
scherzos--compare
not
only
the
opening measures,
but also measures 92-100
in the scherzo of the Third
Symphony
and measures 59-75 in the scherzo of the
Sixth.)
Later in
the sketchbook
("during
or after the first months of
1804," according
to
Wade),
Beethoven en-
tered ideas for both the Fourth Concerto and the Fifth
Symphony, returning
to the Pastoral
Symphony
"after March 1804" with an elaboration of the main theme of the first movement
(the
entry
occurs
during
revisions for
Christus
am
Olberge; Wade,
"Beethoven's Eroica
Sketchbook,"
271 and
289). By early 1804, then,
Beethoven seems to have
progressed
from
trying
to
incorpo-
rate
pastoral
elements into a heroic
symphony
to
considering
the
possibility
of an
independent
pastoral symphony.
330
Journal
of the American
attitude toward Landleute at once
patronizing
and
venerating,
an attitude
that
finds obvious
points
of reference in Beethoven's Pastoral
Symphony.
To
Beethoven,
whose
attempt
to
compete directly
with
Haydn
in the
genre
of
or-
atorio had not
succeeded,37
the
symphony
would have seemed a
logical
alter-
native, especially
since there were
precedents
for the
general approach
he
would
eventually
take.38
Given Beethoven's failure in 1803 to move
beyond
his initial ideas for
a
pastoral symphony,39
it
seems reasonable to
suppose
that he
may
have
been
uneasy
about the
prospect
of
trying
to reconcile his new
symphonic style
with
so relaxed and
unprepossessing
a
genre
as the
pastoral.
It was
not, presumably,
that
pastoral
elements had no
place
in the new
style;
there
are,
after
all, pas-
toral elements in the Eroica
(for example,
mm. 408-20 and 567-74 in the
first
movement,
mm. 69-73 in the second
movement,
and the trio in the third
movement). Rather,
it was that the difficulties involved in
writing
a
fully
elabo-
rated
composition
in the
pastoral genre
that would also
pass
muster as a
gen-
uine
symphony
could well have seemed insurmountable.
That the idea of a
pastoral symphony
remained active in the interim
may
be
seen from sketches Beethoven made while
working
on the Mass in C
during
1807.40 Beethoven's work on the Mass continued the
ongoing interruption
of
his
progress
on the Fifth
Symphony,
whose first movement had
apparently
been
completed
in
1806, along
with the Fourth
Concerto.41 Despite
these
indications of continued interest in the
project, however,
it was not until the
Fifth
Symphony
was
actually complete,
in
early 1808,
that Beethoven
began
his main work on the Pastoral
Symphony, marking
the occasion
by using
a
new sketchbook.42
37.
Christus
am
Olberge
of 1803 was not at first the
popular
failure it has since
become;
al-
though apparently
not well
received,
it was nevertheless
given
several
repeat performances shortly
after its first
appearance (see Thayer's Life of Beethoven, 328-31).
But Beethoven's oratorio can in
any
case
scarcely
be matched
against Haydn's
late oratorios in
any
but the broadest
categories.
38. See
Kirby,
"Beethoven's Pastoral
Symphony"; Wyn Jones,
Pastoral
Symphony;
and
Will,
"Time, Morality,
and
Humanity"
for discussions of
precedents
for Beethoven's Pastoral
Sym-
phony. Wyn Jones,
in
particular,
considers the
relationship
of the Sixth
Symphony
to
Haydn's
ora-
torios at some
length (pp. 10-14).
39. The initial ideas for the Fifth
Symphony
and Fourth Concerto
(see
n. 36
above)
were also
left
undeveloped
for a
time,
but these ideas were
apparently
entered
later,
and the works them-
selves
completed
earlier.
40. The entries for the Pastoral
Symphony
are made on a sheet left over from the Fourth
Symphony
that also contains work on the Mass. See
Douglas Johnson,
Alan
Tyson,
and Robert
Winter,
The Beethoven
Sketchbooks: History, Reconstruction,
Inventory (Berkeley: University
of
California
Press, 1985), 157;
and
Nottebohm,
Zweite
Beethoveniana,
369-72.
41. The initial cause of the
interruption
was his work on the Fourth
Symphony,
also finished
in 1806. When Beethoven resumed work on the Fifth
Symphony
in late
1807,
it was on the later
three
movements,
as documented
through
the reconstruction of a sketchbook from 1807-8
by
Alan
Tyson
in "Beethoven's Home-Made Sketchbook of
1807-08,"
Beethoven-Jahrbuch
10
(1983):
185-200. See also
Johnson, Tyson,
and
Winter,
The Beethoven
Sketchbooks,
160-65.
42. See
Tyson, "Reconstruction";
and
Johnson, Tyson,
and
Winter,
The Beethoven Sketch-
books,
166-73.
A Tale of Two
Symphonies
331
If Beethoven needed the
security
of a structural model before he could
proceed
with his
plans
for a
pastoral symphony,
there is no
question
that the
Fifth
Symphony provided
a more
appropriate
model than the Third. The
biggest problem
he had to face was
not,
after
all, gestural,
but of
creating
a
larger shape
for the
symphony
that would both accommodate
pastoral ges-
tures and elements and remain credible as a
symphonic
structure. Without
a
convincing larger shape,
the
symphony
could well
disintegrate
into a
hodge-
podge
of its constituent
pastoral
elements.
The
inadequacies
of the Eroica in this context have to do with the overall
plan
of the
work,
not with matters of
gesture. Despite
thematic connections
between its outer
movements,
the Eroica
may
be seen too
easily
as four
fairly
independent
movements. The
opening
movement is
particularly
self-sufficient
as a musical
drama;
the
finale,
in its
turn,
establishes a new
point
of
departure
in its
brusque opening gesture
and makes no
convincing attempt
afterwards
to reconnect with the
preceding
movements
(such
as is made in similar
cir-
cumstances
during
the finale of the Ninth
Symphony).43
The Fifth
Symphony,
on the other
hand,
can
scarcely
be understood as a
mere collection of movements. The first movement
returns,
in
defeat,
to its
origins;
the
enigmatic C-major
sections of the second movement
cry
out for
explanation;
the
questioning aspect
of the third movement is resolved
only
with the
onslaught
of the finale. It is
specifically
the musico-narrative coher-
ence of the Fifth
Symphony
on the broadest level that allowed the work to
serve as a model for the Pastoral
Symphony,
and Beethoven was both thor-
ough
and at times somewhat devious in the
ways
he found to
exploit
the ele-
ments that
provided
that
larger
coherence.
Within this
rationale,
most of the
parallels
between the Fifth and the Sixth
Symphonies
make
perfect
sense. In
particular,
motivic
organization,
oriented
around a clear
presentation
of the
"subject
matter" in an
opening
introduc-
tory gesture, gives
the first movement
(and
later the
symphony
as a
whole)
the
inner coherence demanded
by
the new
symphonic style.
The structural strate-
gies
in the third movement-to undercut the stablest of
symphonic
structures
through
a
strongly
stated narrative
component
and
ultimately
to leave the
structure
incomplete-relinquish
the burden of
achieving
formal coherence to
a
higher organizational
level and
give suitably symphonic urgency
to the
large-
scale resolution offered
by
the finale.
Making
this
urgency
a
part
of the finale
itself-accomplished through
the
arresting
nature of the transition to the fi-
nale and its return within the finale
proper,
and enhanced
by
the renewed
43. The claim here is not that Beethoven ever
truly rejected
the conventional
symphonic plan
of four
separated movements, merely
that the Fifth
Symphony provided precisely
the kind of
overarching
coherence he needed to solve the
specific problem
of
writing
a Pastoral
Symphony,
a function
ill-served by
the
Eroica,
in terms of either structure or
large-scale
narrative
strategies.
Notably,
when Beethoven returned to the
problem
of
forging
an overt
large-scale symphonic
narrative
(in
the Ninth
Symphony),
he
managed
to remain
entirely
within the conventional
framework.
332
Journal
of the American
consideration of elements from the first movement that takes
place
as a result
of that
return--encourages
a
retrospective
view of the whole and ensures that
the
large-scale
formal coherence will not
go
unnoticed.
There
were,
of
course, problems
to be solved that were too individual to
the
Pastoral
Symphony
for the Fifth
Symphony
to be of direct
help. Although
there are
parallels
between the
development
sections in the
opening
move-
ments,
for
example,
there is
nothing
in the Fifth to
predict
the
startling
solu-
tions Beethoven found in the Sixth to the
problem
of
creating
a
suitably
pastoral
version of the
large-scale pattern
of intensification and resolution re-
quired
in the second half of a sonata-form movement
(to wit,
the harmoni-
cally
static stretches in the
development
section and the
plagal
arrival at the
recapitulation).44
The Pastoral
Symphony
is
rightly
valued for those of its
features that
represent
this kind of solution. The careful
placement
of the bird-
calls and storm within their
respective
musical
structures;
the
three-part
se-
quence
of events in the third
movement;
the
crystallization
of
motivic,
programmatic,
and referential concerns in the transition to the
finale;
the blur-
ring
of
open-fifth
drones to
place
the horns "in the distance"
just
after the be-
ginning
of the finale-these and other
passages
in the Sixth
Symphony
are
essentially responses
to internal
imperatives,
even if some of them
may
also
owe
something
to
parallel passages
in the Fifth
Symphony.
But there remain
parallels
between the two
symphonies
which are not as
easy
to
explain
in terms of Beethoven's
attempt
to borrow
symphonic
credi-
bility
for his orchestral
pastoral. Why,
for
example,
is the match between the
opening gestures
so
precise? Why
does Beethoven retain the subtle device of
maintaining
the
pitch
level of motives across
modulations,
when the effect
of the device in the two works is so
very
different?
Why
does he retain for the
Sixth
Symphony
the
three-part
structure in the
development
section of the
first movement when the
original
narrative
urgency
of that structure is absent?
And what is the
point
of
preserving
similarities in the
opening
melodic
ges-
tures of the second and third movements? That Beethoven
apparently per-
sisted in his
modeling
in these
cases,
even when the results did not
directly
contribute to his
apparent
aim to create a
pastoral analogue
to the Fifth
Sym-
phony,
indicates the
presence
of additional
compositional imperatives,
which
we
may briefly puzzle
over before
returning
to
query,
once
more,
the
message
of the birdcalls.
In
modeling
his Sixth
Symphony
on his
Fifth,
Beethoven was
adapting
the
structures and devices of his most
powerfully
intense
symphony
to the needs
of what had to
be, by
its
nature,
his most
deliberately
relaxed
symphony.
The
strategy provided
him with the
strongest possible
insurance
against
the
possi-
44. See
Gossett,
"Beethoven's Sixth
Symphony," 252-61,
for a vivid account of Beethoven's
struggles
with the
retransition,
a
problem
not solvable
by
recourse to the Fifth
Symphony,
notwithstanding
the
parallels
noted above.
A Tale of Two
Symphonies
333
bility
that his orchestral
pastoral
should turn out to be no
symphony.
The re-
sult is a tour de
force,
a
stunning
demonstration of how a model
might
be
transformed almost
beyond recognition,
but without
losing
its
ability
to im-
part
a
parallel,
derived coherence to the
resulting, seemingly independent
work. So
stunning
is this
display,
in
fact,
that it is hard not to view it as
part
of
the
point
of the
modeling process
itself.
In
solving
the
problem
of how to write a
pastoral
that would also
qualify
as a
symphony,
Beethoven was
paving
the
way
for later works-such as An die
ferne
Geliebte and the Ninth
Symphony--that
would
attempt
to find a
place
for
na:ve
musical material in
high art,
to "elevate"
relatively simple
material
through
the
imposition
of a
larger
structure.45 But he was also
honing
a tech-
nique
of
structurally
based variation that would
prove
on a later occasion to be
fascinating enough
for him to
get caught up
in an
extremely implausible pro-
ject
for
years;
even if the result of this obsessive fascination turned out to be no
less a
masterpiece
than the
Diabelli Variations,
the
project
remains
implausible
even in
retrospect-unless,
of
course,
we take into consideration the fascina-
tion
that the
very process
of variation held for Beethoven. In the
Diabelli
Variations,
the
sequence
of
adaptation
is
reversed,
as the thematic structure
and
gestures
of an
inconsequential
waltz tune
(rather
than a
great symphony)
are
placed
in the service of a wide
range
of affective
ends,
ranging
from the
comic to the
profound,
from the naive to the
learned,
from the heroic to the
nostalgic.
Unlike so
many
of his masterworks that
employ
variation
form,
the
Diabelli
Variations
ostentatiously
avoid
articulating
a
fully integrated larger
shape (notwithstanding
the numerous
attempts by analysts
to describe such
a
shape), making
the
technique
and art of variation-Beethoven's
ability
to
45. Beethoven's
project
to elevate
naive or
folklike material dates back at least to the finale of
the
Eroica,
and
arguably
before that. While his model in this was
probably Haydn
at some
point,
all the cited
examples
are so
highly charged
with issues both
personal
and
political
that
Haydn's
relevance recedes and the
project
becomes
wholly
Beethoven's. Thus we
may note,
for these three
works:
(1)
the
symbolic forging
of heroic musical
images
from
commonplace
material in the finale
of the
Eroica,
a work
originating
as a
symphony
about
Napoleon
and
widely
taken to be about
Beethoven himself
(thus,
in
parallel
to the careers of both
men,
the finale achieves
greatness
from
undistinguished origins); (2)
the elevation of a sentimentalized
expression
of love in An
dieferne
Geliebte,
whose
authenticity
is underwritten
by
the direct
folklike
style
of the
Lied,
and whose sen-
timent is ennobled
through sophisticated
structural
manipulation and,
in the
end, overtly
heroic
gestures;
and
(3)
the
forging
of a
grandly
scaled
hymn extolling
brotherhood from
folklike
mater-
ial, presented
within the most
sophisticated
of structures in the finale of the Ninth
Symphony
as a
projection
of democratic
unity
between the
high-
and low-born. In the finale of the Sixth
Sym-
phony,
a
programmatically explicit
naivete
becomes an essential
component
of the reconciliation
between
humanity
and God
(see below).
Regarding
Beethoven's
strategies
in An
dieferne Geliebte,
see
Joseph
Kerman's "An die ferne
Geliebte,"
in Beethoven
Studies,
ed.
Tyson,
123-57.
Regarding
the Ninth
Symphony,
see Leo
Treitler's
"History, Criticism,
and Beethoven's Ninth
Symphony,"
in his Music and the
Historical
Imagination (Cambridge:
Harvard
University Press, 1989), 19-45;
and
Maynard
Solomon's
"Beethoven's Ninth
Symphony:
A Search for
Order,"
in his Beethoven
Essays (Cambridge:
Harvard
3-32.
334
Journal
of the American
adapt
a
given
structure to a
seemingly
endless
variety
of
expressive
ends-the
point
of the work on the most basic level.46
The
impulse
toward structural variation-which
produced, among
other
musical treasures from a career
virtually
littered with
great works,
the
Diabelli
Variations,
the finales of the Third and Ninth
Symphonies,
and the central
movement of his
greatest string quartet-should
also be understood as an in-
dispensable component
in the Sixth
Symphony,
and not
simply
because much
of its thematic material is set out within a
locally
conceived variational format.
The Pastoral
Symphony
could never have been written without the models
Beethoven
provided
himself in the Fifth
Symphony;
nor could it have been
written
by
a
composer
less sensitive and
responsive
than Beethoven to the ab-
stract
possibilities
of musical
structures,
or
by
one for whom those
possibilities
were not in themselves the
subject
of endless fascination. For
Beethoven,
the
problem
of
composing
a
pastoral symphony ultimately reduced,
in
many
im-
portant ways,
to an exercise in structural
variation,
albeit on a vast scale.
And
yet, quite obviously,
much more was at stake in Beethoven's
modeling
than the exercise of
making
one
symphony
fold somehow into another
very
different one.
(Ultimately,
this kind of
explanation
is no more
satisfying
on its
own than
arguing
that the Fifth
Symphony
was an
enabling
force for Beetho-
ven as he
composed
the Sixth-even
though,
as I have
argued here,
both
claims are
warranted.)
What Beethoven seems to have been after was not
just
another,
contrasting symphony
to serve as a suitable
complement
to the
Fifth;
rather,
he seems to have wanted to enmesh the two
together,
so that the one
might
be seen to
provide
a
necessary perspective
for the other
and, further,
that
neither
might
be seen as
occupying
a
privileged position
relative to the other.
For him to achieve this
aim,
the two
symphonies
had not
only
to match as
closely
as
possible
in matters of technical
detail, they
had also to
present
an in-
tertwined
content,
both
musically
and
conceptually.
The confusion
projected
at the December 1808 concert and afterwards
concerning
which
symphony
came first serves as a fortuitous emblem of
Beethoven's desire to
present
the two works on an
equal footing.
Jander's
un-
usual conclusion about the concert order-that the Sixth was
designed
to be
what we
might today
call a
"prequel"
to the Fifth-thus
represents only
a
part
of the
truth,
if the most
surprising part.
The Fifth
Symphony
is indeed better
understood because of the
Sixth,
and the two works inform each other with a
good
deal more
clarity
when
they
are considered in reverse
order,
as
Jander
ar-
gues.
But
they
are also
parallel, independent works,
alternative
presentations
of
overlapping
ideas. We have
already
traced
here, primarily
in musical
terms,
how those ideas
overlap
and
diverge. Equally important, however,
is the man-
ner in which each
symphony
also
projects,
in
parallel
but individual
ways,
a
46. The best discussion of the
problems
that the
DiabelliVariations
have
presented
to
analysts
preoccupied
with
larger
formal
designs-surely
an understandable
preoccupation
with Beethoven
-may
be found in William
Kinderman, Beethoven's Diabelli Variations (Oxford:
Clarendon
Press,
1987), esp.
xv-xx and 108-10.
A Tale of Two
Symphonies
335
dramatic-philosophic
content that
explores
the
proper relationship
between
Man and his Creator
(as
Beethoven himself
might
have
phrased it).
Before
detailing
how each
symphony projects
its
dramatic-philosophic
content, however,
we should note that such
lofty subject
matter forms the
theme for Beethoven's 1808 concert on a much broader
level, embracing
much more than the two
symphonies. Outwardly,
the concert was
fairly
conventional,
if somewhat
lengthy.
As was
customary
for the
early
nineteenth
century,
it was
given
in
roughly equal halves,
each headed
by
a
major
work
for orchestra alone and
including
a
variety
of works both instrumental and
vocal:47
Part 1: Pastoral
Symphony [then
numbered
5,
now
6]
Concert
Aria
["Ah Perfido!"]
Latin
Hymn
with chorus and solos
[
Gloria from the
C-Major Mass]
Piano Concerto
[No. 4]
Part 2: Grand
Symphony
in C Minor
[then
numbered
6,
now
5]
Sanctus with chorus and solos
[from
the
C-Major Mass, presumably
also with the
Benedictus,
since solos are
specified]
Fantasy
on the
piano [improvised]
Choral
Fantasy
While it
might
be
supposed
that this
program
resulted from Beethoven
op-
portunely putting
some of his recent work before the
public
in order to earn
money,
it is
scarcely
an
arbitrary assemblage
of
pieces. Rather, every single
work
(with
the
possible exception
of the
improvised fantasy,
which some have
taken to be no more than the
opening
section of the concert's
finale)
bears a
strong
relation to the
subject
matter of the two lead works. The connection is
probably
most obvious in the two
celebratory hymns
of
praise,
extracted from
his recent
setting
of the
Mass;
these
may
be seen to mark
appropriately
and
more
overtly
the
parallel
resolutions
provided by
the
symphonies they
follow.
While the inclusion of "Ah
perfido!" may
well have been motivated
by
more
pragmatic concerns,
its tortured
exploration
of a failed
relationship, ending
with a
passionate
and
poignant plea
for
pity,
is
obviously
thematic in a
general
47.
Typically,
a
public
concert would
begin
with an overture rather than a
"grand sym-
phony";
this
may
well be the fundamental reason that Beethoven
began
with the Pastoral
Symphony,
a less
demanding
work than the Fifth
despite
its
length. According
to
convention,
in-
strumental and vocal works would
alternate;
the decision to break this
pattern, by placing
the
Gloria before the concerto rather than
after,
was
probably
made in
part
to allow Beethoven to
take his bows as both
composer
and
performer
after each half of the concert.
Regarding public
concert
programs
in Beethoven's
Vienna,
see Alice M.
Hanson,
Musical
Life
in
Biedermeier
Vienna
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); McVeigh,
Concert
Life
in
London;
Mary
Sue
Morrow,
Concert
Life
in
Haydn's
Vienna:
Aspects of
a
Developing
Musical and Social
Institution
(Stuyvesant,
N.Y.:
Pendragon Press, 1989);
and William
Weber,
Music and the Middle
Class:
The Social Structure
of
Concert
Life
in
London, Paris,
and Vienna
(London:
Croom
Helm,
1975).
336
Journal
of the American
sense. While not in itself
religious,
it is
stylistically
consistent with Beethoven's
notorious
tendency
to
project
his troubled
relationship
to his Creator in bla-
tantly operatic terms, exemplified
in his
fairly contemporary
Christus
am 01-
berge (and, arguably,
in the
Heiligenstadt Testament).
But it is in the
pieces
that
complete
the frame for each half of the
program,
the Fourth Concerto
and the
Choral
Fantasy,
that the most elaborate
parallels
to the
preoccupations
of the
symphonies may
be found.
If we
may
take
seriously Jander's strong case,
noted
above,
that Beetho-
ven's
Fourth Concerto was based on the
story
of
Orpheus,
we should also
note both that the case is
considerably stronger
with the confrontational sec-
ond movement than with the outer movements and that the
story
as the con-
certo relates it is not
only incomplete (without
the
trigger
event of
Eurydice's
death)
but also
impossible
to reconcile
satisfactorily
with the
concluding
movement, regardless
of which version we
might attempt
to fit it to. And we
must also take due notice that Beethoven
withheld
the
Orpheus explanation,
an act that even more
explicitly
demands that we look
beyond
the
specific
sce-
nario of
Orpheus. Accordingly,
without the
full
baggage
of the
Orpheus story,
but
retaining
its central
image
of a
musician-strumming,
as
Jander
would
have
it,
the
opening
chord of the
first
movement's
pastoral
as on a
lyre,
then
confronting
and
subduing
the Furies in the middle movement-we will not
fail to note that the finale is
celebratory
and that
Orpheus-that is,
Beethoven
at the
piano-is
neither debauched nor rent
asunder,
but
present throughout
as a successful celebrant. That Beethoven should so
obviously
cast himself as a
musician whose
gifts
entitled and enabled him to revoke an undeserved and
particularly
harsh fate relates all too
obviously
to his
ongoing preoccupations,
especially
as
they play
out in the two
symphonies.
Even if the concerto is im-
plicitly
more
presumptuous,
even
sacrilegious,
in
projecting
a successful "ar-
gument"
with
God,
however
lyrical,
its
story
need
by
no means be reduced to
that of
Orpheus,
whatever the
composer's original inspiration.
For its
part,
the
Choral
Fantasy projects
the
performer-composer
in a lead
role within a scenario that ends in a state of universal
grace, overcoming
"Nacht und
Stiirme"
(night
and
storms) through
"der Tdne Zauber"
(magic
tones)
and
"sch6ne
Kunst"
(fine arts),
and
culminating
in the
following
ad-
monition:
Nehmt denn
hin,
ihr
sch6nen
Seelen,
Take
away then, you devotees,
Froh die Gaben
sch6ner
Kunst, Gladly
the
gifts
of the fine
arts,
Wenn sich Lieb' und Kraft
vermdhlen,
When love and
power
are
wed,
Lohnt dem Menschen
G6ttergunst.
God's
grace
rewards
humanity.
Here,
Beethoven harnesses music not
only
to overcome his own harsh
fate,
but also to lead all
humanity (or
at least all those in
attendance)
into a state of
full reconciliation with God.
What, then, of the two symphonies? Here we cannot do better than begin
with Will's
theophanic
scenario for the storm of the Sixth
Symphony,
which
A Tale of Two
Symphonies
337
provides
an ideal
starting point
for further elaboration
along
the
lines
sketched
earlier.48
Thus,
the Sixth
Symphony
first establishes nature as
overwhelmingly
beautiful,
but static. At the end of the second
movement,
an ineffable
pres-
ence asserts itself
through
the sudden cessation of
activity
and the
staged
bird-
calls. What this
passage signifies
is not
easily deciphered; perhaps
it is a claim of
authorship
that in
repetition
becomes a demand for
recognition,
even a warn-
ing,
however
gently
rendered.
Overt,
isolated
birdcalls
are used to
communi-
cate this
message,
not
only
because of the tradition of the
prophet-bird
that
Jander cites,
but
also,
more
broadly,
because the
message
must seem both to
emanate from nature and to stand
apart
from our
experience
of nature to that
point
in the
symphony,
as a kind of
heightening
of
reality. Yet, despite
its
repe-
tition,
the
message
is
apparently
left unanswered at this
point. Then,
with the
scherzo,
we
experience
human
activity that,
like nature
experienced
without
due reverence for its
creator, engages
us without
fully satisfying
us.
And, again,
we receive a
message-this
time more
clearly
a
warning-in
the form of a
trumpet
call that obtrudes
strangely
from the final cadence of the dancelike
trio
(see
Ex.
16).
In
parallel
to the
message
at the end of the second move-
ment,
this more
emphatic warning
emanates from the human
activity
to
which we have been
witness, yet
stands
oddly apart
from
it,
with a similar effect
of
suddenly heightened reality. Moreover,
as in the second
movement,
this
warning appears
in the form of a
thrice-repeated
note
culminating
in an iso-
lated melodic fall of a
major
third.
(Significantly,
the
trumpet appears
for the
first time in the
symphony during
the second
half
of the
trio,
for the sole
pur-
pose,
it would
seem,
of
being
able to sound this
warning
at its
conclusion.)49
The
"theophanic"
storm that
interrupts
the third
cycle
of the scherzo clari-
fies the
import
of the
parallel warnings, reminding
us that both
contemplating
nature and
partaking
of human
society require
a central
place
for God.
This,
in
turn,
sets
up
the
finale,
which
presents
for the first time an
integrated
world
embracing nature, humanity,
and God.
And,
also for the first
time,
we are
given
a movement that is constructed with a
genuine
sense of
teleology,
with
progress
marked both
tonally
and
through
thematic
development
and varia-
tion. In this
regard,
the
general
view that the finale returns us to the
quietude
of the first movement is
surely wrong,
for the finale
projects
a directed
qui-
etude,
one that fulfills Will's claim that "Beethoven's
[storm]
ensures that
nothing
will ever be as it was before" and
justifies Wyn
Jones's
assertion that
the finale "becomes
increasingly
more
symphonic
than
anything
found in the
48. The
following
combines some
aspects
of Will's
interpretation, Jander's
insight
into the
prophetic
nature of the labeled
birdcalls,
and
my
own
interpolations
to and extensions of each
reading.
49. See also
Wyn Jones's
discussion of this
figure,
which he terms a
"bugle
call or
posthorn
signal." Wyn Jones,
well in line with
my
view of the
matter, argues
that the
figure
"was
clearly
of some
significance
to
Beethoven,"
that "he was
obviously
anxious to include
[it],"
and that he
introduced
trumpets primarily
in order to have an
appropriate
instrument available to
play
it
(Pastoral Symphony, 72).
338
Journal
of the American
Example
16
Symphony
No.
6,
third
movement,
mm. 194-97
(Allegro)
Vn.
I
ffp
Tr.e
in C
(rest)
fif
p
first
movement."50
The
implications
of these observations need to be under-
scored here because both Will and
Wyn Jones,
like
many others,
seem
quite
as
willing
to
argue
the other side of the
matter; thus,
Will finds the finale to be
more
fundamentally
a return to the "unhurried
pace
of the first two move-
ments,"
and
Wyn
Jones
claims that "the last movement has no
story
to
tell,
the
Hirtengesang awakening
the same sentiments as had been
present
in the
first movement."51
Yet,
the
pace
of the finale is
surely
measured more
pur-
posefully
(if
not more
urgently)
than that of the first two
movements,
and
pre-
sents a dramatic
argument
of
sorts, progressing logically
from its
opening
call
to
worship
to its
prayerfuil
conclusion.
More
significantly,
the finale relates in a definitive
way
to the earlier move-
ments, establishing clearly
directed formal hierarchies to resolve their circulari-
ties, making
a directed attention to the
Deity
its central
preoccupation, and,
above
all, addressing
and
absorbing
their central
gestures
within a more se-
curely grounded
formal environment conceived in
part
as a summation.
Thus,
the finale
recaptures
not
only
the
"cheerful
feelings"
of the first
movement,
but also the
"flowing"
material of the second
movement,
which
virtually
takes
over the
recapitulation. Yet, alongside
this
process,
the kind of "wondrous"
harmonic shifts in the
development
of the second movement
(i.e.,
from G to
E6 to
CG
across mm.
67-81) replay
but
briefly
in the
finale,
where
they
are car-
ried with tremendous conviction into a
full
arrival in F on each occasion.
And,
clearly,
what underlies this conviction is
specifically
human-more
specifically,
the "human" as encountered in the
scherzo,
the honest
country
folk whose
simpleminded devotion,
reified in the
unsophisticated Hirtengesang
of the fi-
nale, explicitly
offers a resolution
possible only
in the
countryside,
and
only
through becoming
one of its
people.
The two faces of
God-wrathful
and
forgiving-that appear
so as to
bring
order to the Sixth
Symphony appear
also in the
Fifth,
where
they
are used in-
stead as a frame for the overall
trajectory
of the work.
Despite
this
difference,
50.
and
Humanity," 325;
and
Wyn Jones, Pastoral
Symphony,
78.
51.
and
Humanity," 325;
and
Wyn Jones, Pastoral
Symphony,
76.
A Tale of Two
Symphonies
339
the
progression
between the two is
essentially
in the same direction for both
works. The
opening
movement of the
Fifth,
like the storm of the
Pastoral,
projects
a
wrathful God, against
whom the hero
struggles
in
vain;
it is
surely
no coincidence that the chains of thirds that were meant to
undergird
the
opening
theme of the Fifth
reappear
in the heart of the storm
(see
n. 35 and
mm. 78-88 and 119-30 in the storm
movement),
or that the Fifth
opens
with
virtually
the same musical
figure
that closes not
only
the "Scene
by
the
Brook"
(the
combination of
quail
and
cuckoo),
but also both trios of the
Sixth
(the trumpet),
the
signal
instances of divine
presence
that
precede
and
"prophecy"
the storm itself. Nor can there be much doubt that the sense of
triumph expressed
in the finale of the Fifth is more a reconciliation with God
(or Fate)
than a
victory
over
him,
since
proper
reverence for the Creator is
evinced in the form of brass chorales and
hymnlike
tunes
(even
if these are a
bit too
ready
to
erupt
into unbridled
jubilation). Moreover,
we
may easily
find
in the third
movement-specifically,
in the
plaintive opening phrases
and the
penitential
march
imposed by
the
reappearing rhythmic
motive from the
opening
of the
symphony--a
sense of
expiation
on a heroic
scale, although
for
precisely
what sin we can
only speculate (perhaps
the sin of
resisting
God's will
in the first
movement,
but more
likely
for whatever incurred his wrath in the
first
place).52
Even if the latter
part
of the above seems a bit too close to
"goblins walking
quietly
over the universe" as an
explanation
for how the scherzo in the Fifth
Symphony brings
us to the
finale,53
it is nonetheless clear that
something
far
from trivial is
involved,
for the finale is
presented
as the outcome of the
scherzo and
projects
a sense of
overwhelming victory. Moreover, coupled
with
this sense of an earned
victory--in
which a
projected
harmonic
goal
is attained
after
great struggle--is
the sense that
victory
is also bestowed on the
hero,
a
52.
I
am here
advancing boldly--some
would
say,
much too
boldly--on
two
fronts,
both in
my reading
of the
supposedly
"absolute" musical discourse of the Fifth
Symphony,
and in
sug-
gesting,
as
background,
that Beethoven
may
have seen his deafness as an
unjustly
severe divine
retribution-indeed,
the
very
"fate"
against
which he
may
be heard to
struggle
in the first move-
ment of the Fifth. It seems to
me, however,
that this rather
aggressive reading
is well
supported
in
a number of
ways. Surely,
Schindler's
oft-quoted
claim that Beethoven
explained
the
opening
of
the Fifth as "Thus Fate knocks at the door!"
provides
the basis for a
reading
too
apt
to be
put
aside as
resolutely
as scholars have tended to.
Moreover,
the
reception history
of the Fifth
Symphony
has tended toward both a
highly personal reading
of the conflicts in the work and an
unquestioning acceptance
of the "fate"
reading,
without
plausible
alternatives
(beyond
the
escape
to
"purely
musical"
explanations).
And the
arguments
I have made for
linking
the Fifth and the
Sixth
Symphonies together musically
all but mandate a
thematically
linked
reading
of the two
works, expressly along
the lines taken here.
53. In the
"reading"
of the Fifth
Symphony
offered in E. M. Forster's Howards End
(1910),
Beethoven
appears
"in
person"
to command the
goblins during
the transition to the
finale,
and
then
quite literally
blows them
away.
In the 1992
Merchant-Ivory
film
adaptation
of Howards
End,
a condensed version of this
reading
is
doubly dismissed,
first
through
its
being
delivered
rather
pompously
at a
public lecture,
and then
through
a
vigorous challenge
of its
seeming
arbi-
trariness
by
an
outraged
member of the audience.
340
Journal
of the American
sense that is
perhaps
most
vividly conveyed by
the enormous
impact
of the
trombone, famously making
its first
appearance
in a
symphonic
orchestra;
thus,
its
majestic presence
is
immediately felt,
and its
deep
tones saturate the
movement. In the
trombone, according
to
long-standing traditions,
we
may
often
find at once the
presence
of God and the instrument most
befitting
his
worship; appropriately,
this movement has been cited as a central landmark of
that tradition. But we do well to remember that it is not in the Fifth that the
public
first heard trombones in a
symphony,
but in the Pastoral
Symphony
introduced earlier in the same
evening.
In that
work,
this dual function of the
trombone is clarified
through being
distributed across the final two move-
ments.54
If Beethoven
gives
us less
help
in the Fifth
Symphony
in
determining pre-
cisely
how the
victory
of the finale is
achieved,
the individual
functions
of the
four movements have
often
seemed easier to sort out than in the more
clearly
labeled movements of the Sixth.
Thus,
the first movement of the Fifth
pre-
sents an
unsuccessful
struggle,
the second a
lyrical
interlude in which future
triumph
is
foretold,
and the third a rite of
passage through
which the actual
victory
is attained. Not all the movements of the Sixth function so
obviously
within such a
clearly
laid-out narrative
series, since, according
to the scenario
sketched
above,
the first two movements do
virtually
the same
thing,
that
is,
they project
an
image
of
harmonious, unprocessed
nature. It
is, perhaps,
this
apparent
lack of individuated
function
for the second movement that
helps
to
justify
Jander's
attempt
to
extrapolate
a scenario for this movement alone. But
this lack of function is
only apparent,
for Beethoven finds
justification
for
pro-
longing
his
nature-image beyond
the first movement
in,
once
again, forging
a
parallel
with the Fifth
Symphony.
The slow movement of the Fifth
Symphony
is the
keystone
for the
whole,
rescuing
us from the
tragedy
of the first movement and
foretelling
a reversal of
fortunes from the
enabling vantage point
of a
lyrical pastoral (in
terms of
keys,
a
grandiose image
of C
major emerging suddenly against
the
key
of the flat
sixth, Ab),
thus
projecting
the successful outcome-in terms of
key, style,
and
manner of
appearance,
as
something
bestowed as if "from above"-that is to
be worked out in the later movements.55
Once
again,
the slow movement of
the Sixth
may
be seen to share an
important
feature with that of the Fifth:
from the
vantage point
of the
pastoral,
it too foretells a reversal of fortunes
and,
in this
sense,
it too holds the
key
to the
whole,
for it is the first to
prob-
54. See
Wyn Jones,
Pastoral
Symphony, 53,
for a discussion of the role of the trombones in the
Pastoral
Symphony,
and of the tradition that
supports
that role.
55.
Compare Jander's
very differently
based claim that the slow movement of the Fifth
paral-
lels that of the Sixth
(as
he understands
it), presenting
another "version of Beethoven's obsession
with
deafness,"
and
projecting
"Beethoven's
philosophical monologue
on the
subject
of how
to
cope
with a
potentially
suicidal
life crisis," through
Titigkeit
("The
Most
Meaningful Single
Note in Beethoven's 'Scene
by
the Brook'
[A
Meditation
Inspired by
a
Misprint]," The
Musical
Quarterly
78
[1994]: 173).
A Tale of Two
Symphonies
341
lematize what has seemed until then to be an all-too
unproblematic paradise.
Perhaps, too,
the
visionary aspects
of both were intended as
parallels,
for each
provides
a
revelation,
a vision in which God seems to reveal himself and fore-
tell,
if
cryptically,
the future course of the
symphony. Thus,
in both
sym-
phonies,
God is
profoundly present
in the first
movement, yet
reveals himself
only
in the second.
Without the birdcalls that conclude
it, then,
the "Scene
by
the Brook"
would have
virtually
no dramatic role to
play
in the
symphony.
With
them,
its
relatively complacent projection
of a benevolent nature becomes an essential
part
of the
story,
an
imperiled paradise
to be reclaimed in the finale
through
the devout faith
expressed
in the
shepherd's hymn. By breaking through
the
seemingly imperturbable symphonic
surface of Beethoven's "Szene am
Bach,"
the birdcalls not
only justify
the movement
by providing
it with a function
within the
whole,
but
they
also
begin
to
define,
for the first time in the
sym-
phony,
what that whole
might
look like.
Thus, ironically,
what is often taken
to be the least
symphonic
moment in the
symphony provides
the
linchpin
for
the
symphony qua symphony, enabling Beethoven,
in
effect,
to evolve a true
symphony
from the
patently nonsymphonic.
It seems
entirely natural,
if
only
from a later
perspective,
for such a moment to
give
voice to the
principal
mo-
tive of Beethoven's Fifth
Symphony,
the one work that
may
be
regarded
as
central to our notion of what a
symphony
should be.
Yet,
for its first
public
au-
dience,
it was the Fifth
Symphony
that took
up
the
repeated warning
cries of
the second and third movements of the Pastoral
Symphony
as its central mo-
tive,
not the reverse. Whether or not
Czerny may
be trusted
regarding
an ex-
terior source for the famous motive of the Fifth
(to wit,
the call of the
finch),
its more immediate source in December
1808,
in the
prophetic
birdcalls
from
the Pastoral
Symphony,
would seem to validate his claim.
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David L.
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Treitler,
Leo.
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in
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Alan. "Beethoven's Home-Made Sketchbook of 1807-08." Beethoven-
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Abstract
Owen
Jander's
recent observation that the
concluding
birdcalls in the sec-
ond movement of Beethoven's Pastoral
Symphony reproduce
the
opening
motive of his Fifth
provides
a
starting point
for
considering
the two
sym-
phonies together.
Evidence derived from
analysis, sketches,
and
compositional-
biographical
circumstances is used to establish and illuminate a
process
of
modeling
in which the Sixth
Symphony adopts
the
procedural
innovations of
the Fifth while
inverting
their affective
impact.
Possible rationales for this
modeling
include Beethoven's
preoccupation
with transmutational variation
and his desire to make the Pastoral more
symphonic.
More
intriguingly,
the
modeling
underscores
parallel
scenarios of divine reconciliation in the two
symphonies,
a theme shared more
generally by
the other works
performed
on the occasion of their
public premieres
in December 1808. In the
Fifth,
the
struggle against
Fate often heard in the first movement is resolved
through
the
penitential
march of the
scherzo,
while the
"theophanic"
storm move-
ment in the Sixth
(Richard
Will's
reading
is extended here to account for the
enigmatic birdcalls,
whose
"message"
is echoed more
pressingly
in the
scherzo)
reorients secular
appreciations
of nature and
country
life
toward
thankful devotion. In each
work,
the
celebratory
finale rectifies an established
schism between
humanity
and God.

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A Tale of Two Symphonies: Converging Narratives of Divine Reconciliation in Beethoven's

Fifth and Sixth

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