THE IMPORTANCE OF BEETHOVEN'S SYMPHONIES

 We see both CLASSICAL and ROMANTIC elements in Beethoven's music

Classical = strong sense of musical structure and form; composers wanted to communicate
clearly to their audience; highly social music, a shared experience

Romantic = all about the individual; music offers solitary contemplation; originality,
individual expression, genius; every new work of art has a new, unique meaning; music
embodying feeling

 Many of Beethoven's works are based on Classical principles, but stretched to the utmost
limit
- looking forward to the nineteenth century

 Beethoven was a major influence on almost every nineteenth-century composer that

followed him

The Sonata Principle

 A way in which Classical composers (e.g. Mozart and Haydn) constructed their works - it
created a sense of direction and shape to their works. It was used in piano sonatas,
symphonies and chamber works.

EXPOSITION: the musical ideas (themes or melodies) are "exposed", i.e. introduced /
shown. Usually made up of 2 contrasting themes called subjects (i.e. first subject, second
subject).
DEVELOPMENT: the music "develops" these musical ideas by exploring a range of keys, both
major and minor
RECAPITULATION: the musical ideas first heard in the exposition are restated, but making
sure the piece overall ends in the home key

MOZART  renowned for writing beautiful, flowing tunes

BEETHOVEN  builds his movements on smaller fragments

The Fifth Symphony

 'Da-da-da-dum' theme
- three short repeated notes then one longer note at a lower pitch
- Beethoven builds an entire movement (lasting about 10 mins) on this one
rhythmical idea

 Second subject is a contrasting melodic theme

- but Beethoven still has the 'da-da-da-dum' theme lurking in the background

 In the development section Beethoven develops the potential of this motive / theme
- he keeps the same rhythm but changes the melodic shape
 The development of such a small theme / motive became a guiding principle
- later Romantic composers liked the way one single theme could become the source
for a huge exploration of different thematic developments
- METAPHORS OF GROWTH (the motive is the seed, and the movement grows
organically into flower)

The Sixth Symphony

 One of the earliest nineteenth-century examples of programme music (you should know
all about this from your recent assignment)
- contains 5 movements (symphonies at this time usually only had 4 movements)

Programme music = instrumental music that tells a story, represents a real or fictional
character, depicts a scene; often composers would provide some sort of written description
to accompany the music

'Recollections of Country Life'

I. Pleasant, cheerful feelings aroused on approaching the countryside

II. Scene by the Brook
III. The Peasants' Merrymaking
IV. The Storm
V. Shepherd's Song, Grateful thanks to the Almighty after the Storm

 Just like the 5th Symphony, Beethoven often repeats and develops short themes /
motives
e.g. in the first movement one little 5-note idea gets repeated many, many times
until we are itching for it to change

 The 6th Symphony was an important influence on later writers of programme music such
as: Liszt and Dvorak ('Tone Poems' - symphonic works describing scenes or paintings)
Mahler and Bruckner (both wrote huge programmatic symphonies)

The Ninth Symphony

 Relies on the overall structures of the Classical tradition, but again stretched to their
absolute limits

 The whole symphony lasts for other an hour – this had never been done before

 The first symphony to incorporate singers into a symphony (these appear in the final
movement)

 The 9th Symphony was the first sign of the symphonic 'epic masterpiece. It paved the
way for:
- composers to wrote much longer symphonies (e.g. most of Mahler and Bruckner's
symphonies last for over an hour)
 - Haydn, for instance, wrote 106 symphonies, but on a much smaller scale. Following
Beethoven it became less feasible to write lots of them, so most nineteenth-century
composers wrote less than ten symphonies in their respective lifetimes (e.g. Mahler,
Tchaikovsky, Bruckner, Brahms, Schubert, Schumann).

 The 9th Symphony is innovative in the way Beethoven unifies the work:
- The 'Ode to Joy' theme is included in all 4 movements (albeit it often in slightly
disguised form)
- The 4th movement contains snippets of music from each of the previous three
movements
- This is known as CYCLIC FORM (where ideas that you heard earlier in the piece
come back in the final movement)

 The THEMATIC UNITY seen in Beethoven's 9th Symphony was a major influence on later
composers, for example:

Idée Fixe: a motive that keeps coming back in different movements of a work, used by
Berlioz
Thematic metamorphosis: where a theme is transformed and takes on a new character,
used by Richard Strauss
Leitmotif: a musical idea used to represent a certain character or dramatic theme is brought
back at different times, as seen in Wagner's operas

 It is also worth noting that Beethoven used a much larger orchestra than his predecessors
in his symphonic writing, and this would go on to influence later composers