Stories of Symphonic Music / A Guide to the Meaning of Important Symphonies, Overtures, and Tone-poems from Beethoven to the Present Day

BEETHOVEN

Lawrence Gilman

(Ludwig van Beethoven: born in Bonn, December 16, 1770; died in Vienna, March 26, 1827)

SYMPHONY No. 3. "EROICA": Op. 55

Allegro con brio.
Marcia funÈbre: adagio assai.
Scherzo: allegro vivace; trio.
Finale: allegro molto.

On the score of the MS. of Beethoven's "Eroica Symphony" in the Bibliothek at Vienna appear these words:

"Sinfonia grande
Napoleon Bonaparte...."

and thereby hang many tales.

Anton Schindler,[11] the close friend and biographer of Beethoven, wrote at length in his famous Life of the symphonist concerning the origin of the Eroica. In the autumn of 1802, says Schindler, Beethoven resumed a plan which he had formed of doing homage to Napoleon, the hero of the day, "in a grand instrumental work," and set about its execution. "But it was not till the following year that he applied himself in good earnest to that gigantic composition, known by the title of Sinfonia Eroica, which, however, in consequence of various interruptions, was not finished till 1804.... The original idea of that symphony is said to have been suggested by General Bernadotte, who was then French ambassador at Vienna, and had a high esteem for our Beethoven....

"In his political sentiments Beethoven was a republican; the spirit of independence natural to a genuine artist gave him a decided bias that way. Plato's Republic was transfused into his flesh and blood, and upon the principles of that philosopher he reviewed all the constitutions in the world. He wished all institutions to be modelled upon the plan prescribed by Plato. He lived in the firm belief that Napoleon entertained no other design than to republicanize France upon similar principles, and thus, as he conceived, a beginning would be made for the general happiness of the world. Hence his respect and enthusiasm for Napoleon.

"A fair copy of the musical work for the First Consul of the French Republic, the conqueror of Marengo, with the dedication to him, was on the point of being despatched through the French embassy to Paris, when the news arrived in Vienna that Napoleon Bonaparte had caused himself to be proclaimed Emperor of the French. The first thing Beethoven did on receiving this intelligence was to tear the title-leaf off the symphony (on it were written the words 'Napoleon Bonaparte') and then fling the work itself, with a torrent of execrations against the French Emperor—against the new 'tyrant'—upon the floor, from which he would not allow it to be lifted. [12]

"It was a long time before Beethoven recovered from the shock, and permitted this work to be given to the world.... I shall only add that it was not till the tragic end of the great Emperor at St. Helena that Beethoven was reconciled with him and remarked that, seventeen years before, he had composed appropriate music to the catastrophe, in which it was exactly predicted musically, but unwittingly—alluding to the Dead March in the symphony."

When the symphony was first performed in public under Beethoven's direction, at the Theater an der Wien, April 7, 1805, it was announced on the programme as "A new grand Symphony in D-sharp by Herr Ludwig van Beethoven, dedicated to his excellence Prince von Lobkowitz." In October of the following year the symphony was published with this title and motto:

Sinfonia Eroica.... Composta per festeggiare il Sovvenire di un grand Uomo

("Heroic Symphony.... Composed to celebrate the memory of a great man.")

Interpreters innumerable have attempted to read the meaning of this baffling symphony, with its funeral march followed perplexingly by a gay scherzo and an energetic and jubilant finale. For Adolph Marx (1799-1866) the dirge pictured a battle-field at night, covered with the silent bodies of the dead; the scherzo told of the rejoicings of the homeward-bound soldiers; in the finale was the consecration of victory by Peace. Berlioz found the scherzo and finale akin to the rites celebrated by Homer's warriors over a dead hero. Still another elucidation, in which the license of the interpreter is more than a little stretched, found the first movement to convey "a grand idea of Napoleon's determination of character." The second movement is "descriptive of the funeral honors paid to one of his favorite generals," the "winding up" of which represents "the faltering steps of the last gazers into the grave"; while the finale offers "a combination of French revolutionary airs"! But no one has viewed this symphony more sympathetically or more consistently than did Wagner in an article contributed to a series of papers "On the poetic contents of Beethoven's tone-works," published in the Neue Zeitschrift fÜr Musik, in 1852.

"The designation 'heroic,'" he wrote, "is to be taken in its widest sense, and in no wise to be conceived as relating merely to a military hero. If we broadly connote by 'hero' ('Held') the whole, the full-fledged man, in whom are present all the purely human feelings—of love, of grief, of force—in their highest fill and strength, then we shall rightly grasp the subject which the artist lets appeal to us in the speaking accents of his tone-work. The artistic space of this work is filled with all the varied, inter crossing feelings of a strong, a consummate individuality, to which nothing human is a stranger, but which includes within itself all truly human, and utters it in such a fashion that, after frankly manifesting every noble passion, it reaches a final rounding of its nature, wherein the most feeling softness is wedded with the most energetic force. The heroic tendency of this art work is the progress towards that rounding off."

For him the first movement "embraces, as in a glowing furnace, all the emotions of a richly gifted nature in the heyday of unresting youth ... yet all these feelings spring from one main faculty—and that is Force ... we see a Titan wrestling with the Gods."

In the second movement—the Funeral March—"this shattering force" reaches the "tragic crisis" towards which it was rushing. The tone-poet clothes its proclamation in the musical apparel of a Funeral march. Emotion tamed by deep grief, moving in solemn sorrow, tells us its tale in stirring tones.

"Force robbed of its destructive arrogance—by the chastening of its deep sorrow—the Third Movement shows in all its buoyant gaiety. Its wild unruliness has shaped itself to fresh, to blithe activity; we have before us now this lovable, glad man, who paces hale and hearty through the fields of Nature."

The finale shows us the man entire [that is to say, as Wagner somewhat ponderously explains, a combination of the two sides hitherto shown—the "deeply, stoutly suffering man," and the "gladly, blithely doing man"] harmoniously "at one with self, in these emotions where the memory of Sorrow becomes itself the shaping force of noble deeds.... The whole, the total Man now shouts to us the avowal of his Godhood."

OVERTURE TO "CORIOLANUS": Op. 62

This overture, composed in 1807, was published in the following year. The original manuscript is inscribed: "Overtura (Zum Trauerspiel Coriolan), composta da L. v. Beethoven." The "tragedy" here indicated for which it was written is not the "Coriolanus" of Shakespeare, but the "Coriolan" of Heinrich Joseph von Collin, a contemporary of Beethoven, who filled the post of Secretary at the Austrian Court. In their main outlines, the plays of Collin and of Shakespeare are alike, with, however, this prime difference—the Coriolanus of Shakespeare is slain, while the death of Collin's hero is self-inflicted. According to Wagner, this overture is a tone-picture of the scene—"the most decisive of all"—between Coriolanus, his mother, and wife, in the enemy's camp before the gates of his native city. But the most pointed and illuminating guide to the contents of Beethoven's music will be found in these brief sentences written in elucidation of the overture by Mr. H. E. Krehbiel: "One may forget both plays [Collin's and Shakespeare's] while listening to Beethoven, and go back to Plutarch and the Greek tragic poets for the elements of the music. They are the monumental ones illustrated in the 'Prometheus' of Æschylus and the 'Œdipus' of Sophocles. Like Prometheus, Œdipus, Ajax, and Pentheus, Coriolanus becomes insolent in his pride and goes to destruction. He is noble, kind, good, courageous, but vainglorious in his pride of ancestry, position, and achievement; and he falls. The elements in his character to which Beethoven has given marvellously eloquent proclamation are his pride, which leads him to refuse to truckle to the plebeian tribunes; his rage which had stomach for the destruction of Rome, and his tenderness which makes him yield to the tears of mother and wife and brings death to him. The moods are two; the first is published in the stupendous unisono C of the introduction and the angry principal subject; the second, in the gentle and melodious second theme. The overture dies with mutterings in the depths; with pride unbroken."

SYMPHONY No. 6, "PASTORAL": Op. 68

The "Pastoral" symphony, composed in the summer of 1808, is the first example of symphonic programme-music by a great master. Its illustrative purpose is frankly proclaimed by the descriptive titles which head the separate movements as follows:

1. AWAKENING OF JOYFUL IMPRESSIONS ON ARRIVING IN THE COUNTRY

(Allegro ma non troppo)

2. SCENE BY THE BROOK

(Andante molto moto)

3. MERRY GATHERING OF COUNTRY-FOLK

(Allegro)

4. THUNDER-STORM

(Allegro)

5. SHEPHERD'S SONG; GLAD AND THANKFUL FEELINGS AFTER THE STORM

(Allegretto)

Beethoven in the music of this symphony is avowedly a musical realist. In the "Scene by the Brook" he delineates the rippling of the water by weaving and shimmering of the strings; the songs of birds by imitative figures in the wood-wind (the nightingale: flute; the quail: oboe; the cuckoo: 2 clarinets), which he is at pains to label in the score; and in the "Thunder-storm" section, wind, falling rain, flashes of lightning, the growling of thunder, are suggested by means of easily recognized musical symbols. Yet that the composer was here a somewhat timorous "programmist" is indicated by the note which he wrote in the sketchbook containing ideas for the music of the "Pastoral": "The hearer is left to find out the situations for himself"—a recommendation which he afterwards thought better of—and by the deprecatory after-thought with which he accompanied the description of the symphony on the programme of the concert at which it was first performed (in Vienna, December 22, 1808): "More expression of feeling than painting [depiction]"—and this despite the verisimilitude of the storm and the phonographic warblings of the instrumental birds in a tone-poem whose naÏve realism is as deliberate as it is beyond dispute![13]

OVERTURE TO "EGMONT": Op. 84

Beethoven's incidental music to Goethe's "Egmont" was commissioned by Hartl, manager of the court theatres at Vienna. The overture, composed in 1810, was performed for the first time, together with the rest of the incidental music, at a performance of the play at the Hofburg Theatre, on May 24, 1810. The overture was published in the following year.

The dramatic significance of this music has been pithily summarized by Mr. Philip Hale: "The overture is at first a mighty lamentation. There are the voices of an aroused and angry people, and there is at the last tumultuous rejoicing."

The more elaborate interpretation of Dr. Leopold Damrosch is as acceptable as any:

"The overture begins with an outcry—a cry for help—uttered by an entire nation. Then follow heavy, determined chords, which seem to press down the very life of the people, who seem helplessly ... to yield to their fate. Only the all-pervading woe remains impressively sounded forth, first by the oboe.... From every side the wail is repeated, ... bringing before us, as in a picture, the hands of the nation uplifted in prayer to Heaven, until it is lost in the unison of the first outcry, fortissimo.... Only one ray of hope remains—Egmont. But even his light-hearted nature seems imbued with anxiety for his oppressed country. His motive is as if bound in chains by the simultaneous repetition of sombre chords. In deep melancholy the violins repeat the motive, seeming to languish more and more. But with sudden impulse it revives; Egmont shakes off the gloom which surrounds him; his pulse beats quickly and gladly. On every side his fellow-citizens cry to him for aid. They flock together, and in excited bands surround him, their only champion and deliverer. As if to arouse Egmont still more to action, the sombre chords of the introduction are heard suddenly, but now in agitated measures, shorter, more commanding, and more incisive. Egmont heeds not these warnings. His short, lightly given answers indicate that the decisive moment has not yet arrived for him. Three times the stringed instruments thunder forth the word of command. Then, as if Egmont with a prophetic eye saw the future before him, he seems to press forward with a mighty rush to meet the oppressors. The hosts of followers, faithful to his call, rally to a spirited attack, and in fierce contest the victory seems to be won.
"But this is only a dream. True to his nature, he is playing with his doom. Two vehemently interrupting chords try to arouse Egmont from his reveries; but still he dreams on and hears them not. Beethoven then leads to the dramatic catastrophe and to the musical climax. Harshly and powerfully the authoritative chords resound again.... This time they arouse Egmont from his reveries; and for the first time he seems to have a presentiment of the actual danger. But his vision of before has not yet left him. It still hovers about him, and even the repeated alarm will not shake it from his mind.
"For the third time the terrible chords resound with trumpets and kettle-drums thundering out from the orchestra fortissimo. At last the illusion is over. A cry of anguish escapes him. His fate is sealed. Death is his doom. In mute horror the people surround the scaffold of their idol and their heart-felt prayers ascend to Heaven.
"But now their wrath, gaining double force from the martyrdom of their hero and from the hope that Heaven will listen to their prayers, bursts forth. At first a distant murmur is heard. But in wild turmoil the storm of insurrection swells onward; and soon triumphal sounds of victory announce the tyrant's downfall. We hear the chains resolutely rent asunder, and louder rises the cry of victory."

FOOTNOTES:

[11] Anton Schindler, the son of a cantor and school-master, was born at Modl, Moravia, in 1769. He was the intimate associate of Beethoven from 1819 until the latter's death, save for a brief period of estrangement occasioned by Beethoven's untranquil temper. He outlived Beethoven by more than half a century, and died, near Frankfort, at the age of ninety-five.

[12] Such is the account, declares Schindler in a foot-note, given by Count Moritz Lichnowsky, "who, with Ferdinand Ries, witnessed the circumstance."

[13] It is due to the casual reader to remark here that this somewhat Pecksniffian observation of Beethoven's has given rise to more confused and dogmatic philosophizing about the functions and limitations of musical art than time or mere reason can ever hope to overcome. If the bird-songs, the thunder-storm, and the rest of the naturalistic music-making in the "Pastoral" are not to be classed as musical "depiction" (Malerei is Beethoven's word), but are really only "expression of feeling" (Ausdruck der Empfindung), then must one resign one's self to the conclusion that there is actually no such thing as programme-music at all.

Clyx.com