Philip Hale's Boston Symphony Programme Notes

by Philip Hale

CONCERTO FOR VIOLIN, IN D MAJOR, OP. 61

I. Allegro ma non troppo II. Larghetto III. Rondo

Beethoven composed this concerto in 1806 for the violinist, Franz Clement, who played it for the first time at the latter’s concert in the Theater an der Wien, December 23 of that year.

Beethoven, often behindhand in finishing compositions for solo players—according to the testimony of Dr. Bartolini and others—did not have the concerto ready for rehearsal. Clement played it at the concert a vista.

The first movement, allegro ma non troppo, in D major, 4-4, begins with a long orchestral ritornello. The first theme is announced by oboes, clarinets, and bassoons. It is introduced by four taps of the kettledrums on D. (There is a story that these tones were suggested to the composer by his hearing a neighbor knocking at the door of his house for admission late at night.) The wind instruments go on with the second phrase. Then come the famous and problematical four D sharps in the first violins. The short second theme is given out by wood-wind and horns in D major, repeated in D minor, and developed at length. The solo violin enters after a half cadence on the dominant. The first part of the movement is repeated. The solo violin plays the themes or embroiders them. The working out is long and elaborate. A cadenza is introduced at the climax of the conclusion theme. There is a short coda.

The second movement, Larghetto, in G major, 4-4, is a romance in free form. The accompaniment is lightly scored. The theme is almost wholly confined to the orchestra, while the solo violin embroiders with elaborate figuration until the end, when it brings in the theme, but soon abandons it to continue the embroidery. A cadenza leads to the finale.

The third movement, rondo, in D major, 6-8, is based on a theme that has the character of a folk dance. The second theme is a sort of hunting call for the horns. There is place for the insertion of a free cadenza near the end.

Beethoven’s great development of the symphony was in his use of the instruments—not in their number. For the most part, he called for virtually the same orchestra which his predecessors, Mozart and Haydn, evolved: two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, kettledrums and strings. This applies to Beethoven’s First, Second, Third, Fourth, Seventh, and Eighth symphonies (exceptions: the addition of a third horn in the Eroica symphony, and use of a single flute in the Fourth).

In the Fifth symphony, he gave greater sonority to his finale with three trombones, double bassoon, and piccolo.

In the Sixth, he added a piccolo for the storm, two trombones for the storm and finale.

In the Ninth, he increased his horns to four, added three trombones, and the following instruments in the alla marcia of the finale: piccolo, double bassoon, cymbals, triangle, and bass drum.

In the overtures here listed, Beethoven added to the above essential orchestration as follows: Egmont—two additional horns, piccolo; Leonore—two additional horns and three trombones. The concertos call for the minimum orchestration, “in twos.”—EDITOR.

HECTOR
BERLIOZ

(Born at La Côte Saint-André, December 11, 1803; died at Paris, March 9, 1869)

The more Berlioz is studied, the more the wonder grows at his colossal originality. Yet there are some who still insist that he had little melodic invention. They have ears, and they do not hear. They should read the essay of Romain Rolland, and the essay of Felix Weingartner in his Akkorde, for there are many, unfortunately, who do not trust their own judgment and are eager to accept the sayings of others who are considered men of authority.

Berlioz wrote his Fantastic symphony in a high-strung, hotly romantic period. Romanticism was in the air. Much that seems fantastic to us, living in a commercial and material period, was natural then. It was as natural to be extravagant in belief, theories, speech, manner of life, dress, as it was to breathe. And Berlioz was a revolutionary of revolutionaries. His “antediluvian hair” that rose from his forehead was as much of a symbol as was the flaming waistcoat worn by Théophile on the memorable first night of Hernani. We smile now at the eccentricities and the extravagancies of the period, but we owe the perpetrators a heavy debt of gratitude. They made the art of today possible.

It is easy to call Berlioz a poseur, but the young man was terribly in earnest. He put his own love tragedy into his Fantastic symphony; he was a man; he suffered; he was there; and so the music did not pass away with the outward badges of romanticism, with much of Byron’s poetry, with plays and novels of the time. The emotions he expressed are still universal and elemental.