The well-known and universally admired subject of the Andante of the Fifth Symphony is another illustration of Beethoven’s artistic power. That was a rare skill indeed which could educe, even after long labor, this beautifully modulated and sustained theme (Figure XXIV), so subtle and varied in contour, from the trite embryo noted in Figure XXV.
FIGURE XXIV.
FIGURE XXV.
The evolution of Beethoven’s almost perfect ideas from their strangely featureless and uninteresting germs can perhaps be shown best of all, however, by the citation of several consecutive stages in the history of some single notable conception. The indescribably lovely second subject of the first movement of the Eroica Symphony is shown in its final form at (e) of Figure XXVI; (a), (b), (c), and (d) of the same figure being a few of the many sketches through which Beethoven approached it. The points of especial beauty in the matured theme appear sporadically in the earlier sketches. Of these the chief are: the insistent beat of the rhythm; the impressive cadence in the fourth measure and the beat of silence following it in the fifth; the rise to the poignant G in the seventh measure, and the lapse by rapid motion down to B-flat again; the sudden assumption of the minor mode in measure 9, and the modulation to the distant key of D-flat it suggests; and the uneven yet satisfying balance of the three complete phrases, together with the sense of being poised in air given by the sudden cessation of the rhythmic pulse at a point so distant from the key. The rhythm appears in the very first sketch, marked (a); the cadence and beat of silence appear in (b), as does also the rise to G in the melody, except that the G is flatted, slightly sentimentalizing the effect. The modulation to the key of D-flat appears in (c) and (d), but in each case its effectiveness is much weakened by the quickly succeeding further modulation. The sense of poise referred to is entirely lacking in these two variants, because a fourth phrase is added to the three essential ones. In the final form all the effects are made with certainty and economy.