Philip Hale's Boston Symphony Programme Notes

by Philip Hale

Beethoven sketched motives of the Allegro, Andante, and scherzo of this symphony as early as 1800 and 1801. We know from sketches that while he was at work on Fidelio and the pianoforte concerto in G major—1804-06—he was also busied with this symphony, which he put aside to compose the Fourth symphony, in B flat.

The Symphony in C minor was finished in the neighborhood of Heiligenstadt in 1807. Dedicated to the Prince von Lobkowitz and the Count Rasoumowsky, it was published in April, 1809. It was first performed at the Theater an der Wien, Vienna, December 22, 1808.

Instead of inquiring curiously into the legend invented by Schindler—“and for this reason a statement to be doubted,” as Bülow said—that Beethoven remarked of the first theme, “So knocks Fate on the door!” (it is said that Ferdinand Ries was the author of this explanation and that Beethoven was grimly sarcastic when Ries, his pupil, made it known to him), instead of investigating the statement that the rhythm of this theme was suggested by the note of a bird—oriole or goldfinch—heard during a walk; instead of a long analysis, which is vexation and confusion without the themes and their variants in notation, let us read and ponder the words of the great Hector Berlioz:

“The most celebrated of them all, beyond doubt and peradventure, is also the first, I think, in which Beethoven gave the reins to his vast imagination, without taking for guide or aid a foreign thought. In the First, Second, and Fourth, he more or less enlarged forms already known, and poetized them with all the brilliant and passionate inspirations of his vigorous youth. In the Third, the Eroica, there is a tendency, it is true, to enlarge the form, and the thought is raised to a mighty height; but it is impossible to ignore the influence of one of the divine poets to whom for a long time the great artist had raised a temple in his heart. Beethoven, faithful to the Horatian precept, ‘Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna,’ read Homer constantly, and in his magnificent musical epopee, which, they say, I know not whether it be true or false, was inspired by a modern hero, the recollections of the ancient Iliad play a part that is as evident as admirably beautiful.

“The Symphony in C minor, on the other hand, seems to us to come directly and solely from the genius of Beethoven; he develops in it his own intimate thought; his secret sorrows, his concentrated rage, his reveries charged with a dejection, oh, so sad, his visions at night, his bursts of enthusiasm—these furnish him the subject; and the forms of melody, harmony, rhythm, and orchestration are displayed as essentially individual and new as they are powerful and noble.

“The first movement is devoted to the painting of disordered sentiments which overthrow a great soul, a prey to despair; not the concentrated, calm despair that borrows the shape of resignation; not the dark and voiceless sorrow of Romeo who learns of the death of Juliet; but the terrible rage of Othello when he receives from Iago’s mouth the poisonous slanders which persuade him of Desdemona’s guilt. Now it is a frenetic delirium which explodes in frightful cries; and now it is the prostration that has only accents of regret and profound self-pity. Hear these hiccups of the orchestra, these dialogues in chords between wind instruments and strings, which come and go, always weaker and fainter, like unto the painful breathing of a dying man, and then give way to a phrase full of violence, in which the orchestra seems to rise to its feet, revived by a flash of fury; see this shuddering mass hesitate a moment and then rush headlong, divided in two burning unisons as two streams of lava; ... and then say if this passionate style is not beyond and above everything that had been produced hitherto in instrumental music....

“The adagio” [andante con moto] “has characteristics in common with the allegretto in A minor of the Seventh symphony and the slow movement of the Fourth. It partakes alike of the melancholy soberness of the former and the touching grace of the latter. The theme, at first announced by the united violoncellos and violas, with a simple accompaniment of the double-basses pizzicato, is followed by a phrase for wind instruments, which returns constantly, and in the same tonality throughout the movement, whatever be the successive changes of the first theme. This persistence of the same phrase, represented always in a profoundly sad simplicity, produces little by little on the hearer’s soul an indescribable impression....

“The scherzo is a strange composition. Its first measures, which are not terrible themselves, provoke that inexplicable emotion which you feel when the magnetic gaze of certain persons is fastened on you. Here everything is somber, mysterious; the orchestration, more or less sinister, springs apparently from the state of mind that created the famous scene of the Blocksberg in Goethe’s Faust. Nuances of piano and mezzoforte dominate. The trio is a double-bass figure, executed with the full force of the bow; its savage roughness shakes the orchestral stands and reminds one of the gambols of a frolicsome elephant. But the monster retires, and little by little the noise of his mad course dies away. The theme of the scherzo reappears in pizzicato. Silence is almost established, for you hear only some violin tones lightly plucked and strange little cluckings of bassoons.... At last the strings give gently with the bow the chord of A flat and doze on it. Only the drums preserve the rhythm; light blows struck by sponge-headed drumsticks mark the dull rhythm amid the general stagnation of the orchestra. These drum notes are C’s; the tonality of the movement is C minor; but the chord of A flat sustained for a long time by the other instruments seems to introduce a different tonality, while the isolated hammering of the C on the drums tends to preserve the feeling of the foundation tonality. The ear hesitates—but will this mystery of harmony end?—and the dull pulsations of the drums, growing louder and louder, reach the violins, which now take part in the movement and with a change of harmony, to the chord of the dominant seventh, G, B, D, F, while the drums roll obstinately their tonic C; the whole orchestra, assisted by the trombones, which have not yet been heard, bursts in the major into the theme of a triumphal march, and the finale begins....

“Criticism has tried, however, to diminish the composer’s glory by stating that he employed ordinary means, the brilliance of the major mode pompously following the darkness of a pianissimo in minor; that the triumphal march is without originality, and that the interest wanes even to the end, whereas it should increase. I reply to this: Did it require less genius to create a work like this because the passage from piano to forte and that from minor to major were the means already understood? Many composers have wished to take advantage of the same means; and what result did they obtain comparable to this gigantic chant of victory in which the soul of the poet-musician, henceforth free from earthly shackles, terrestrial sufferings, seems to mount radiantly towards heaven? The first four measures of the theme, it is true, are not highly original, but the forms of a fanfare are inherently restricted, and I do not think it possible to find new forms without departing utterly from the simple, grand, pompous character which is becoming. Beethoven wished only an entrance of the fanfare for the beginning of his finale, and he quickly found in the rest of the movement and even in the conclusion of the chief theme that loftiness and originality of style which never forsook him. And this may be said in answer to the reproach of his not having increased the interest to the very end; music, in the state known at least to us, would not know how to produce a more violent effect than that of this transition from scherzo to triumphal march; it was then impossible to enlarge the effect afterwards.

“To sustain one’s self at such a height is of itself a prodigious effort; yet in spite of the breadth of the developments to which he committed himself, Beethoven was able to do it. But this equality from the beginning to end is enough to make the charge of diminished interest plausible, on account of the terrible shock which the ears receive at the beginning; a shock that, by exciting nervous emotion to its most violent paroxysm, makes the succeeding instant the more difficult. In a long row of columns of equal height, an optical illusion makes the most remote appear the smallest. Perhaps our weak organization would accommodate itself to a more laconic peroration, as that of Gluck’s ‘Notre général vous rappelle.’ Then the audience would not have to grow cold, and the symphony would end before weariness had made impossible further following in the steps of the composer. This remark bears only on the mise en scène of the work; it does not do away with the fact that this finale in itself is rich and magnificent; very few movements can draw near without being crushed by it.”