The first sketches of this symphony were probably made before 1811 or even 1810. The score of the symphony was dedicated to the Count Moritz von Fries and published in 1816. The edition for the pianoforte was dedicated to the Tsarina Elizabeth Alexievna of All the Russias.
The Seventh and Eighth symphonies were probably played over for the first time at the Archduke Rudolph’s in Vienna on April 20, 1813. Beethoven in the same month vainly endeavored to produce them at a concert. The first performance of the Seventh was at Vienna in the large hall of the university, on December 8, 1813.
Mälzel, the famous maker of automata, exhibited in Vienna during the winter of 1812-13 his automatic trumpeter and panharmonicon. The former played a French cavalry march with calls and tunes; the latter was composed of the instruments used in the ordinary military band of the period—trumpets, drums, flutes, clarinets, oboes, cymbals, triangle, etc. The keys were moved by a cylinder. Overtures by Handel and Cherubini and Haydn’s Military symphony were played with ease and precision. Beethoven planned his Wellington’s Victory, or Battle of Vittoria, for this machine. Mälzel made arrangements for a concert—a concert “for the benefit of Austrian and Bavarian soldiers disabled at the battle of Hanau.”
This Johann Nepomuk Mälzel (Mälzl) was born at Regensburg, August 15, 1772. He was the son of an organ builder. In 1792 he settled at Vienna as a teacher of music, but he soon made a name for himself by inventing mechanical music works. In 1816 he constructed a metronome, though Winkel, of Amsterdam, claimed the idea as his. Mälzel also made ear trumpets, and Beethoven tried them, as he did others. His life was a singular one, and the accounts of it are contradictory. Two leading French biographical dictionaries insist that Mälzel’s “brother Leonhard” invented the mechanical toys attributed to Johann, but they are wholly wrong. Fétis and one or two others state that he took the panharmonicon with him to the United States in 1826 and sold it at Boston to a society for four hundred thousand dollars—an incredible statement. No wonder that the Count de Pontécoulant, in his Organographie, repeating the statement, adds, “I think there is an extra cipher.” But Mälzel did visit America, and he spent several years here. He landed at New York, February 3, 1826, and the Ship News announced the arrival of “Mr. Maelzel, Professor of Music and Mechanics, inventor of the Panharmonicon and the Musical Time Keeper.” He brought with him the famous automata—the Chess Player, the Austrian Trumpeter, and the Rope Dancers—and opened an exhibition of them at the National Hotel, 112 Broadway, April 13, 1826. The Chess Player was invented by Wolfgang von Kempelen. Mälzel bought it at the sale of von Kempelen’s effects after the death of the latter, at Vienna, and made unimportant improvements. The Chess Player had strange adventures. It was owned for a time by Eugène Beauharnais, when he was viceroy of the kingdom of Italy, and Mälzel had much trouble in getting it away from him. Mälzel gave an exhibition in Boston at Julien Hall, on a corner of Milk and Congress streets. The exhibition opened September 13, 1826, and closed October 28 of that year. He visited Boston again in 1828 and 1833. On his second visit he added The Conflagration of Moscow, a panorama, which he sold to three Bostonians for six thousand dollars. Hence, probably, the origin of the panharmonicon legend. He also exhibited an automatic violoncellist. Mälzel died on the brig Otis on his way from Havana to Philadelphia on July 21, 1838, and was buried at sea, off Charleston. The United States Gazette published his eulogy and said, with due caution: “He has gone, we hope, where the music of his harmonicons will be exceeded.” The Chess Player was destroyed by fire in the burning of the Chinese Museum at Philadelphia, July 5, 1854. An interesting and minute account of Mälzel’s life in America, written by George Allen, is published in the Book of the First American Chess Congress, pp. 420-84 (New York, 1859); see also Métronome de Maelzel (Paris, 1833); the History of the Automatic Chess Player, published by George S. Hilliard, Boston, 1826; Mendel’s Musikalisches Conversations-Lexicon; and an article, Beethoven and Chess, by Charles Willing, published in The Good Companion Chess Problem Club of May 11, 1917 (Philadelphia), which contains facsimiles of Mälzel’s programmes in Philadelphia (1845) and Montreal (1847). In Poe’s fantastical “Von Kempelen and His Discovery” the description of his Kempelen, of Utica, N. Y., is said by some to fit Mälzel, but Poe’s story was probably not written before 1848. His article, “Maelzel’s Chess Player,” a remarkable analysis, was first published in the Southern Literary Messenger of April, 1836. Portions of this article other than those pertaining to the analysis were taken by Poe from Sir David Brewster’s Lectures on Natural Magic.
The programme of the Vienna concert was announced: “A brand-new symphony,” the Seventh, in A major, by Beethoven; and also Wellington’s Sieg, oder die Schlacht bei Vittoria. Wellington’s Sieg was completed in October, 1813, to celebrate the victory of Wellington over the French troops in Spain on June 21 of that year. Mälzel had persuaded Beethoven to compose the piece for his panharmonicon. He furnished material for it and gave him the idea of using “God Save the King” as the subject of a lively fugue. He purposed to produce the work at concerts, so as to raise money enough for him and Beethoven to visit London. A shrewd fellow, he said that if the “Battle” symphony were scored for orchestra and played in Vienna with success, an arrangement for his panharmonicon would then be of more value to him. Beethoven dedicated the work to the Prince Regent, afterwards George IV, and forwarded a copy to him, but the “First Gentleman in Europe” never acknowledged the compliment. Wellington’s Sieg was not performed in London until February 10, 1815, when it had a great run. The news of this success pleased Beethoven very much. He made a memorandum of it in the notebook which he carried with him to taverns.
The benefit concert was brilliantly successful, and there was a repetition of it December 12 with the same prices of admission, ten and five florins. The net profit of the two performances was four thousand six gulden. Spohr tells us that the new pieces gave “extraordinary pleasure, especially the symphony; the wondrous second movement was repeated at each concert; it made a deep, enduring impression on me. The performance was a masterly one, in spite of the uncertain and often ridiculous conducting by Beethoven.” Glöggl was present at a rehearsal when violinists refused to play a passage in the symphony and declared that it could not be played. “Beethoven told them to take their parts home and practise them; then the passage would surely go.” It was at these rehearsals that Spohr saw the deaf composer crouch lower and lower to indicate a long diminuendo, and rise again and spring into the air when he demanded a climax. And he tells of a pathetic yet ludicrous blunder of Beethoven, who could not hear the soft passages.
Beethoven was delighted with his success, so much so that he wrote a public letter of thanks to all that took part in the two performances. “It is Mälzel especially who merits all our thanks. He was the first to conceive the idea of the concert, and it was he who busied himself actively with the organization and the ensemble in all the details. I owe him special thanks for having given me the opportunity of offering my compositions to the public use and thus fulfilling the ardent vow made by me long ago of putting the fruits of my labor on the altar of the country.”
The first movement opens with an introduction, poco sostenuto, A major, 4-4. The main body is vivace, 6-8. The allegretto is in A minor, 2-4; the third movement, presto, F major, 3-4. The finale, allegro con brio, A major, 2-4, is a wild rondo on two themes. Here, according to Mr. Prod’homme and others, as Beethoven achieved in the scherzo the highest and fullest expression of exuberant joy—“unbuttoned joy,” as the composer himself would have said—so in the finale the joy becomes orgiastic. The furious bacchantic first theme is repeated after the exposition, and there is a sort of coda to it, “as a chorus might follow upon the stanzas of a song.”[10]
SYMPHONY NO. 8, IN F MAJOR, OP. 93
I. Allegro vivace e con brio II. Allegretto scherzando III. Tempo di menuetto IV. Allegro vivace