Mystery and romance are evoked in the elaborate introduction (Adagio), which this symphony like the Second possesses, but the mood turns to merriment when the “Allegro vivace” enters with this skipping tune:
The second movement (Adagio in E-flat major) is related in its luxuriance and melodic richness to the Larghetto of the Second Symphony, establishing another bond between the two works. A hint of the beauty of this movement may be gathered from the first theme:
The fervor that breathes through its measures has been attributed to Beethoven’s contemporaneous engagement to the Countess Therese von Brunswick, to whom many believe he addressed the famous “Immortal Beloved” letter. Berlioz, like Schumann eminent not only as composer but as critic, accounts for this Adagio in a still loftier vein: “The being who wrote such a marvel of inspiration as this movement was not a man. Such must be the song of the Archangel Michael as he contemplates the world’s uprising to the threshold of the empyrean.”
For the third movement Beethoven returns to the name “menuetto” (“Allegro vivace” in B-flat major; Trio, “un poco meno Allegro,” in B-flat major), though “scherzo” would do quite as well. This minuet is planned on a particularly large scale and is further remarkable for the fact that, as in the Scherzo of the Seventh Symphony, the Trio is played twice and the Minuet proper repeated each time. The attentive listener should also heed the striking change of key to B-flat minor at the fifth bar. The exuberant Finale (“Allegro ma non troppo” in B-flat major) is perpetual motion in music, flashing and glittering with tunefulness and fun.
Sonatas
“Beethoven’s work,” says Paul Bekker, “is based on the pianoforte; therein lie its roots and there it first bore perfect fruit.” Yet it is a curious paradox that he abandoned this phase of composition relatively early, producing the majority of his works for the keyboard before he was forty. A number of reasons might be cited for this—his growing deafness, the consequent impossibility of his public appearances as performing virtuoso, the circumstance that his intellect outgrew the expressive capacity of the piano, and the immense broadening and deepening of his creative faculties which demanded subtler and more ramified channels of expression. “The pianoforte is and always will be a disappointing instrument,” he said at one stage of his career. And he was distressed that his compositions for the piano exclusively always produced on him the most regrettable impression. “Oh! Beethoven, what an ass you were!” he exclaimed on one occasion when someone played him his own Variations in C minor.