Bravo II: Beethoven, the Hero

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Program

Ludwig van Beethoven—Overture to Egmont, op. 84

Ludwig van Beethoven—Symphony No. 2 in D Major, op. 36

1. Adagio molto; Allegro con brio
2. Larghetto
3. Scherzo: Allegro
4. Allegro molto

Intermission

Ludwig van Beethoven—Symphony No. 3 in Eb Major, op. 55, Eroica

1. Allegro con brio
2. Marcia funebre: Adagio assai
3. Scherzo: Allegro vivace
4. Finale: Allegro molto

Notes by Lynn Raley

Beethoven: "Egmont" Overture, Op. 84

We rarely think of Beethoven in the context of incidental music for the theatre (arguably the equivalent of film music today), but this overture was composed for a revival of Goethe's play "Egmont" in Vienna in 1801. The music summarizes the plot of the play, acting as a kind of miniature symphonic poem: The introduction represents sixteenth century Flanders under an oppressive Spanish regime. The triple-meter Allegro which follows represents the patriotic resistance of the Count of Egmont, which ended in his death. The Coda represents the triumphant revolution of the Flemish nation.

 

Beethoven: Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 36

     Premiered in Vienna April 5, 1803, the composer conducting.

It is always tempting to try to find direct links between composers' works and their inner lives. But music is not that simple-and the human mind is complex. Still, the spirited optimism of the Second Symphony (in Hector Berlioz's words, "noble, energetic, and proud") is surprising, when one realizes it was written at a time when Beethoven was at his lowest, contemplating suicide. During a six-month stay in the spa village of Heiligenstadt, away from the pressures of Vienna, he addressed a letter to his brothers which was never mailed:

Oh you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn, or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you...[F]or six years now I have been hopelessly afflicted, made worse by senseless physicians, from year to year deceive with hopes of improvement, finally compelled to face the prospect of a lasting malady (whose cure will take years or, perhaps, be impossible). Though born with a fiery, active temperament, even susceptible to the diversions of society, I was soon compelled to withdraw myself, to live life alone. If at times I tried to forget all this, oh how harshly I was flung back by the doubly sad experience of my bad hearing! Yet it was impossible for me to say to people, "Speak louder, shout, for I am deaf." [...] What a humiliation for me when someone standing next to me heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing, or someone hear a shepherd singing and again I heard nothing! Such incidents drove me almost to despair; a little more of that and I would have ended my life-it was only my art that held me back. Ah, it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all I felt was within me...

Here is Beethoven facing squarely the reality of his increasing deafness. It was during this stay in Heiligenstadt that Beethoven composed most of his Second Symphony.

Reflecting the point at which the Classical style had developed by the late 1790s, the Second Symphony looks back on one century while looking ahead to a new one. Few would mistake this music for the music of Haydn. Although Beethoven uses an orchestra no larger than Haydn's or Mozart's, he relies much more on wind instruments, and also uses the cellos in a new way, giving them opportunities to sing out in cantabile fashion in individual lines. This is also the first symphony in which Beethoven replaces the traditional third-movement Minuet with a Scherzo, expanding its expressive potential.

 

Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E flat Major, Op. 55

Beethoven esteemed him greatly at the time and likened him to the greatest of Roman consuls. I as well as several of his more intimate friends saw a copy of the score lying on his table with the word "Buonaparte" at the extreme top of the title page...I was the first to bring him the intelligence that Buonaparte had proclaimed himself emperor, whereupon he flew into a rage and cried out: "Is he then, too, nothing more than an ordinary human being? Now he, too, will trample on all the rights of man and indulge only his ambition. He will exalt himself above all others and become a tyrant!" Beethoven went to the table, took hold of the title page by the top, tore it in two, and threw it on the floor.

From this account by Ferdinand Ries comes the legend of Beethoven's renaming of the "Buonaparte" Symphony, in a fit of righteous anger. But there is more to the story.

Beethoven was for most of his life frustrated by the indignities of the composer's lot. His living depended on the patronage and goodwill of wealthy aristocrats in Vienna. At a casual suggestion that, for professional advancement, he write a sonata celebrating Napoleon, he replied, "Has the devil got hold of you all, gentlemen, that you suggest that I should compose such a sonata? Well, perhaps at the time of the Revolutionary fever, such a thing might have been possible, but now, when everything is trying to slip back into the old rut..., to write a sonata of that kind?...Good Heavens, such a sonata-in these newly developing Christian times-ho, ho-there you must leave me out. You will get nothing from me."

It happens that around this time Beethoven was considering leaving Vienna, center of the musical world, for Paris, where he hoped the situation for composers would be better-or at least less demeaning. So in spite of his remarks, he ended up writing a work-not a sonata, but a symphony, larger than any ever written-clearly meant to get the attention of Napoleon, the enemy of Vienna. (Perhaps it was also a message to those in Vienna who used wealth to wield artistic power). When Beethoven removed Napoleon's name from the dedication, he apparently was not only standing by his principles, but also announcing his decision to remain in Austria.

Beethoven was deeply conflicted over Napoleon. Even after this famous incident, he considered dedicating his Mass in C to him. Maynard Solomon, in his psychological biography of Beethoven, writes that Beethoven's ambivalence ("too tame a word for so turbulent a set of feelings") could only come to a resolution after Napoleon's death. Hearing about it on May 5, 1821, Beethoven is said to have remarked, "I have already composed the proper music for that catastrophe."

Whatever the truth about Beethoven's feelings-about class, power, or the ideals of the French Revolution-from these circumstances came a work that forever changed the symphony. In the end, the title page simply said: "Heroic Symphony: Composed to celebrate the memory of a great man."

Even as it adheres to classical form, the "Eroica" succeeded in ushering in a completely new style, seen in hindsight as the beginning of Romanticism in music. Its innovations include an extraordinary use of time (and silence), and it demonstrates Beethoven's mastery of rhythm. Listen in the first movement for the exchanges of "twos" and "threes" that give the impression of metric changes.

The "Eroica" can hardly be discussed without mentioning the famous moment in the first movement (just before the recapitulation), where a French horn sneaks in quietly, foreshadowing the return of the first theme, but heard against a dissonant harmony.  Even today our ears find it a bit startling, as if Beethoven made a mistake. (At the first rehearsal, Beethoven's student Ries berated the horn player for coming in early. Beethoven called Ries an idiot, defending the horn player.)

This was the longest, loudest, and most dissonant work to appear in its day. The work was too much for many in the audience at its premiere. Critics wrote that it "lost itself in lawlessness" and was "...unendurable to the mere music lover..." One member of the audience remarked, "I'll pay another kreuzer if the thing will only stop."

The dark and powerful funeral march of the slow movement features a melody that, not coincidentally, bears a striking resemblance to a French Revolutionary anthem by Gossec. The last movement is a set of variations on a contredanse melody that Beethoven composed in 1801, and later used in his Prometheus ballet music and the Variations for piano, Op. 35. This simple theme becomes the bass line of a more melodic theme, and eventually disappears. Then a new theme is gradually put together from the opening bass line, with a "development" that features a fugato on the first four notes of that line (an unprecedented synthesis of variation and sonata form).

Listened to immediately after the Second Symphony, tonight we are able to get a glimpse of its radical nature, and see it as Beethoven's first major effort to fulfill the idealism expressed in the Heiligenstadt Testament: ("-it was only my art that held me back. Ah, it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all I felt was within me...")

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