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 BEETHOVEN
AND HIS

NINE SYMPHONIES

BY

GEORGE GROVE, C.B.

THIRD EDITION

DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.

NEW YORK
WELLESLEY COLLEGE LIBRARY?

Published in Canada by General Publishing Com-

pany, Ltd., 30 Lesmill Road, Don Mills, Toronto,
Ontario.
Published in the United Kingdom by Constable
and Company, Ltd., 10 Orange Street, London
WC 2.

This new Dover edition, first published in 1962,

is an unabridged and unaltered republication of
the third edition, published by Novello, Ewer and
Company in 1898.

International Standard Book Number: 0-486-20334-4

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 63-234

Manufactured in the United States of America

Dover Publications, Inc.
180 Varick Street
New York, N. Y. 10014
 CONTENTS.

PAGE

Jl KEF AGE ••• ••• • ••• ••• ••• ••• ••• V

List of Symphonies viii

Symphony No. 1 1

Advertisement 16

Symphony No. 2 18

Beethoven's 'Testament' 45

Symphony No. 3 49

Do. No. 4 96

The Love-Letters 128

Beethoven at Gneixendorf 131

Symphony No. 5 136

Do. No. 6 182

Do. No. 7 228

Do. No. 8 271

Do. No. 9 309

Schiller's Ode -An die Freude '

400
 PREFACE.

This book is addressed to the amateurs of this country, who

have so immensely increased during the last fifty years with
the increase of good and cheap performances —a movement
headed by the Crystal Palace, under the wise and able
direction of Mr. Manns. In short, it is a humble endeavour
to convey to others the method in which an amateur has
obtained much pleasure and profit out of works which in
their own line are as great as Shakespeare's plays.
It would be presumptuous in me to attempt to interest
professional musicians, who naturally know already all that
I have been able to put together, and much more ; and in a
more complete and accurate manner.
Some readers of these imperfect remarks may possibly
wish to pursue such investigations farther; and I therefore
will give the names of the principal books which I have found
useful in my studies :

1. Scores :

These should always, if possible, be the original

editions ; they were approved by Beethoven himself,
and whatever their faults, they come nearer his wishes
than subsequent editions. I have given the full title-

page in the case of each Symphony.

2. Letters :

Briefe Beethovens . . . von Dr. Ludwig Nohl.

Stuttgart, 1865.
Neue Briefe Beethovens • . von Dr. Ludwig Nohl.
Stuttgart, 1867.
VI PREFACE.

83 neu aufgefundene Original Ludwig van

- Briefe
Beethovens . . . von Dr. Ludwig Ritter von
Kochel. Wien, 1865.
Beethoven's Letters . . . translated by Lady
Wallace. 2 vols., London, 1866.
A vast number of fresh letters are given in Mr. Thayer's
Biography. — See below.
8. Biographies, &c. :

Wegeler und Ries, Biographische Notizen . • •

Coblenz, 1838, 1845.

Schindler, 'Biographic von L. van Beethoven . . •

Edition 3. 2 vols., Minister, 1860.

*
Aus dem Schwarzspanierhaus ' (the house in which
Beethoven died), by G. von Breuning. Vienna,
1874.
Ludwig van Beethovens Leben (1770-1816) . . •

A. W. Thayer, 3 vols. Berlin, 1866-72-79.

4. Catalogues, &c. :

Thematisches Verzeichniss der im Druck erschienenen

Werke Beethovens, Edition 2, von G. Nottebohni.
Leipzig, 1868.
Chronologisches Verzeichniss der Werke Ludwig van
Beethovens, von A. W. Thayer. Berlin, 1865.
Ein Skizzenbuch von Beethoven (Symphony No. 2)
. von G. Nottebohm. Leipzig, 1865.
. .

Ein Skizzenbuch von Beethoven (Eroica) von . . .

G. Nottebohm. Leipzig, 1880.

Beethoveniana von G. Nottebohm. Leipzig,
. . .

1872.
ZweiteBeethoveniana,vonG. Nottebohm. Leipzig,1887.

If, in addition to the above, there could be published

photographic facsimiles of the autographs of the Symphonies
of which autographs exist, everyone would virtually have in
his hands Beethoven's own MSS., which would be invaluable.
 PREFACE. Vll

The beautiful facsimiles lately published of his Sonata in

A flat, Op. 26, by Dr. Erich Prieger (Bonn F. Cohen, 1895),
:

and the specimens of Bach's handwriting which form Vol. 44

of the edition of the Bach-Gesellschaft (Leipzig, 1894), show
what excellent work can be done in this direction, and I am
not without hope that the proposal which I made in 1891,
and which was so warmly received, may still be carried out.
I am anxious to express my obligations to several friends
who have kindly given me their valuable help in my work,
besides thosewhose assistance is acknowledged in the course
of the volume. To Mr. Edward F. Pember, Q.C., Dr. F.
E. Gladstone, Mrs. Victor Henkel, Mr. F. G. Shinn, Mr. F.
—
G. Edwards, Mr. S. P. Waddington to all these and others
I am under a deep debt of gratitude, of which this expression
is a very inadequate equivalent.

G. GROVE.
Lowek Sydenham,
29th February, 1896.

The early demand for a Second Edition has given me the

opportunity of correcting a few errors of the press, and some
inaccurate references, which had escaped me before, as well as
of adding an Index.

G. GROVE.
8rd June, 1896.

Third Edition, published April, 1898.

 LIST OF SYMPHONIES.

Opus Date of completion Date of first

No. Key. Title.
No. when ascertainable. performance.

1 c 21 April 2, 1800.

2 D 36 April 5, 1803.

3 E flat 55 Eroica August, 1804 April 7, 1805.

4 Bflat .. 60 1806 March, 1807.

5 C minor 67 December 22, 1808.

6 F 68 Pastoral December 22, 1808.

7 A 92 May(?)13,1812 December 8, 1813.

8 F 93 October, 1812 February 27, 1814.

9 D minor 125 Choral August, 1S23 May 7, 1824.

Beethoven was born December 16th, 1770, and died

March 26th, 1827.
 SYMPHONY No. 1, in C major (Op. 21).
Dedicated to the Baron van Swieten.

Adagio molto '88_* j : Allegro con brio (112^^). (C major.)

Andante cantabile con moto (120_J). (F major.)

Menuetto e Trio (108_^ • ). (C major.)

Finale, Adagio 63__* ) : Allegro molto e vivace (8$_s>). (C majorJ

The metronome-marks to Symphonies I. to VIII. are taken from the

table given with the Allg. musikalische Zeitung for Dec. 17, 1817, which
purports to have been settled by the composer himself with Maelzel's
metronome.
The Symphony is written for the following instruments, which, in this
and all the other cases, are given in the same order as in the original
score, beginning at the top of the page.

2 Drums (in C, G). 2 Clarinets.

2 Trumpets. 2 Bassoons.
2 Horns. Violins, 1st and 2nd,
2 Flutes. Violas.
2 Oboes. Basso.

being one flute and two clarinets more than are employed by Mozart in
the '
Symphony.
Jupiter ' In the Andante one flute only is employed.
The score is an 8vo of 108 pages, published by Simrock in 1820.
*I re Grande Simphonie en Ut majeur (C dur) de Louis van Beethoven.
Oeuvre XXI. Partition. Prix 9 Frs. Bonn et Cologne chez N. Simrock.
1953.' The parts were published by Hoffmeister & Kuhnel, Bureau
de Musique (now Peters), Leipzig, end of 1801.

In hearing this Symphony, we can never forget that it is

the first of that mighty and immortal series which seem

destined to remain the greatest monuments of music, as

Raffaelle's best pictures are still the monuments of the highest
point reached by the art of painting, notwithstanding all that
has been done since. Schumann has somewhere made the
2 FIHST SYMPHONY.

just remark that the early works of great men are to

be regarded in quite a different light from those of writers
who never had a future. In Beethoven's case this is

most true and interesting, and especially so with regard to

the First Symphony. Had he died immediately after com-
pleting it, it would have occupied a very different position
from what it now does. It would have been judged and loved
on its merits but we should never have guessed of what
;

grander beauties and glories it was destined to be the

harbinger, or have known the pregnant significance of its
Minuet.
The autograph of the Symphony is lost, and no evidence is
known to exist by which the date of its completion can be
determined. Probably it is only mislaid, and some day will
be revealed with that of Schubert's Gastein Symphony,
Beethoven's own Eroica, and other such treasures. Meantime
sketches for the Finale are found among the exercises which
Beethoven wrote while studying counterpoint under Albrechts-
berger in the spring of 1795. One of these is quoted by
Nottebohm, in his *edition of Beethoven's studies, as
occurring, with sketches for 'Adelaide,' amongst the fugues
alia decima and duodecimo, ; and they probably show how the
impatient student relieved his mind when the counterpoint
became too tiresome for him. It was five years later before
the Symphony came to a hearing since it was first performed
;

in public in 1800, on the 2nd April, at a concert given by its

author in Vienna. It is not only the first Symphony which
he performed or published, but apparently the first which he
completed. Its date brings home to us in an unmistakable
manner the deliberate progress of Beethoven's creations. In

* Beethovens Studien . . von Gustav Nottebohm. Erster Band. Leipzig,

.

Rieter-Biedermann, 1873, page 202. See also Nottebohm's remarks in his

Zvseite Beethoveniana, 1887, page 228. He seems, however, in these latter
remarks to have changed his mind, and to consider the sketches as belonging
to an earlier work than Op. 21.
 INTRODUCTION. 3

1800 he was thirty years and it is startling to recollect

old,

that at that age (in 1786) Mozart had written the whole of his
Symphonies save the three masterpieces and that though ;

Schubert was but thirty-one when he died, he left a mass of

compositions, including certainly nine, and probably ten
Symphonies behind him. The work is scored for the usual
orchestra of Haydn and Mozart, with clarinets in addition,
which they very rarely employed in their Symphonies,
but the use of which Beethoven probably learned from
Mozart's operas. The ease with which he handles the
orchestra in this his first large work is somewhat remark-
able. His only orchestral practice before it would seem to
have been his two Cantatas, written in 1790 on the death of
Joseph II. and the accession of Leopold II. the first move- ;

ment of a Violin Concerto in C, and his two Pianoforte

Concertos, in *B flat and in C. The Symphony is dedicated
to the Baron van Swieten, a friend of Beethoven's, when a
stranger in Vienna, as he had been of Mozart's (who spells
his name Suiten) and Haydn's before him. This, however,
is on the Parts, which were published by Hoffmeister and

Kiihnel (now Peters), of Leipzig, at the end of 1801. In

the earliest score, that of Simrock (8vo, No. 1953, published
in 1820), the Baron's name is omitted. What honorarium his
patron may have bestowed is not known ; but in the list of
compositions offered by Beethoven to Hoffmeister (1801) the
Symphony figures at the modest price of 20 ducats, or £10.

I. Thework commences with a very short intro-

ductory movement, Adagio molto. In his 2nd, 4th, and 7th
Symphonies Beethoven has shown how extended and indepen-
dent such Introductions can be made ; but the present one,
like many of Haydn's, is only twelve bars in length, of no
special form, and merely serving as a prelude to the work.
Though short it is by no means without points of historical

* The B fiat, though numbered second, was composed before the other.
4 FIRST SYMPHONY.

interest. The opening may not seem novel or original to us,

but at that date it was audacious, and amply sufficient to
justify the unfavourable reception which it met with from such
established critics of the day as Preindl, the Abbe Stadler,
and Dionys Weber, some of whom established a personal
quarrel with the composer on this ground : —
No L Adagio
-
molto. „ ^
fP-J ^£ '& n r
fP *~-
, h U i i 4
y
Wind fed: _ Jaf. 15 J_ g- -«F -g-

^
strings
Sr r
pi
3* r^-r^
/r Pi
r r r r
-==
r £
ff
pizz. f.-
ft. 1

j-J— --

That a composition professing to be in the key of C should

begin with a discord in the key of F, and by the third bar be
in that of G, was surely startling enough to ears accustomed
to the regular processes of that time. Haydn has begun a
Quartet (in B flat, Pohl, No. 42) with a discord of 6-4-2 ; and
John Sebastian Bach, who seems to have anticipated every-
thing that later composers can do, begins his Church-Cantata*
' Widerstehe doch der Siinde with the formidable discord of'

7-5-4-2 on a pedal. Beethoven was thus not wanting in

precedents, if he had known them, which he probably did not.
The proceeding, at any rate, evidently pleased him, for
he repeats it, with even an additional grain of offence, in the
Overture to his Ballet of Prometheus in the following year.
Another of his compositions beginning with a discord is the
Pianoforte Sonata in E flat (Op. 31, No. 3). We shall see that
the *
Eroica '
Symphony was originally intended to open with
a discord, a chord of the 6-5 on D ; but this, it is hardly
necessary to was abandoned. The opening of the
say,
present work was an experiment the sharp staccato chords ;

* Baehgesellschaft, Vol. XII., Part ii., p. 61.

 THE ALLEGRO.

in the which never can be effective, even in the

strings,
largest orchestra, when overpowered by loud holding notes in
the wind, he abandoned in the Prometheus Overture and ;

when he again employs them (in the opening of the Fourth

Symphony) the wind is carefully hushed, and marked pp.
The interest of the discord resides in the fact that Beethoven
was even then sufficiently prominent to put such Fathers of
the Church as the critics named on the qui vive for his heresy.
In the Allegro which succeeds this Introduction there is
not much to call for remark. The leading theme is as follows
— three four-bar phrases in the strings, artfully protracted
by two bars of wind
No. 2.

Strings tr
7tr

And here again — in the transition from C to D (bar — there a)

is a likeness to the first subject of the Prometheus Overture,
with which indeed the whole of this movement has much in
common. The same transition will be found in the opening
subject of the String Quintet in C (Op. 29), a work of the
year 1801, and in the fragment of a Violin Concerto in C
major, dating from about the same time. The general form
of the figure, and the repetition a note higher, have been
followed by Schubert in his Symphony in B flat (No. 2),

and by Weber in his Overture to '

Peter Schmoll.'
6 FIRST SYMPHONY.

There is another fact about this first subject which should

be noticed — its determination to mark the key, a great
characteristic of Beethoven. In many of the Sonatas and
Symphonies (No. 2, the 'Eroica,' No. 8, No. 9, &c.) the chief
subject consists, as it does here, of little more than the notes
of the common chord of the tonic repeated ;
'
so that,' in the
words of an eminent *musician of the present day, the '

principal key shall be so strongly established that even the

most stupid persons shall be able to realise it.'

The second dominant

subject, key of G
in the ' '
—
according to rule, is very melodious and agreeable, and the
arpeggio accompaniment in the strings, borrowed from bar 4
of the first theme (see No. 2), and the broken accents in bar3
5 and 6, make it very continuous and lively

No. 3.

Oboe p ,

4
dr-r-^f i* -=r-

H^zrtffFfi^
It again is akin to the analogous subjects in the Overture to
Prometheus and the C major Quintet and all these are of ;

the type which was given by Mozart in his Overture to the

Olemenza di Tito. (See Jahn's Mozart, Transl. iii., 293.)
A very effective and original passage almost to be called —
—
an episode arises out of this theme where the bass has a ;

portion of the subject in the minor, with a separate melody

above it, first in the oboe and then in the oboe and bassoon
in octaves. It is preceded by an emphatic bar closing in G

* Dr. Hubert Parry, Proceedings of Musical Association, xv. } p. 28.

 THE ALLEGRO.

major; and the contrast of the sudden pianissimo and the

change of mode is both effective and characteristic
No. 4.

Strings

pp rrrfrfff -»-
I
-m-
I
-w
!

Jtfep: ^^1
S*
-p*«y i^J*^=
:22:
z^^ia est :

P*
Fag. 8va.

E^k^
^f #f f
zzba^^t^y* «tit ^"P^:
:

ftiwp

The modulations —G minor, B flat, E minor, and G- major

are worthy of notice.
The first part of the Allegro ends with a short Coda of nine
bars, containing a new phrase
No. 5.

fc=F?±=ta: * *5U
ip sfl sf-

and a passage for the wind alone. The first part is then
repeated, according to the excellent rule laid down by Haydn.
In the * working-out,' which follows the repeat, there
is not

much to call for remark, except the prevalence of imita-

tive progressions, which would have pleased his master,
Albrechtsberger, which Beethoven soon moderated
but
when left to himself. Of these we may quote one or two,
which will be recognised in the course of the working-out
No. 6.
Flute

$P Viol.
iol.l.l
1.
l
it=±
fp
8 FIRST SYMPHONY,

and this :

No. 7. Strings

Another refers to the principal subject (see No. 2), and is

admirably divided among the wind instruments

No. 8.
Ob.
FL
hab-
u bd d jj. 4 hJ. J.
I bw--
Fag. Viol. US
The recapitulation is shortened, and shows great differences
in the instrumentation. The Coda which closes the first
movement, after repeating in the tonic the phrase already
quoted as No. wind instrument passage
5, combines the
with the first subject (No. 2), and goes on for forty bars
in all. It is an early and good example of a feature which,

though not Beethoven's invention (see, for instance, the T?inaU

to Mozart's '
Jupiter Symphony), was but rarely used by
'

previous writers of Symphonies, and first became a prominent

characteristic in his works.

II. The second movement, Andante cantablle con moto,

which begins as follows
No. 9. Andante cantabile con moto.

-—' &c '

Viol. 2. Cello >JT-
is an old and well-known favourite. Here again we have
occasionally to remark passages which recall the strict

contrapuntal school of Albrechtsberger. On the other hand,

there is an elegance and beauty about it far above any school,
and worth any amount of elaborate ornamentation as well as ;

continual little sallies of fun and humour. The beginning of

the second part of the movement is a perfect example of this.
 THE ANDANTE. — DKUMS.
After the last quotation is completed the theme is continued
in this elegant style
No. 10

y^g^y
An original passage will be noticed in which the drum has
an independent solo part
No. 11. Drum
m-
*4±4±£±4*4*JS£33!m &c.

The passage comes over three times, first on G-, with the
trumpets in octaves, as the pedal bass to the Coda of the
first section ; next on C, at the close of the working-out,
immediately before the recapitulation ; and again, on C, in
the passage analogous to the first occurrence. In order to
carry this out Beethoven, probably for the first time in the
annals of the orchestra, has tuned his drums, not according
to practice in the key of the movement, which being F
would require F and C, but in the key of the dominant, C
namely, in C and G. This passage foreshadows his remark-
able individual use of the drums and other instruments in his
subsequent orchestral works. It is the direct parent of the
drum solos in the Andante of the Fourth Symphony, the Finale
of the Fifth Pianoforte Concerto, the opening of the Violin
Concerto, &c. The recapitulation itself is prepared for by seven
elegant bars of dotted semiquavers in the first violins (soli),

and two calls in the clarinet and bassoon, of charming effect.

The dialogue-passages, in short phrases, between the bassoon,
oboe, and flute, in the second portion of this beautiful Andante,
will not escape the listener. They might be the parents of
Schubert's performances in this direction ; and a lovely echo
of them will be found in Brahms's First Symphony. How
10 FIRST SYMPHONY.

such short phrases can be so beautiful will always be

astonishing.— Otto Jahn in his Mozart (Transl. i., 825) draws
attention to a likeness between the close of this movement and
a passage in the corresponding movement of a Pianoforte
Concerto of Mozart's in E flat, dated 1777 ; but I have not
been able to compare them.
III. The Minuet and Trio form the most original portion of
the work. And they are original in every sense of the word.
In the former, though he entitles it Minuet, Beethoven
forsook the spirit of the minuet of his predecessors, increased
its speed, broke through its formal and antiquated mould, and
out of a mere dance-tune produced a Scherzo, which may
need increased dimensions, but needs no increase of style or
spirit, to become the equal of those great movements which
form such remarkable features in his later Symphonies. The
change is less obvious because Beethoven has adhered to the
plan and measure of the old Minuet and Trio, instead of
adopting others, as Mendelssohn did in his Scherzos, and he
himself in at Last one instance, the Allegretto vivace of
the Sonata in E flat, Op. 31, not to speak of the Trio
of the Ninth Symphony, both of which are in 4-4 time. But
while listening to this movement we have only to bear in mind
the best Minuets of Haydn or Mozart to recognise how great
is the change, and to feel that when Beethoven wrote this part
Symphony, he took
of his First '
a leap into a new *world.'
The movement begins as follows
No. 12.
£ii C g ro molto e vivace.

*2 — "-
3r-
4=±z
Strings p f Tutti

Star, p
tzH £
f
±=t m
£±i:rfc&
P
-I r :±zz — j
it '

&c.

* These words are the late Mr. J. W. Davison's, a voluminous and sound
commentator on Beethoven.
 THE MINUET. 11

Some of these phrases are actually used in the Scherzo of the

Seventh Symphony
No. 13. tr

gprfefe:
» * *
SE
» ' » Sf
1'
Sf f
and they maintain in a very material way the connection
between the Minuet of Beethoven's First Symphony and the
'
'

gigantic movements which fill its place in the latest ones.

Indeed it may be said that we should never have known the
full meaning of this Minuet unless we had the Scherzo of

the Seventh Symphony to interpret it by.

second portion of this 'minuet,' beyond the double

It is the

bar, that Beethoven has made most use of in the bold modu-
lations and shifting colours with which he develops his idea,
until the small canvas glows with the vigorous and suggestive
picture. The modulation into B flat minor, and the unexpected
and masterly escape back to G major and the original theme,
though familiarly known to musicians, may well be quoted
here. The characteristic way
which Beethoven has em- in
phasized this modulatory passage by accompanying it with two
notes out of the theme itself is very interesting
No. 14.
„ Violins

pp
m
Fag. Ob. 8va.
m
pp
t|J*=r^j
Fag. & Ob.
4=—p:
^=P= *—?-$^.± 1
pp
Basses pp
Tutti f

3C TX-
SE * '
* >
i

cres.
t » r '
t ?

ite ±=t

This movement was a distinct novelty in 1800. When some

one was discussing with Haydn a rule of Albrechtsberger,
12 FIRST SYMPHONY.

Beethoven's master, that in strict composition all fourths

should be absolutely banished, the old composer— with a
characteristic combination of sense and daring, qualities in
which he almost equalled his great successor broke off the —
conversation with the words, What nonsense how much
'
!

more to the purpose it would be if someone would show us

how to make a new minuet' (Griesinger, p. 114). Here, if
he had ever heard it, he would surely have found the new
minuet he sought for Would he have approved of it when
!

he did hear it ?

The Trio, or intermezzo between the so-called Minuet and

its repetition, departs a long way from the original plan,
under which the Trio was only a second minuet. It is here a
delicious dialogue between the wind and stringed instruments

A similar alternation of wind and strings will be found in the

Trio of the Fourth Symphony, though in a more ethereal style
than here.
IV. The Finale is throughout as bright as bright can be,
but it must be confessed that it is more in the sprightly
vein of Haydn than in that of the Beethoven of later years.
The humorous and coquetting passage, for instance, Adagio
and six bars in length, with which the movement starts, and
which leads up to the first theme
No. 16.
Adagio.

f-*--p Viol. 1. p pp:

Alio, molto e vivace
 THE FINALE. — TURK. 13

is, both in itself and in the manner of its recurrence, quite

in the vein of the 'Father of the Orchestra/ — Among the
curious stories told of the treatment of Beethoven's Sym-
phonies by conductors, not the least curious is the fact that
Tiirk, a considerable musician, when director of the Musical
Society at Halle in 1809, always omitted this passage because
he felt would make the audience laugh
sure that it Strange !

impertinence on the part of Tiirk If Beethoven wanted us to

!

laugh, why should we not ? Its author had certainly no such

feeling towards the passage, for he has introduced a similar one
into the Cadenza which ends the Allegro in the Finale of his C
minor Concerto (Op. 37 J, which was completed in 1800 :

No. 17.

The first theme itself is in two portions, each of eight bars

No. 18. Allegro molto e vivace.
'
-m-m.

In the sketch of the Finale alluded to in the opening of these

remarks the subject appears in the following form

^^^m^^^ff^m
No. 19.

The phrase of accompaniment quoted at a, No. 18, is

used in '
double counterpoint '
—that is to say, it changes
14 Fir.ST SYMPHONY.

place with the melody above it, and becomes itself the tune.
This gives rise to much imitation and repetition of recurring
passages. The short interval between the first and second
subjects is not yet treated in that organic way which Beethoven
afterwards employed, but remains, as in Haydn and Mozart,
a mere interpolation. It contains a passage on the descending
scale
No. 20.

Z&* q^,^
IJ£g|Fg &c.

which recalls a similar figure in the Finale of Mozart's

so-called '
Jupiter ' Symphony, in the same key, and which
indeed may be found in analogous places in the works of many
composers, including Brahms's First Symphony. The second
subject, running spontaneously out of the preceding, is intro-

duced by a pretty figure in the first fiddles

No. 21.

and accompanied by a lively moving bass, as follows

No.

^^fe^g^^^^i^g^^^
22.

P &c.

S=f£

The Coda is again of considerable length, but with the

exception of an alteration of the introductory passage, and
the following short phrase in the wind instruments, it contains
nothing of importance
No. 23.
Cor. & Ob.
^1* I
 EAELY CRITICISMS. 15

Nothing can b3 more full of movement and spirit than the

whole of this Finale, It never hesitates from beginning to end.
Still it is unquestionably the weakest part of the work, and
its frequent imitations, and progressions of scale-passages,
give it here and there an antiquated flavour of formality or
over-regularity which is not characteristic of our Beethoven,
and is strangely in contrast with the novelty of the third
movement. We have remarked the same thing, though in
a less degree, in the opening Allegro.
The and care observable throughout the work
finish
are very great. Beethoven began with the determination,
which stuck to him during his life, not only of thinking good
thoughts, but of expressing them with as much clearness and
intelligibility as labour could effect and this Symphony ;

is full of instances of such thoughtful pains.

Besides the offence given by the discord of the opening,
which has been already noticed, the work in general did not
escape some grave censure. Thus, in an early *notice, the
Symphony and the three Pianoforte Trios of Op. 1 are
treated together. The Trios are mentioned with good-
natured contempt as confused explosions of the overweening
'

conceit of a clever young man.' But a firmer tone is taken

with the Symphony, which is denounced as a caricature '

of Haydn pushed to absurdity.' In spite of such nonsense

the work quickly became a great favourite, and is spoken of
in terms which now seem extravagant. Thus the Allgemeine
musikalische Zeitung, Feb. 13, 1805, p. 321, describing a per-
formance at Vienna, calls it '
a glorious production, showing
extraordinary wealth of lovely ideas, used with perfect connec-
tion, order, and lucidity.' Even C. M. von Weber, always a
keen critic of Beethoven's Symphonies, calls it feurig stromend.
In the notices of the Philharmonic performances in the Har-
monicon from 1823 to 1826, it is the brilliant Symphony '

— the great favourite,' and so on.

'

* Reprinted in the Allg. mus. Zeitung, July 23, 1828, p. 488, note.
1G FIRST SYMPHONY.

Beethoven's principal compositions in the key of C major,

besides the Symphony, are as follows :

Mass, Op. 86 ; Overtures to ' Prometheus,' i

Leonora
(1, 2, 3), Op. 115, and Op. 124 Pianoforte Concerto, No. 1
and ;

Triple Concerto, Qp. 56 String Quintet, Op. 29

; String ;

Quartet, Op. 59, No. 3 ; Sonatas, Op. 2, No. 3, and Op. 53

33 Variations, Op. 120.

Symphony an arrange-
Shortly after the appearance of the
ment was published without any indication of its being
of it

an arrangement, and this drew forth the following protest from

the composer, which was inserted in the Wiener Zeitung of
October 30, 1802.*
4
Notice.
1 think it due to the public and myself to state that the
1

—
two Quintets in C and E flat of which one, extracted from a
Symphony of mine, is published by Herr Mollo, of Vienna,
and the other, extracted from my Septet (Op. 20), is
published by Herr HofTmeister, of Leipzig— are not original
quintets, but only adaptations [translations iibersetzungeri]

of the publishers' doing.

I
Arrangement is a thing against which now-a-days (in
times so fruitful —of arrangements) a composer has to strive
in vain. But one has at least the right to demand that
publishers should state the fact on the title-page, so that the
composer's honour may not be endangered or the public
deceived. This, therefore, it is hoped may be guarded against
for the future.
I
I desire at the same time to mention that a new original
Quintet of my composition, in C major, Op. 29, will very
shortly be issued by Breitkopf and Hartel, of Leipzig.
1
Ludwig van Beethoven.'

* Thayer, Biography, ii., 196. Also in the Allg. mus. Zeitung, in the
[ntelligenzblatt, for November, 1802 (No. 4 of Vol. V.).
 a composer's troubles. 17

This protest Beethoven shortly followed by a complaint with

reference to the last-mentioned work, in a letter which
appeared in the Wiener Zeitung of January 22, 1808.*
'
To Amateurs of Music.
• While informing the public of the appearance of my
original Quintet in C, Op. 29, so long announced, through
Messrs. Breitkopf and Hartel, of Leipzig, I also wish to explain
that I have no concern with the edition of that work which
was issued at the same time by Messrs. Artaria and Mollo, of
Vienna. I am specially driven to this explanation by the fact
that the edition is so faulty and inaccurate as to be of no use to
players, while, on the other hand, all has been done by Messrs.
Breitkopf and Hartel, the rightful proprietors of the quintet, to
make their edition as perfect as possible.
1
Ludwig van Beethoven.'
Not long before this Beethoven had discovered four bars
which had been quietly inserted by the publisher in the proof
of his great Sonata in G (Op. 31, No. 1), fortunately in time
to be corrected before publication. Riest has given an
amusing account of the occurrence. The passage which is —
still to be found in editions of authority —
formed bars 28 to
81 before the end of the first movement.
Truly composers had much to suffer in those days from the
publishers I

Thayer, ii., 214. f Ries, Notizen, p.

 SYMPHONY No. 2, in D (Op. 86).
Dedicated to Prince Carl Lichnowsky.

Adagio molto (84__^ ) : Allegro con brio (100_^). (D major.)

Larghetto (92_J ). (A major.)

Scherzo and Trio— Allegro (10CL_^.). (D major.)

Allegro molto (152__^). (D major.)

2 Drums. 2 Clarinets.
2 Trumpets. 2 Bassoons.
2 Horns. 1st and 2nd Violins.
2 Flutes. Violas.
2 Oboes. Basso.
The drums are not employed in the Larghetto,
The first score is an 8vo of 162 pages, published in 1820. 'lime-
Grande Simphonie en Re" majeur (D dur) de Louis van Beethoven.
(Euvre XXXVI. Partition. Prix 14 Frs. Bonn et Cologne chez
N. Simrock. 1959.' The parts were published March, 1804, by the
Bureau d'Arts et d'Industrie (now Haslinger), at Vienna.

The Second Symphony appears to have been completed

by the close of the year 1802, and is thus separated from the
First by an inconsiderable interval. Having once broken
the ice, Beethoven advanced rapidly on the new current.
It is interesting to observe, in these great masters, when
once they have tasted the sweets of orchestral composition,
how eagerly they rush into that great career. Schumann's
first Symphony was delayed till he was thirty-one, and
the was produced during the same year.
second So,
too, Brahms, having delayed the completion of his first
Symphony till his forty-fourth year, composed and produced
the second in little more than twelve months.* The summer of
* First Symphony produced at Carlsruhe, November 4, 1876; second at
Vienna, December 24, 1877.
 DESPONDENCY. 19

1802, from May to October, was passed by Beethoven at

his favourite resort of Heiligenstadt, near Vienna ; and the
6th of October in that year is the date of the despairing
letter* to his brothers, usually known as '
Beethoven's Will,'
which bewails his deafness in the most tragic manner,
and was evidently written under the influence of one of
those fits of depression to which, as his life advanced, he
too often became a prey, and in apparent expectation of
speedy death :
— ' As the autumn leaves fall and wither,
so have my hopes withered. Almost as I came, so I depart;
even the lofty courage, which so often inspired me in the lovely
summer days, has vanished.' *
With joy I hasten to meet
death face to face.' Such is the tone of the whole
document. Similarly, his intimate friend Breuning, writing
to Wegeler, says, '
You could not believe the indescribable, I
might say horrible effect, which the loss of his hearing has
produced on fhim.' No such feeling, however, can be traced
in the Symphony. On the contrary, there is not a single
desponding bar in the whole work ; it breathes throughout
the spirit of absolute confidence and content ; not the brilliant
exhilaration which distinguishes the Fourth of the Nine, or
the mighty exuberant fun of the Seventh and Eighth, but
the gaiety and satisfaction of a mind thoroughly capable and
content with itself. Strong as were the feelings which
dictated the *
At that season of
Will,' they could not last.
life grief is rarely Beethoven escaped from the
permanent.
demon of despondency as soon as he began to compose, the
inward voice calling so loudly and so sweetly as to make him
forget his deafness to the outer world, and the isolation which
distressed his affectionate and genial heart when he had
time to brood over it.

Important sketches for the Symphony are found in a note-

book which was included in the sale of Beethoven's effects,
* See the letter reprinted in full, p. 45,

t Thayer, ii., 260.

20 SECOND SY'irilOKY.

and came afterwards into the possession of Herr Xessler of

Vienna. These note-books, of which fifty-one were dispersed
at the sale referred to, at prices varying from 1*25 to 3 florins,
usually consisted of one or two quires of large oblong
music-paper, as gray and coarse as a grocer's wrapping
paper, roughly sewn together. In these every musical idea
as it occurred to the composer was jotted down, often only
to be scratched out again, and re- written in an altered, though
probably slightly altered, form. It was a bad custom,' to '

use his ow n * words, which he had followed from childhood.

7

It was a very fortunate custom for us, who love to investigate

the procedure of this great inventor. But, whether a bad or

good habit, it is most characteristic of Beethoven, and
completely contradicts the popular idea of him as a writer
who dashed down everything as it occurred to him —who
wrote, as someone has said, by flashes of lightning.' In
'

fact, so tentative was he that he might have been the

inventor of the proverb, Second thoughts are best.'

*

The quantity of music contained in the sketch-books

is enormous. Had he,' says one who knew them
*

well, '
carried out all the symphonies begun in these
books, we should have at least fifty.' And the same is true
of Concertos, Sonatas, Overtures, and other forms of piece.
A Pianoforte Concerto in D (1815), an Overture on the name
of Bach (1822), music to 'Macbeth' (1808), may be
named among the treasures which advanced far beyond the
embryo stage, and barely escaped coming into the world. But
to return to Symphony No. 2, which happily was completed.
The sketches are intermingled with others for the w^ell-known
set of three Sonatas for piano and violin (Op. 30) for the ;

three noble Pianoforte Sonatas which form Op. 31 for the ;

Trio, 'Tremate' —
published many years later as Op. 116
and other less important works. This very book has been

* Letter, July 23, 1815.

 HABITS OF COMPOSITION. 21

printed and published entire, with elucidatory *remarks, by

Herr Nottebohm, the great Beethoven investigator, who has
done so much to familiarise us with the contents of the com-
poser's sketch-books, and with the history of his works and
their connection with each other and it supplies an insight into
;

Beethoven's habit of working at several things at once, as

well as his general method of composition, which is most
interesting and instructive to all students of his music. I '

live only in my music,' says he, in a letter of 1800 to

his early friend Wegeler and one piece is hardly down

;
'

before another is already begun. As I am now writing, I often

make three and four pieces at once.' For this habit Beethoven
was remarkable among composers, especially when the exhaus-
tive nature of his treatment How different in
is considered.
this respect We are familiar
was he from other great writers !

with Macaulay's confession It is one of my infirmities,

:
'

that I cannot heartily and earnestly apply my mind to several

subjects together,' and he often bewails it. Goethe, too,
says much the same :
—
'If you have a great work in your
head nothing else thrives in its vicinity.' On the other
hand, Mr. Watts, the eminent painter, has, we believe,
in a general way, several pictures on hand at the same time
and takes them up at will, one after the other, without
the slightest break of continuity in conception. So with
Beethoven, each work, great or small, seems to thrive
quite independently of the others. The sketches of the
Symphony contained in the book alluded to appear to
have been made in the early part of 1802, and are chiefly
for the Finale. They occupy eleven large and closely
written pages, and, besides scattered sketches and memo-
randa, contain three long drafts of the movement two of —
the first portion only, but the third of the entire Finale. The
differences in these three are very interesting in themselves,

* '
Ein Skizzenburh von Beethoven. Beschrieben und . . . dargestdli von G.
KotteboJnn.' Leipzig : Breitkopf und Hartel (1865).
22 SECOND SYMPHONY.

and more interesting as a token of the gradual,

still

laborious, and pertinacious process, often to be referred to in

these notices, by which this great genius arrived at the
results which appear so spontaneous and bid fair to be so
enduring.*
Ferdinand Kies, Beethoven's pupil, in his Biographische
Notizen, furnishes us with an interesting anecdote, a propos
of this Symphony, illustrating the extreme care which his
master bestowed on every note. Speaking of the Larghetto —
which, by the way, he calls Larghetto quasi Andante Kies —
says, what everyone will agree with, that it is so lovely, pure,
and cheerful in tone, and the motion of the instruments so
natural, that it is difficult to conceive its having ever been
different to what it is at present. *
And
he continues,
yet,'
1
an important part of the accompaniment near the beginning
has been altered both in the first violin and viola, though so
carefully that it is impossible to discover the original form of
the passage. I once asked Beethoven about it, but could only
get the dry reply, It's better as it is.' Eies is here possibly
referring to the exquisite figures with which the violin and
viola accompany the theme on the repetition of each portion
by the clarinets, in the early part of the movement an —
accompaniment which may well have suggested to Schubert
the analogous figures in the Andante of his great Symphony
in C. But this is mere conjecture.
The Mr. Cipriani Potter, who, if not a pupil of the
late
great composer, spent some months in his company at Vienna
in 1817, was fond of stating that Beethoven made no less
than three complete scores of the Symphony before he could
please himself. These are all lost and not even the last one,
;

the final result of so much labour, though formerly in the

possession of Kies, is known to exist. But remembering the
two scores of the Leonora Overture (Nos. 2 and 3) and the
* See an interesting allusion to this characteristic habit, of Beethoven's in the

second collection of Schumann's Letters. Translation, Vol. II., 78, No. 184.
 THE INTRODUCTION. 23

evidence of Beethoven's many note-books, it is easy to believe

Mr. Potter's statement, and equally natural to infer that
Beethoven often re-wrote his great works, even though the
trial copies have by accident or design vanished. Accidents
were frequent in the establishments of composers in those
days. Three of Schubert's large works were used by the maid
to light fires and Beethoven himself, after many searches
;

and much not unnaturally bad language, discovered, just

in time, that large portions of the manuscript of his Mass in
D had been used to wrap up boots. Much nearer to our own
times, and in the hands of a far more careful person than either
Beethoven or Schubert, the autograph and only manuscript
of the unprinted first volume of Carlyle's French Revolution' '

was torn up day by day to light the fire !

The Second Symphony is a great advance on the First. In

the first place it is longer. Compared with the First Sym-
phony, the Introduction is thirty-three bars long instead of
twelve, and the Allegro con brio 328 instead of 286 the ;

Larghetto is one of the longest of Beethoven's slow movements

— and so on.
The advance is more in dimensions and and in style,
the wonderful fire and force of the treatment, than in any
really new ideas, such as its author afterwards introduced
and are specially connected in our minds with the name
of Beethoven. The firstmovement always more or less
gives its cachet to a Symphony and here the first move-
;

ment is though carried out with a

distinctly of the old world,
spirit, and effect, and occasionally with a caprice,
vigour,
which are nowhere surpassed, if indeed they are equalled, by
Haydn or Mozart. Nor is there anything in the extraordinary
grace, beauty, and finish of the Larghetto to alter this nor ;

even in the Scherzo and Trio, which, notwithstanding their

force and humour, are scarcely so original as the Minuet of
No. 1 ; nor in the Finale, grotesque and strong as much of
24 SECOND SYMPHONY,

it is : it is all still till we come to the Coda,

of the old world,
and that, indeed, is distinctly of the other order.
Another characteristic which seems to mark the historical
place of the Second Symphony is that, in the slang of modern
criticism, it is pure music''
No one, to our knowledge, has
ever suggested a programme or image for any of its movements,
nor is anyone likely to do so, except for the conclusion of the
Finale, and in hearing that images certainly do crowd
irresistibly on the mind. This Symphony is, in fact, the
culminating point of the old, pre -Revolution world, the world
of Haydn and Mozart it was the farthest point to which
;

Beethoven could go before he burst into that wonderful new

region into which no man had before penetrated, of which no
man had even dreamed, but winch is now one of our dearest
possessions, and will always be known by his immortal name.
I. The Introduction, Adagio molto, though nearly three

times the length of the last, is still too short to admit of any
development. It opens with a great unison D, and a melodious
passage in four-part harmony for the oboes and bassoons,
given, on repetition, to the strings, with delightful changes
both of melody and harmony :
—
No. I. Adagio molto.
Flutes & Clar.

ikuJSi Ji
*=%& ^ygyad
P
^TT^ff Cr€S '
Viol. 2, 8ves.

,
sf

w
 INTRODUCTION ALLEGRO CON BRIO.

The rest consists of passages of imitation between bass and

treble, and of good modulation, all couched in beautiful and
melodious forms, and ending with a very graceful passage in
double counterpoint over a pedal of ten bars' length on A,
resolving into the tonic on the first note of the Allegro con brio:
No. 2. Viol. 1. ^. —.

It is strange at this early date to meet with the arpeggio of

the chord of D minor, in a shape which almost textually
anticipates the Ninth Symphony
No. 3. .jCt* jfc

ff *f

The opening of the principal theme of the Allegro is one of

the passages just alluded to as belonging to the old school in
the distinct definition and regularity of its construction
No. 4. Violin cres.
Allegro con brio.

^r-nrrvrfr-
26 SECOND SYMPHONY.

But though square in cut it is by no means wanting in

spirit; and the fiery flash of the fiddles in the interval between

the two sections of the subject (bar 4 of the quotation) is

splendid, and gives a good specimen of the extraordinary
energy which imbues that seraphic instrument throughout
the entire work.
The passage which connects this theme with the second,
though broad and free, has not entirely lost the character of
'
padding,' which these connecting links too often bear in the
Symphonies of the earlier masters ; and does not spring out
of the vital material as it does in Beethoven's subsequent
work-
No. 5. , ^ u» »
f , ,

•J & Striners
ff Strings
ST. . .
* * » '

*¥

The second theme itself

No.
A^S,
6.
Clarinets *-g
„ , I I I

J
J- 4-4=-
:pn£

Clars. p

has a certain precise military air about it, but is full of vivacity,
and is wonderfully set off by the energetic brilliancy of the
which here (bar 8), as in the
violins, first theme, rush in
between the strains of the subject.
On the repetition of the subject in the flutes, clarinets,
horns, and bassoons, it is accompanied by the strings in a
 SECOND SUBJECT. BEETHOVEN S CAPRICE. 27

delightful tremolo, a figure which is quite a characteristic of

this Symphony
» » » ' l- — f
*

E -3— P-

Clar. & Fag. 8ves. &c.

P

Strings f> /*f

The passage which follows the second subject is cast in a
cuasi-canonical form
sf *f
No. 8,
Viol. PI

p Cellos &- Basses

/~ sf

^^^^fa^^^r^^-^^^^^g
smacking strongly of the old school, and not founded on the
materials already quoted. It is after eight bars of this con-
necting matter that the capricious passage occurs, to which
allusion has been already made, and which is the more
interesting because itwarrant for something
seems to act as a
similarly wilful in others of the Symphonies. Beethoven is
about to close in the key of A, is, in fact, within one chord of
so doing, (*) when it occurs to him suddenly to interrupt the
close by the intrusion of ten bars

No. 9.
*—4—J.
-* S5—
<i
S-i~ti
r
"•^i 4
g~ g iSg
«£
1 ca -
28 SECOND SYMPHONY.

made up from a characteristic figure in the first theme (see

No. 4), and of excellent effect, but still absolutely capricious
in their introduction here, and doubtless a great puzzle to the
hearers of 1803.
The working-out is masterly, not only for its contrivances
— canon, double counterpoint, modulations, &c. — but also
for its effects of instrumentation, beautiful solo use of the

wind, brilliant figures for the violins, and new accompani-

—
ments to the subjects witness especially the triplets which
accompany the second subject in a passage shortly before the
reprise. In the reprise itself a good deal of condensation occurs.

The Coda, though brilliant and effective, contains no new or

very striking features.

II. The Larghetto, in its elegant, indolent beauty —which

is seriously impaired if the movement is taken too fast— is an
absolute contrast to the sharp, definite, somewhat peremptory
tone of the Allegro. Its repetitions are endless, but who ever
wished them curtailed ?

That strain again — it had a dying fall.

It is in A, the dominant of the original key, and is couched

in the ordinary '
first movement form. ' Its principal theme
is in two strains of eight bars each, each strain given out by
the strings and then repeated by the wind, with exquisite
enrichments in the violins

No. 10.
„ a Lar ghetto.

cres. sf

In a book of sketches in the Bibliothek at Berlin, Mr.

Shedlock has recently discovered the following fragment,
 THE LAHGHETTO. 29

apparently a very early draft of this beautiful melody (the

signature of A major must be understood)
No. 12.

That given by Thayer, in his Thematisches Verzeichniss (No. 103),

and by Nottebohm, in his publication of the Sketch Book of
1802 (p. 11), already spoken of, would seem to be rather
aimed at the slow movement of Symphony No. 5
No. 13. Andante Sinfonia.

Corni soli. &c.

It may have been intended for this Symphony, but can hardly
be a sketch for the present Larghetto.
After the repetition of the strain quoted as No. 11, a con-
tinuation is afforded by the following melody, alternating
between wind and string

p ^ p
Upon theme proper of the movement,
this follows the second
in the orthodox key of E
major a theme which maintains the
;

same character as the foregoing, with a certain pleasant, lazy

grace inherent in its syncopations, both of me]ody and bass,
which will be noticed in the Adagio of the Ninth Symphony.
It is given first plain

No. 15. Viol. 1

Bassi p
30 SECOND SYMPHONY.

and then in a florid form. And this leads to a short passage

of close harmony (the origin of which may perhaps be traced
in a Quartet of Haydn's — No. 9 in Peters's Collection, 15 '— '

as follows) :

No. 16.

^^^ afflS
is

though Beethoven has added a point in the cross accents.

^ggg^gS
£

He gives the passage first with the strings alone

No. 17.

Strings cres. T 7*

and then with the full band. Eight bars of fanciful drollery
(anticipating demisemiquavers of the next quotation)
the
lead into the key of E, and to the following beautiful passage,
which is worthy to be the second chief theme of the move-
ment, though technically it is merely the development of the
ordinary coda-figure. This is given out by the cellos, with
second violins in octaves

No. 18.
Cellos

±±z±^^— ^— — fc j--t=T t ip— i -l

m
siS^fcti
«5
m
Bassi U i U

Its quaint grace, the contrast of legato and staccato,

and the air of quasi-mystery that pervades it — as if the

 THE LARGHETTO. 31

1
cellos were communicating some segreto d importanza in
a stage-whisper — are full of inimitable though quiet
humour.
This ends the first and completes
section of the Larghetto
the materials of the movement. But Beethoven (with a
curious contrast to the rough bluntness of his manners) seems
bent on showing us with what minute refinement he can set
off, adorn, and elaborate the lovely ideas which he has thus

laid before us in their simple form. The labour and pains

involved in the process must have been immense but, ;

here as elsewhere, he never spared himself, and never relin-

quished a passage till it was as good as he could make it
and hence one great part of the secret of the immortality of
his music.
The working-out section begins at once with a modification
of the initial theme (No. 10) in the minor, thus deliciously
introduced

No. 19

FagTJF

and developed for some considerable time with consummate

skill, great beauty of modulation, and continual variety
of nuance.
As the working-out proceeds the ornamentation grows
more and more rich, delicate, melodious, and fanciful.
Here is a specimen of imitation, bar by bar, between
the oboes in octaves, with bassoon a further octave lower,
and the basses, with an elegant figure in the first violin, and
an exciting iteration in the violas and cellos
 32 SECOND SYMPHONY

No. 20.
0b>
u&: Viol
viol. 3 i <1
lJ5SS ^ ob I
'

glljg=:=^-—3=
^^^z^^zz^zp^^ p^zz^tzz^^z^^zzz^^ ft

V
Si ^9
— Lj H w m n— i""'""B
*H 1' 1

! i
I

The and craftily designed, and the instru-

figures are so clearly
mentation and so nicely calculated, that there is no
is so thin
difficulty in following it all in performance. These airy and
refined ornaments may well have been Schubert's models
for the similar enrichments which so greatly adorn the Andante
of his great Symphony in C. We know, at any rate, that the
movement now before us was especially dear to him, from
the fact that he has followed it (down even to details) in the
slow movement of his Grand Duo (Op. 140) for the pianoforte

in C major.* And doubtless he 'heard the angels singing'

in the Larghetto of Beethoven's Second Symphony, as we
know that he did in the Trio of Mozart's G minor.
So flowing and vocal throughout is this beautifulmove-
ment in its subjects, their developments and ornaments, that
it is it has been frequently arranged for
not surprising that
voices and for instrumental chamber music. Of the former,
one, which still commands a certain sale, dates from as early
as the year 1831, and is a duet for two sopranos, with piano
accompaniment, arranged by Professor Edward Taylor, and

* Instrumented by Joachim, and played at the Crystal Palace on

March 4, 1876. '
Sinfonie von Franz Schubert. Nach Op. 140 instrumentirt
.von Joseph Joachim.' Vienna : F. Schreiber.
 TITE SCHERZO. 83

inscribed to Mr. Thos. Attwood, one of the leading musicians

of the day. Another, published in Germany, is for soprano
solo, to words by Silcher, of equal significance.
III. Scherzo, in D, is more individual and original than
The
either of the preceding movements —
though still below the
level of the Beethoven whom we know. Its picturesqueness

and force, the humorous alternations of soft and loud, and

of dashesand dots (too much neglected in the recent editions),
and the directness of the means for producing them, are
remarkable. It opens thus
N °- 21
Tu1^ . .
*»« Viol
Viol. . Ob.
01

and comes the double bar, and then the

after sixteen bars
following piquant tune, and wild solution (again with the
rushing fiddles)
No. 22.

rr*fP

This is worked for some little time with a kind of obstinate

monotony, and then repeated, till at length the first tune
returns, this time in oboe and bassoon, heralded in the most
saucy manner by the alternate play of the two violins

pp '

Fag. cres.

Nothing more picturesque and seizing can well be imagined.

84 SECOND SYMPHONY.

The Trio — still in D, and wanting no subtle change of key

to make it interesting —
begins with the following melody
harmonized in four parts for oboes and bassoons, reinforced
at the sixth bar by the horns

No. 24

This is repeated, making sixteen bars in all. We are then,

without an instant's warning, plunged head over ears into F
sharp major, and, as it were, held there till the water runs
into our eyes and ears

No. 25.
f

H =t
unis. 8va.
sf

2fc -*= 1^e1= :z£ 3i

P decres. PP
then as suddenly back again into D ,
fortissimo —
No. 26.

m
m ^^
The
ff

I
w| ff\ p
F^=^
^^v^^|^j
and vigour of these two little movements are really
spirit
^
astonishing. The music seems sometimes almost to fly at your
throat. Note the constant sudden contrasts both in amount
and quality of sound. In amount we find/, p, ff, pp alternately
almost throughout. In quality we have first the full orchestra,
then a single violin, then two horns, then two violins, then
the full orchestra again, all within the space of half-a-dozen
bars. But the end by all kinds of unexpected
is chiefly gained
changes of key, not mere senseless freaks, but changes both
 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY MUSICIANS. 35

sudden and suitable, such as at once to rouse the attention, and,

with all their oddity, to convince the reason and satisfy the
taste. We start in D then in a moment are in B flat, then
;

in A, then in D, then in F. Then there is the change already

noticed in the Trio, into F sharp, and back at a blow into D
Such changes of key and tone were too abrupt for the older
composers. The musicians of the eighteenth century were too
commonly the domestic servants of archbishops and princes,
wore powder, and pigtails, and swords, and court dresses, and
gold lace, passed their time bowing and waiting in ante-
rooms, dined at the servants' table,* and could be abused
and even kicked out of the room, as Mozart actually was,
and discharged at a moment's notice like ordinary lackeys.
Being thus forced to regulate their conduct by etiquette, and
habitually to keep down their emotions under decorous rules
and forms, they could not suddenly change all their habits
when they came to make their music, or give their thoughts
and feelings the free and natural vent which they would
have had, but for the habits engendered by the perpetual curb
and restraint of their social position. In this light one
can understand the jovial life of Mozart, the skittles and
the suppers, and all the rest. It was his only outlet, and

must have been necessary to him vital. But Beethoven —

had set such social rules and restrictions at naught. It
was his nature, one of the most characteristic things in him,
to be free and unrestrained. Almost with his first appearance
in Vienna he behaved as the equal of everyone he met, and
after he had begun to feel his own way, as he had in this
Symphony, his music is constantly showing the independence
of his mind.
It is remarkable that nearly twenty years later, in the
composition of the Trio of the Ninth Symphony, Beethoven
should have returned to so early a work as this. The

* This fact is specially mentioned in one of Mozart's Letters.

36 SECOND SYMPHONY.

following sketch, however, probably of 1818, is qnoted by

Nottebohru*

No. 27.
Sinfonia 3tes Stuck.
&—0,mr-r-w-
1
*
1 :g~]=-P--

It shows, at any rate, that a moving bass, which forms so

conspicuous a feature in the actual Trio of No. 9, was
originally intended to be a feature of the movement.
IV. But to go back to the work itself, it possesses what the
First Symphony did not exhibit to the same degree, but what
is so eminently characteristic of all the other eight — individu-
ality. It may be possible — if a mere amateur can be allowed
the confession —to confound for amoment in recollection
the first movement of the First Symphony with the Overture
to '
Prometheus,' or its Finale with one of Haydn's Finales.
But with the Second Symphony this is not possible. Each
one of its four sections and individual in
is perfectly distinct
its own proper character, and cannot be confounded with any
other movement in any Symphony or other composition, of
Beethoven or of any one else. The very terms in which it is
spoken of by the early critics show how astonishing it was to
the public of that day. The first Allegro and the Scherzo were
the favourite movements. The Allegro is constantly termed
'colossal' and 'grand,' words which now could scarcely be
applied to it with propriety. The Larghetto, strange to say, is

hardly mentioned ; in fact, in Paris they —

had so Berlioz
tellsf us — to substitute the Allegretto from the Seventh

* Ziceiie Beethovenio.ua, p. 165.

+ Vowne Musical, &c, Paris. 1S41. i., 265, 266.

 THE FINALE. 37

Symphony in order to make the No. 2 go down at all.

But the Finale puzzled everybody; it was so harsh (grell),

wild, bizarre, and capricious. It was this oddity in the

—
Finale this want of decorum, rather than any obscurity
arising from depth of thought and the difficulty felt by the —
performers in mastering the technique of the entire work
(which is always spoken of as extraordinarily hard to play),
that were the two main complaints in the notices of the early
performances. We may be thankful that we now feel neither
of these drawbacks, and that our only sentiment is amuse-
ment at the humour and personality of the music, delight at
its grace, and astonishment at its energy and fire. Beside
the Finales to Beethoven's Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, and
Eighth Symphonies, with which we are all so familiar, that
of No. 2 finds a lower level ; but at that date those great
works w ere non-existent.
T
The Finale to Mozart's G minor
was the most fiery thing in that line that the world then
possessed. But the Finale of Beethoven's No. 2 has got
all the fire of that, with an amount of force, humour, and

abruptness that even Mozart never evinced, and that must

have taken everyone by surprise in 1803, and have com-
pelled them into listening to it, against their will, against
their aesthetic judgment and sense of propriety, and every-
thing else.

It is in the form called a Hondo (though not strictly that)

and starts in the most abrupt fashion and very fast (Allegro
molto) —
No. 28.
Allegro molto.

o*
^P^j-r-^—
mr'e
tr
- —— p=*-
f T
--
«/
Strings
/
& Wind
-W--4-
J *-
p
—jl "
,
J.
»
p

p
l

Strings
r .
1 '
1

i
1

1 MM
1
»-H 1
r

-t-E-i i
J
'
M- ' '
i

^f — —*
-o &^1
-1
!

Tiltti
T

—
38 SECOND SYMPHONY.

Then comes a passage which can hardly be called a subject

or episode

No. 29.
dol.
—Uu
m wn -*?l
^F^
!XI — I

rr-r
'

tC

Strings p &c.
I

^ 1 r
vizz.
JOIZZ
\-~* J P
I
P — E
r rp-a by
I
i- ± £p
'
I
_p3=J y I
r - b

but its high spirits are in excellent keeping with that which
precedes it, and it leads well into the second subject, which,
though not extraordinary in itself, is most spontaneous, and
very pleasant in sound, with its vocal passages for oboe and
bassoon, and would be well calculated to allay the fever with
which its predecessor started if its lively accompaniment were

not too full of motion (notice here again especially the fiery
intrusions of the violins)

No.

iP
30.
Allegro molto.

Fag.
Clar. Ob.

3==S=
^i=pViol.

.iCT Clar.
:
P=^5
Ob.

r*

Long
mm
Viol.

as
Fag.
Ob. cres.

this
3&Z m
subsidiary theme
P
g=£±

is
cres. sf

— unusually long for

Beethoven — it is immediately repeated in the minor; and
then, after a passage of padding, comes the repetition of the
opening subject, led up to by a phrase formed out of its two

initial notes, and accompanied by the bassoon in arpeggios.

This leads into a working-out, with a great deal of humorous
play, before the reprise of the original material is reached. In
the reprise the second subject (No. 30) is repeated in D, and
this again is followed by a long and very original Coda.
This begins with the opening subject (No. 28), but soon
 THE FINALE. CODA. 39

comes to a pause, first on the chord of A, with the dominant

seventh on C sharp,and then on the chord of F sharp
upon A sharp. And now begins the most individual and
Beethovenish part of the entire work. It is as if, after the
chord of F sharp, we had passed through a door and were
in a new, enchanted world. All that we have heard before
vanishes. Earth is forgotten, and we are in Heaven. The
rhythm changes ; the bass goes down octave after octave
pianissimo, distinctly heard through the thin scoring —
No. 31. (skeleton)

Ob. & Cor. S N

| I
4J

i r^ i
w r i
J5.1
*T
-p- r -*- r 7 &c
ores. '
<-, n I

pi2Z.

a fresh subject comes in in the wind ; the opening theme is once

more alluded to, but only to lead into an entirely new thought
— a magic shimmering, impressive as the evening sun shining
broad and low on the ocean ; a lovely flowing melody in
the oboe and bassoon, accompanied in notes of equal value by
the basses, and with a pedal D through three octaves in the
horns and violins. The beauty of this passage words cannot
describe ; it is pure Beethoven, a region full of magic and
mystery, into which no one before ever led the hearers of
music. After further working we arrive at another pause,
this time on F sharp itself ; a short resumption of the former
new rhythm follows, intensified by the bass being pizzicato;
but it does not last ; a rapid ending, and the whole is over !
40 SECOND SYMPHONY,

Such is this beautiful work was given us by its author

as it

ninety years ago, at his concert on the Tuesday in Holy

Week, 1803. And even now, after nearly a century of progress
in music, of infinitely greater progress than that in any other
art —after Beethoven's own enormous advance, after Schu-
—
mann, Brahms, Wagner even now, what can be newer or
pleasauter to hear than the whole Symphony ? What more
delicious than the alternate lazy grace and mysterious humour
of the slow movement, the caprice and fire and enchantment
of the Finale ? To this very day the whole work is as fresh
as ever in its indomitable fiery flash and its irresistible strength.
Were ever fiddles more brilliant than they are here ? more
rampant in their freaks and vagaries, bursting out like flames
in the pauses of the wind, exulting in their strength and
—
beauty say between the sections of the opening theme in the
first Allegro —

or between those of the second theme in the same movement

o '
*, -0-1 T

or in a similar position in the Finale-

Allegro molto.

or in the Larghetto —

Had ever the bassoon and oboe such parts before ? and so on
throughout. Listen to it, and see if it is not so.
 BRILLIANT ROLE OF THE VIOLINS. 41

In connection with the violins, I may be pardoned

for mentioning a fact which, remembering Beethoven's
minute attention to such points, must surely have some
intentional significance — I mean the prominent occurrence in
every movement of a tremolo figure

2ESE&S

in the fiddles. It is found in the Allegro con brio, in the

brilliant passages accompanying the first subject, in the
equally brilliant figures accompanying the second subject, and
in the working-out of the same movement. In the Larghetto
it frequently occurs ; also in the F sharp passage in the Trio ;

and in the most Coda of the Finale

characteristic part of the
it is peculiarly effective. It might almost be taken as a motto

for the work. We shall encounter it again in the Fourth

Symphony.
In some respects the Second Symphony is, though ncifc
the greatest, the most interesting of the nine. It shows

with peculiar clearness how firmly Beethoven grasped the

structural forms which had been impressed on instrumental
music when he began to practise it while it contains more;

than a promise of the strong individuality which possessed

him, and in his works caused him to stretch those forms here
and there, without breaking the bounds which seem to be
indispensable for really coherent and satisfactory composition.
* The same structure,' says Wagner,* can be traced in his '

last sonatas, quartets, and symphonies as unmistakably as in

his first. But compare these works one with another, place
the Eighth Symphony beside the Second, and wonder at
the entirely new world in almost precisely the same form.'
It has been well said that
Two worlds at once they view
Who stand upon the confines of the new ;

* Wagner's Beethoven— Daimreuther's translation (Reeves, 1880), p. 42.

42 SECOND SYMPHONY.

and taking our stand in the beautiful work which we have

just been endeavouring to trace, or rather perhaps in the
Coda of its Finale, we can survey at a glance the region which
lies behind —the music of the eighteenth century, at once
strong, orderly, elegant, humorous, if perhaps somewhat
demure and that more ideal region of deeper feeling,
;

loftier imagination, and keener thrill, radiant with 'the light

that never was on sea or land,' a region which was opened

by Beethoven, and has since been explored by his noble
disciples, not unworthy of so great a master.
The Symphony was first performed on the Tuesday in Holy
,

Week (' Char-Dinstag )> 5th April, 1803, at a concert given by

Beethoven in the Theater-an-der-Wien,' Vienna, when the
'

programme included also the Oratorio The Mount of Olives/ '

the First Symphony, and the Piano Concerto in C minor.* The

date of the earliest edition is March, 1804 —that is, the parts;
the score does not appear to have been published till 1820, by
Simrock, of Bonn. The work was dedicated to Beethoven's very
good friend Prince Charles Lichnowsky. It was arranged by
the composer himself as a Trio for pianoforte and strings,
which is published in Breitkopf's complete edition, No. 90.
The orchestra is the ordinary Haydn-Mozart one —without
trombones, but with the addition of clarinets, and the
orchestral effects are often strikingly like those in Mozart's
operas, that of '
Figaro,' for instance.

We have now endeavoured to trace the two first steps in

Beethoven's Symphonic career. The next we shall find to be
a prodigious stride.
He was always on the advance. Even in 1800, in forward-
ing 'Adelaide' to Mathison the poet, he says: 'I send the
song not without anxiety. You yourself know what change
a few years make when one is always advancing. The
greater one's progress in Art, the less is one satisfied with

* Thayer, ii., 222. The report in the A. m. Z. mentions the Oratorio only.
 Beethoven's dislike of his early works. 43

one's earlier works.' And he put this maxim into practice with
characteristic energy. The famous Septet, which at its first
performance in April, 1800, when Haydn's oratorio was all

the fashion, he jokingly called and which is his ' Creation,'

now a greater favourite than ever with musicians and amateurs
alike, he afterwards detested, and would have annihilated if he

could. What is that ? he said, on one occasion in his later

* '

life to the daughter of his friend Madame Streicher, as she was

playing the well-known ever green Thirty-two Variations in

minor, so beloved by Mendelssohn in his late years. What '

is that ? Why your own Mine ? That piece of folly

I
' '

mine?' was the rejoinder Oh, Beethoven, what an ass you

;
*

must have been '_ In 1822 a conversation is recorded with a

!

Madame Cibbini, very touching when one thinks of this great

master, whose artistic life had been one upward progress
since the days when he began to compose. The lady said that
he was the only composer who had never written anything
*

weak or trivial.' The devil I am!' was the retort; 'many

*

and many of my works would I suppress if I could.'

Bearing this in mind, it is easy to appreciate the story
of his biographer, Schindler, who informs us that in the
year 1816, after the performance of the Seventh and Eighth
Symphonies, a proposal was made to Beethoven by a resident*
in Vienna to write two Symphonies in the style of his first
two. No wonder that the suggestion made him furious.
Translate the story into a literary form, and imagine Shake-
speare being asked, after he had produced '
Othello '
and
1
Hamlet,' to write a play in the style of the '
Two Gentlemen
of Verona '
or ' Love's Labour's Lost,' and the absurdity of
this well-meaning amateur will be apparent to everyone.

* This is stated by Schindler (ii., 367) to have been General Ham,

an
Englishman. The fact of the proposal may be true, but I have ascertained, by
the courtesy of the authorities at the War Office, the Record Office, and the
Foreign Office, that no such name is to be found in the English Army Lists
or other official documents of that day. The name is sometimes given as
Alexander Kyd. (Hueli'er, Italian Sketches, 141.)
44 SECOND SYMPHONY.

A still more curious instance of the same mistake is afforded

by a writer in the Musical World of May 6, 1836 (p. 118), a
musician, and an eminent one too, who, in his anxiety to
make the Ninth Symphony better known, seriously proposes
that a Symphony of ordinary length should be made by taking
the first and third movements of No. 9 and combining them
with the last movement of No. 2 as a Finale Absurd indeed; \

but we may be thankful that, owing to the lapse of time, such

a mistake is not possible for us. On its first performance at
Leipzig the work evidently caused much agitation. It was
received by the Zeitung fur die elegante *Welt '
as a gross
enormity, an immense wounded snake, unwilling to die, but
writhing in its last agonies,and bleeding to death (in the
1
Finale). Such, however, was not the general opinion,
though the work is always spoken of more or less with
and as not so safe as No. 1.
hesitation,
In France it had to be considerably reduced before it could
be put into the programme of the Concerts Spirituels of 1821,
and, as already mentioned (p. 36), the Allegretto of No. 7 was
substituted for its own slow movement. The Allegretto was
encored, but the rest of the work proved an absolute failure !

In England it seems to have formed part of the repertoire of

the Philharmonic from its foundation in 1813, though, as the

Symphonies were not at that time particularised on the pro-
grammes by their keys, it is impossible to be quite sure. In
1825 the Harmonicon, with a ridiculous tone of patronage, says
that it was written when
'
his mind was rich in new ideas, and
had not to seek novelty in the regions of grotesque melody
and harshly combined harmony' (p. 111). The Larghetto *

(encored) speaks a language infinitely more intelligible than

the majority of vocal compositions.' Next year, however,
the critic is so much excited by the music as to wish for a '

repose of at least a full half-hour '

after it (1826, p. 129).

* See Reprint in the Allg. mus. Zeitung, July 23, 1828, p. 488.
 45

The key of D
major was employed by Beethoven for some
of his finest works amongst them the Missa Solennis the
: ;

Violin Concerto the Trio for pianoforte, violin, and cello,

;

Op. 70, No. 1 ; a Quartet, No. 3 of the first set of six (Op. 18)
two remarkable Pianoforte Sonatas, Op. 10, No. 3, and
Op. 28, usually, though inaccurately, called '
Sonata Pas-
torale '
; and also the noble Andante Cantabile of the great
Trio in B fiat, Op. 97.

'TESTAMENT.'*
The following is the document mentioned on page 19
above. The italics are Beethoven's own.
For my Brothers Carl and| Beethoven.
you my fellow-men, who take me or denounce me for
morose, crabbed, or misanthropical, how you do me wrong
you know not the secret cause of what seems thus to you.
My heart and my disposition were from childhood up inclined
to the tender feeling of goodwill, I was always minded to
perform even great actions ; but only consider that for six
years past I have fallen into an incurable condition, aggra-
vated by senseless physicians, year after year deceived in the
hope of recovery, and in the end compelled to contemplate a last-
ing malady, the cure of which may take years or even prove
impossible. Born with a fiery lively temperament, inclined
even for the amusements of society, I was early forced to
isolate myself, to lead a solitary life. If now and again I tried
for once to give the go-by to all this, how rudely was I
* I am indebted to my Mr. R. W. MacLeod Fullarton, Q.C.,
friend, the late
for his help in the translation of this remarkable document. The original
is given by Mr. Thayer in his Biography, ii., 193.
f I have seen no explanation of the singular fact that Beethoven has left out
the name of his brother Johann both here and farther down in the letter.
The change from 'you' to 'thou' in the P.S. would seem to indicate that Bee-
thoven is there addressing a single person. The original document, given to
Madame Lind-Goldschmidt and her husband by Ernst, and presented by Mr.
Goldschmidt after her death to the city of Hamburg, was in London before it
left this country, and a photograph of it is in possession of the writer. It
covers three pages of a large folio sheet.
46 SECOND SYMPHONY.

repulsed by the redoubled mournful experience of my defec-

tive bearing ; but not yet could I bring myself to say to people
1
Speak louder, shout, for I am deaf.' how should I then
bring myself to admit the weakness of a sense which ought to
be more perfect in me than in others, a sense which I once
possessed in the greatest perfection, a perfection such as few
assuredly of my
have yet possessed it in
profession
I —
cannot do it ! forgive me
if you see me shrink away then,
when I would fain mingle among you. Double pain does
my misfortune give me, in making me misunderstood.
Recreation in human society, the more delicate passages of
conversation, confidential outpourings, none of these are for
me ; all alone, almost only so much as the sheerest necessity
demands can I bring myself to venture into society
I must ;

live likean exile if I venture into company a burning dread

;

falls on me, the dreadful risk of letting my condition be

perceived. So it was these last six months which I passed in

the country, being ordered by my sensible physician to spare
my hearing as much as possible. He fell in with what has now
become almost my natural disposition, though sometimes,
carriedaway by the craving for society, I let myself be misled
into but what humiliation when someone stood by me
it ;

and heard a flute in the distance, and I heard nothing, or when

someone heard the herd-boy si?iging, and I again heard nothing.
Such occurrences brought me nigh to despair, a little more
and I had put an end to my own life only it, my art, —
held me back. it seemed to me impossible to quit the

world until I had produced all I felt it in me to produce

and so I reprieved this wretched life truly wretched, a —
body so sensitive that a change of any rapidity may alter
my state from very good to very bad. Patience — that's the
word, she it is I must take for my guide ; I have done
so —lasting I hope shall be my resolve to endure, till it

please the inexorable Parcas to sever the thread. It may be

things will go better, may be not ; I am prepared — already
 TESTAMENT. 47

in my twenty-eighth* year forced — to turn philosopher : it is not

easy, for an artist harder than for anyone. God, Thou seest
into my
inward part, Thou art acquainted with it, Thou
knowest that love to man and the inclination to beneficence
dwell therein. my fellow-men, when hereafter you read
this, think that you have done me wrong and the ; unfortunate,
let him console himself by finding a companion in misfortune,
who, despite all natural obstacles, has yet done everything in
hispower to take rank amongst good artists and good men.
You, my brothers Carl and as soon as I am dead, ,

if Professor Schmidt is still alive, beg him in my name to

describe my illness, and append this present document to his
account in order that the world may at least as far as
possible be reconciled with me after my death. — At the
same time I appoint you both heirs to my little fortune
(if so it may be styled) ; divide it fairly, and agree and help
one another; what you have done against me has been,
you well know, long since forgiven. You, brother Carl, I
especially thank for the attachment you have shown me in
this latter time. My wish is that you may have a better life

with fewer cares than I have had ; exhort your children to

virtue, that alone can give happiness —not money, I speak
from experience that was which upheld me even in misery,
; it

to that and to my art my thanks are due, that I did not end
—
my life by suicide. Farewell, and love each other. I send
thanks to all my friends, especially Prince Lichnowski and
Professor Schmidt. I want Prince L.'s instruments to remain
in the safe keeping of one of you, but don't let there be any
strife between you about it only whenever they can help you
;

to something more useful, sell them by all means. How

glad am I if even under the sod I can be of use to you so —
* Beethoven was born on Dec. and was therefore at this date
16, 1770,
nearly at the end of his thirty-second year. was one of his little weaknesses
It
to wish to be taken for younger than he was and he occasionally spoke of
:

himself accordingly.
45 SECOND SYMPHONY.

" i: ;::~e ! VTi:h ;oy 1 hasten to meet death face to face.

If he come before I have had opportunity to unfold all my
artistic capabilities, he will, despite my hard fate, yet come
too soon, and I no doubt should wish him later but even ;

then I am content; does he not free me from a state of cease-

less suffering ? Come when thou wilt, I shall face thee with
courage. Farewell, and do not quite forget me in death, I
have leserved it of you, who in my life had often thought for
you, for your happiness ;may it be yours
LUDWIG VA>~ BEETHOVEN".
*
Heiligenstadt,
6ih October, 1802.

4 Heiligenstadt,* 10th October, 1802. Soltakeleave

z of fthee — sad leave. Yes. the beloved hope that I

^ brought here with me — at least in some degree to be

= cured —that hope must noTT altogether desert me.
« As the autumn leaves fall withered, so this hope too
~ is for me withered up almost as ; came here, I
I

Jj
-g go away. Even the lofty courage, which often in
gr § the lovelv summer davs animated me, has
y
3
vanished. Providence, let for once a pure day of
E j°y% he mine so long
"z ~j is true joys — already

g | inward resonance a stranger to me. when,

S *g when, God, can I in the temple of Nature
w
c and of Humanity feel it once again. Never ? No
^ — : i were tc i sruel!

* 3 eU H::r'.: sta ii by Beethoven in both places.

1 1= it snre that this P.S, is addressed to his brothers 1 May it not bet: "
Less

Theresa Ri :: whom he was betrothed in 1806, or some other lady?

2 Dar F t - Ihe italiee are his own. His word acquires a a ig-
- ien we knowfinom a letter of the time that Beethoven a even
at that early date : . - rlonof Schiller's ode An dieFrt
he accomplished in the ] in 1823 See Fischenich'a
letter 1 :- ated Bonn Pet _-. 1793, and quot.
~
rhayei Biogra] - -
SYMPHONY No. 3 (eboica), kE flat (Op. 55).
."
Dedicated :: Prince L:":i:—

'SISTONIA EBOICA. eomposta per festesgiare il sovvenire di nn

grand' Uomo, e dealer k Sua -Li.ezzs Sexemssinia il Principe di
Lcbkowitz da Lnigi van Beethoven, Op. 55. No. HX delle Sinionie.'

Allegro con brie 6flL_^. . E z. at

N
Mzrcii rznebre : Azi.z:: zsei: ?* # .

Seherso and Trio: Allegro vivace 11. __- ADa breve (116 o).
(E flat.)

Finale : Allegro moho 76 ^ . inserrapted bv Poco Andante, con es-

rres5i;z.e :.?__• iz.: 5Z.ziz.z .:;;.: :if_, . I ±i:

2 Drams 2 Clarinete
i rrompefc 2 Basse ns
S H::z.s. 1 = : zzz Izi ~ -"-g.
1 Fl-tes Viola
2 Oboes. " .- z;r el: = s:

7 _7 :_
:• VTi-^zrf :: :!:- ::"i:i ::t Irzzeszr^
The zrches:^ zizr:5 ~ere paUished in October 1806 Vienna C:z::r
zelle i:~- i z Lzizzstzzs Izf =;ore is an B¥0 oi 231 pages. Hmfonn with
those :: Nos 1 zzi : :z; was pobfehfld in 1831 The title-page is in
Italian z = green above. . . . * Parti none. Izil? J:. Senna e 2:-.z.l
presso >~ Simroefc. 1971

A special in:eres: will always attach to the Z:::;a. apart

_
from own me:::?, in the :;.;:
its :ha: :: is :::::: ::5 zrs:
1
Symphony on the 'ne~ road which he announced to
Krompholz in 1502. 'I am not satfshel sua he. with
my works up to the present time From to-day I mean ::
7
fc&ke a mur road. This was after the completion of the
50 THIRD SYMPHONY — EROICA.
Sonata in D (Op. 28), in 1801.* Great as is the advance in
the three Piano Sonatas of Op. 31, especially that in D minor,
and in the three Violin Sonatas of Op. 30, especially that in
minor, over their predecessors, it must be confessed that the
leap from Symphony No. 2 to the Eroica is still greater.
The Symphonies in C and D, with all their breadth and spirit,
belong to the school of Mozart and Haydn. True, in the
Minuet of the one and the Coda to the Finale of the other,
as we have endeavoured to show, there are distinct invasions
of Beethoven's individuality, giving glimpses into the new
world. But these are only glimpses, and as a whole the two
earlier Symphonies belong to the old order. The Eroica
first shows us the methods which were so completely to

revolutionise that department of music the continuous and —

organic mode of connecting the second subject with the first,

the introduction of episodes into the working-out, the extra-

ordinary importance of the Coda. These in the first

movement. In the second there is the title of 'March,' a

distinct innovationon previous custom. In the third there is the
title of Scherzo,' here used in the f Symphonies for the first
'

time, and also there are the breadth and proportions of the
piece, hitherto the smallest of the four, but now raised to a
level with the others; and in the Finale, the daring and
romance which pervade the movement under so much strict-

ness of form. All these are steps in Beethoven's advance of

the Symphony ; and, as the earliest example of these things,
the Eroica will always have a great historical claim to
distinction, entirely apart from the nobility and beauty of
its strains.

* See Thayer, ii., 186, 364.

f The first actual use of the term by Beethoven is in the third movement of
the Trio in E flat, Op. 1, No. 1. The term Minuet is employed for the Scherzos
of the Symphonies for many years both by German and English' critics. It is
strange to hear the Scherzo of this very Symphony spoken of as '
an ill-suited
Minuet (see page 92).
'
 bernadotte's suggestion. 51

Another point of interest in the Symphony is the fact that it is

the second of his complete instrumental works* which Bee-
thoven himself allowed to be published with a title ; the former
one being the Sonate pathetique,' Op. IB. How the Symphony
'

came by a title, and especially by its present title, is a

remarkable story. The first suggestion seems to have been
made Beethoven by General Bernadotte! during his short
to
residence in Vienna, in the spring of 1798, as ambassador
from the French nation. The suggestion was that a
Symphony should be written in honour of Napoleon
Bonaparte. At that date Napoleon was known less as a
soldier than as a public man, who had been the passionate
champion of freedom, the saviour of his country, the

* The list of Beethoven's own titles, on his published works, is as follows :

1. 'Sonate pathetique,' Op. 13.

2. 'La Malinconia.' Adagio in String Quartet No. 6.
3. 'Marcia funebre sulla morte d'un Eroe.' Third movement of Op. 26.
4. ' Sinfonia eroica, composta per festeggiare il sovvenire di un grand*
Uomo,' &c. Op. 55.
5. ' Sinfonia pastorale,' Op. 68.
6. 'Les Adieux, l'Absence et le Retour, Sonate,' Op. 81a.

7. ' Wellington's Sieg, oder die Schlacht bei Vittoria,' Op. 91.
8. ' Gratulations Menuett (Nov., 1823). '

9. ' Sinfonie mit Schluss-Chor iiber Schiller's Ode, An die Freude,' Op. 125.
10. ' Die Wuth liber den verlornen Groschen, ausgetobt in einer Caprice,' for
Pianoforte Solo. Op. 129.
11.Canzona di ringraziamento in modo lidico, offerta alia divinita da un
'

guarito,' and Sentendo nuova forza.' Molto Adagio and Andante in String
'

Quartet, Op. 132.

12. ' Der schwergefasste Entschluss. Muss es sein ? Es muss sein !
' Finale
to String Quartet, Op. 135.
13. ' Lustig. Traurig. Zwei kleine Klavierstiicke. ' Supplemental vol. to
B. & H.'s great edition, p. 360.
Moonlight,' Op. 27, No. 2
'
Pastorale,' Op. 28 ;
'
;
*
Appassionata,' Op. 57 ;

* —
Emperor,' Op. 73 and if there be any others are — all fabrications.

f Schindler, Ed. 3, i., 101. A soldier like Bernadotte was not likely to know
or care about music ; and it is therefore not improbable that the idea was due
to Rudolph Kreutzer, the violin player, who filled the office of Secretary to the
Legation. In this case the 'Kreutzer Sonata' (Op. 47), composed 1802-3,
acquires a certain relationship to the Symphony, which is not invalidated by
the fact (if it be a fact) that Kreutzer never played the great work dedicated
to him. Bernadotte arrived in Vienna Feb. 8 and quitted it April 15, 1798.
&A THIRD SYMPHONY — EROICA.
restorer of order and prosperity, the great leader to whom
no difficulties were obstacles. He was not then the
tyrant, and the scourge of Austria and the rest of Europe,
which he afterwards became. He was the symbol and embodi-
ment of the new world of freedom and hope which the Revolu-
tion had held forth to mankind. Moreover, no De Remusat
or Chaptal had then revealed the unutterable selfishness
and meanness of his character. Beethoven always had
republican sympathies, and it is easy to understand that the
proposal would be grateful to him. We cannot suppose that
a man of Beethoven's intellect and susceptibility could grow
up with the French Revolution, and in such close proximity
to France as Bonn was, without being influenced by it. Much

of the fire and independence of the first two Symphonies are

to be traced to that source. The feeling was in the air.
Much also which distinguishes his course after he became a
resident in the Austrian capital, and was so unlike the
—
conduct of other musicians of the day the general inde-
pendence of his attitude the manner in which he asserted
;

his right to what his predecessors had taken as favours his ;

refusal to enter the service of any of the Austrian nobility his ;

neglect of etiquette and personal rudeness to his superiors in

—
rank all these things were doubtless more or less due to the
influence of the Revolutionary ideas. But he had not yet openly
acknowledged this in his music. Prometheus was a not unsuit-
able hero for a work that may have been full of revolutionary
ideas, though invisible through the veil of the ballet.
Perhaps the melody which he employed in this Finale,
and elsewhere twice outside his ballet, may have had to
him some specially radical signification. At any rate, his
first overt expression of sympathy with the new order of

things was in the '

Eroica.' And a truly dignified expression it

was. We shallhave an opportunity, in considering the Ninth

Symphony, of noticing how carefully he avoids the bad taste of
Schiller's wild escapades. Here we only notice the fact that the
 BONAPARTE—BEETHOVEN. 58

*
Eroica was his
'
first obviously revolutionary music. He was,
however, in no* hurry with the work, and it seems not to have
been till the summer of 1803 that he began the actual com-
position at Baden and Ober-Dobling, where he spent his holiday
that year. On his return to his lodgings in the theatre '
an-der-
Wien '
for the winter, we hear of his having played the Finale
of the Symphony to a friend.f Ries, in his Biographische
Notizen, distinctly says that early in the spring of 180-1 a fair
copy of the score was made, and lay on Beethoven's work-
table in full view, with the outside page containing the words
— at the very top, '
Buonaparte,' and at the very bottom,
1
Luigi van Beethoven,' thus :

Buonaparte

Luigi van Beetiioyen

How names was to be

the space between the two illustrious
no one knew, and probably no one dared to ask.
filled in

Another copy it would appear had gone to the Embassy for

transmission to the First Consul.
Meantime, however, a change was taking place in Napoleon,
of which Beethoven knew nothing. On May 2nd, 1804, a

* The earliest sketches contained in the book published by Mr. Nottebohm

(Ein Skizzenbuch von Beethoven, &c, Breitkopf und Hartel, 1880) date from
1802. An earlier book may, of course, be discovered.
f Mahler the painter. (Thayer, ii., 236.)

t Schindler, 3rd Ed., i., 107.

54 THIRD SYMPHONY —EROICA.
motion was passed in the Senate, asking him to take the title
of Emperor, and on May 18th the title was assumed by him.
When the news reached Vienna it was taken to Beethoven by
Kies,* and a tremendous explosion was the consequence.
all, then, he is nothing but an ordinary mortal
After
1

He will trample all the rights of men under foot, to

indulge his ambition, and become a greater tyrant than any
one And with these words he seized his music, tore the
!
'

title-page in half, and threw it on the ground. After this

his admiration was turned into hatred, and he is said never
again to have referred to the connection between his work and
the Emperor till seventeen years afterwards, when the news
of Napoleon's death at St. Helena (May 5, 1821) reached
him. He then said I have already composed the proper
:
'

music for that catastrophe,' meaning the Funeral March,

which forms the second movement of the work if indeed —
he did not mean the whole Symphony. In this light, how
touching is the term sovvenire in the title The great man, !

though emperor, is already dead, and the remembrance of his

greatness alone survives
The copy of the Eroica which is preserved in the
Library of the '
Vienna is
Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde '
in
not an autograph, though it contains many notes and remarks
in Beethoven's ownf hand and it is not at all J impossible that
;

it may be the identical copy from which the title-page was

* Biog. Notizen, 2te Abth., p. 78.

f One of these is to erase the repeat of the first portion of the opening move-
ment. This has been taken as evidence that at that timehe thought such repetition
unnecessary. But nothing can be inferred from it until we know the circum-
stances under which lie made the erasure. Beethoven must have been sometimes
very hard pressed in shortening his works for performance. Otto Jahn tells
us of a copy of the 'Leonora No. 2' Overture, in which he had been compelled
actually to cross out the first trumpet passage, and the eight bars connecting
it with the second !

% Mr. Thayer thinks it impossible (Them. Verzeichniss, p. 58).

 A PORTRAIT OF NAPOLEON. 55

torn off. It is an oblong volume, 12f inches by 9f, and has

now the following title-page

SlNFONIA GRANDE
intitulata bonaparte
804 im August
DEL SlGR.
Louis van Beethoven
geschrieben
auf Bonaparte

Sinfonia 3 Op. 55

original title would seem to have consisted of lines 1,

The
3,4,5,8; lines 2, 6, 7 (all three in pencil) having been after-
wards added, 6 and 7 certainly, 2 possibly, by Beethoven
himself. Line 2 is now barely legible. The copy appears thus
in the catalogue of the sale of Beethoven's effects: 'No. 144.
Fremde Abschrift der Sinfonie Eroique in Partitur mit
eigenhandigen Anmerkungen.' It is valued at 3 florins,
and it fetched 3 fl. 10 kr. which, at the then currency, was
;

worth about 3 francs. The copy then came into the possession
of Joseph Dessauer, the composer, of Vienna, and is now in
the Library of the '
Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde.'
The title just given is obviously an intermediate one
between Beethoven's original and that prefixed to the edition
of the Parts published in October, 1806, and to Simrock's
edition of the Score, No. 1,973, published 1820.
But there is no reason to suppose that beyond the title-

page the work was altered. It is still a portrait — and

we may believe a favourable portrait— of Napoleon, and
should be listened to in that sense. Not as a conqueror
—that would not attract Beethoven's admiration but ;

for the general grandeur and loftiness of his course and of

his public character. How far the portraiture extends,
56 THIRD SYMPHONY — EROICA.
whether to the first movement only or through the
entire work, there will probably be always a difference of
opinion. The first movement is certain. The March is
certain also, from Beethoven's own remark just quoted and ;

the writer believes, after the best consideration he can give

to the subject, that the other movements are also included
in the picture,and that the Poco Andante at the end repre-
sents the apotheosis of the hero. But, in addition to any
arguments based on consideration, there can be no doubt
that it was the whole work, not any separate portion
of it, that Beethoven twice inscribed with Bonaparte's
name.* It has been well said that, though the Eroica

was a portrait of Bonaparte, it is as much a portrait of

Beethoven himself. But that is the case with everything
that he wrote.
Certain accessories to the music seem to testify to some
anxiety on Beethoven's part in regard to his new work. The
long and the two prefatory notices, without a parallel
title

in his works for their length, all seem to have a significance.

The title is given at the head of these remarks. The notices,
affixed to the first editions of both parts and score, are as
follows —he was quite aware of the unusual length of his work
1. Questa Sinfonia essendo scritta apposta piu lunga delle solite,

si deve eseguire piu vicino al principio ch' al fine di un Academia,

e poco doppo un Overtura, un' Aria, ed un Concerto ; accioche,
sentita troppo tardi, non perda per V auditore, gia faticato
dalle precedenti produzioni, il suo proprio, proposto effetto.

* To the fact of the entire Symphony being a portrait of Bonaparte there

is the following evidence :

1. Beethoven's first inscription—' Buonaparte Luigi van Beethoven.'

2. His second ditto — ' Geschrieben auf Bonaparte.'

3. The statement of Ries.

4. The fact of the inscriptions being written not over the movements, but
on the outside cover of both copies of the complete work.
 THE ALLEGBO CON BRIO. 57

(This Symphony, being purposely written at greater *length

than usual, should be played nearer the beginning than the
end of a concert, and shortly after an Overture, an Air, and
a Concerto ; lest, if it is heard too late, when the audience
are fatigued by the previous pieces, it should lose its proper
and intended effect.) 2. A f notice to say that '
the part of
the third horn is so adjusted that it may be played equally
on the first or second horn.' This notice points to the
only difference between the orchestra of this Symphony and
that of the preceding one — viz., the third horn. A third
horn does not seem to have been used in the orchestra till
this occasion. There are no trombones in any of the
movements.
With these introductory remarks we pass to the analysis of
the work itself.

I. The first subject of the opening Allegro con brio, the

animating soul of the whole movement, is ushered in by two
great staccato chords of E flat from the full orchestra, in
which all the force of the entire piece seems to be concen-
trated :-—

Beethoven's sketches j show that these chords wT ere originally

* An amusing tribute to the '

length ' was extorted from someone in the
gallery at the first performance, who was heard by Czerny to say, '
I'd give a
kreutzer if it would stop.' (Thayer, ii., 274.)

f The Gesellschaft MS. contains a note at the end of the first movement,
now scratched through, to the following effect N.B. The three horns are
: •
—
so arranged in the orchestra that the first horn stands in the middle between
the two others.'

X Nottebohm, Ein Skizzenbuch von Beethoven aits dem Jahre 1803, p. 6.

58 THIRD SYMPHONY — EROICA.
discords, as is the case in the First Symphony. They first

appear as
No.

pfe^j
2.

— and then as
^
i^^fl^il
They then disappear altogether and the two tonic chords as
they now
stand (No. 1) probably belong to a late period in the
history of the movement.
The main theme itself, given out by the cellos alone, is but
four bars long ; the exquisite completion by the fiddles (from
a) is added merely for the occasion, and does not occur again
for even at the reprise of the subject in the latter half of the
movement this part is essentially altered (see No. 21)
No. 3.
Allegro con brio.

p cres

«/
*£1
mmz£& TrffTr g
How broad and gay, and how simply beautiful and dignified !

All, too, virtually in the notes of the tonic chord, as so often

is the case ! Surely no one ever made such openings as the
openings to these Symphonies. Well might Schumann* say,
alluding to Brahms, '
He should be always thinking of the
beginnings of Beethoven's Symphonies, and try to make
something like The beginning is the great thing once
them. :

begin, and the end comes before you know it.'

Letters, Neue Folge, 338.

 THE ALLEGRO CON BRIO —KINDRED THEMES. 59

How pregnant are these great themes ! How everlasting,

not only in the never-ending delight which the hearing of them

gives, but in the long chain of followers to which they give
birth ! In Beethoven's Ninth Symphony we shall see the
influence which the subject of the Finale had on Schubert,
and how beautifully he modified one of its phrases for the
expression of thoughts and feelings all his own, much as
Shakespeare did with a phrase of Marlowe. And as with
that glorious subject, so no less with this. The first theme
of the Eroica is surely the parent of the first theme of

Brahms's fine Symphony in D

No. 4.
Allegro non troppo.
r^z:
*=E T=t- -*-r-

— and (in a less degree) of that of his Violin Concerto

No. 5. Alio, non troppo.
-— - * ar V ^ - —
m s=t P~r-^ :

The same splendid rhythm (also in the intervals of the tonic

chord) is heard in the Scherzo of Schubert's great Symphony

inC—
No. 6.

3?iH — & m- — —
rr^~P=^ i

M=iH — — &c
L
m*r i

r~* (=*=#= -I
*) ^^o <zJ

—and Beethoven himself has recurred to it in the most

« heroic ' of his Sonatas, the Op. 106—
No. 7.

An unexpected anticipation of the phrase is found in a passage

60 THIRD SYMPHONY — EROICA.
of the Overture to * Bastien et *Bastienne,' a youthful
operetta of Mozart's, written at Vienna in 1768
No. 8.

These are among the links which convey the great Apostolic
Succession of Composers from generation to generation.
Handel builds on a phrase of Carissimi or Stradella, and
—
shapes it to his own end an end how different from that of his
predecessor! Mozart does the same by Handel; Mendelssohn
goes back, now to the old Church melodies, now to Bach, and
now to Beethoven. Schumann and Wagner adopt passages
from Mendelssohn. Beethoven himself is not free from the
direct influence of Haydn, and even such individual creators
as Schubert and Brahms bind themselves by these cords of
love to their great forerunner; and thus is forged, age by
age, the golden chain, which is destined never to end as long
as the world lasts.
A second theme of much greater length follows, containing
in itself two sections. The first, an absolute contrast to
No. 1, flowing spontaneously out of the preceding music, is

simplicity itself —a succession of phrases of three notes,

repeated by the different instruments one after another, and
accompanied by a charming staccato bass, its first group
emphasised by dots, the second by dashes, in the original t

Viol.

* See page 93.

f These delicate but important distinctions are lost in the new scores.
 THE ALLEGRO CON BRIO — SECOND SUBJECT. 61

The next section is a connecting passage of lively

character

No. 10. f

u&&±
f

m^g^
couched in an ordinary figure. The second subject proper
*
'

arrives unusually late, but when at length it appears, in

the key of B flat, it is a passage of singular beauty
—more harmony than melody, and yet who shall say ?

— a theme which, with yearning, its beseeching wind in-

struments, and the three wonderful pizzicato notes of the
basses, goes to the inmost heart like a warm pressure of the
hand
Ob. Fl.
No.U

Strangely little use is made of this beautiful passage in the

working-out. In fact, touching as it is, it only re -appears in
its place in the due course of the reprise.
After the second subject we have a phrase in the rhythm
of No. 1, though with different intervals and a different
accent

No. 12.
8va alta.
"+—
E^£ =fc2I
&c.

/ '
sf sf sf

And, lastly, nine bars of discords given fortissimo on the

62 THIRD SYMPHONY EROICA.

weak beats of the bar, and with all possible noise from the
brass
No. 13
Js£3t JWrr—flLjfc

1 f T

——
-p
f»-"F
te-
-1=

\
L»— -T3

sf
ta

»
—
r

=f==r— -

-4-
s/ s/ s/ sf sf p
There we have the chief materials of the first half of the
Allegro But the way they are expressed and connected the
! ;

sunlight and cloud, the alternate fury and tenderness, the

nobility, the beauty, the obstinacy, the human character !

Certainly, nothing like it was ever done in music before, and

very little like it has been done in the ninety years since 1803.
A great deal of the inspiration for this remarkable fire and
variety must, as has already been said, have been supplied by
the unprecedented circumstances of the time. A far calmer
spirit* than Beethoven has said of the same period
Blisswas it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very Heaven !

and the music shows how those exciting circumstances acted

on the impressionable mind of our great composer.
Eight bars before the double bar we have a prediction
of the tremendous Coda which closes the entire movement.
Then comes the working-out,' which begins the second
'

half of the movement, and is made out of the material

already quoted. But here again nothing is the same. The
fragments of the first theme (No. 3), which occupy the first

* Wordsworth, The Prelude, Book xi.

 THE ALLEGRO CON BKIO — WORKING-OUT. 63

twelve bars of this portion, are absolutely transformed in

character. The subsidiary theme (No. 9) is altered by the
addition of a forcible initial note, and a run of great beauty

No. 14.

Sfp
Viol.

U*
+J
^gf^#5
Sfp im*"
-^mzm
"^ &C.

— the freakish passage (No. 10) harmonised by the first

is

subject, escaping from the tonic chord of C$ minor into D

minor by one of Beethoven's astonishing transitions
No. 15. ^ ^ ,

fi£4=fe %feEEgl igp m

Four notes of No. 9 are made the motive of a passage of
imitation,which might be intended to show how well
Beethoven could write a fugue
No. 16.

&C.
A4
-P 4 *^£i= >--
sf U*

if we did not soon discover that he is in no humour for such

displays. Later on in the work he may have leisure to bring
64 THIRD SYMPHONY EROICA.

his counterpoint into play, but here his mood is too impera-
tive. His thought is everything to him, the vehicle nothing.
This quaintly promising little bit of counterpoint is crushed
by an outburst of rage, which forms the kernel of the whole
movement, and in which the most irreconcilable discords of the
harmony and the most stubborn disarrangements of the
rhythm unite to form a picture of obstinacy and fury, a
tornado which would burst the breast of any but the gigantic
hero whom
Beethoven believes himself to be pourtraying,
and who was certainly more himself than Bonaparte.* This
passage, thirty-two bars long, is absolute Beethoven there ;

is nothing like it in the old music, and must have been

it

impossible for critics, who looked to the notes alone and

judged them by the mere rules of sound, without thinking of
the meaning they conveyed, ever to be reconciled to it. But
the tumult suddenly ceases, as if from exhaustion. A few
crisp bars in the strings lead into a perfectly new and fresh
passage in the remote key of E natural minor, in which the
oboes, fining down to piano, deliver an exquisite melody,
accompanied by one almost as exquisite in the cellos
No. 17.

Cello p SJP '

<sfp ~* SJP '

n '

This is what is technically termed an episode that is, a ;

melody or theme which has not been heard in the former

section, and has, therefore, as it were, no right to appear in
the section devoted to the discussion of the previous materials.
With Beethoven, however, everything was more or less an
open question, and in the present case he has pleased to will
otherwise.

* It was in this passage —which defies quotation — that Beethoven, conducting

the orchestra, at Christmas, 1804, got out in his beat, and so completely
confused the players that they had to stop and go back.
 THE ALLEGRO CON BRIO — EPISODES. 65

After a short interval the melody last quoted returns, this

time in E flat minor, with touching imitations between
the various instruments

No. 18
Clar.

Basses sf
8va.

and with a little quaver figure in the eighth bar, which might
serve to remind us, if we could ever forget it, how constantly
Beethoven is on the watch to introduce a graceful turn, how-
ever severe his mood may be. He knows nothing of ugliness
in music, even to express ugly thoughts.
And now again another new feature — a wonderful staccato
bass accompanied by the original theme (No. 3), stalking over
the world as none but a hero can stalk,and making us feel
like pigmies as we listen to his determined and elastic
footfalls

No. 19.

s
Clar.

n}
:£
£ %& 4=

P :Sci:

Fag. 1 ?r zfZ f
m^-m^g^ sfp
—.—
fp=p
^—. r
8fP

The phrase goes through the successive keys of E flat minor,

D flat major, and E flat minor, and ends with a fine climax
of four bars in the trumpets and drums.
66 THIRD SYMPHONY EROICA.

We are now near the end of the working-out, but one more
surprise awaits us, shortly before the return to the opening
theme of the work, at the place often selected for a passage
of pathos or sentiment. This is, if possible, more original
than anything that has preceded it, and is certainly quite
different from anything else. So unexpected is it that Ries,*
standing by his master's side at the first rehearsal, thought
the horn-player had come in wrong, and narrowly escaped a
box on the ear for saying so. It is the well-known and often-
quoted passage in which the horn gives out the first four
notes of the chief subject in the chord of E flat, while the two
violins are playing B flat and A flat, thus accompanying the
chord of the tonic by that of the dominant —a practice
of Beethoven's which M. de Lenz has dubbed * le sourire
de la Chimere' —
No. 20. Violins

At that time, all the rules of harmony weref against it it ;

—
was absolutely wrong as wrong as stealing or lying and yet —
* Biogr. Notizen, p. 79.

+ This passage has actually been altered in print and performance to make it

agreeable to the then so-called rules of music. Fetis and the Italian conductors
used to take it as if the notes of the horn were written in the tenor clef,

and read Bb, D, B ?, F (chord of the dominant).

1
Wagner and Costa are
said, though it is almost incredible, to have made the second violins play
G (chord of the tonic). In the English edition —
'a complete collection of
Mozart and Beethoven's Symphonies in score,' dedicated to H.R.H. the
Prince of Wales, and therefore published before January, 1820 the second —
violin is thus altered to G. If Ries narrowly escaped a box on the ear for
'
'

suggesting that the d '

d horn-player had come in wrong,' what sort of
blow or kick would Beethoven have justly administered for such flagrant
corrections of his plain notes (here and elsewhere) ?
 THE ALLEGRO CON BRIO — THE REPRISE, 67

how perfectly right and proper it is in its place ! And how

intensely poetical ! The '
heroic '
movement of the basses
(No. 19) has ceased, leaving us in strangely remote regions ;

the tumult of the day has subsided, and all is gradually

hushed the low horns and other wind instruments add to the
;

witching feeling, and a weird twilight seems to pervade

the scene. At length the other instruments cease their
mysterious sounds, and nothing is heard but the violins in
their softest tones, trembling as if in sleep, when the distant
murmur on the ear like an incoherent
of the horn floats

fragment of a dream. It is one of those departures from real

life which never trouble us in our sleep. But it is enough to
break the spell the whole changes as if by a magic touch,
;

and the general crash restores us to full daylight, to all

our faculties, and we find ourselves at home in the original

subject and original key (see No. 3). Here Beethoven
strangely makes the music modulate so as to close not in
E flat, as before, but most unexpectedly in F, with a shake,
and a lovelv close it is

No. 21. (skeleton) Viol. 1.

"
±

— 2 — =&'
1
-*

1
-f=^z
J -p-4f
kA
1
-1
tr

1
— -ft -f

s/="
R3±=
sf p
-+=1
z± £J • - #
1
1=
si

pizz
=r
* -
-•
—
and this enables him to give the horn an ample and delicious
revenge for the interruption he has just suffered. (Note
68 THIRD SYMPHONY — EROICA.
the expression given by the reiteration of the note C in
bar 5)

No. 22.
Horn in F Flute
/""
7.I.I.I W.r.TH - S
, .

^ b^"
S3 i
•*> dol. PT b

Orchestra
|*
"T Si-
I

1
\~km~ -m
[ jnzz:

and also the easy and masterly turn by which the strain
goes from F to D flat. The transition by a semitone is the
same, though in a different part of the key, as in No. 3, bar 8.

After this we have a recapitulation of the first section of the

movement, only with and then comes a
serious differences ;

Coda, 140 bars long, and so magnificently fresh and original

as almost to throw all that has gone before it into the shade.
The beginning of this Coda is one of the most astonishing
things in the whole musical art and think what it must ;

have been in the year 1805, when even now, familiar as it is,
and after all that Beethoven himself has written since, all
that Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Wagner, and
Brahms, it still excites one's astonishment for its boldness
and its poetry. This Coda is no mere termination to a move-
ment which might have ended as well without it. No it is ;

an essential part of the poem, and will be known as such. It

is one of Beethoven's great inventions, and he knows it, and

starts it in such a style that no one can possibly overlook

what he is doing. He has given a hint of it before the
double bar; now he develops it at full length. As in his
G major, and still more in his E flat Concerto for the
piano, he begins the work not with the usual long
orchestral passage, just as a mightSymphony or Overture
begin, but with a passage for the piano, that no one may
mistake the nature of the work he is going to hear, so
here he treats the Coda as a definite, recognised, important
 THE ALLEGRO CON BRIO — THE CODA. 69

section of the movement, and announces it with so much

weight and force as to compel attention to the fact that
something serious and unusual is going on. Here is a
skeleton, to show the daring style of the progressions
—
and contrasts from E flat to D flat, and from D flat to
C major. Note too the introductory quavers, where he retains
the three crotchets of the subject—

No. 23 Wind & Brass Wind & Brass

Allegro

g=*^gs
—h-^r^y^ p^pz#^±fiffz=ff^ ^
~ g m r=z
P
fa
I -I— «* -t—^ IT_
I r fe -t^f^HrFF^- J^ =4 —
I
-

And this again is followed immediately by another entirely

new device the old subject in the second violins, har-
;

monised by the basses, and with the gayest melody running

its free course above, in the first violins

No. 24.

Another new passage, in the freakish figure which was

employed before (see Nos. 10 and 15), equally gay, and equally
70 THIBD SYMPHONY — EROICA.
grounded on the original subject, this time in the horns, is as
follows

Between the two passages last quoted is a cello solo, which

might have given Mendelssohn the cue to those which he ia
so fond of introducing into his Symphonies

No. 26.

Viol 1
101.1.^^^ ->!!»! \y
^ ?£*-¥- :&1
m t=a=t
;

igf
Viol. 2. decres.
CeUo

m fcqp
$
bd..

:^£
=PC= gz==g:--^zz:
=:^:
ipz^

1
— _^2l
-—Lga *£L-
-f^
brSf-3?
P-fcU
ff i=
—
m
==!=-
"W -tI-
t=— ^Pic
1

f*—

One might go on commenting on

--
t=_
==)J—
^L_I —
-4=
^
this
r
J-

Coda for an hour,

but it is time to stop. After all is said, the music itself, as
Schumann is so fond of insisting, is the best and only thing ;

at any end of these remarks is

rate, the sole to make that
more intelligently heard and better understood.

II. The second # movement, very slow, Adagio assai, is in

the form of a funeral march, and bears the title of Marcia

* The cello and double bass parts are to a great extent distinct throughout
this March, and have separate lines in the score.
 THE FUNERAL MARCH. 71

funebre — the very title itself an important ^innovation on

established practice. And a March it is, worthy to accompany
the obsequies of a hero of the noblest mould, such a one as
Napoleon appeared to his admirers in 1803, before selfishness,
lying, cruelty, and just retribution had dragged him down from
that lofty pinnacle. The key of the March is C minor. It

commences sotto voce with the following subject in the strings

No -
27 *
sotto voce.

r !PgESpg
3

MzfzaL ^-.g^-g:
=3F^-

harmonised in a wonderfully effective way. The melody is

then repeated in the poignant tones of the oboe, with the

rhythm strongly marked by the horns and bassoons, and with
an accompaniment in the strings of this nature
No - 28
oboe p r—i —
m^5^*
-

&
:fcgz=£
str.q 43S *-T>
3 *** m
* hi

which recurs more than once, and forms a characteristic

feature of the movement. This is succeeded immediately by
a second theme —
if it be not the second strain of No. 27 —
broad melodious subject, beginning in E flat major
No. 29.

Strings ^- £ *
* cres. f ^ >— '"lli

^=
'&
::
T -4-

t35#53!
'
~wn>--
?5i iM^I
^1
Ji

* In his Piano Sonata, Op. 26 (1802), the slow movement is entitled

'Mareia funebre sulla morte d'un Eroe,' but the above is the first and only
instance in the Symphonies.
72 THIRD SYMPHONY — EROICA.
promising for the moment consolation and hope, but quickly
relapsing into the former tone of grief, and ending in a phrase
in the cellos

No. 30.

espress. decres.

expressive of vague uncertainty and walking in darkness.

These materials are employed and developed at length, and
with the richest and most solemn effect, to the end of the first

portion. The poet Coleridge is said to have been once taken

to hear this Symphony at the Philharmonic, and to have

remarked to his friend during the March that it was like a

funeral procession in deep purple and the description is not
;

an inadequate one of the first becomes

portion, before the grief
more personal and diffuse ; but Coleridge must surely have
said something equally appropriate of the point farther on,
where, for what may be called the Trio of the March, the
key changes from C minor to C major, and a heavenly melody
brings comfort and hope on its wings, like a sudden ray of
sunlight in a dark sky

Pi a.
*-*J2 *5 ^ ob. -fn

This delicious message (which Beethoven resorted to again

in the Scherzo of his Symphony in A, ten years later) is here
divided among the oboe, flute, and bassoon in turns, the
strings accompanying with livelier movement than before.
The melody has a second strain (in the violins) well worthy
to be a pendant to the first
 THE FUNERAL MARCH. 73

After the welcome relief of this beautiful Inteimczzo the

orchestra returns to the minor key, and to the opening strain
of the March. It does not, however, continue as it began,
either in melody or treatment, but, soon closing in F minor,
goes off into something like a regular fugue, with a subsidiary
subject (a)

No. 33.
Viol. 2.

^ Viola
&Eag./ (a) sf
Xr

*U
—** j n m —m —t"^—m-*+M- —m\—> m~=^- m m ^^-r ^L'"*i
p m -m. -

fee.
* m _ i . r_ .. ._. - i m ,
-. ...- m

— which is pursued at some length, the full orchestra joining

by degrees with the most splendid and *religious effect. In
this noble and expressive passage of fugal music we might be
assisting at the actual funeral of the hero, with all that is
good and great in the nation looking on as he was lowered
into his tomb and the motto might well be Tennyson's
;

words on Wellington

In the vast cathedral leave him,

God accept him, Christ receive him.

Then occurs a passageas of stout resistance and determina-

tion, thetrumpets and horns appealing against Fate in their
loudest tones, and the basses adding a substratum of stern
resolution. But it cannot last ; the old grief is too strong,
the original wail returns, even more hopeless than before ;

the basses again walk in darkness, the violins and flutes

* I cannot resist the impression that this grand passage was

more cr I .
- -

the origin of the rernarkahle Cathedral scene in Schumann's E fiat Symphony.

74 THIBD SYMPHONY —EROICA.
echo their vague tones so as to aggravate them tenfold,
and the whole forms a long and terrible picture of gloomy
distress

No. 34.

m
FL

±=M
& Vi

ffF3f^=
"• *****

3=2
mmm
M-M-
H —H-
zgzg:
^ J5.
3=3=5^=^3=3=5=5=3:
3ft

I W -tf-#-

f
g=g:
r

P 5r-
6
3
V=\-
s^b-b — :=3 3-

But here again our great teacher does not leave us even ;

here he has consolation to give though in a different strain ;

than before. The steady march of the strings (at the beginning
of the Coda, repeated from the tenth bar of the Maggiore,' *

No. 27) seems to say Be strong, and hope will come*

and '
;

hope comes, in the voice of the first violins, if ever there was
a speaking phrase in which to convey it

No. 35.

~*j-. S-^-ml-' -m- -WT •*-•* m m m ^m- mm m m m- -m-m-jm-j

String!
iriiigs / decres. p
|

! M j^Lj !
g JlLLIj
I I
j

This was the passage which occurred to the mind of

Moscheles as he stood by the death-bed of Mendelssohn,
and caught the last pulsations* of the breath of his friend. It
is the beginning of the Coda, and it may be well to recollect
as the movement ebbs away that we are really listening to
the music written by Beethoven in anticipation of the funeral
of Bonaparte.

III. For the Scherzo we return to the key of E flat

and it is impossible to imagine a more complete relief than >

* Life of Moscheles, ii., 18G.

 THE SCHEKZO. 75

it presents to the March. It begins Allegro vivace, sernpre

pianissimo e staccato, and, after a prelude of six bars in the
strings, the oboes and first violins join in this most fresh
and lively tune

No. 36.

^m
Q
W
VJ_J_J:=Strg fet ggSggrr
zttzg.
MJ -\ J rt i
J i

This has been supposed by Mr. A. B. Marx to have been

adopted from a soldier's song

No. 37.

p Was
3=
ich bei Tag
=1
mit der
i |

Lei -
-z=z

er ver - dien', das geht bei der

— &c.
5=es^ 3=±^ ~Jr
in infinitum.

Nacht in den "Wind, Wind, Wind, Wind, Wind.

but he himself, *later in his book, admits, on the authority of

the accurate Erk, that it dates from the period between 1810
and 1826. Indeed the song is more probably founded on the
Scherzo than the Scherzo on the song.
On further repetition the tune is continued in sparkling
repartee between violin and flute as follows

No. 38.
V. 2.
V.l. Fl. Ar ^wi.-gl. el -fit-

W=^- ^3Z
f^^fe ^~r~y r-^-z
^t vn ^c t2t=t

Vi0la
5. H J-J-
I

1-J
J2— ^i sf
i^ri- T^nf
A. B. Marx, Beethoven (Ed. 1), Vol. I., 273 ; II., 23.
76 THIRD SYMPHONY —EROICA,
and charming climax is made by a loud synco-
at length a
pated passage in unison for the whole orchestra (twice given),
in which the accent is forced on to the weak parts of the
bar (see page 93)
No. 39.

Strings 8ves. unis.

Wind
tr

^m
/ r
tf *J3
Strings p
&. Tutti 8ves.
tr

tnr-ra :

I sf
3f
T*3 * -2

and the first part of the Scherzo ends with a Coda containing
delicious alternations of the strings and the wind and a
passage of unequalled lightness and grace.
The Trio, or alternative to the Scherzo, is mainly in the
hands of the horns, the other instruments being chiefly
occupied in interludes between the strains of those most
interesting and most human members of the orchestra. And
surely, if ever horns talked like flesh and blood, and in their
own human accents, they do it here. Beginning in this
playful way— sportful, though hardly in allusion to 'field
sport,' as some critics have supposed

Ob. & Str.

m^^mm
8/

a#=»r £S
I
r jl
Cor.
—3-T" m&F
/
^^r\'rl^^^m ^^^^^-
=
they rise by degrees in seriousness and poetry till they reach
 THE TRIO — HORNS. 77

an affecting climax, fully in keeping with the * heroic

character of the poem

What is it makes these last few notes so touching, so

almost awful ? There is in them a feeling of infinitude
or eternity such as is conveyed by no other passage even
in Beethoven's music. To the writer the notes speak the
lofty, mystical, yearning tone of Wordsworth's beautiful
flines :

Our and home,

destiny, our being's heart
Is with infinitude,and only there ;

With hope it is, hope that can never die,

Effort, and expectation, and desire,
And something evermore about to be.

* The accurate tying minims is one of the corrections which we owe

of these
to Breitkopf s complete Edition,
and is, so far, a set-off to the frequent disregard
of Beethoven's minute directions to he found in that otherwise splendid
publication.

t From the Prelude, Book Sixth the Crossing of the Alps.

;
'
Touching lines
'

and too little known.— 'The poet,' says Mr. Carlyle, 'has an infinitude in him ;

communicates an Unendlichkeit, a certain character of "infinitude" to whatsoever

he delineates.' Heroes and Hero Worship (p. 129, Ed. 2), and surely this is
quite as true of the composer as it is of the poet, or even truer.
78 THIRD SYMPHONY — EROICA.
And yet this very passage is selected by a critic of the time
for special disdain !

After the Trio, the first part of the Scherzo is repeated,

but not exactly ; it is considerably reduced at the beginning
and end, and an excellent effect is produced, where the
previous effect seemed hardly to admit of improvement, by
giving the second of the two syncopated passages already
quoted (No. 39) in duple time, instead of syncopated triple
time

No. 42. 8ves.

Tutti ' ,

W§
i Alia breve » ,
m

with greatest emphasis, and enforced by the full orchestra,

drums and all. The sound of this dislocating interruption

might be described as Beethoven himself described the name
of Gneixendorf, his brother's property. '
It sounds,' he says,
*
like the breaking of an axle-tree.'
This is the earliest of those great movements which
Beethoven was the first to give to the world, which are
perhaps the most Beethovenish of all his compositions, and
in which the tragedy and comedy of life are so startlingly
combined. A symphony without a Scherzo would now be
a strange spectacle. As Tennyson says

Most can raise the flowers now,

For all have got the seed.

But before Beethoven's time, indeed before this particular

Symphony, the Scherzo, in its full sense, was unknown to
music. His original intentions on this occasion were, as
usual, very wide of the result. He has got the tune, but the
manner of reaching it is very different to what it afterwards
became. In the first sketch discoverable, he heads his notes
with M. for minuet, and starts as follows (see Nottebohm,
 THE SCHEKZO — SKETCHES. 79

Skizzenbuch am 1803, p. 44 —the signature of three flats must

be understood)

No. 43. (Melody only.)

pjj^SBiiili^Sigi
M. Am Ende Coda einefremde St. (?)
}
4-4-

3E
^f-rrtf-eaj
Farther on still more progress has been made
No. 44.
M.

W^W* *=*=**
1 I
„ 1

^
<fcc.

At length the ultimate idea for the commencement, and the

#
pace of Presto make their appearance

No. 45.
Presto.

tt^Ki^-?^W^h&^X=X Wm^
&o.

and then the rest of the movement soon follows.

The original tform of the Trio, however

No. 46.

Trio.
(?) -_„ «
w=^
(the signature of three flats must still be understood) — is very
remarkable in its strong resemblance to the principal theme
* Nottebohm, p. 46. + Ibid.
80 THIRD SYMPHONY — EROICA.
of the first movement,
which it is possibly meant to be
of
a repetition. This, however, was quickly abandoned three ;

sketches follow which show no likeness to the present Trio ;

but in the fourth an approach is made to it, and then the
piece advances rapidly to its ultimate shape.

IV. The Finale has often been a puzzle. Some have

thought it trivial, some laboured, others that its intention
was to divert the audience after the too great strain of the
earlier movements. *
The Sinfonia Eroica of Beethoven,'
says the best English musical writer of his day, on a perfor-
mance at the most properly
Philharmonic, in April, 1827, '

ended with the Funeral March, omitting the other parts (mean-
ing the Scherzo and Finale), which are entirely inconsistent
with the avowed design of the composition.' We surely might
have more confidence in Beethoven's genius, and in the result
of the extraordinary care and consideration which he applied
both to the design and details of his compositions No one who !

hears the Finale through, and allows it to produce its own '

proper and intended *effect upon him, need be in doubt as to

'

its meaning, or hesitate to recognise in it characteristics as

*
heroic' as those of any other portion of the work, though
clothed in different forms. The art and skill employed
throughout it are extraordinary. But Beethoven never used
these powers for mere display. He must have written
it because he had something to say about his hero which

he had not said in the other three movements. Surely

that something becomes gloriously evident in the Poco
'
'

Andante near the close, which forms so grand a climax to the

work and to which the pages that precede it, with all their
;

ingenuity and beauty, act as a noble introduction, rising step

by step until they culminate in the very Apotheosis of the
Hero.
* 'II suo proprio e proposto effetto.' Beethoven's own expression in his
preface to the Symphony. See beginning of this chapter (p. 56, last line).
 THE FINALE. PROMETHEUS. 81

The movement consists entirely of a set of variations,

thus early anticipating so far the method adopted in the

vocal movements of Beethoven's latest Symphony, *
The
Ninth,' twenty years later. The subjectan chosen is

air in the Finale of his own

Prometheus music,' where it
*

stands, as far as melody, bass, and key are concerned, as

follows

No. 47.

fefesggg^^g
ftKf^v.-e
ff p

^ tt ^zfs^^J^I-j*:

In our ignorance of the libretto of the Prometheus music,

it is impossible to say whether this theme was not there
identified with that ancient '
hero,' and whether that fact, or

some subtle connection, may not have induced Beethoven to

choose it for the Finale to his Symphony on Bonaparte. At
any rate, the theme must have been a special favourite
with its composer, since he has used it four times —in a
Contretanz, in the Prometheus music, as the theme of a
noble set of Variations for piano (Op. 35), and here in the
Symphony.
The method which Beethoven has adopted in the treatment
of this air as the theme of the Finale is very ingenious,
and, as far as I am aware (though the Variation literature is
of such enormous extent that it is impossible to be sure),
entirely original. After a short introductory passage of eleven
bars to fix the key, ending with a pause on the dominant
82 THIRD SYMPHONY EBOICA.

seventh of E flat, the strings, in octaves and pizzicato, give

out the bass of the melody. (In the Piano Variations, Op. 35,
this is Con basso del Tenia
labelled *
but here there ' ;

is no such indication.) The first eight bars of this are

repeated to allow Beethoven to display his humour by
making the wind echo the notes of the strings, at short
distances

No. 48. Flute

Clar.

bzg±afe Id^^zbj^jbz^jzgl^z^r^M:
m £
ViolJ pizz ^HP%TfSr

In Variation 1 this theme (in minims instead of staccato

quavers) is given to the second violin, while the first

violin and the bass have an independent accompaniment,

thus

No. 49. Viol. 1. arco

mS&M
Viol. 2 p dol.
Cello

dol.
wm £«:r*:i=N
t£3
0-T-&- gjgg

In Variation 2 the first violin has the same theme, with a

triplet accompaniment in the other strings. In the third

Variation, the melody itself (all the more welcome for its
contrast with the somewhat formal bass theme) enters in the
oboes and clarinet, harmonised with its natural bass, and with
a brilliant semiquaver accompaniment in the first violin,
which last in its turn takes up the melody with the con-
currence of the whole orchestra. The next feature is a serious
fugato (a form beloved of Beethoven, and already used most
 THE FINALE — SECOND SUBJECT. 83

happily in movements 1 and 2 of this Symphony), com-

mencing in C minor as follows

.No. 50. Strings Clar. Fag. 8va.

P^l
P
as
P
^
=a?s 9m 1 i 1 • r—-i w> —
* i-
1-
I
'

l l
1
! 5L-JB ' '1 " a W
. I

* » *• * &c

This is prolonged to great length, contains a sequence with

some remarkable discords, and ends with a very effective and
ingenious introduction of the melody in which an accidental ;

F sharp is made to lead directly into a new key

No.
T 51.
\ \i
—
Fl. 8va.
- k i
, r> j ; — - f i
-
; r>Hji
ores.

Strings p
li^g¥¥^=l ^^¥F^
pizz.
fe.

*'H^ J — te
^p
With this the flute takes up the running, and concludes with
a passage of semiquaver arpeggios and scales. This leads to
a new theme, a regular '
second subject ' for the movement
(though in G minor instead of B flat, as might be expected),
led up to by a wild rush in the flutes, oboes, &c, and
84 THIRD SYMPHONY — EROICA.
harmonised emphatically by the bass of the original melody
in minims (see No. 49)

No. 52.

mt£ m sf 'izr
g ^n
s ^^^=p^
8f

^=iJ:

The second strain of the new theme is of the same rough

character as the first, and has the same bass for four bars

It is somewhat prolonged, and the whole second subject might

be the dance of a band of Scythian warriors round the tomb
of the 4
hero '
of their tribe.
After this rough strain the melody (No. 47) returns with
heavenly effect, dolce in C major (the modo lascivo of the
medievalists), with a beautifully varied bass. Then it is

sportively given in the minor by the second violins, violas,

and basses alternately, accompanied throughout by the first
violins in Beethoven's favourite tremolo, of which we noticed
such fine examples throughout Symphony No. 2. But Bee-
thoven has not yet appeased his contrapuntal appetite, and
 THE FINALE — FUGUE. 85

we have some bits of double counterpoint, in winch the

melody and the bass theme change places. Then the fugato
returns, the subject inverted and accompanied in semiquavers
by the first violin

No. 54.

Viol.
im^^^^jm

V.l.

V
3E=3£^i!_ —J— *
* « - !*~ar ±Z=
&c.

— *=*- h— m
_i
-#
— -_
i-
^_=U 1

The development of this fugue is elaborate ; the original

melody is introduced in the flute in a syncopated fashion

No. 55. Flute sf

^MrPgl^
iSfe^tele
-«L

:ij
—pcq
.*-

&c.

the bass subject is used both in its original form and inverted
at the same time, and the whole rises to a noble climax on a
86 THIRD SYMPHONY — EROICA.
tremolo pedal note (on and A natural), anticipating the B flat

similar effects which Beethoven was to make with even greater

grandeur in the Seventh and Ninth Symphonies. At length
the orchestra again pauses on the chord of the dominant
seventh on B flat and the pace slackening to Poco Anda?ite,
;

a new version of the original melody is introduced, to which,

as already remarked, the whole preceding portion of the
movement seems like a mere prelude

No. 56.
Poco Andante

Oboe p [s
*" s J
^-^— 1
fir JJ 4*-ft
mmmw^m.
con espress
to i
J- ; 1 \

Cor.
a 55!
»
— If sf=- P LB
This is given to the oboes, richly harmonised by the
clarinets and bassoons, with a full and grand effect.
It has a second strain, a long and entirely new melody of
very great beauty

No. 57.

Oboe /

~V » '-s 1
^Iggjfcgg; > p^

Viol, in 8ves. p

given to the oboe, and repeated, after the quotation, in a most

graceful syncopated form. The theme gradually spreads to
the entire orchestra, and forms a splendid passage of full and
heavenly harmony, set off with every orchestral device, and
producing the noblest and most '
heroic '
impression. The
air last quoted is beautiful enough to convey any holy
 THE FINALE — THE CLIMAX. 87

or heavenly message. might even appropriately be

It

what M. Gounod makes when, in his 'Redemption,' he

it

adopts a similar progression as the 'melody typical of the

Redeemer '

No.

m
58.

fc=JSB
l g &ZXW=ZW=^L
W dol. espress.

He could not have made a better choice. Beethoven himself

used a somewhat similar melody two or three years later than
this Symphony. It is this theme

No. 59.

m g
&¥^^^Ii^^S
the treatment of which sheds such a lustre on the working-out
-^-&- -T-jSl-g

of the great Overture to Leonora, No. 3, and for the insertion

of which its author sacrificed a fine, long, and characteristic
portion of the so-called No. 2.
Beautiful as is harmony and
the air quoted in No. 57, the
instrumentation which accompany it are no less so. Every
instrument in the score is employed for some pages the drum- ;

rhythm is specially observable, but there is no noise, and the

presence of the melody, No. 47, in the double basses and
bassoons, effectually connects this with the preceding portion
of the Finale. The close of the Andante is especially pathetic,
and in its march-rhythm and other features irresistibly recalls
the style of portions of the Funeral March. Indeed, the
inference is tempting that a connection between the two move-
ments is intended. Whether this be the case or not, the March
may well represent the death of the hero, and the interment of
his mortal part. The Poeo Andante is his flight to the skies.
A short Coda, Presto, in which the old melody is clung- to
almost to the very end, finishes this most extraordinary and
impressive work.
88 THIRD SYMPHONY EROICA.

The Symphony was purchased by Prince von Lobkowitz,

one of the three noblemen who, to their lasting credit, combined
in 1809 to give Beethoven an income for the rest of his life
and as we saw at starting, the Prince's name stands on the
title-page as dedicatee of the work. The date at which it actually
became his property, and the period for which he acquired it, are
not known, but the first accessible performance appears to have
taken place towards the end of January, 1805, in a half private
fashion, at one of the concerts given at his own house by
Herr von Wurth, a wealthy banker.* The first really public
performance was given on Sunday evening, April 7, in one of
Clement's series of concerts in the an-der-Wien theatre. On
the occasion it was announced as a '
new grand Symphony in
and
Dis' (D{f, the Viennese nomenclature at that time for El?)
Beethoven himself was so good as to conduct.' Other private
'

performances took place in the Lobkowitz palace in Vienna ;

and at one of these, Beethoven conducting, at the syncopated

passage in the working-out of the Allegro, managed to throw out
the orchestra so completely that they had to begin again.
An interesting anecdote is told about the Symphony during
the first few months of its existence, of which even the
accurate Thayer 'sees no reason to doubt the truth. '{
Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, a remarkable musician
and composer, whose piano -playing Beethoven placed above
Himmel, and whom the great composer complimented
that of
as '
not playing at all like a royal person, but like a solid
pianist,' was on a visit to Prince Lobkowitz early in 1805, at
his castle at Raudnitz, in Bohemia. Desiring especially to
honour his illustrious guest, Lobkowitz arranged for a per-
formance of the new Symphony by his orchestra, which always
attended him. The two princes took their seats, and the
great work was played through. Louis Ferdinand listened

* See the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung for 1805, p. 321.

t Ries, Biograph. Notizen, p. 79. J Dictionary of Music, ii tJ 169<x.

 EARLY OPINIONS. 89

with the utmost interest, and at the close of the performance

entreated for a repetition, which took place. He was then
so fascinated as to beg for a third, on the ground of his
departure early the next morning. Willingly,' said Lob-
'

kowitz, '
if we may first give the band some supper.' The
supper was accordingly given, the two princes, let us hope,
taking part with the players, and then the immortal Symphony
was once more played over. After this we may doubt the
truth of the saying that it is possible to have too much of a
good thing.
The first report of the music, that of the concert at Herr
von Wiirth's, in January, 1805, is in the Vienna letter of the
Leipzig paper, the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, for Feb-
ruary 13, 1805.* After an extraordinary eulogy of Beethoven's
Symphony in C major, whether played at the same concert as
the Eroica or at a previous one is not clear — as '
a glorious
art-creation,' . . .
'
an extraordinary wealth of lovely ideas
treated in the most splendid and graceful style, with coherence,
order, and clearness reigning throughout the correspondent '
—
goes on to the new Symphony, not to be confounded with
'

No. 2,' which had recently been published. He describes it

'
as virtually a daring, wild, fantasia, of inordinate length and
extreme difficulty of execution. There is no lack of striking
and beautiful passages in which the force and talent of the
author are obvious but, on the other hand, the work seems
;

often to lose itself in utter confusion. It begins,' he continues,

'
with a powerfully scored Allegro in E flat, followed by a
Funeral March in C minor, treated fugally towards the end. The
Scherzo and Finale are both in E flat. The writer belongs to
Beethoven's warmest admirers, but in the present work he
finds very much that is odd and harsh, enormously increasing
the difficulty of comprehending the music, and obscuring its

unity {Einheit) almost entirely.' He then goes on to praise a

*'Vol. VII., p. 321. See Hanslick, Geschichtedes Concertwesen in Wieu, 76, note.
90 THIRD SYMPHONY — EROICA.
Symphony of Eberl's in the same key with the Eroica, and
evidently much more to his taste.
The report of the performance of April, 1805 in the same —
—
volume, p. 501 is even more unfavourable. The writer
finds no reason to modify his former judgment. No doubt *

the work displays bold and great ideas, and that vast power
of expression which is the property of the composer; but
there can also be no doubt that it would gain immensely if

Beethoven would consent to shorten it (it lasts a full *hour)

and introduce more light, and unity, qualities
clearness,
which, with all and variety of instru-
possible wealth of ideas
mentation, are never absent from Mozart's Symphonies in G
minor and C major, Beethoven's own in C and D, or Eberl's
in E flat and D,' Allowance must be made for those who
were hearing so original a work for the first time, and had no
scores to follow it on but the accusation of want of unity is
;

strange when one remembers the persistent way in which the

characteristic portion of the principal subjects of each move-
—
ment keep recurring no less than thirty- seven times in the
first Allegro, for instance. Judging by one's present feelings
and the evidence of fact, it is the last blame that could be
urged.
Beethoven's old enemy, Dionys Weber, whose denunciations
of the opening of the First Symphony we have already
mentioned (see p. 4), was by this time head of the
Conservatorium at Prague, and took every opportunity to
depreciate and injure the new work. Schindler (i., Ill) says
that it was held in horror at the Conservatorium as a
1
dangerously immoral composition' (sittenverderbendes Werk).
This did not prevent a splendid performance at the Amateur '

Concerts in Prague, amid the greatest public f enthusiasm.

'

* The Symphony plays forty-five or forty-six minutes. Can the 'full

hour' point to a difference in the tempos at that early date ?

t See the Allg. musik. Zeitung, June 17, 1807, ix., 610.
 WARM WELCOME AT LEIPZIG. 91

It is pleasant to turn from such absurdities to the very

different spiritwhich prevailed at Leipzig when the Symphony
was forward there at the famous Gewandhaus
brought
Concerts on January 29, 1807, under the conductorship of
J. G. Schicht (poor Schicht!). On that occasion an unusual
innovation was adopted. Special attention was called to the
new Symphony in the posters and in a bill or programme ;

distributed in the room a short description of the work was

given, probably for the first time in the history of such
performances. This is quoted in the excellent *history of
these renowned concerts, compiled by Herr Alfred Dorffel
to celebrate the 100th anniversary of their foundation, on
November 25, 1881, and is as follows:
Grand
*
heroic symphony composed by Beethoven, and
performed for the first time in Leipzig. (1) A fiery and splendid
Allegro ; (2) a sublime and solemn Funeral March ; (3) an
impetuous Scherzando (4) a grand Finale in the strict style.'
;

The good effect of such a course was proved by the fact

stated in the Festschrift, that there was an unusual assemblage
of amateurs and musicians at the Concert ; a deep interest
and stillness prevailed during the performance ; and the com-
mittee were besieged with requests for a repetition, which
took place a week later, on the 5th February, and again on the
19th November of the same year — three performances in ten
months.
In England the performance by the Philharmonic
first

Society was at the second concert of the second year

— Monday, February 21, 1814 when it was announced —
as '
Sinfonia Eroica (containing the Funeral March)-)- . . ,

Beethoven.' After this it appears to have taken its place in

* Festschrift zur hundertjahrigen Jubelfeier der Einweihung des Concert-

saalesim Gewandhause zu Leipzig, 25 November, 1781 25 November, 1881. —
Statistik, 1881.Chronik, 1884. A
truly invaluable aid to musical research.
The information is given in Statistik, p. 5, and Chronik, p. 31.
+ The March is not unfrequently mentioned as if part of the title of the work.
92 THIRD SYMPHONY — EROICA.
the regular repertoire of the Society, though this is difficult to

affirm, from the fact that till the third concert of 1817 the
Symphonies are rarely specified by key or name. Six per-
formances were given in the ten years 1824 to 1834. In 1823
the Harmonicon was established as a monthly musical paper,
under the charge of Mr. Wm. Ayrton, and regular notices of
the concerts are given. Ayrton was a good musician,
and in many respects liberal and advanced for his time.
But his animosity to several of Beethoven's Symphonies
is remarkable. Each successive mention of the Eroica '
'

is accompanied by some sneer at its length, or the want

of connection of its movements. Three-quarters of an '

hour is too long a time for the attention to be fixed

on a single piece of music; and in spite of its merit
the termination is wished for some minutes before it
arrives (1824).
'
A very masterly work, though much too
'

long for public performance ' (1825). '

The Symphony
ought to have ended with the March, the impression of which
was entirely by the ill-suited Minuet which
obliterated
follows '
(1827), and so These absurdities, we may be
on.
thankful to say, are now at an end, as far as Beethoven is
concerned, though they still linger elsewhere.
In France the Eroica does not seem to have made its
'
'

appearance till about 1825, and then only through a stratagem

of Habeneck, the illustrious conductor of the Opera or
Academie Eoyale de Musique. His experiences with the
Second Symphony had warned him of the necessity of
caution, and accordingly he invited the principal members
of his band to dinner, and 'to make a little music,' on St.
Cecilia's Day. The little music consisted of the Eroica
' '

and No. 7 Symphonies, which seem to have been introduced

to these gentlemen on that day (« the better the day the
better the deed') for the first time; and, thanks to the
opportune time of the ruse, to have produced a favour-
able effect on the band. * Under these new conditions we
 PERFORMANCES IN LONDON AND PARIS. 93

found,' says one of the orchestra,* *

that these two Symphonies
contained some tolerable passages, and that notwithstanding
length, incoherence, and want of connection they were not
unlikely to be effective.'

Besides the 'Eroica,' Beethoven's compositions in the key

of E flat are numerous ; we can only give the principal. The
Septet ; Pianoforte Concerto, Op. 73 ; Pianoforte Sonatas,
Op. 7, Op. 31, No. 3, and Op. 81a; Trio for Piano and Strings,
Op. 70, No. 2 String Quartets, Op. 74 and Op. 127
; Ah, ;
'

pern do and the Liederkreis.' The passionate slow move-

I '
'

ment of the Fourth Symphony must not be omitted.

Note. — Since page 60 was in type, it has occurred to me that

Beethoven may have heard Mozart's operetta at the Elector's
National Theatre at Bonn when a boy. The lists of pieces
for1781-3 and 1789-92, given by Mr. Thayer at i., 72, 73,
and 193 of his valuable work, show that the repertoire
embraced everything high and low, and it may not be quite
impossible that thislittle work was performed at some time,

as Mozart's Entflihrung was in 1782, '89, and '92. Mr.

Thayer, however, does not agree with me in this.

* M. Meifred, afterwards Secretary to the Committee of the ' Societe

des
Concerts,' in his report for 1852-53, quoted by D'Ortigue, Journal des Debats,
November 9, 1856.
94 THIRD SYMPHONY — EROICA.
The following ingenious remarks on the Eroica' Symphony '

have been communicated to me by my friend, Dr. Charles

Wood :—
The principle of a definite idea, or ideas, pervading a work,
which nowadays we are accustomed to call the principle of
1
Leitmotif,' though not unused before Beethoven's time,
and hardly recognisable till that of Weber and Mendelssohn,
has become common enough since, more especially in opera.
The idea cannot have been unknown to Beethoven. Even
if he knew nothing of Bach's Passion he must have heard
* '

and known Mozart's Don Giovanni,' in which the trombones

'

are sounded on the appearance of the Commendatore, and this

employment of a theme in connection with a certain character
can hardly have failed to strike him.
We know that Beethoven, when composing, had a picture
in his mind. In certain cases he gives us a clue e.g., the
Pastoral Symphony and the Sonata entitled 'LesAdieux,' &c.
As the Eroica Symphony was professedly a work inspired by
Napoleon, it is hardly an injustice to the composer to try and
discover his intentions.
The first thing which arrests attention is that the principal
themes of the work are constructed on the intervals of the
common chord. The first four bars (a) of the first subject
(the second five bars (b) will be referred to later) of the first
movement :

may therefore be taken as the '

motto of the whole work
'
— in
other words, the Napoleon-motif. move- In the first

ment its dominating influence is obvious, in the Marcia

Funebre the minor common chord is the groundwork of the
principal theme, though here it is varied by auxiliary and
 DR. CHARLES WOOD'S REMARKS. 95

passing notes, and, curiously enough,when the first two bars,

divested of ornaments, are read backwards we get the motto.' '

The Maggiore likewise is founded on the notes of a triad. The

main idea of the Finale is also based on the same material. It
is in the Scherzo, however, that one is most tempted to

attempt to supply the *

picture ' which was in the mind of
the composer. The following explanation of this movement
may not be untenable. A crowd, full of pent-up excitement,
is awaiting the hero.' ' welcomed by a sudden
His approach is

(one-bar crescendo) shout of twenty-two bars ff, and he makes

his appearance in as revolutionary a style as Beethoven could
well make him assume :

j2.
:tr.
b l7

£t ?=T?
Sf

(Note the sudden quiet of the crowd.) His object in coming

is explained in the Trio. an address to the people,
This is

founded, like the other principal themes of the work, on the

common chord. Three horns, not two as in earlier works, are
used to give greater force and dignity. The speech is received
with marks of approval and cheers, founded on the 'motto.'
For structural reasons the Scherzo is repeated, and a short
Coda completes the movement. This is founded on a striking
phrase, apparently new :

pifese
but its connection with the ' motif ' of the work is made clear
by a reference to the second half (b) of the principal theme ol
the first movement, D flat, instead of C sharp, being here
written for convenience.
 SYMPHONY No. 4, in B flat (Op. 60).
Dedicated to Count Oppersdorf.

1. Adagio (^_66) ; Allegro vivace (^_80). (B flat.)

2. Adagio (*L84). (E flat.)

3. Menuetto; Allegro vivace (^ — 100); Trio; Un poco meno Allegro

(J—88). (B flat.)

4. Allegro, ma non troppo (^L_80). (B flat.)

Score.
2 Drums. 2 Clarinets.
2 Trumpets. 2 Bassoons.
2 Horns. 1st and 2nd Violins.
1 Flute. Violas.
2 Oboes. Violoncello.
Basso.

One flute only is used throughout the Symphony. Beethoven

employed one flute in his Pianoforte Concertos in B flat and C, in
the Triple Concerto (Op. 56), in the Andante of Symphony No. 1,
and in the Violin Concerto, as well as in this Symphony.
The
score is an 8vo of 195 pages, uniform with those of Nos. 1, 2, and
3 and was published in 1821.
; The title is as follows 4 me Grande :
— '

Simphonie en Sib majeur (B dur) composed et dediee a Mons r le -

Comte d'Oppersdorf par Louis van Beethoven. Op. 60. Partition.

Prix 16 Fr. Bonn et Cologne chez N. Simrock. 2078.'
The orchestral parts were published in March, 1809, by the *
Bureau
des Arts et d'Industrie '
(now Haslinger), at Vienna and Pesth.

The Fourth Symphony has been, like the Eighth, more or

lessunder a cloud. Of its history less is, perhaps, known
than that of any other of the nine. No sketches for it seem
as yet to have been found, and the investigations of Mr.
Nottebohm and Mr. Thayer disclose but little. It is the
 DATE OF COMPOSITION. 97

only one which has not a review in the Allgemeine

and it has met with scant notice in
musikalische Zeitung,
some most prominent works on Beethoven.
of the The
original MS. was formerly in the possession of Felix
Mendelssohn, and is now the property of his nephew,
Mr. Ernst Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, together with those of
the C minor and A major Symphonies, and the other
treasures which are preserved in the Mendelssohn family-
house in the Jagerstrasse, Berlin. The MS. bears the
following inscription in Beethoven's own hand, at the top
of the first page :

Sinfonia 4ta 1806 L. v. Bthvn.

An interval of two years thus separates the completion of
the Fourth Symphony from that of the Third. We know
that was Beethoven's intention to follow the Eroica by
it

the C minor, and that the first two movements of that great
work virtually date from 1805. The circumstances which led
to the C minor being for the time suspended have
been
succinctly narrated by Herr W.
von Wasielewsky, in his
J.

work on *Beethoven (ii., 233), as follows Count Franz von :

'

Oppersdorf was a great amateur of music, and resided at his

castle near Glogau. In the autumn of 1806 he paid a visit to
Prince Lichnowsky, where he found Beethoven, and heard his
Symphony in D performed by the Count's private band. On
this occasion, or shortly after, Beethoven was requested by
Oppersdorf to compose a Symphony for him for a fee of 350
florins. Beethoven accepted the offer, and designed to fulfil
his engagement with the C minor Symphony. But in the
end, with a vacillation not unfrequent in this portion of his
work, he found himself compelled to dedicate the C minor
and Pastoral Symphonies jointly to Prince Lobkowitz and
Count Rasoumoffsky and on November 1, 1808, he wrote to
—
;

Oppersdorf as follows: 'Bester Graf, Don't look on me in —

* Ludivig van Beethoven, von W. J. v. Wasielewsky. 2 vols. Berlin. 1888.
98 FOURTH SYMPHONY.

a wrong light the Symphony which I had intended for you

;

I was compelled by want to sell with a second one to

someone else. But be assured that you will very soon
receive the one which I design you to have.' This explana-
tion is clear enough as to the external facts, but it gives
no explanation of the difference between the two works
— why it is that the C minor, in the composition of which
some progress had already been made, should be super-
seded by a work so entirely different in character as the
No. 4. It is impossible not to remark that after the first
two the Symphonies as they succeed one another are very
much in contrast : the D
major is followed by the Eroica,
that by the Bthat by the C minor, and that again
flat,

by the Pastoral, the Pastoral by the gigantic No. 7,

No. 7 by the humorous and autobiographical No. 8, while
the crown of all is the colossal Choral. Perhaps Beethoven's
instinct showed him that it would be an artistic mistake to
follow so very serious a Symphony as the Eroica by one
equally earnest and profound. There certainly were more
personal considerations, to be alluded to presently, which
made it impossible for him to write in any other vein. At
any rate, the B flat Symphony is a complete contrast to
both its predecessor and successor, and is as gay and
spontaneous as they are serious and lofty. And this,
perhaps, is one reason for the fact that No. 4 has never yet
had justice done it by the public. As No. 8 -lives in the valley
between the colossal No. 9 and the almost equally colossal
No. 7, so No. 4 is equally overshadowed by the Eroica and the
C minor. By the side of the tremendous questions raised
by their prodigious neighbours, the grace and gaiety of No. 4
and the impetuous humour of No. 8 have little chance of
appreciation.
Schumann has spoken of the No. 4 as standing between
its companions 'like a slender (schlanke) Greek maiden
between two Norse giants.' But humour is hardly the
 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WORK. 99

Greek maiden, and when we recollect the

characteristic of a
humour which accompanies the grace and beauty of the Fourth
Symphony, and is so obvious in every one of the movements,
it must be admitted, though with great respect, that the

comparison loses something of its force.

At the same time no expressions of Schumann, or Berlioz,
or any other worshipper of Beethoven, can be too strong for
this beautiful work. There is something extraordinarily
entrainant about it throughout ; more consistent and
a
attractive whole cannot be. In the Eroica some have
complained of the Funeral March as too long, some of the
Scherzo as inappropriate, or of the Finale as trivial but on ;

the No. 4 no such criticisms are possible the movements;

fit and features of a lovely statue

to their places like the limbs ;

and, full of and invention as they are, all is subordinated

fire

to conciseness, grace, and beauty. We may use regarding

it the droll Viennese expression which Beethoven employs in

sending his Pianoforte Sonata in the same key (Op. 22) to

Hoffmeister, the publisher, in 1801 Diese Sonate hat sich
: — '

gewaschen, geliebtester Herr Bruder

!
or, to use a *parallel '
—
English expression, '
This Sonata will wash.'
Oulibicheff would have us believe that it might have
called forth the sincere compliments of Haydn, who was still

alive when itwas produced. But, remembering that Haydn

found the Trio in C minor (Op. 1, No. 3) too strong for him, it
is difficult to think that he would have been pleased with the

Symphony. Others are fond of regarding it as a pendant to

No. 2; but, beyond the fact that in composing both Beethoven
was happy, the two have really nothing in common. No. 2
is charming, and stands at the head of the period which it

illustrates. But in No. 4 we have

An ampler ether, a diviner air,

with a humour, a poetry, a pathos, a romance, and a

Though parallel, the two idioms are not similarly derived.

100 FOURTH SYMPHONY.

maturity of style that are, indeed, predicted in the Coda to

the Finale of No. 2, but of which the body of that Symphony
has few traces. Where, for instance, shall we look in No. 2,
or, indeed, in the Eroica itself, for the romantic passion
which inspires the slow movement of No. 4 ?
The most obvious characteristic of the work, that which
distinguishes it throughout, is its unceasing and irrepressible
brightness and gaiety, and the extraordinary finish of the
workmanship. If we except the transient gloom of the intro-
ductory Adagio, and a rough burst or two in the Finale, there
is hardly a harsh bar. Well might Mendelssohn choose a
piece so contagious in its first Programme as
gaiety for his
Director and Conductor the Gewandhaus
of Concerts of
Leipzig, on October 4, 1835. Beethoven must have been
inspired by the very genius of happiness when he conceived
and worked out the many beautiful themes of this joyous
composition, and threw in the spirited and graceful features
which so adorn them. The work is animated throughout
by a youthful exhilaration more akin to that which pervades
Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony than anything else we can
recall— in the Adagio by real passion. Such times were rare
in Beethoven's life, and we are fortunate in having so perfect

an image of one of them preserved to us.

Widely different as the Fourth Symphony is from the Third,
it is not less original or individual. and less
It is lighter

profound than the Eroica, but there no retrogression in style.

is

It is the mood only that is different, the character and the

means of expression remain the same. In fact, the structure
perhaps obtrudes itself on the hearer less in the present
work than it did in the former. Beethoven's life was
one continual progress in feeling, knowledge, and power; and
in time everyone will acknowledge, what those competent to
judge have already decided, that the later the work, the more
characteristic is it of the man. The capricious humour which
we found manifesting itself in the twelve bars inserted in the
 CAPRICE. WEBER S ANNOYANCE, 101

Allegro of the Second Symphony is strongly in force here. In

#
fact, there is a passage in the '
working-out '
of the Adagio
and fanother in the corresponding section of the first Allegro
which are in this respect close pendants to that referred to.
The working-out section of the first Allegro is full of such
drolleries,which must have been simply puzzles and annoy-
ances to those who first heard them. How worse than odd,
how gratuitously insulting, for instance, must the following
long scale, from the working-out, apparently a propos to
nothing, have seemed to many a hearer in 1806, when its
connection with the subject was not known :

Viol.l. Cello

m
Viol.
£=m
-f-*- t=F
m :£=*:
*-z& 3=r *&
t=X
*=& 3t=it t==F 3
IK
though to us so natural and admirable.
Indeed the Symphony was not allowed to pass unchal-
lenged by the critics at the time of its first appearance.
Carl Maria von Weber, then in his hot youth, was one of its
sharpest opponents, and in a jeu d' esprit in one of the journals
of theperiod— if that can be so called which exhibits neither
jeu nor esprit —
has expressed himself very bitterly. It is
supposed to be a dream, in which the instruments of
the orchestra are heard uttering their complaints after the
rehearsal of the new work. They are in serious conclave
round the principal violins, whose grave personages
early years had been spent under Pleyel
and Gyrowetz.
The double bass is speaking. 'I have just come from
the rehearsal of a Symphony by one of our newest
composers and though, as you know, I have a tolerably
;

* Quoted farther on in No. 23.

f Bars twenty to thirty after the douolo bar.

102 FOURTH SYMPHONY.

strong constitution, I could only just hold out, and five

minutes more would have shattered my frame and burst the
sinews of my have been made to caper about like a
life. I
wild goat, and to turn myself into a mere fiddle to execute
the no-ideas of Mr. Composer. I'd sooner be a dancing-
master's kit at once, and earn my bread with Miiller and
Kauer '—the Strausses of the day. The first violoncello
(bathed in perspiration) says that for his part he is too
tired to speak, and can recollect nothing like the warming he
has had since he played in Cherubini's last opera. The
second violoncello is of opinion that the Symphony is a
musical monstrosity, revolting alike to the nature of the
instruments and the expression of thought, and with no
intention whatever but that of mere show-off. After this
the orchestra-attendant enters and threatens them with the
Sinfonia Eroica if they are not quiet, and makes a speech
in which he tells them that the time has gone by for
clearness and force, spirit and fancy, like those of Gluck, '

Handel, and Mozart,' and that the following (evidently an

intentional caricature of the work before us) is the last
Vienna receipt for a Symphony —
First a slow movement
:

full unconnected ideas, at the rate of

of short disjointed
three or four notes per quarter of an hour then a mysterious ;

roll of the drum and passage of the violas, seasoned with

the proper quantity of pauses and ritardandos ; and to end

all a furious finale, in which the only requisite is that there
should be no ideas for the hearer to make out, but plenty of
transitions —
from one key to another on to the new note at
once ! never mind modulating !— above all things, throw rules
hamper a genius. At this point,'
to the winds, for they only '

says Weber in his own person, I woke in a dreadful fright,

'

lest I was on the road to become either a great composer or

—a lunatic'
How odd it all sounds Pleyel and Gyrowetz great men
;
;

Cberubmi the author of sensation-music Beethoven a poor !

 THE INTRODUCTION. 103

mountebank and Gluck, Handel, and Mozart his rivals For

! !

Weber there is no excuse, but something may be said

for the imperfect appreciation of the ordinary critics of
those days. Scores* were not then published for years
after the production of a new work ; nor were there
pianoforte arrangements by which it might be studied
analyses were unknown the performances were few, and
;

took place for the most part in private houses or palaces, to

which access could not be obtained by payment. The critic
had therefore a difficult task, and his shortcomings may be
to some extent excused.

I. The Fourth Symphony, like the first, second, and seventh

of the nine, opens with an Introduction, Adagio, to the first
movement proper, Allegro vivace, an Introduction as distinct
in every respect from its companions as if it were the work of
another mind. It commences with a low B flat pizzicato and
pianissimo in the strings, which, as it were, lets loose a long
holding-note above and below in the wind, between which
the strings move slowly in the following mysterious phrase,
in the minor of the key :

No.l.

Flute
^
Adagio.
m<£
^^^^SE^^B^^^g
___
^ - ^ -
yioL L
fr—
i t i- r —H J l 1—t&s>—\-jj
Str.pp-^SP"
pizz. ^ "S7- arco. -c

scmpre pp
S
"* ibJ s -l uj'

^f=^¥^^^^—^^^
j J
Basses w^Z..
Fag. pp " 8v&pp u^" pr -f-

— the bassoon and basses answering at a bar's interval.

* The scores of Beethoven's first four Symphonies were not published till
1820 and 1821, fifteen or sixteen years after their first performance. Those of
Nos. 7 and 8 are the first that appeared near the time of production.
104 FOURTH SYMPHONY.

Three bars later the strings again emit the pizzicato note
(B flat), and the slow unison phrase is repeated, this time
leading enharmonically from G flat into F sharp :

No. 2.

pp bzz-
Mmmw^w^^m
Fas?
-N-*.

I ^=^=^p

Basses

A third time the pizzicato note is heard, now leading into

a solemn progression of the basses, marching on like Fate
itself :

No. 3.
Flute, OboeJFag^
KI
fc=*
m
fcr
^^Sl P--
t=>-

P*^4# rrg ^
4*--
&
fegg^Sf-p-^^ fc3
£=*
i
tr=" i
~rf

II. The Introduction is thirty-eight bars long, and as its

close is approached the tone brightens, and the Allegro — the

first movement proper, after being, as it were, *lashed by the
preceding chord (of F) in a truly sportive manner (not without
recalling the introductory passage in the Finale of No. 1)
bursts forth brilliantly in B flat major. This portion of the
work is of the most bright and cheerful character through-
out — the principal subject, in staccato notes — but how
different from the staccato notes of the Introduction !

alternating with a smooth passage for the wind, and ending

with a burst on the final chord. We quote three bars before

* This happy expression is due to Dr. W. Pole.

 THE ALLEGRO VIVACE. 105

the change of pace ; and the subject, which begins at bar

eight of the quotation
Allegro vivace.
No. 4

is gaiety itself, and most original gaiety.

The connecting portion between the first and second
subjects is delightfully spontaneous. The staccato arpeggio
figure of the former (No. 4, bar 8) is kept constantly in view,
and great freedom and life are given to it by the stimulating
tremolo figure of the violins, of which we have spoken under
Symphony No. 2 (page 41), and of which the present work
contains abundant and delicious specimens
No. 5. viol. """
r .'O- h
1. PP
1 ^-

i Viol.
pp\
2.
Fa;:. .

PP J U- n r 4 1-
I !

Ife^
1 1 1

&=2=l.
*P
pp pizz.

U
&e**e±
I

b±
,
I
jJ^AJ^j^, '^LA
F*= f=*
106 FOUKTH SYMPHONY.

At the end of this section we have a taste of the

syncopations* which give such a flavour to this and other
movements of the work

No. 6. Wind Tutti

*P- T.Tr* ¥ ka.

Pip?P#Pff
>*p f
=p=t
sf

the notes seem almost to be tumbling over one another in

their eagerness to get to the second subject, or rather the
group of melodies which form it. The sportive conversation
of the bassoon, oboe, and flute

No. 7.

Bassoon Flute 8va.

*tt=t Pltes
introduced with extraordinary effect by the bassoon —the
equally sportive '
canon '
of the clarinet and bassoon, as
near triviality, perhaps, as Beethoven could allow himself
to approach
No. 8.

Clar. Solo

*
Fag. Solo

incorrectly, known
^pf^^
Compare the second subject
as 'Leonora, No.
in the Overture (Op. 138), usually,
1,'
though
which was composed about the same
time as the Symphony.
 THE VIVACE — THE WORKING-OUT. 107

and the strange sequential passage which connects

them

No. 9.
Strings in unison,
— 1-

i EEg^ggg
-to-
?2=^:
w
?=£
t=t Sg
?z: 1 1
1
r ^r n :t=t fif ^if^ £ &c.
do. :f Tutti

— and bears a curious "resemblance to the '

Quoniam ' of
Beethoven's Mass in C

No. 10.

so - Ins sanc-tus

— all these, which form the second subject, are as gay as gay
can be, and the music has not one sombre bar.f
Interesting as the foregoing is, the working-out, after the
double bar, is still more so. It supplies an element of anxiety
and suspense which finds no place in the former portion, and
is distinguished by a pathetic spirit, an ingenuity, and a

poetry all its own. The means by which this is conveyed

are eminently original. In the First Symphony we have
noticed (page 9) how Beethoven has taken the drum out of
the obscurity in which it previously existed, as one of the
merely noisy members of the band, and given it individu-
ality. In the C minor Piano Concerto and in the Violin

* Something very like it will be found in Cherubini's Sonata, Op. 36, No. 3,
quoted by Prof. Pront, * Musical Form,' p. 143.

t mention an F in the part of the double basses,

It is necessary here to
which has crept into the score apparently
sixteen bars before the double bar,
without any warrant, since it not only sounds wrong, but has no parallel in
the recapitulation, after the working-out.
108 FOURTH SYMPHONY.

Concerto the drum is again brought into notice, but in

the present and in the next movement
working-out
Beethoven goes farther in the same direction, and gives
his favourite a still more important role. — We will
endeavour to trace the course of this working-out. The
portion just examined ends in B
and no conspicuous flat,

change is made after the double bar, but the music

remains for eighteen bars in F, the phrases employed
being those of the opening of the first subject (No. 4).
There is then a sudden transition into the key of D, and,
after fourteen bars, a close in the same key. With this
change a spontaneous and very engaging tune makes its

appearance as an addition to the arpeggios of No. 4 —so

spontaneous that it has the air of being a merely obvious
completion to the accompaniment-

No. n.
1st Violin and Cello in 8ves.
-^
pjEEL^M==¥=r=^
p

pizz.

and is heard successively five times in different keys and

on different instruments, before vanishing never to re-appear
in the piece. The first and second violins then evince a
disposition to have a dialogue between themselves, thus

No. 12.

This is at first interrupted by the full band ; but at length

they accomplish their desire, and, after an enharmonic
 THE ALLEGRO VIVACE. WORKING-OUT. 109

change of D flat to C sharp, dissolve into a lovely soft chord of

F sharp given by all the strings, ppp, lasting through several
bars, and accentuated by two short rolls of the drum, on B flat
taken as A sharp

No. 13.

>
r
u db
p ^§*M?S$M
s '
seniore pp

m=*=^E3^m

The phrases have hitherto been chosen from the cello part
early in the working-out (see No. 15), but at this point they
change and take up the scale passage of bar 12 of No. 4

No. 14.

^&$mff sempre p

for eight bars more. A

change takes us from
beautiful
F F natural in the bass, and into the key of B flat.
sharp to
The drum begins a long roll on the keynote (B flat) which
lasts twenty-six bars, the first eighteen ofthem being very
soft,and the remaining eight increasing to fortissimo and as ;

the climax to this the original theme (No. 4) is returned to.

The strange succession of keys in this passage the constant ;

piano, and the vivid contrast when the reprise is reached

110 FOURTH SYMPHONY.

after the long crescendo, the roll of the drum, the turn of
the phrases, all give this portion of the working-out an
unusual and highly poetical effect. It is interesting to
compare it with the corresponding portion in any one of
Haydn's Symphonies, and see how enormously music had
gained, not in invention, wit, or spirit, but in variety of
structure, colour, and expression, during the few years
preceding 1806.
The Coda is short and very spirited, but has no remark-
able feature. Schumann (Gesamm. Schriften, iv., 64) has
noticed that in the eight bars which terminate the movement
fortissimo, one of the first three is redundant. Schumann's
fine ear for rhythm detected this, and he is probably correct,
but the error, if error it be, is one which few will feel with
him.
Before completely quitting the Allegro we must notice an
interesting parallel between the final crescendo in the working-
out and the corresponding passage in the opening move-
ment of the ' Waldstein ' Sonata (Op. 53), where the return
to the principal subject is managed in very much the same
manner as it is here, and with some similarity in the
phrases employed. If *1803 be the correct date of the
composition of the Sonata, then the passage alluded to may
be taken as a first sketch of that in the Symphony. Such
parallels are rare in Beethoven, and are all the more
interesting when they do occur. In speaking of the Adagio
we shall notice another.
The care with which Beethoven marks his nuances and
other indications for the players is nowhere more con-
spicuous than here. Dots, dashes, and rests are anxiously
discriminated, f and it almost makes one's head ache to

* Thayer, Thematisches Verzeichniss, No. 110.

ignores some
f In the original score. The new score of Breitkopf and Hartel
of these minute differences but they are the composer's own insertion (and he
;

marked nothing of the kind without full intention) and should be shown.
 Beethoven's extreme care in the indications. Ill

think of the labour that is concealed in these gay and

lively pages. In fact, the details of all kinds in these
immortal works are prodigious. In that respect they are like
Hogarth's pictures, in which every time you look you see
some witty or pertinent point which you had not noticed
before. Such a passage as the following, from the early part
of the working-out

No. 15.

Cellos

p dim.

with its dotted crotchets, its quavers, and then its crotchets
again, this time with dashes in place of dots — almost admits
us to the process, and seems to show the master in doubt as
to the exact form of expression he should adopt. A similar
instance is found in the Introduction, in the alternation of
quavers and rests with staccato crotchets (see No. 3).
Excellent examples of his minute care as to every detail of
execution are given in the Twenty-one Cramer's Studies
'

which he annotated for his nephew's practice, and which

have been recently published for the first time from the
MS. at Berlin, by Mr. J. S. Shedlock (Augener & Co.,
May, 1893). One of the remarkable features in Beethoven's
autograph scores is the minute exactness with which the
marks of expression (/, p, sfp, crescendo, &c.) and other
dynamic indications are put in and the way in which
;

they are repeated in the MS. up and down the page, so that
there may be no misunderstanding of his precise intention
as to every instrument in the band. A comparison of the
scores of Mozart's orHaydn's Symphonies in which the —
expression seems to have been left almost entirely to the
—
conductor with those of Beethoven will show how deter-
mined he was to leave nothing to chance, not the smallest
item
112 FOURTH SYMPHONY.

III. The second movement, Adagio, is not only an example

of the celestial beauty which Beethoven (the deaf Beethoven)
could imagine and realise in sounds, but is also full of the
characteristics of the great master. Here we rise from good
humour and pleasure to passion, and such a height of passion
as even Beethoven's fiery nature has perhaps never reached
elsewhere. And this is not astonishing when we consider
the occasion which inspired the Symphony. We now know,
on evidence that, some drawbacks of expression,
with
has to minds every appearance of being
unprejudiced
genuine, that in the May of the year in which Beethoven
was occupied over this very Symphony he became engaged
to the Countess Theresa, sister of his intimate friend Franz
von Brunswick, and that the three famous love-letters which
were found in his desk after his death, and have been
supposed to be addressed to the Countess Giulietta Guicciardi,
were really written to that *lady. They are given at the
end of this chapter, and if ever love-letters were written these
are they — often incoherent in their passion. But the fact is
that music was Beethoven's native t language ; and, however
he may stammer most passionate notes there
in words, in his
is no incoherence. Though he had been often involved
in love affairs, none of them had yet been permanent
certainly he had never before gone so far as an engagement,
and when writing the Symphony his heart must have been
swelling with his new happiness. It is, in fact, the psean

which he sings over his conquest. Here then we have the

secret of the first movement of the C minor, and an excuse
for any height or depth of emotion. The Countess's raptures

See 'Beethovens unsterbliche Geliebte,' von Mariam Tenger, 2nd

. . .

Ed., Bonn, 1890, pp. 56, 57, The suggestion was made many years
&c.
before, and on independent grounds, by Mr. Thayer, in his great work, The c

Life of Beethoven ' (see Vol. III., pp. 19, 157, 158). Mr. Thayer has since
investigated the book referred to, and the second edition contains the
statement of his approval in the preface.

t 'I was born,' he says,

c
with an obbligato accompaniment.'
 THE ADAGIO — THE DRUM-FIGURE. 113

will be found in the narrative just referred to : Beethoven's

are here before us, in his music. But observe that with all

the intensity of his passion Beethoven never relinquishes

his hold on his art. The lover is as much the musician as
he ever was, and this most impassioned movement is also one
of the compactest and, at the same time, the most highly
finished of all his works. The Adagio, though on a small
scale, is broad and dignified in style, and in strict '
first

movement ' form, except that there is no repeat of the first

section. and second subjects are in the due and

Its first
accepted relation to each other, and are succeeded by a
1
working-out,' which, though but twenty-four bars long,
contains its special feature, and is long enough to make the
return of the first theme welcome. The recapitulation of
the previous material is quite en regie, and the whole ends
with a Coda of eight bars.
The movement opens with a figure containing three groups
of notes in the violins

No. 16.
Adagio.

— =^== ===== ====

which serve as a pattern for the accompaniment of a great
portion of the movement, and are also a motto or refrain, a
sort of catch-word, which is introduced now and then by itself

with great humour and telling effect —now in the bassoon,

now in the basses, now in the drum, whose two intervals
may indeed have suggested its form, as they not improbably
did that of a phrase in the first subject of the opening
movement of the Concerto in C minor. We venture to call

it the 'drum-figure.' In its capacity of accompaniment to

the heavenly melody of the principal subject, it is most
114 FOURTH SYMPHONY.

and soothing
lulling ; when employed by itself it is full of

humour.*
The introductory or motto bar just quoted is immediately
followed by the principal melody

No. 17.
Viol. 1. c antabile.

&c. cres. sf

sr=ry*
It will be observed that it is a scale down and a scale up, and
formed almost entirely of consecutive notes, like the melody
of the slow movement in the B flat Trio, two prominent
subjects in the Andante of the '
Pastoral Symphony,' the
chief subject of the concluding movements in the Choral
Symphony, and others of Beethoven's finest tunes. In its

close progression it is akin to the picturesque second theme

in the Allegretto of No. 7. It is accompanied by a figure
related to the ' drum-figure '
(No. 16) and by a beautiful
counter-melody in contrary motion in the violas (not quoted).
It ends on the fifth of the key, instead of on the key-note, a
fact which '
gives it,' as Sir G. Macfarren has aptly said,
1
an air of inconclusion, as if its loveliness might go on for
ever.'
The connecting link of eight bars between the first and
second subjects is formed on a phrase

Naia Viol.l. fpj**

* But hardly comic, as Schumann (Gesamm. Schriften, i., 185) would

have it to be ; 'a regular Falstaff ' is his expression.
 THE ADAGIO — SECOND SUBJECT. 115

that gains a special charm from the electric force with

which its principal note is thrown off. To this its continuing
strain is a perfect pendant

The second principal subject, a melody more passionate,

though hardly less lovely than the first, is as follows

No. 20.
Clar. 1

cantabile

Jwrft#F iri^= :

Clar. 2°
E^?
and has a pathetic second part in the bassoons, re-echoed by
the horns, flutes, oboes, &c.

No. 21, Fl. do lce

dolce

Fag
Ob. CI. dolce
t^-r
on a pedal of four bars of the drum figure in B flat and F,
'
'

and with delicious arabesque arpeggios in the violins.

In both subjects, as if the great master knew what beautiful
tunes he had made, he has marked them with the term
Cantabile, a word which he seems only to employ when
it has a special significance.*
The working-out, though short, is extremely characteristic.
It begins with the drum figure
'
' in the second violins, and
* See another Cantabile in the semiquaver subject in the working-out of
the first Allegro of the Ninth Symphony.
116 FOURTH SYMPHONY.

in E flat, exactly as at the opening; then the chief subject,

still in E flat, in a lovely florid* form, thus

P cantabile

then six bars of the same subject, but in E flat minor

then comes a capital instance of the droll caprice to
which allusion has before been made, in the interpolation
into the flow of the music of four playful bars of duet for
the first and second fiddles, merely to end as they began.
This leads to a short but very impressive passage, the
bassoon coming in for a bar or two in G flat (bar 6) with
a striking and weird effect. We subjoin a quotation

Bass.
~
L
*•* Viol. 1.
I* p espressivo

mm II '
'I 1 ^_

^^^^R
Fag.

iffz:

Bassi 8va.

is reached by a scale upwards in the

After this the reprise
and the principal subject is then given at the same time
flute,

—
by the flute and clarinet by the clarinet in its original

Not unapproved of by Schumann. See his Schlurnmerlied (Op. 124).

 THE ADAGIO —A COINCIDENCE. 117

unadorned form (No. 17) and by the flute in its florid

shape. The recapitulation is shortened by eight bars,

then comes the link (No. 18), and then the second
principal subject (No. 20), now in the key of E flat, with its

second portion this time in the horns ; then a few bars' more
play on the first subject by way some delightful
of Coda, with
expressive work and flute, including a touch-
in the clarinet
ing drum solo given pianissimo, and this truly lovely poem is
at an end. The workmanship throughout is masterly in
combinations of the instruments, and in imitative passages,
and every embellishment possible while at the same time
;

the effect of the whole is pure and broad, and free from the
faintest trace of mesquinerie or virtuosity. Believe me, my '

dear friend,' says Berlioz, who, with all his extravagance,

was a real judge of Beethoven— believe me, 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 worlds uprising to the threshold of
the empyrean.'
We have already in the first movement noticed a coinci-
dence between the return to the first subject and the analogous
portion of one of Beethoven's Pianoforte Sonatas. The Adagio
furnishes another coincidence in the course of the treatment of
the second subject ; the corresponding passage being in the
Adagio of his Sonata for Piano and Violin in A (Op. 30, No. 1),
where the detached semiquavers with which, in the Symphony
118 FOUKTH SYMPHONY.

the violins accompany the melody of the clarinet, occur in

the solo violin, with a similar bass. The two movements
have other points of likeness which make them worth
comparison by the student, one of the principal being the
employment of a figure of dotted semiquavers akin to
those given in No. 11. The Sonata was probably composed
in 1802 ; so that, like the passage in the *
Waldstein
Sonata, already mentioned, it preceded the Symphony.

IV. Here we return to the key of B flat, and to the term

*
Minuet,' which has vanished from the Symphonies since
No. 1, though the words Tempo di menuetto, attached to the
second movement of the little Pianoforte Sonata, Op. 49,

No. 2 (composed in 1802), and the In tempo <Tun menuetto, at

the head of the first movement of the Sonata in F, Op. 54
(dating from before 1806), as well as the use of the letter «
M'
in the sketches of the Eroica Symphony (see page 79) show
that the term was still familiar to Beethoven. The Minuet
in the Fourth Symphony is, however, still farther removed
from the old accepted minuet-pattern than that of the First
—
Symphony was and still nearer to the New Minuet for '
'

which the aged Haydn longed (page 12).

The opening section is as follows :

No. 25. Allegro vivace.

Clar.

m
g^i
Viol.
-h—
^-^=^=f^:
-
*-*-
*=W-
Z=t $3=*z
p
t=± mz
Viol.

Clar. Viol.

r * i5 5EgE3E
i
:

FW=332

s at
8f
'
to
i-
Tutti
~4pqzg±

f ff
rt=tq=£:

The autograph shows that the tempo was originally indicated

as Allegro molto e vivace, but the molto has been effaced.
 MINUET AND TRIO, 119

In the above passage three things strike the hearer — (1) the
vague uncertain restlessness caused by the compression of a
phrase in common time into triple rhythm, in bars one and
two ; (2) following this, the alternations of wind and strings
in a phrase as frankly in triple time as the other was
irregularly so ; (3) the sudden change into B flat minor
at the fifth bar. After the quotation and the double bar the
same phrases go at once into D flat. A melodious passage
then appears in the bassoon and cello, as a bass to the
others, but this receives no development
No. 26. „ — '
—
— sempre
,
— p

sU
~l
.... .. .

.___....

—3
....

1
L -1—r-H
1l}_^
c? •

&

Farther on an excellent effect is produced by an unexpected

sforzando on the weak note of a bar thus

No. 27.

p •

'^=ZZ' sf'p
The Trio — or second Minuet, for the Trio was originally
only that — isan excellent contrast to the preceding section.
The pace is somewhat slackened, the music starts in the wind
in unmistakable triple time —
the smooth phrases of the oboe,
clarinets, bassoons, and horns being interrupted by the
daintiest phrases from the violins
No. 28. Trio. Un poco meno allegro.
oboe '
^=3pzt
p=&
—
;
r*^.

E gg
VioL

i
-
Qb
_^
n^^j-h^-jH g
l-r—
i^m
^-iph
Viol,

sf <fcc.
Cor doict:
-
1
.f-p
120 FOURTH SYMPHONY.

and the whole forming one of the tenderest and most refined
things to be found anywhere.
As instances of the lovely touches with which Beethoven
could heighten the expression of the tenderness which formed
so large an element in his great heart, and display the
interest which he took in his work, take, amongst many,
the following modifications of phrases already quoted

No. 29.

H=?= and gfezpogg EggLB .

8ff>

and another little passage-

No. 30.

as delicate as the song of a robin singing, as robins do sing,

over the departed delights of summer.
After proceeding in this beautiful manner for some time, a
new feature comes in —namely, the tremolo, which we have
noticed first movement, and which here forms a
in the
truly accompaniment to the main theme.
beautiful It
is almost confined to the strings, and begins as follows

No. 31.
Viol. 1. pp

V. 2.
Viola
pp
Windpp js.

~^
^^ ij=*-^
2r^-.g -<=^iT -25,3 *3S
5*" s?
a
cres.
feUSfclS
'

poco
:

poco.
'

Nothing can be more refined or charming than the effect

of this,which lasts for nearly forty bars and brings back
the original Minuet, at the original pace.
 MINUET AND TRIO GIVEN TWICE, 121

This movement shares with the corresponding portion of

the Seventh Symphony the peculiarity that the Trio is

twice given and the Minuet repeated each time. Mozart

occasionally gives two independent Trios to the one Minuet
—a which Schumann followed him in his
practice in
—
Symphonies in B flat and C and in one instance has even
three different Trios. But Beethoven appears to stand
alone in repeating the single Trio. He has done it in the
—
second of his Rasoumoffsky Quartets that in E minor,
in the Pianoforte Trio in E flat (Op. 70, No. 2), and perhaps
elsewhere, as well as in the two Symphonies. In the present
case the repetitions of both Minuet and Trio are given each
time identically, the only addition being the three bars at the
very end, in which, as Schumann says, '
the horns have just
one more question to put '

No. 32.

iiii i
I -rrr
Tutti
Cor.

^
Wi¥
—— i r—

These three bars are an augmentation of the rhythm of the

and as such have been objected to by purists, to whom
piece,
rhythm and structure sometimes seem to be more than
meaning or poetry.

V. — But
lively, vigorous, and piquant as are the first and

third movements, they are in these qualities surpassed by the

Finale, which is the very soul of spirit and irrepressible vigour.
Here Beethoven reduces the syncopations and modifications
of rhythm which are so prominent in the first and third
movements, and employs a rapid, busy, and most melodious
figure in the violins, which is irresistible in its gay and
122 FOURTH SYMPHONY.

movement as a whole is perfectly

brilliant effect, while the
distinctfrom that of the first Allegro, It is as much a
perpetuum mobile as any piece ever written with that title.
On the autograph manuscript, the tempo of the Finale is thus
written All -
(in ink) ma non troppo (in red chalk), con-
clusively showing that the ma non troppo was a second
thought, a caution on Beethoven's part — * fast, but not too
fast.'

The figure alluded to rushes off as follows

No. 33. Tulti ^.

Viol. 1 p Viol. 2 J&L Strings pp
&c.

— and is made especially characterised by the rhythm of its

last notes

No. 34 Clar. &F1.

Strings
ess
= **~^ (a) \
csh— (o)

—the last four bars, and especially the last three notes (a)
of the phrase, having a remarkable way of staying in one's
ear. Besides this subject there is a second, as follows

Flute

p dol.

Btr.

followed by a second strain

No. 36.
Oboe, &c. Viol Viol.^ . ,
 FINALE — HUMOUR— FALSE ALARM. 123

with alternations of wind and string, and ending in this fresh

and sportive phrase

No.

o& jg
37.
Viol. & Flute
i

g^fe^l^g
The working-out is not less lively or humorous than that
of the first movement. It begins with an extension of the

semiquaver figure (No. 33) crescendo, which culminates in a

tremendous B natural* through three octaves
No. 38.

ePsp
which has all the air of a false alarm, but does not disturb
the basses in their business-like pursuit of the original

* The moderation of Beethoven's scoring is strikingly shown in these

B naturals. He evidently intends them to be a great contrast to the
preceding string passage, and yet the only additions which he makes to the
strings are the single flute, oboes, and bassoons —
no clarinets, trumpets,
—
horns or drums trombones there are none in the score.
124 FOUKTH SYMPHONY.

idea. '
House a-fire,' shouts the orchestra, 'All right; no
concern of ours,' say the basses.
This introduces a little phrase

Ho. 39.

P++W
on which the bassoon, clarinet, and oboe converse in
charming alternation, with gay sforzandos from the strings ;

and the working-out ends with an irresistible flourish for

the bassoon, who can hold his tongue no longer. But we
will not enumerate the many other features of this beautiful
and irrepressible Finale. It must be admitted that there is

some ground for the disgust of the double bass in Weber's

skit (see page 101). But though full of drollery, Beethoven
is constantly showing throughout how easy it is him to
for
take flight into a far higher atmosphere than mere fun. The
movement places him before us in his very best humour not :

the rough, almost coarse play, which reigns in the mis-

chievous, unbuttoned* rougher passages of the Finales to the
Seventh and Eighth Symphonies ; but a genial, cordial
pleasantry, the fruit of a thoroughly good heart and genuine
inspiration. What can be gayer music than the following
passage just before the Coda —
No. 40.

fL
=s=3*==§eS =t^
123^5=gfg=j^•-^d^^fr* m
sr sf

sf\ *f sf\

* Beethoven's own word aufgckno^ft.

 FINALE — FAKEWELL, 12i

or what more touching than the passage in which he says

good-bye in a tone of lingering affection as unmistakable as
if he had couched it in words

No. 41.
Viol. 1. Soli.

pp F&g.pp pp
Viol. 2 & Viola
a passage specially interesting because it is a simple repetition
of the first bars of the figure which opened the movement
(No. 33) put into half the original speed, a device which Bee-
—
thoven has used elsewhere for instance, at the end of the
Overture to Coriolan,' and in the oboe passage at the clearing
'

off of the storm in the Pastoral Symphony with the happiest —

effect.

So ends this delightful movement, and in parting from it, it

is well to remember that it is the last gay Finale that will be

vouchsafed to us. Beethoven was now in his thirty- seventh year.
The mutual love which happy strains, and which
inspired these
threw so golden a light on the future, was soon clouded with
obstacles; difficulties of an external and cruel kind set in, ill-
health and the constant presence of deafness increased, and
life became a serious, solitary, painful conflict. Beauty there
will always be, and strength and nobility, but the gaiety is

gone. The Finale of No. 5 is triumphant, of No. 6 religious,

those of Nos. 7 and 8 romantic, humorous, and rough ; but
the careless delight of tins beautiful movement we shall
encounter no more.
126 FOURTH SYMPHONY.

Something has been lately said in two sonnets* on

Beethoven, implying that grief was the prevailing topic of his
music. As justly might we call Shakespeare the poet of
grief. Both he and Beethoven can depict grief and distress as
no one else can but then they are equally successful with joy,
;

and indeed with every other emotion. They worked in the

entire domain of human nature, and gave each department
of that nature its due proportion. If a complete answer were
wanted to such a criticism it is supplied by the beautiful and
exhilarating Symphony which we have been considering.
In the slow movement, if anywhere, grief might be expected
to find a place. But is it there? Kefinement, sentiment,
passion there are in highest abundance and constant variety
in that enchanting portion of the work but where is the ;

distress ?

The autograph shows a curious slip of its great author's.

It is in the double bass part, in the fourth bar of the Finale.

The notes are somewhat blurred, and to avoid mistake he has
put letters under them thus

/ h c d h

But h is B natural, not B flat

The first performance of the Symphony took place at one

of two Concerts given in March, 1807, at the house of Prince
Lobkowitz. The programmes consisted entirely of Beethoven's
compositions, and containedSymphonies, the
the four
Overture to Coriolan,' a Pianoforte Concerto, and some
'

airs from '

Fidelio.' (Journal des Imxus und der Moden, for

* By Mr. William Watson, see the Spectator of May 20, 27, and June 10, 1893.
 COMPOSITIONS IN B FLAT. 127

April, 1807— quoted by Thayer, iii., 7.) The reporter, while

praising the '
wealth of ideas, bold originality, and extra-
ordinary power which are the special features of Beethoven's
music,' harps on the old string by lamenting the absence of
dignified simplicity,and the undue amount of subjects, which
from very quantity cannot be duly worked and developed, and
thus have too often the effect of unpolished diamonds !

In England the first performance of which the date can

with certainty be named was by the Philharmonic Society on
March 12, 1821. It may have been played before that date,
but until 1817 the keys or numbers of the Symphonies were
not given. At any rate, it was not heard for the four years
preceding 1821. From that year to 1893 it has been played
by the Society, with few exceptions, every year. At the
Crystal Palace, between the years 1855 and 1893, it was
performed thirty-three times.
Besides the Symphony, the key of B flat has been chosen
by Beethoven for several most important works such as —
the great Piano Trio, Op. 97; two Piano Sonatas, Op. 22
and Op. 106, the latter the greatest of all the series.
Also the String Quartets, Op. 18, No. 6, and Op. 130 —the
Finale of this was written at Gneixendorf, Johann van Bee-
thoven's house, in substitution for a very long and elaborate
fugue, whichwas afterwards published separately as Op. 183.
The new Finale was *written in November, 1826, months five

before the author's death. was his last composition, and is

It
as light and delicate as if it had been written in perfect health
and happiness, instead of having been composed among the
privations of a home where his comfort seems to have been
cared for by no one but a servant, and where every meal was
embittered by the presence of his brother's wife, a woman
whom he detested as thoroughly bad, and who was certainly
most commonplace and f disagreeable. Of separate movements

* Schindler, Biographie, ii., 115. + See end of this chapter.

128 FOURTH SYMPHONY.

in B flat may be named the Allegretto Scherzando in the

Eighth and the Adagio in the Ninth Symphonies, the Credo
of the Mass in D, Adelaide,' and the Prisoners' Chorus in
*

* Fidelio.' The list, if not long, is a truly splendid one.

THE LOVE-LETTERS (p. 112).

The following letters are very hard to translate adequately.

The writer's emotion runs away with his pen, and especially
with his punctuation, which was always peculiar. The
version aims at conveying the intention of the words without
straying farther than is possible from the actual expressions.
But indeed they cannot be properly rendered. The year is —
1806, and the locality is Fiired, a bathing-place on the north
shore of the Plattensee, a lake south of Buda Pesth, in
Hungary.
July 6, Morning.
My angel, my all, my very self — Only a few words to-day

—
and those in pencil your pencil. Till to-morrow I shall not
know where I have to live what shameful waste of time for
:

such a matter Why be so sorrowful when there is no other

!

course ? How is our love to exist but by sacrifices, and by not

exacting everything ? Can you help the fact that you are not
wholly mine, and I not wholly yours ? God Look at lovely !

nature and meet the inevitable by composure. Love wants to

have everything, and quite right thus I feel towards you, and
;

you towards me only you forget too easily that I have to

:

live for myself and for you as well. If we were not absolutely
one, you would feel your sorrow as little as I should.
My journey was fearful there were not horses enough, and
:

I did not get in till 4 o'clock yesterday morning. The post

chose another road, a shocking one. At the last stage but
one they warned me not to travel at night, and to beware
of a certain wood : that only attracted me, but I was wrong,
 THE LOVE-LETTERS. 129

the carriage was bound to break down on this fearful road —

bottomless, rough country track —and but for my postillions
I should have been left on the spot. Esterhazy had the same
disaster on the ordinary road with his 8 horses that I had
with my 4. However I had some enjoyment out of it, as
I always have when I overcome a difficulty.
And now to go at once from these things to ourselves. I
suppose, we shall see one another soon. I can't tell you now
of all the reflections about my life, which I have been making
in the last few days. If only our hearts were always close

together, I should probably not make any of the kind. My

heart is full of all it wants to say to you. Ah There are times !

when I find that speech is absolutely no use. Cheer up.

Remain my true and only treasure, my all in all, as I am
yours. As for other things we may let the Gods decree them
and fix our lot.
Your faithful Ludwig.

Monday Evening, July 6.

You are in trouble my dearest creature ! I have only just

learnt that lettersmust leave here very early. Monday and
Thursday are the only days on which the post goes to K.
You are in trouble. Ah Wherever I am, too, you are with
!

me. With you to help me, I shall make it possible for us to

live together. What a life ! ! !
!
—to be like this ! ! 1
!
—without
—
you persecuted by the kindness of people here and there,
which I feel I do not care to deserve any more than I do
—
deserve it, the subservience of one man to another it hurts —
me and when I think of myself in relation to the universe
;

what am I ? and what is he whom we call greatest ? and yet

in that very thing lies the divine in man. I could cry when I
think that perhaps you won't get any news of me till Saturday.
However much you love me, my love is still stronger ; but nevei
conceal your thoughts from me. Good night. I am a patient
and must go to bed. Oh God, so near and yet so far 1 Is not
130 FOUBTH SYMPHONY.

our love a truly heavenly structure, as firmly established as

the firmament itself ?

Good morning, July 7.

Even before I get up my thoughts are rushing to you, my
immortal love — first and then again sad wondering if
joyful —
Fate will be good to us. I must live entirely with you or not
at all; nay I have resolved to remain at a distance till I can
fly into your arms, call myself quite at home with you, wrap

my soul up in you, and send it into the realm of spirits. Yes,

alas it must be so. You will be brave, all the more because
you know my affection for you. No one else can ever possess
my heart— never—never God, why must one be separated
!

from that one loves best ? And yet my life in # W., as things
are, is a wretched sort of life. Your love has made me at once
the happiest and most wretched of men. At my age I should
need a certain uniformity and regularity of life can this exist—
with our present relationship ? Be calm only by calm con- 1

templation of our existence, can we achieve our object of living

together. Be calm — love me. To-day — yesterday—how I have
longed and wept for you I for you, for you, my life, my all

good-bye, oh, go on loving me —never misunderstand the most

faithful heart of your lover.

Ever yours,
Ever mine,
Ever each other's. L.

* W. — Wien, Vienna.
 BEETHOVEN AT GNEIXENDORF. 131

Beethoven at Gneixendorf.*
The which the following is a trans-
interesting article, of
lation, was communicated by Dr. Lorenz to the Deutsche Musik
Zeitung, a Vienna periodical, of March 8th, 1862.

Being convinced that the smallest trait which can help us

1

to complete the portrait of our incomparable composer is of

interest, I recently asked my old friend K., the medical man at
Langenlois, to let me have anything that he could find about
Beethoven's visit jto Gneixendorf, his brother Johann's
country place in lower Austria. Both my friend and the present
owner of the property most kindly carried out my wish, and
I here give what little I have been able to make out of their
casual and fragmentary information.
*
1. Johann van Beethoven went one day in company with his

brother Ludwig and several other persons from Gneixendorf to

Langenfeld to call on Karrer, the surgeon, who lived there and
frequently came to the Beethovens' house Karrer, however,;

was absent on his professional duties and missed them.

Madame Karrer, however, was extremely flattered by the
visit of the excellent landed proprietor, and served up a rich

repast of whatever was to be had. At length her eye fell

on a modest looking sort of man who said nothing, but was
lounging on the stove -bench. Supposing him to be a servant
she filled a mug with fresh wine and handed it to him saying :

" Now then, you must have a drink." When Karrer returned
home at night and heard the story he at once divined who it

* Gneixendorf is about four miles above Krems, which is on the Danube,

sixty miles north of Vienna. The road from it to Krems, down which
Beethoven had to drive in an open trap on December 2, is very much
exposed to the East. Wissgrill bought the property from Johann van
Beethoven, Karrer from Wissgrill, and Kleile from Karrer. Kleile was uncle
to Mrs. von Schweitzer, who was living there when I visited it, Augnst 21, 1889,
and it was he who induced Lorenz to collect and put together the following
information. The house and premises appeared to be all but unaltered from
what they were in 1326, and were charming.
t I am now at Gneixendorf,' says Beethoven in a letter.
' '
The name is like
the breaking of an axle-tree/
132 FOURTH SYMPHONY.

was that had been sitting behind the stove. " My dear wife,"
cried he, " what have you done ? You have had the greatest
composer of the century in your house and this is how you
"
mistook him !

1
2. Johann van Beethoven had once to do some business with
the Magistrate (Syndicus) Sterz in Langenlois, and Ludwig
accompanied him. The interview was a long one, and while it

lasted Ludwig remained standing outside the office door

without taking any notice. At parting Sterz, however, made
him many bows and then asked his clerk Fux an —
enthusiast for music, and especially for Beethoven's music
"who do you think that man was who was standing outside
the door? " " As you paid him so many compliments," said
Fux, "I suppose he must be somebody but really I should —
have taken him for an idiot." Fux was tremendously
astonished when he heard who the person was whom he had
so much mistaken.
That Beethoven's appearance was by no means always idiotic
1

is plain from what once happened to me. It was in my young

days, shortly after my arrival in Vienna from the country,

when I had not yet acquired that pliant dancing-master
sort of gait which is absolutely necessary in the crowded
streets of a Residenz-town. One day in a narrow street I ran
against a man who fixed me with a piercing glance before he
moved on. The close look which I had into the fiery depths
of those eyes I never forgot. He saw my astonishment, and
perhaps a certain look of contempt at his shabby appearance,
and gave me a glance, half surprised, half contemptuous, out
of his small but stormy looking eyes, and then passed on.
Of the servants at the house at Gneixendorf when
1
3.

Beethoven was there, Michael Krenn, the vine-dresser, died

only a year ago (i.e., 1861). His three sons are still living;
one of them, also Michael by name, was at that time Ludwig's
attendant. Michael gave me the following information:
*
Ludwig van Beethoven was once at Gneixendorf — namely,
 BEETHOVEN AT GNEIXENDOKF. 133

in the year 1826, for three months, from harvest to vintage

—that is, —
during August, September, and October (he really
stayed till December 2nd). Michael Krenn was chosen by
the lady of the house to be the servant of the composer. In
the first part of the time it was the duty of the cook to make
Beethoven's bed every morning. One time, when he was
sitting at the table, while shewas thus occupied, he threw
his hands about, beat time with his feet, at the same time
singing or growling. At this the cook laughed, but
Beethoven looking round by chance saw her laughing, and
immediately drove her out of the room. Michael wanted to
run out too, but Beethoven dragged him back, gave him
three zwangigers (2s.), told him not to be afraid, but that in
future he must make the bed and put the room in order.
Michael had to come early in the morning, and often knocked
for a long time before he could gain admittance. Beethoven
generally got up about 5.30, and would then sit down at the
table and begin to write, singing, growling, and beating time
with both hands and feet. At first when Michael felt
inclined to laugh he used to go to the door, but by degrees he
became accustomed to it. At 7.30 there was the family
breakfast, and after that Beethoven at once went into the

open air. There he lounged about in the fields, cried out,

threw his hands about, walked fast, very slow, and then very
fast, and then, all of a sudden, would stand quite still and

write something in a kind of pocket-book. On one occasion,

after he had got back to the house, he found that he had lost
his book. "Michael," said he, "run and find my book, I
—
must have it at any price " and it was found. At half-past
12 he came in for dinner, and after dinner went to his room
till about 3. Then he went into the fields again till sunset,
and after that he never went out. At 7.30 was supper, and
then he shut himself into his room till 10, when he went to
bed. Sometimes he would play the piano which was in the
saloon. No one went into Beethoven's room but Michael
134 FOURTH SYMPHONY.

it was the corner room, looking into the garden and the
court, where the billiard -room afterwards was.
While Beethoven was out in the morning was the time
'

when Michael cleaned the room. Several times he found

money on the floor, and when he gave it back to Beethoven
he had always to show the place where he had found it,
and then he got it as a present. This happened three or
four times, after which no more money was found. In the
evenings Michael had always to sit with Beethoven, and
write down answers to his questions and these generally
;

were as to what had been said about him at dinner and

supper.
*
One day Johann's wife sent Michael with five florins to
Stein to buy some wine and a fish. Michael carelessly lost
the money and got back to Gneixendorf after twelve o'clock,
quite bewildered. Mrs. Johann asked at once for the fish,

and when she found that Michael had lost the money she
expelled him from the house. When Beethoven came to
dinner he asked at once for Michael, and when he heard what
had happened was fearfully angry, gave Mrs. Johann the
five florins, and insisted furiously that Michael should at once

come back. From this time he would never go to dinner,

but had both it and his breakfast brought to his own room.
Michael said that even before this occurrence Beethoven never
spoke to his sister-in-law, and very rarely even to his brother.
Also that Beethoven wanted to take him (Michael) to Vienna,
but that after the arrival of a cookmaid who came to fetch
Beethoven away, he was allowed to stop.
'
4. The present
proprietor of Gneixendorf has been good
enough examine two old peasants on the property, and
to
they confirm Krenn's statements of Beethoven's wonderful
performances in the fields round the house. At first they
fully believed him to be mad, and kept out of his way but ;

after a time they got accustomed to him, and, knowing that

he was the proprietor's brother, forced themselves to salute
 BEETHOVEN AT GNEIXENDORF. 135

him ; but he was always deep in thought, and rarely took any
notice of their courtesy.
'
One of these peasants, then quite young, had a little

adventure with Beethoven to relate. He and two other lads

were taking a pair of unbroken oxen to the brick kiln opposite
the chateau. At that moment up came Beethoven crying
out and gesticulating, and whirling his arms about. The
peasant called out " a bissl Stadal " (not quite so much noise),
but without getting any attention.The bullocks were shy
and ran off up a slope. The peasant with some trouble
pulled them up, and took them back down the slope to
the road. But very soon Beethoven came by again from the
kiln, this time also singing and throwing his hands about.
The peasant called again and again, and at last off set the
bullocks with their tails in the air and ran to the chateau,
where one of the family secured them. When the peasant
arrived he asked the name of the fool who frightened my
'
'

bullocks," and when told that it was the proprietor's brother

" a precious brother " was all his answer.' So far Dr. Lorenz.

The foregoing fragmentary notices seem to me worth

preserving, not because they add one or two to the anecdotes
about Beethoven, but because of the light they throw on his
character and that of his brother.
Johann's behaviour at Langenlois and Langenfeld gives a
striking figure of the want of respect which he showed to
his great brother, whom
he not impossibly believed, as the
peasants did, to be a mere
fool.' A word from this
'

miserable creature would have been sufficient, either in the

house of the surgeon or the office of the Syndicus, to save
the great composer from such humiliation. Perhaps the land- '

owner' was afraid of being thrown into the shade by the

1
brain-proprietor.'
' The relation between Beethoven and Michael Krenn,
however, appears to be of real interest.'
 SYMPHONY No. 5, in C minoe (Op. 67).
Dedicated to the Prince von Lobkowitz and the Count von Kasunioffsky.*

1. Allegro con brio (^_108). (C minor.)

2. Andante con moto (*_92). Piu moto (*_116). (A flat.)

3. (Scherzo & Trio) Allegro (^. 96). (C minor and major), leading into

4. Finale Allegro {p 84) ; with return of the Trio, and final Presto

(^—112). (C major.)

Score.
2 Drums. 2 Clarinets.
2 Trumpets. 2 Bassoons.
2 Horns. 3 Trombones.
2 Flutes. 1st and 2nd Violins.
1 Flauto piccolo. Viola.
2 Oboes. Violoncellos.
Basses and Contra-fagotto.

The Piccolo,Trombones, and Contra-fagotto are employed in the

Finale only ;and make their appearance here for the first time in the
—
Symphonies. N.B. The Contra-fagotto was first known to Beethoven in
his youth at Bonn, where the Elector's orchestra contained one. He has
employed it also in Fidelio,' in the Ninth Symphony, and elsewhere.
'

* This dedication appears on the Parts, published in 1809, but is suppressed

in the edition of the Score first published, in octavo,by Breitkopf and
Hartel, in 1826. It is a great pity that the dedications and the prefaces,
which Beethoven prefixed to some of his works, are not republished. They
often contain points of interest which should not be lost. Much has been done
by Thayer, Nottebohm, and others, for what may be called the exterior of
Beethoven's works. But there is one thing which still remains to be done
namely, the Bibliography of the published editions. Even from the excellent
Thematic Catalogue of the accurate Nottebohm (Breitkopf, 1868), it is
impossible to discover whether the editions enumerated in the lists are scores
or parts, or the dates at which they appeared. Anyone who would undertake
the task —by no means a light one— would confer a great benefit on all
students of Beethoven.
 MENDELSSOHN AND GOETHE. 137

The score is an 8vo of 182 pages, uniform with the preceding ones,
and was published in March, 1826.* The title-page runs thu3 :—
Cinquieme Sinf onie en ut mineur C
'
moll de Louis van Beethoven.
: :

(Euvre 67. Partition. Propriete des Editeurs. Prix 3 Thalers. A

Leipsic, chez Breitkopf & Hartel. 4,302. The orchestral paHs were
published by the same firm in April, 1809, and are numbered 1,329.

We have now arrived at the piece of music by which

Beethoven is most widely known.
The C minor Symphony is not only the best known, and
therefore the most generally enjoyed, of Beethoven's nine
Symphonies, but it is a more universal ..favourite than any
other work of the same class — ' C minor Symphony always
the
fills the room.' And this not only among amateurs who have
some practical familiarity with music, but among the large
mass of persons who go to hear music pour passer le temps. It

is the only one of the nine which is sufficiently well known

to have broken the barriers of a repulsive nomenclature,
and to have become familiar, outside a certain more or less
initiated circle, by its technical name. Certainly the number
of ordinary music-goers who attach as definite an idea to the
*C minor' as they do to the' Eroica,' the 'Pastoral,' or the
1
Choral' of Beethoven, is far greater than those who do
so to his B flat, his A major, or his D major Symphonies.
It is the work which would naturally occur to anyone who
was asked to play or to name a characteristic specimen of
Beethoven. In fact it is that which Mendelssohn chose for
introducing him to Goethe as he sat in the dim corner of his '

room at Weimar like a Jupiter Tonans, with the fire flashing

from his aged eyes,' and doubtless not without a certain
reluctant conservative doubt, in his mind, as to the worth
of the revolutionary extravagances he was about to hear.
However, it affected him very much. First, he said, '
That
causes no emotion, it's only astonishing and grandiose.'

* So I learn from the courtesy of the publishers.

138 FIFTH SYMPHONY.

Then he kept grumbling and after some time began

on,
again :
*
How big it is — enough to bring the house
quite wild !

about one's ears ! and what must it be with all the people
playing at once ? ' And at dinner, in the middle of something
else, he began about it again.*
If we ask to what result this is due, the answer must be, to
the qualities of the work itself, and to nothing else. It may
have '
had a better chance '
— in other words, have been
oftener performed at Promenade Concerts or by Philharmonic
Societies than any other but then, what has given it that
;

pre-eminence ? What could have induced the late M. Jullien

—the first to popularise good orchestral music in England,
and to whom the musical public of London owes far more
than it cares to remember — to Symphony,
insert this entire
week after week, in the programme of his Promenade
Concerts but the fact that '
it drew,' that it possessed a hold
on the broad appreciative faculties of the human mind which
no other work of its class possesses ? It is to the work itself,
to the prodigious originality, force, and conciseness of the
opening — which, while it copied nothing, has itself never
been copied ; to the mysticism of the Scherzo, and to the truly
astonishing grandeur, impetuosity, spirit, and pathos of the
Finale, to the way in which, throughout the work, technicality
is effaced —
by emotion it is to these things that the C minor
Symphony owes its hold on its audience.

The modern Komantic movement, whether called so or

not, seems have taken place earlier in music than
to
it did in literature and, whoever else may aspire to the
;

honour of leading it, Beethoven was really its prophet, and

the C minor Symphony its first great and assured triumph.
The end of the Symphony in D, the Eroica, the No. 4, the
Overture to Leonora are all essays in the Romantic direction,
'
'

animated by the new fire but the C minor is the first unmis- ;

Letter of Mendelssohn's, May 25, 1830.

 OFFICE OF THE SYMPHONY. 139

takable appearance of the goddess herself in her shining,

heavenly panoply. The C minor Symphony at once set the
example, and made possible the existence of the most
picturesque and poetical music of Mendelssohn, Schumann,
Brahms, and Tschaikoffsky.
This Symphony performed the same office for Beethoven
that the Overture to '
Tannhauser has done for Wagner
'

it was the work which made him known to the general public
outside his own country, and introduced him to the world. In
1808 Austria was a foreign country to Germany, much as
Scotland was to England a century earlier, and the Vienna
school of music had a strong character of its own. But,
fortunately, there were musicians in Germany at the head of
affairs who knew how to welcome merit from wherever it came.

We have seen* the wise and intelligent greeting which Leipzig

gave to the Eroica in 1809. And as they acted towards that
masterpiece, so did the conductors of the Allgemei?ie musika-
lische Zeitung —the '
General Musical Times of the same
' city,

the great musical periodical of the day — towards the minor

Symphony. They went out of their way to introduce the new
work to their countrymen by a long, forcible, and effective
article from the pen of Hoffmann, July 11, 1810 no mere cold ;

analysis like that which had saluted the Eroica, but a burning
welcome, full of admiration, respect, and sympathy, and
apparently written with the -(-concurrence of the composer
himself.And from that time, in London, in Paris, everywhere
else, G minor Symphony has been the harbinger of the
the
Beethoven religion. It introduced a new physiognomy into
the world of music. It astonished, it puzzled, it even aroused

* See page 91.

t This is to be inferred from the fact that the two redundant bars in the
Scherzo, against which Beethoven protested but which were
in 1810 (see p. 174),
not corrected till 1846, are omitted in the quotations in Hoffmann's article. It
is probably for this Hoffmann that Beethoven wrote his punning canon
Auf einen welcher Hoffmann geheissen, Hoffmann, Hoffmann, sei ja kein
'

Hoffmann,' or as it might be rendered. '

Harcourt, Harcourt, be no courtier !'
140 FIFTH SYMPHONY.

laughter ; but it could not be put down, and in time it sub-

dued its listeners, and led the way for the others of the
immortal Nine, and all which were to follow them.
The C minor Symphony is the fifth of the series. It was
intended to follow the Eroica, and was begun in the year 1805.*
But even in the case of such a Titan as Beethoven, Vhomme
propose et Dieu dispose. His engagement with the Countess
Theresa Brunswick, in May, 1806, intervened, and inspired the
record of that lovely time which is given in the B flat Sym-
phony and the C minor had to wait until that was completed.
;

The actual dates of the composition of the work seem to

be as follows It was started in 1805
: in 1806 it was laid;

aside for the B flat —

the paean on the engagement it was ;

then resumed and completed in 1807 or early in 1808. It

thus covered the time before the engagement, the engagement
itself, and a part of the period of agitation when the lovers

were separated, and which ended in their final surrender.

Now, considering the extraordinarily imaginative and disturbed
character of the Symphony, it is impossible not to believe that
—
the work the first movement at any rate is based on his —
relations to the Countess, and is more or less a picture of
their personality and connection. In the Pastoral Symphony
Beethoven has shown that he could put all disturbing elements
out of his mind, and take refuge in the calm of Nature but ;

in composing a work the character of which is agitation,

almost from first to last, it is difficult to believe that he could
keep clear of that which must have filled his mind on the least
invitation. In fact, the first movement seems to contain
actual portraits of the two chief actors in the drama. Bead
the story of the music-lesson, given in the Countess's own
words, at page 25 of the Unsterbliche Geliebte, and the two
subjects of the movement seem to stand before us (see page 155).

* It was at one time thought that some of the themes and passages dated as
far back as 1800. —
But this seems not to be the case. See Thayer, Chron.
Verzeichniss, p. 75 ; and Nottebohm, Beethoveniana, p. 16.
 FIRST SKETCHES. 141

Whether these suggestions are allowable or notwas it

ordained that the C minor should be somewhat postponed, and

with the Pastoral Symphony should form a pair, completed
at the latest in *1808, and published in 1809, after some
vacillation, as Nos. 5 and 6. The first performance took place
at Vienna, December 22, 1808 the first performance in
;

England was by the Philharmonic Society, April 15, 1816.

At Paris it seems to have been first heard at the third of
the Concerts du Conservatoire, on April 13, 1828, under M.
Habeneck but it was played at each of the remaining
;

concerts of that season — four times in all. Since then it has

been performed more f frequently than any other of the series.

The earliest sketches of the work are in a collection of

sheets which also contain sketches for the G major Piano-
forte Concerto, and appear to have been in the possession of
Herr Petter of Vienna. The opening is probably the most
famous theme in the world, and Beethoven's first memo-
randum of it is textually as follows. The theme is merely
the four notes but here J we have the manner in which
:

Beethoven first proposed to develop them :

No. l. _

* See Nottebolim, Zioeite Beethoveniana, p. 532.

t In fifty-five years the Philharmonic Society performed it fifty-five times,

missing one year (1819), and in 1818 giving it twice.
X Nottebohm, Beethoveniana, p. 10.
142 FIFTH SYMPHONY.

A second sketch on the same page stands thus—

No. 2.
Sinfonia. Alio. lmo.

tP-'i, TTjI i-iimi 1-j-i t—a^i r

$f±-j-i->- -4 JJJ S)
Ills 1—g: 1-gj 1
presto

Q [r^Tfj-r" i
*' i m — =^f h^gq:

# 53E SF
«=
^ :=pp: 5^ ^

&c. &c.

« wSfeE
On the opposite page of the sketch-book are sketches for
the G major Piano Concerto, showing that, widely different

as the two works are, the rhythm of the subject is the same
in each

No. 3.
Concert, (tempo moderate)

I
fc=

Cembalo.
;z_
IWJBtMZMTl-jttf.:
m
i?c=z r v
M- SffE* &C.

The C minor Symphony is often spoken of as if it were a

miracle of irregularity, and composing it
almost as if in
Beethoven had abandoned the ordinary rules which regulate
the construction of a piece of music, put down whatever
came uppermost in his mind, and by the innate force of
genius produced a masterpiece which seized the world with
admiration, and has kept it in astonishment ever since. Even
M. Berlioz speaks of it in terms which might easily be thus
 THE LAWS OP THE SYMPHONY. 143

interpreted. M. and characterises Bee-

F^tis goes farther,
thoven's style as a kind of rather than
improvisation,
composition meaning thereby, apparently, some wild lawless
;

mode of proceeding, which, because he was a transcendent

genius, happened to come out all right :

Like some wild Poet, when he works

Without a conscience or an aim.

Such ideas are simply contrary to facts, and are as false

as Voltaire'sfamous dictum on Shakespeare as absurdly ;

inaccurate as Fetis's other assertion '

qu'il n'ecrivait jamais
une note avant que le morceau Whatever he was
fut acheveV
in improvisation at the pianoforte, Beethoven with the pen in
his hand was the most curiously tentative and hesitating of
men. Those who know his sketch-books tell us that he never
adopted his first ideas that it is common to find a theme or
;

a passage altered and re-written a dozen or twenty times that ;

those pieces which appear to us the most spontaneous have been

in reality most laboured that the composition grew under his
;

hand and developed in unintended directions as it did perhaps

with no other composer and that it almost appears that he
;

did not know what the whole would be until the very last
corrections had been given to the proof-sheets. So much for
the idea of sudden inspiration. As for that of irregularity, it
may surprise the reader to hear that the C minor Symphony
is from beginning to end as strictly in accordance with the

rules which govern the structure of ordinary musical com-

positions as any Symphony or Sonata of Haydn or Pleyel,
while it is more than usually symmetrical.
'
These rules '

are nothing arbitrary. They are no dicta or fiat of any

single autocrat, which can be set at naught by a genius
greater than that of him who ordained them. They are
the gradual results of the long progress of music, from
the rudest Volkslieder, from the earliest compositions of

—
Josquin des Pr6s and Palestrina gradually developing and
144 FIFTH SYMPHONY.

asserting themselves as music increased in freedom and as

new occasions arose, as instruments took the place of
voices, music strayed outside the Church and allied
as
itself to the world but as absolute, and rigorous, and
;

imperative as the laws which govern the production of an

oak or an elm, and permit such infinite variety of appear-
ance in their splendid and beautiful forms. In fact, they
are not rules but laws, and it is only an unfortunate accident
that has forced the smaller term upon us instead of the
greater.*
The first movement of Beethoven's C minor Symphony is

framed as exactly on these laws as is the first movement of

his C major Symphony (No.. 1) as the Trios and Sonatas —
with which he started on his career before the public. To
give an outline of the construction of the first movement.
Its structure —
in musical language, its form is as follows. '
'
—
The opening subject is in the key of C minor, and is

quickly answered by a second, in the key of E flat, the *

relative
major,' in which key the first section of the movement ends.
That section having been repeated, we go on to the working-
out, by no means long, and confined for its construction
almost entirely to materials already furnished. Then comes
the reprise of the opening, with the usual changes of key, a
short Coda, and the movement is at an end ! These sections
are all, with a rare uniformity, almost exactly of the same
length : to the double bar, 124 bars ; the working-out, 123

* Coleridge's words on the subject of the criticism of Shakespeare are full of

instruction on this point, and very applicable to Beethoven :
'
In nine places
out of ten in which I find his awful name mentioned, it is with some

epithet of " wild," " irregular," "pure child of nature," etc. . . . The true
ground of the mistake lies in the confounding mechanical regularity with
organic form. The form is mechanic when on any given material we impress
a predetermined form, not necessarily arising out of the properties of the
material. The organic form, on the other hand, is innate it shapes, as it
. . . ;

developes, itself from within, and the fulness of its development is one and
the same with the perfection of its outward form.' Literary Remains (1836)
Vol. II., pp. 61, 67.
 OBEDIENCE TO LAW. DIEECT TREATMENT. 145

the reprise, 126 ; and the Coda, 129. In fact, the movement
is much stricter in its form than that of the Eroica, which
has two important episodes, entirely extraneous, in the
working-out, while its reprise is hy no means an exact
repetition ofwhat has gone before. If all art is a representa-
tion —and surely it must be a representation of the idea in the
—
mind of the artist here we have the most concise representa-
tion that has ever been accomplished in music. No, it is no
disobedience to laws that makes the C minor Symphony so
great and unusual —
no irregularity or improvisation; it is
obedience to law, it is the striking and original nature of the
thoughts, the direct manner in which they are expressed, and
the extraordinary energy with which they are enforced and
reinforced, and driven into the hearer, hot from the mind of
the author, with an incandescence which is still as bright and
as scorching as the day they were forged on his anvil it is —
these things that make the C minor Symphony what it is and
always will be. It is impossible to believe that it will ever

grow old.
We are speaking here of the opening movement, which in
almost every Symphony, and especially in this one, is the
portion which colours and characterises the whole work. It
is not perhaps, if an amateur may record his impression, that
this Allegro ismore impassioned or fuller of emotion than
those of the other Symphonies of the series, but that the
emotion is more directly conveyed. The expression reaches
the mind in a more immediate manner, with less of the
medium or machinery of music about it than in those great
works ; the figure has less drapery and the physiognomy is
terribly distinct. We
have here no prominent counterpoint
or contrivance, not even the fugato which was so dear to
Beethoven ; but there is the most powerful emotion, and
everything else is subordinated to that. Not that there is less
of the musician in the piece ; on the contrary, so to make the
medium disappear, so to efface it before the thought conveyed,
146 FIFTH SYMPHONY.

requires the greatest* musicianship. And accordingly, here,

in this movement, perhaps more than in any other, does
Beethoven show his relationship to Handel he, as was said ;

of Handel, knows how to draw blood.'

'

We have quoted the subject as it first came into Beethoven's

mind. We now give it in its finished form a form which, to —
judge from other cases where the intermediate steps have
been preserved, must have been the tardy fruit of many
attempts and many erasures. The two forms have hardly
anything in common but the rhythm

No. 4.

Allegro con brio

** All Strings &

Clar. unison.

The phrase, as it now stands, with its sudden start,

and the
roar of its long holding notes,! strikes like thunder. It would
be sublime if there were not too much conflict in it, and if it
contained the religious J element. Beethoven §said of it, So *

pocht das Schicksal an die Pforte such is the blow of '

— '

Fate on the door '

—
but indeed no expression is too strong
for the effect of this sudden attack. Wagner, in a well-known
passage in his work on Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren,
p. 25), thus speaks of it, if a paraphrase of his words may
be allowed :

1
The pause on the E flat,' says he, is usually discontinued
after a short time, and as a rule is not held longer than a forte

* Thus in '
Tears, idle tears,' in the '
the melody, and
Princess,' so sweet is

so delicious the combination of the sounds, not aware of the

that one is

absence of rhyme, till after an intimate acquaintance with the poem.

f The second holding note in the autograph is one bar but in the ; first

publication lengthened to two. Perhaps some editor will change it back.

I
'
Sublimity,' says Coleridge, '
is Hebrew by birth '
; and sublimity in music
seems to be almost confined to Handel's settings of Scripture words.
§Schindler, i., 158.
 WAGNER ON THE FIRST SUBJECT. 147

produced by a casual bow- stroke might be expected to last.

But suppose we could hear Beethoven calling from his grave to
the conductor, would he not say something like the follow-
ing : —My pauses must be long and serious ones. Do you
think I made them in sport, or because I did not know
what to say next ? Certainly not That full, exhausting
!

tone, which in my Adagios expresses unappeasable emotion, in

a fiery and rapid Allegro becomes a rapturous and terrible
spasm. The life-blood of the note must be squeezed out of it
to the last drop, with force enough to arrest the waves of the
sea, and lay bare the ground of ocean to stop the clouds in
;

their courses, dispel the mists, and reveal the pure blue sky,
and the burning face of the sun himself. This is the meaning
of the sudden long-sustained notes in my Allegros, Ponder
them here on the first announcement of the theme hold the ;

long E flats firmly after the three short tempestuous quavers ;

and learn what the same thing means when it occurs later in
the work.'
The first phrase is said to have been suggested to Beethoven
by the note of the yellow-hammer as he walked in the Prater
or park at Vienna and it agrees with the song of the bird,
;

if not in the interval, in the quick notes being succeeded

by the longer one. If Czerny is to be believed, *Beethoven
not only avowed that he had derived the theme as described,
but was accustomed often to extemporize upon it. That
subjects were suggested to Beethoven by the most casual
accidents is undoubtedly true. That of the Scherzo of the
Ninth Symphony is said to have flashed into his mind on
stepping out of the house into a bright starlight night. The
splendid Sonata, Op. 81a, took its rise from the mere
departure and return home of the Archduke Rudolph. The
four crotchets which animate the first movement of the
great Violin Concerto are said to have been suggested by a

* Thayer, Biography, ii., 361.

148 FIFTH SYMPHONY.

man rhythm at a door in the

persistently knocking in that
dead of the night. So an immortal poem was suggested to
Wordsworth by the sight of a mass of daffodils moving in the
breeze. If the subject had its origin in the notes of the
yellow-hammer, it adds another to the curious difficulties

there are in ascertaining the degree of Beethoven's deaf-

ness ; for the shrill song of a small bird is one of the
first things that escapes one in the process of losing one's
hearing.
The C minor Symphony, though now known and fixed as
No. 5, was not always so. In the programme of the first
concert at which it was performed December 22, 1808, in—
the Vienna Theatre—it was not only preceded by the Pastoral
Symphony, but was given as No. 6 while the Pastoral now; —
—
No. 6 was designated as No. 5. And the same thing was
done in Vienna as late as 1813.* The two were composed
or completed together, during the summer of 1808 —as
the two and almost greater twins, Nos. 7 and 8,
later
were in that of 1818, and as the third pair would have
been in 1817 had they ever come to the birth had —
Beethoven's offer to Ries for the Philharmonic Society been
carried out. But there is no doubt that the C minor has the
priority of the two. True, the autograph manuscript, once
the property, like so many of Beethoven's finest autographs,
of Felix Mendelssohn, and now
up in the old
safely laid
banking-house in Berlin, bears neither date nor number, and
has simply the words-
'
4
Sinfonie da L. v. Beethoven

scrawled on it in But that of the Pastoral

red chalk.
Symphony is numbered 6th both
in Italian and German, in
Beethoven's own hand. And the score and parts of each,
the latter published in April, 1809, are numbered as we are
accustomed to know them.

* Hanslick, Geschichte des Concertwesen in Wien. Also page 190.

 OPENING ALLEGRO. 119

The two were brought out together, and each is jointly

dedicated to Prince Lobkowitz and Count Rasumoffsky,
noblemen who held a high place among Beethoven's patrons.
The Prince's name appears on the title-page of the Eroica
Symphony, of the first six String Quartets, and of the Quartet
in E fiat (Op. 74) while the Count enjoys a safe eternity
;

in the three immortal works which will be known as the

*
Rasumoffsky Quartets ' as long as there are four artists in
the world capable of playing them.
Every tiny fact is of interest about these immortal works,
1
and we will therefore mention that in the 'All con Brio, -

which heads the first movement on the autograph, a word,

possibly molto, has been scratched out after All and con Brie
-,

put in with a different pen and different ink. Brio is a good word,
but it seems almost to have vanished after Beethoven's time.

So, then, begins this tremendous composition. The first

fifty-eight bars of the work do little more than repeat and

repeat the astonishing phrase, both in its interval and its

rhythm, as in these passages

?
IPIP^E :±£?:*;a
m
&o.
150 FIFTH SYMPHONY.

Of modulation there is hardly any, the key does not change

till the end of the passage, and then (bar 59) both mood and

key suddenly the key after a little hesitation to E flat,

alter,

the mood
winning pathos, and after a loud preface by
to a
the horns, as if to emphasise the change as much as
possible, the second subject enters in the voice of the violins,
like the sweet protest of a woman against the fury of her
oppressor

No. 7. Viol, p &olce

r\
^EB±™«
Horns ff sf sf
Basse.s 8va p
Flute 8va & Viol
Viol.

hm.
^—f^
^^^a^lfe
tcct
t=r
-- -
ccrr
— «=
&c.

The recurrence of the quavers in the accompaniment keeps

the rhythm of the first subject present, but the music
practically remains in E flat to the very end of the first
section, 124 bars, and the fortissimo passages which occur
have nothing of the savage character of their predecessors.
With the first note of the working-out, however, the first

theme returns and resumes and more than all, the fury
all,

that before distinguished it and seems inherent in its com-

position. The gentle second theme has no place in this
terrible display of emotion, which starts thus

V.l.p
No. 8. Wind ff CLP

Strings^ Cello & Fag.

 THE FIRST ALLEGRO. 151

and the hearer will notice the firmness expressed by the

D fiat in the eighth and following bars. The concluding
portion of the quotation is a new phrase, the only material
as yet exhibited which is independent of either the first or
second subjects. This phrase is in double counterpoint — that
is to say, it is immediately repeated with the positions of treble
and bass reversed

No. 9.

frz m-
JNF -I -
Kti" - -
— i

(S< —

1 cres. P
f-F i-..r-

^Tr -p
k-*- T* km=?

the rising scale of the new phrase combining with the

descending scale of the new one to form a very affecting
cadence.
Short as it is— and it is astonishingly short — the working-
out is most dramatic ; a tremendous tragedy is crowded into
its few pages. '
Fate is knocking at the door,' as Beethoven
is reported to have said of the first theme, and does not enter
the house without a fearful combat. Was it the Fate which
at that early time he saw advancing to prevent his union
with his Theresa ? — to prevent his union with any woman ?
At any rate, in this movement he unbosoms himself as he
152 FIFTH SYMPHONY.

has never done before. Here, in Berlioz's* language, he

has revealed all the secrets of his being —
his most private
'

griefs, his fiercest wrath, his most lonely and desolate

meditations, his midnight visions, Ins bursts of enthusiasm '

— all these are there, and all winged by the ardour and
anxiety of his newly acquired love. We hear the pal-
pitating accents and almost the incoherence of the famous
love-letters, f but mixed with an amount of fury which
is not present in them, and which may well have been

inspired by the advent of some material difficulties, or by the

approaching fear that the engagement so passionately begun
could not be realised. A passage full of terrors, in the very
midst of the working-out, which will be recognised by the
following skeleton of its contents

No. 10. fi
t-,J
Ja^lis
bJ
Strings
ff
==it
si i- *r

±M fe*fcs==t=
^zt^p^jfr
--sc
sf & ,

at
m &=J=c=

forms the climax of this struggle. On it follows a

passage founded on the fourth and fifth bars of quotation
No. 5—
* Voyage Musical (1844), Vol. I., p. 300.

+ Given in full at pp. 128-130.

 THE FIRST ALLEGRO. 153

No.il
:£--£--£- Strings Strings Strings

$m
m
Str. -
Str.
4-
.tz:
±zz
*=
Wind
t^
Wind &c
hS:
£*£==
dim.

alternately given by strings and wind, and at length failing

as if through exhaustion. Then, with the rapid action of the
mind, it revives in fury, to sink again, and to revive once
more. After this singularly dramatic passage, Beethoven
returns to the first subject, and the working-out ends by
eight bars in the rhythm of the opening, the recapitulation
of the first section of all being then taken up without a
moment's hesitation. Not, however, a mere repetition for ;

though the general lines are exactly followed, the instru-

mental treatment is occasionally altered. One change, though
all will notice it, must be specially alluded to, as an instance
of the extraordinary poetry and refinement which were always
in wait to show themselves even in Beethoven's sternest
moods. I allude to the pathetic unbarred phrase for the oboe
solo

No. 12.

Oboe
e=^
— I
-i

1. Adagio.
M t=t m
a beautiful blossom, springing out as it were from the bud of
the pause which occurred at bar twenty-one of the first section,
154 FIFTH SYMPHONY.

and on the edge

like a flower of gentian spreading its petals
of the glacier.* At the end of the recapitulation there is a burst
into C major, which forms a fine beginning to a triumphant
and dramatic Coda. The only passage which need be quoted
in the Coda is the new theme which is introduced—

No. 13.

P=ff=?»qFP iJM^AM

£=£
Mm W=ftL 4fc
ai
and which, both in itself and in its development, forms a very
striking feature.

The following passage from Beethoven s unsterbliche Geliebte,

page 25, the work already alluded to in connection with
the preceding Symphony, seems, as already hinted, to throw
a direct light on the movement. The story is told by the
chief sufferer herself.
1
One fearful winter's day in Vienna, in 1794, the snow
standing deep and still falling fast, and traffic almost entirely
suspended in the streets, Countess Theresa Brunswick,
then a girl of fifteen, was waiting for Beethoven's arrival,
to give her her pianoforte lesson. Weather never stopped
him; but when he appeared it was obvious that as great a
storm was raging in his mind as in the streets. He entered
with hardly a motion of his head, and she saw at once that
all was wrong.

Practised the Sonata ?

1
said he, without looking.
' His
hair stood more upright than ever his splendid eyes were ;

half closed, and his mouth —

oh, how wicked it looked
In reply to his question, she stammered out 'Yes, I have
practised it a great deal, but
—
* A similar development occurs at the return to the subject after the
working-out, in the first movement of the Pastoral Symphony (see page 198).
 BEETHOVEN AND THE COUNTESS THEKESA. 155

1
Let's see.' She sat down to the piano and he took his
stand behind her. The thought passed through her mind,
1
If I am only fortunate enough to play well
!

' But the notes

swam before her eyes, and her hands were all of a tremble.
She began in a hurry: once or twice he said Tempo,' but it '

made no difference, and she could not help feeling that he

was getting more impatient as she became more helpless. At
last she struck a wrong note. She knew it at once, and could
have cried. But then the teacher himself struck a wrong note,
which hurt his pupil both in body and mind. He struck
not the keys, but her hand, and that angrily and hard ;

strode like mad to the door of the room, and from thence
to the street-door, through which he went, banging it after
him.
'
Good God,' she cried, '
he's gone without his coat
and hat,' and rushed after him with them into the street.
Her mother from her boudoir, curious to
voice brought in the
see the reason of the noise. But the room was empty, and
both its door and the street-door stood open and the servants, ;

where were they ? Everything now had to give way to the

shocking certainty that her daughter, Countess Theresa von
Brunswick, had actually run out into the street after the
musician, with his coat, hat, and stick ! Fortunately she was
not more than a few steps from the door when the frightened
servant overtook her, Beethoven meanwhile standing at a
distance waiting for his things, which he took from the man
and went off without a sign of recognition to his pupil.'
Are not these two characters exactly expressed in the
above, the one by

No. u.

the other by jp=i§5

p dolce

It surely would be impossible to convey them in music more

perfectly — the fierce imperious composer, who knew how to
156 FIFTH SYMPHONY.

1
put his foot down/ if the phrase may be allowed, and the
womanly, yielding, devoted girl.
This was in 1794. The Countess became more and more
intimate with Beethoven, and at last, in May, 1806, with the
knowledge and consent of her brother Franz, the head of the
house, she and he were formally, though secretly, engaged.
—
Honourable matrimony and that with a woman of position
—
and character was always Beethoven's fixed desire. For
any irregular attachment he had neither taste nor inclination.
*
God,' says he, in one of those passionate entries in his
diary, *
let me at last find her who is destined to be mine,
and who shall strengthen me in virtue.' The engagement
appears to have taken place at Martonvasar, the Count's
castle, south of Beethoven shortly after left for
Buda-Pesth.
on the north shore of the Plattensee,
Fiired, a watering-place
in Hungary, from whence he penned the famous love-letters
which were afterwards returned to him by the Countess on
the termination of the engagement. It lasted with many
fl actuations for four years and was put an end to by Beethoven
himself in 1810. There could be no other result.

The Countess was surely right in saying (see p. 64 of the

little book), *
It was a wise step
for us to part. What would
have been the result to his genius, and what to my love, if I
had ever been forced to be afraid of him ? These letters are '

reprinted at the end of Chapter IV. They were the subject

of many conjectures, until the matter was set at rest first, —
by the acuteness of Mr. Thayer, and then by the independent
publication of the book alluded to by 'Mariam Tenger,' which
has received the imprimatur of the historian, and is now in its
second edition.

II. Andante con moto, in A flat. Beethoven has *here

forsaken the accepted rule for the key of the second
movement, and adopted the key of the submediant, or third

* He has made the same choice in the Eroica and Ninth Symphonies.
 THE ANDANTE. 157

below the principal key. After the assaults and struggles and
conquests of the movement, the Andante comes as a
first

surprise. and with

It is a set of variations, beautiful to hear,

much of the same grace and elaborate finish as the Adagio of

No. 4. It also contains excellent examples of the caprice to
which allusion has more than once been made. But the
Adagio of No. 4, since we know it to be Beethoven's Song of
betrothal, has a glorious inner meaning transcending all
outward beauties, and this the Andante of No. 5 at present
wants. It seems wanting in the spur —the personal purpose
or idea which inspires the preceding movement and gives
the present work its high position in Beethoven's music.
Beethoven, doubtless, had such an idea, he always had one ;

but he has not revealed it to us. And here it is impossible to

and others of his
resist a strong feeling of regret that in this
Symphonies Beethoven did not give us the clue to his inten-
tion, as he has done in the Eroica,' and still more fully
'

in the Pastoral.'
*
How warmly should we welcome any
authentic memorandum or commentary, however short, on
these great works of the imagination Beethoven has not !

seen fit to vouchsafe them but it is surely a pity that he has

;

not. How much less should we have been able to enter into
the manifold meanings of the Pastoral Symphony, if all that
was known about it was that it was Symphony No. 6, in F '

major, Op. Similarly in the cases of Symphony No. 8,

68.'

and the movement of No. 9, how welcome would be any

first

authentic memoranda of the personal circumstances which

evidently lie behind their extraordinary autobiographical
features. We may admire the spirit, the rich colouring,
the romantic and humorous feeling of No. 7 to the very full
know something beyond the
but the mind will always crave to
mere romance, variety, and brilliancy of the sounds some- —
thing which has been withheld from us, something which
we have to guess, and in guessing which all attempts
—
must be uncertain the ideas, the circumstances which
158 FIFTH SYMPHONY.

were thronging through the rnind of the Master when he

composed that gorgeous picture, for a picture it must be.
This fact is proved, if only by the ridiculous variety of inter-
pretations that have been proposed by the critics. They are
quite within their duty, if not always within their taste, in
proposing them, because we know on Beethoven's* own
authority that he '
always worked to a picture.' True,
Mendelssohn, in a very interesting letter to his cousin
Souchay,f says that music has a more definite meaning
than words. To the composer probably, but certainly
not to the hearer, especially if he happen to be an
amateur.
But we must return to the Andante, It consists first of a
theme containing several sections and extending to forty-
eight bars. The first section is played by the violas and
cellos in unison, with a pizzicato note here and there in the
basses

No. 15.

Viola & B3 I r?S l

r~~ r
J } A I 4 R ^ R 2 fi
e£?
=£^
Basses pizz. p
Viol. 8va & Fag.

=$=:*
aJBjL-gL,
see 4= =?n,i e
,-i

arco

form in which the opening subject of the first move-

If the
ment appeared in the sketch-book (No. 1) was
first

commonplace, that in which the above beautiful melody

stands there is still {more so

* Expressly said to Mr. Neate, in 1815.—See Thayer, iii., p. 313.

f See Letters, October 15, 1842.

X See Nottobohm.Beethoveniana, p. 14.
 THE ANDANTE. FIBST SKETCH, 159

No. 16.
j^ n ^ an i e quasi menuetto.

&c.
rf^f-

nothing could well be more tame and unpromising.

A second melody in the wind instruments, echoed by the
violins, follows immediately on the foregoing ; the unequal
length of the two portions will be noticed

No - 17 -
Flute -vV^^Srv Violins

i^^ *=*£ §^g*

** cres.f

and then a # third

No. 18.
dolce.
^m '„

Violins
Clar. & Bassoons

This continues for some length, passing through the key of

C major, and ending with a Coda of great beauty

* I can find nothing in this march-like theme to recall the Grossvatertanz, as

it does to Oulibicheff.
t A Vienna tradition says that at rehearsal the bassoon played F natural,
and was corrected by Beethoven's shouting out 'Fes' i.e., F flat, in tht
German nomenclature.
1G0 FIFTH SYMPHONY.

This first section, as already stated, occupies forty-

eight bars. It is immediately succeeded by a variation
of the whole preceding matter, the variation consisting in
giving a semiquaver form to the melody, and other simple
though masterly devices. It begins thus in the violas and
cellos

No - 20
-P^p=^ rrrfn ^^ ^^ ^^
j5jrfrfr-*^f —EE { %* ^F gEEE=±g
gE5 g
F=,^r &C.

and among the devices is the following startling amplification

of the quaver which finishes Example 16, on the recurrence
of the passage

No. 21.

PL 41
Clar. #> -
:*=*:
E
Fa e- 5y ~£T
^
Egg u ^
The amount of colour obtained here and elsewhere through-
out this movement from the scanty force of wind instruments
at Beethoven's command is very striking and very beautiful.
His economy is remarkable ; a touch here, a short passage
there, often produces the most disproportionate and charming
effects.

This first variation is followed by a second in demisemi-

quavers

No. 22.

ft dolce
 THE ANDANTE. FETI8. 161

Berlioz* tells us that the beautiful high E flat held on by

the flute, oboe, and bassoon throughout these bars was
corrected to F by Fetis in his scoref with the impertinent
remark, '
this E flat should obviously be F ; it is impossible
for Beethoven to have made such a blunder.' Fetis must
surely have recognised the beauty of the resolution of the
Eb which follows in the fifth bar; but to him
into Efcj,

probably a rule was a rule, not to be broken under any

pretext.
we
arrive at a pause, and a succession of chords
After this
which serve as a basis for a touching little
in the strings,
duet between the clarinet and bassoon, with all the air of a
farewell, the pace being somewhat accentuated

No. 23.
Piii moto.
Clar

** U U» Is" > u* u» «*
&C.
pp sempre pp

This is prolonged by the wind instruments in a humorous

passage J of twelve bars, beginning thus

No. 24.
TR=P

Flute
*--3-
solo. dol. Oboe
m
±r

* Memoires, i., chap. 44.

t Prepared with a view to a pianoforte edition for Troupenas the publisher.

X These phrases in contrary motion are perhaps fast tried in the Larghetto
of Symphony No. 2.
162 FIFTH SYMPHONY.

humorous because it has all the air of mere wilfulness on the

part of the composer, a determination to do just what he likes,
however inconsequent or unnecessary it may seem to his
hearers, or however repulsive the passing discords may prove
to their conservative ears.

This leads into a repetition of No. 18 in the key of C major,

very loud and martial in tone ; and this again into a second
and still droller passage than the last quotation, where the
flow of the melody is stopped for eight bars to introduce
a passage of mere pleasantry — or, as it probably seemed in
1808, of mere caprice, though now essential to our
pleasure

No. 25.

Strings p

EL viol, pp n
-r r-r --• &c -

Cellos two 8ves lower. 8va. pizz.

The writer was told by the late Sir John Goss that he
remembered this very passage having been specially offensive
to the older members of the Philharmonic Society at the
early performances of the Symphony.

The remainder of the movement is extraordinarily noble,

pathetic, and culminates in an extended
and beautiful;
repetition of the last bars of No. 17, in which, by an altera-
tion, slight, but of infinite moment, a most touching effect
is produced
 THE ANDANTE. THE SCHERZO.

No.

§S
26.

±~m
p clol. f sf f p
J 1
m
pp pp

The violin seems almost to go up into heaven the sforzandos ;

of bars 2 and 3, and the rests in bars 4 and 5 are full of

unspeakable emotion and the pathos is increased by the last

;

six bars being accompanied in the clarinets and bassoons

by the little Coda figure given in No. 23. Immediately
after this melting farewell, however, as if ashamed of thus
indulging his emotion, Beethoven urges the basses into
crescendo arpeggios, and the movement ends with a crash.

The next movement is the Scherzo, though not so

III.
denominated. It is simply marked Allegro. And for it we return
to the key of C minor, and to the poetical, ideal character of
the first movement even perhaps to still greater ideality,
;

though the mood be less incisive. It is constructed in the usual

form of Scherzos with a Trio and the ordinary repeats and
f

interchanges and yet while adhering to these general lines,

;

Beethoven has departed so much from the usual proportions

as to show how far such prescribed forms can be modified
without interfering with the unity, the symmetry, or the
impressiveness of the whole. The most serious innovations are
first the connection of the Scherzo with the Finale by a. link of
great length, so contrived that the one movement passes into
the other without any pause, and secondly the introduction of
a long portion of the Scherzo —or rather a fresh treatment of
its themes —into the working-out of the Finale. But of this
more anon.
164 FIFTH SYMPHONY.

A Scherzo, as its name implies, is generally a busy, almost

bustling piece —witness that of the '
Eroica ' ; but the ex-
pression of the theme in the present case has something
mysterious, almost uncanny about it — in Berlioz's words, 'it

is as fascinating as the gaze of a mesmeriser.' It opens

thus, in the cellos and basses only-

No. 27. pooco

c ritarfl.

is^^lBasses jJ
p Violins p fi

as light and leyato as the bows can make it. On repetition

these eight bars are extended to ten, and these are succeeded
by a second strain, forcible and rhythmic, given out by the
horns, with a loud chord from the strings at the beginning of
each bar

No.

^^^BS^S
28.
Horns ff

Str. /"- ^r !f

>"HP* ffFtrflS I r r

and then a development of the two themes takes place at great

length, and full of ingenious modulation and combination.
The first portion of the Scherzo ends on the note C, with no
third, major or minor. The Trio, however, which follows
on this, though not so called, is unmistakably in the major
of the key :

No.

i
23.

Cellos
gB^^^^^
& Basses/'
V.
v. 8va.
2. ttva.
v.
Viola &
j
Fa£.
A J-

&c.
 SCHERZO AND TRIO. 165

The music has abandoned its supernatural character, and is

extremely droll,* in the fugal form it assumes, in the almost

by the double basses, and other features. The
solo part taken
theme, which we already remarked as being in C, is answered
in G. The other two answers are in C and G.
The second section of the Trio is droller still, first in the
F natural, which forms the second note, and next in the false

starts, both dropped in the fugal answer

No. 30.

pj GTTTj J IJJJ*
:
&0,

The rumble of the double basses, in these false starts and in

the answers of the fugato, makes, to quote Berlioz again, a
confusion gambols of an elephant.' The gamesome
'
like the

beast, however, retires by degrees, the whole dies away in

a beautiful soft passage for the wind, and a few notes pizzicato
in cellos and basses land us back in C minor and the
original mysterious subject of the Scherzo (No. 27).
But with a change Formerly all was legato,
of treatment.
now the phrases are made more piquant by being given
staccato (a crotchet and a rest instead of a minim), thus

Wind poco ritartl.

1
Strings

* 'Die frageude Figur' (Schumann).

166 FIFTH SYMPHONY.

The return of the Scherzo is no mere recapitulation. Besides

the prevailing staccato just mentioned, which takes the place of
the former legato, the treatment is widely different. Thus the
passage quoted as No. 28, instead of being, as before, loud
and aggressive, is very soft and delicate ; the figure is trans-
ferred from the horns to the clarinet, oboe, and first violins
the accompaniment is quite new and of a charmingly crisp
and delicate character the strings being used arco and staccato
;

at the same time, the lowest nuance is maintained, and a

mysterious atmosphere seems to descend over all

No. 32. Clar.

^^ J J J J Viols, pizz.
*Lp^-
>=* p=£ ^=P=
i Ei m :p=P=: zpz^i;
3==S=:

ppr I*"
Y sempre piu p
pp
fe^
m
Str. arco.

-p-i=-
sempre
&
?
Ob-WJJJ. .J J-JJ J

I T I I

Cello, pp &c.
-Al
•~W
£ ^=p:
-*-!=—*-
2)1^2.

From the rhythmical figure a new melody gradually emerges

No. 33.
pizzicato.

sempre pp
^gfPf r ^i ?S
T tztn:
&c.

This goes on for seventy bars, at which point the basses

come on to A flat, ppp, and the drum begins a pedal on C,
with constant vacillations of rhythm ; and with this sudden
change — almost as great as the beginning of the storm in the
Pastoral Symphony, though marked with no double-bar, as
 LINK BETWEEN SCHERZO AND FINALE. 167

that is — we begin the truly magical passage* which links the

Scherzo to the Finale —
No. 34.

sempre pp

At the end of the quotation a slight increase in force takes

place —
from ppp to pp and in the bar following the quota-—
tion the basses change their holding note to crotchets and
shortly afterwards leave their A flat ; the violin begins a
figure taken from the original theme (No. 27)

No. 35.

S ?e m
i
^ &c.

i .
i i i
i
.
i i
r r •
r
r r r

but the drum maintains its recurring figure and the whole

* A great musician has well said of this place The whole of the Scherzo of :
— '

the C minor Symphony is as near being miraculous as human work can be ; but
one of its most absorbing moments is the part where, for fifteen bars, there is
nothing going on but an insignificant chord continuously held by low strings
and a pianissimo rhythmic beat of the drum. Taken out of its context, it
would be perfectly meaningless. As Beethoven has used it, it is infinitely
more impressive than the greatest noise Meyerbeer and his followers ever
—
succeeded in making.' Dr. Hubert Parry, The Art of Music, p. 284.
168 FIFTH SYMPHONY.

passage its magical quality, till the mystery ends by the

magnificent burst into the Finale —

No. 36. -£3L. .<3 . j2..

fe•
£2.
0-'
^ISfc^I
' ' '
cres
_fe
=^
attacca
Drum
tt=t -^er-\—^fL
•zZr. i=t
-f^~
PP

At this point the whole orchestra, including the three

trombones, hitherto silent, the double bassoon, the piccolo,
and the drum, all the noisy elements at Beethoven's com-
mand in those simpler days, bursts like a thunder-clap into
the major key and into a triumphal march, Allegro, c)=8i :
—
No. 37.

Full Orchestra. P * "P" ^ "J

I
L-3 "F" fir '

This subject is twenty-four bars in length, and leads into

a definite passage for the wind instruments (which, curiously,
has the same intervals and rhythm as the subject of the
Andante in Mozart's '
Jupiter ')

No. 38.
^ ^^ ^ ^ ^ Strings

^-#i-
^"jfe f r-l-Z5Eg -
s i i &c.
 THE FINALE. 169

It will be observed that in the latter portion of this subject

the phrases are hurried in time according to a favourite habit
of Beethoven's. This gives rise to another passage of great
importance-
No. 39.
Strings

3*=t
ff

not only in itself, but because, in the development of it, an

emphatic phrase occurs in the bass, which is greatly employed
in the working-out of the movement
No. 40.

and this at last leads into the second main subject of the
Finale in the key of G
No. 41. Clar. & Viola

After this we arrive at the end of the first section. That

section (eighty-five bars) is, strange to say, marked to be
repeated, though the instruction is rarely obeyed.* Then
* Berlioz actually charges Habeneck with disloyalty to Beethoven for
having suppressed this repetition. No conductor observes it. But Berlioz had
a grudge against Habeneck, and no one knew better than he that revenge is
sweet.
170 FIFTH SYMPHONY.

comes tlie working-out of the matter already quoted. This

begins in the key of A minor, and great use is at once made
of the energetic phrase in the bass of It occurs no No. 40.
less than from the contra-
fifteen times, in all instruments,

fagotto to the flute, and in various combinations, and as the

vehicle of the most interesting modulations. In fact it may
be said to be the prominent feature of the first portion of the
working-out. This portion, hurrying, loud, and noisy through-
out, ends by a tremendous burst fortissimo on a pedal G, with
all possible clamour and richness. At this point there is a
sudden lull. The pace then slackens to that of the Scherzo

(J. = 96), the time alters to 3-4, the contra-fagotto and

piccolo are silenced, the tone is reduced in the course of a few
bars to pianissimo, and the Scherzo is re -introduced in the

strings, clarinets, oboe, and horn. This introduction is not,

however, the actual recapitulation of any former portion of
the work, but is rather a continuation of the highly mysterious
and touching music quoted in Nos. 32, 33, 34, 35, and is
remarkable for a lovely new feature in an affecting melody
put into the mouth of the oboe, beginning at bar 20 of the
3-4 time

No. 42.
Viol, arco Oboe

liSH
.ff^;^ te±r^±r|s±re±fsS^
I p sg±e
e±f&±
mArc

Nothing could possibly be more effective than this beautiful

episode in its astonishing contrast to the brilliant and
triumphant strains which precede and follow it. Effective,
and also original no one who ever hears it can forget the
;

wonderful impression it makes. Spohr, who disliked the

Symphony and mere empty babel,'
describes the Finale as a '

says that for so happy an idea the composer deserves his

 GENERAL REVIEW. 171

blessing. And Spohr was right. Beethoven has had the

blessing not only of Spohr, the learned musician, but of tens
of thousands who are not musicians, who can feel without
knowing why they feel. After this affecting interruption, the
opening of the Finale (No. 37) returns in full force, and the
recapitulation follows with few if any differences. When this is
completed a long and splendid Coda begins, no less than 150
bars in length, in which much of the previous material is em-
ployed. Its first principal feature is a new treatment of the latter
part of No. 38. After this is exhausted, the pace gradually
increases to Presto on the subject No. 41, and the movement
ends with all possible jubilation in an apparently interminable
succession of the common chord of C, the drum asserting
its presence to the very last.

Let us, before we go to the next Symphony, take a

farewell look at the complex final movement, or congeries
of movements, we have been imperfectly endeavouring to
describe Scherzo, Trio, and Finale all forming one long and
continuous piece. First we have the magnetic Scherzo, at once
so mysterious and so strong, taking us at a touch out of
the almost brutal conflicts of the movement, and
first

the beautiful but human world of the Andante. Then comes

the gamesome humour of the Trio, not unlike the grim
banter of the Angels during the battle in 'Paradise Lost.'
Next, and most remarkable of all, is the reprise of the
Scherzo, where, had he been a mere musician, even of the
greatest, Beethoven was bound to repeat the opening of
his movement ; but where, the poet being too strong for
the he has been forced by his genius to throw his former
artist,

materials into an entirely new form. I cast them into the '

fire,' said Aaron of the ornaments of the Israelite women,

1
and they came out this calf.' But what was Aaron's
miracle to Beethoven's —when, out of an unpretending
little phrase of three notes, he made such an astonishing
172 FIFTH SYMPHONY.

passage ? Great as the music was before, magnetic,

poetical, it was only that ; it was self-contained and did
not imply that anything further was to come out of it

but now we feel that the music is pregnant with a new

birth,and has the promise of eternity within its bosom.
To hear it is like being present at the work of Creation.
Strange, disorderly, almost appalling, as is the rushing
surface of the mass, we cannot but feel that a divine power
is working under the currentthe creative force of law and ;

order iswork there

at and at last, out of the suspense
;

and mystery and repetition which have for so long enveloped

us, suddenly bursts the new world, radiant with the eternal
sunshine, and welcomed by the jubilant sound of those aeonian
strains, when all the sons of God shouted for joy. No wonder
that the work to which this forms the conclusion should have
penetrated more widely and deeply than any other into the
minds of men.
Thus started, the Finale goes on its way in all the pomp
and circumstance of earthly life. It may be victory or success
of some other kind that is depicted, but success it undoubtedly
is, and a glorious career until, as if to enforce the lesson
;

that the ideal is higher than the visible, a part of the Scherzo
is re-introduced, and we are made again to listen to a portion
of the mysterious strain that was so affecting before. The
initial triumphal-march then returns, and the movement
finishes in glory. The immense spirit of the Finale is excuse
enough for any effect that it may have produced. But there
is one anecdote which is particularly interesting. It is said

that at one of the performances in Paris, an old soldier who

was in the up at the commencement of the
room started
movement and cried out L'Empereur, l'Empereur '
No !
'

wonder too if in that strange land, where faith in the Emperor

was then nearly the only faith left, it was at one time
asserted that this movement was originally intended to com-
plete the Eroica,' the Symphony which was actually a
'
 ORIGINAL SKETCH OF THE FINALE. 173

portrait of Napoleon. This notion is, however, utterly false.

To those who have ears to hear and hearts to feel, the Eroica
wants no other Finale than that which it possesses, and always
possessed, and the hero of the C minor Symphony was a more
ideal person even than Bonaparte it was Beethoven himself.—
At the conclusion of a work so essentially unlike any of its
predecessors or successors, it is again impossible not to call
attention to the extraordinary individuality which they all
manifest, each utterly different from the other in every point
which one of the most astonishing things in Bee-
is really
thoven's music. His Symphonies form a series of peaks, each
with its characteristic features — its clefts, its glaciers, its

descending torrents and majestic waterfalls, its sunny uplands

and its and each of these great peaks has its
shining lakes ;

own individual character as much as the great mountains of

Switzerland have theirs, and is a world in itself— a world not
made with hands, and eternal.

The wonderful conclusion of the Symphony, impulsive and

spontaneous as it now sounds, was no fruit of sudden impulse
or momentary inspiration. The was of
original conception
quite a different order, as we see from the sketch-books,* where
it appears thus
No. 43.
L'ultimo pczzo.

i*=n
i1"n» :

-*~ 1 — I

f &c.

i
—* Q££EE^*fe
* Beethovemana, p. 15.
174 FIFTH SYMPHONY.

with a certain relationship to the subjects of the Finales of the

*
Waldstein '
and E flat Sonatas.

The subject of the two famous redundant bars, which once

formed a part of the Scherzo as performed, is now rarely
alluded to but at one time a strong controversy raged over
;

it, and, before we leave this part of the work, mention must
be made of the matter. It is an odd bit of history, and not
uninstructive in many ways.
The separate instrumental parts of the Symphony were
published by Messrs. Breitkopf and Hartel in 1809. In the
autumn of the next year, Beethoven addressed a letter to
them dated August 21, 1810, pointing out that the first bars of
the repetition of the Scherzo after the Trio were inaccurately
printed. His letter is as follows :

1
1 have found the following error still remaining in the
Symphony in C minor ; namely, in the third movement in
3-4 time, where the minor comes back after the major t]Hu #

I quote the Bass part thus

.
-^S^^-^2^^^. $t JtL
-».''>j» -f-^%>|^— jU- -I—-TS-L—1— tHH"^ '

Sl*_^_ — — X^-
l_! | -1 =*J -1 ->—L

The two bars which are crossed out are too many, and must
be erased, of course in all the parts.'
Of this letter no notice appears to have been taken at the
time ; and, strange to say, when the score was published by
the same eminent firm, with that of the Pastoral Symphony,
in 1826, the passage appeared as it had always stood in the
parts— with the two redundant bars. In 1816 Mendelssohn
had to conduct the Lower Rhine Festival at Aix-la-Chapelle.
The C minor Symphony formed part of the programme, and
the tradition is, though I am bound to say that I cannot
 THE TWO REDUNDANT BARS. 175

obtain any absolute confirmation of it, that he feltunhappy

about the passage and made enquiry of the publishers. At
any rate, thirty-six years after it was written, Beethoven's
letterwas produced, and published in fac-simile in the Allg.
mus. Zeitung for 1846, p. 461. Mendelssohn omitted the two
bars at the performance, but the fact seems almost entirely to
have escaped notice. Even the long article on the Festival in
the periodical just named (1846, p. 405), by Onslow the com-
poser, does not and the only notice which I have
mention it,

been able to discover is* that of Dr. Ferdinand Bahles

in the Musical World, May 26, 1860. Rallies was present
at the Festival, and his statement settles the fact that the two
bars were omitted. Still, strange to say, in the teeth of
Beethoven's plain words about his own work, thus at length
acted upon, the obnoxious bars were clung to and defended in
the most vigorous manner. Berlioz, then writing for the Debats,
was one of their stoutest champions. He was adhered to by
the French in general tant pis pour lesfaits. So strong was
the feeling in Paris that Habeneck, conductor of the famous
Concerts du Conservatoire, told Schindler that he dared not
go against the feeling of his orchestra by sacrificing the two
bars. There would be a revolt. Touching loyalty on the part
of the band However, Time, the healer,' has done his
I
'

useful work, and the passage is probably now played every-

where as Beethoven intended it to be played, and as he
fruitlessly corrected the printed edition so soon after its

publication.
The explanation given by the late Otto Jahn, than
whom no one is more likely to have known, in his preface to
Breitkopf's general edition of Beethoven, f is that in the copy
prepared by Beethoven for the engraver the two redundant
bars are marked 1, and the two following ones 2, and that

* I owe this to the kind labour of my friend, Mr. F. G. Edwards.

f See Oesammelte Aufs'dtze uber Musik von Otto Jahn (Leipzig, 1866), p. 317.
176 FIFTH SYMPHONY.

above them is written si replica con trio allora 2 — repeat the

Trioand then go to 2. Beethoven therefore wished the whole
Scherzo and Trio repeated, and then the Coda— with which
—
the repetition was to end and this the engraver did not
understand.
At the Gewandhaus concerts, at Leipzig, when Mendelssohn
was conductor (1835 to 1843), and at an earlier period, it
appears, from an inspection of the music, to have been the
practice to omit the two staccato bars and play the two legato
ones. The same course was adopted by our Philharmonic
Society, the result in both cases being that which Beethoven
did not want. In the autograph in the Mendelssohn house at
Berlin the place has been so corrected by Beethoven, both with
ink and pencil, and so many enigmatical marks made that
it was impossible for the writer to understand exactly what

was meant, especially as the passage occurs at the very

end of a right-hand page and the corrections have to be
carried over to the next one. It is very curious that in the
original criticism by Hoffmann, in the Allgemeine musikalische
Zeitung, of July, 1810 (several weeks before the date of Bee-
thoven's letter), the passage is given in its correct* form and ;

this strengthens the suspicion already expressed, that in

preparing his article Hoffmann had been in communication
with Beethoven, and had obtained his materials, possibly the
loan of a MS. score, direct from him.

The only previous instance known of a Finale being inter-

rupted by the introduction of one of the former movements
is an early Symphony of Haydn's in B major (No. 14 in the
list of Symphonies given in Vol. II. of Pohl's 'Joseph Haydn'

1882). The score was edited by F. Wiillner, and first pub-

* See the Allg. mus. Zeitung for July 11, 1810, p. 655.
 ODD COINCIDENCE. 177

lished by Rieter-Biedermann in 1869. Here the Finale, presto,

in B major, in common time, is interrupted within a short
distance of the end to admit thirty -four bars in the same
tempo as the menuetto (Allegretto) ; the key is the same as that
of the Finale itself, and, as in Beethoven's case, though the
phrases are the same as those of the Minuet, they are not
an exact transcript thereof, and have a Coda of four bars of
their own, after which tempo the former piece returns.
An interesting fact is disclosed by the sketch-book of the
Scherzo, which otherwise would probably not have been
noticed. The first eight notes of the theme quoted above as
No. 27 are the same in intervals as those of the beginning
of the Finale to Mozart's famous G minor Symphony, though
in tempo and rhythm quite different

No. 44.

6j *»
P~ -ffT f it" fcr-r-

fe=F
y <i-
j
->-
=E=
_^-r-t
_F=n_
—^
f i=
«s
-

But the droll thing is that Beethoven must have known what
he had done, for he has copied twenty-nine bars of the
melody of Mozart's Finale on the adjoining page of the
sketch-book. This curious coincidence was first noticed by
Mr. Nottebohm, Zweite Beethoveniana, p. 531.

No Symphony, perhaps no piece of orchestral music, has

been the source of so many anecdotes ; and though some of
these may be mythical, yet they all point to its remarkable
arresting and affecting power. must have been at one of
It
the early performances at the Concerts du Conservatoire,
already mentioned, that Lesueur made his experiment in
178 FIFTH SYMPHONY.

hearing the new which has heen

revolutionary music,
admirably related by Berlioz in his Memoires (1870, '
'

page 75). —
Lesueur a considerable and perfectly honest
—
musician of the old school was then one of Berlioz's masters
at the Conservatoire, and notwithstanding the somewhat
noisy demonstrations of his pupil in favour of Beethoven,
he kept silence on the subject, and so far studiously avoided
attending the concerts at which the new music had made so
much sensation. Had he gone to them he would have been
forced form and express an opinion on the point, and
to
this he was unwilling to do. However, moved by the strong
instances of his enthusiastic pupil, he at length consented
to attend a performance of the C minor. It was his wish

to form a deliberate and conscientious judgment. He '

therefore seated himself alone in one of the ordinary boxes on

the ground tier. After the performance I hastened down
from my place upstairs to find out the effect which had been
produced upon him, and to learn his judgment on the work.
I found him in the passage, as red as fire and walking

furiously fast. "Well, my dear master," said I — " Ouf !

" was
his reply — " I must get out into the air ; it is astonishing, won-
derful ! It has excited and overcome me to that extent, that in
trying to put on my head
hat I could hardly find Don't my !

stop me now, but come to me I had there-

to-morrow." ...
fore been successful Early next morning I called on him,
!

and we at once rushed into the subject. For a few minutes

he allowed me to speak, and gave only an unwilling response
to my raptures. But it was easy to see that since the day
before a change had come over him, and that the subject was
not altogether pleasant. At length I succeeded in making him
repeat the confession of his emotion at the performance but ;

then, with a violent shake of his head and a peculiar smile, he

said: "All the same, such music as that ought not to be
made." To which I answered: "All right, dear master,
there's no fear of much being made like it."
'
 ANECDOTES. MALIBRAN AND SPOHR. 179

When Malibran, the great singer, heard the work for

the first time, at the Paris Conservatoire, she was thrown
into convulsions, and had to be removed from the room.
At another performance by the Conservatoire orchestra
occurred the affecting story of the veteran soldier that has
been already told.

Spohr has left a strange criticism on the Symphony.

It occurs in his Selbstbiographie (i., 228) apropos to a
concert at Munich in 1815. After praising the excellence
of the performance and the admirable attention given to all
the nuances, Spohr continues as follows The effect was even :
'

greater than my anticipations, although I had already fre-

quently heard the work in Vienna, under Beethoven's own
direction. Notwithstanding the splendour of the execution,
however, I found no reason to depart from my original
judgment on the work. With all its individual beauties
it does not form a classical whole. In particular the theme
of the first movement is wanting in the dignity which,
to my mind, is indispensable for the opening of a Symphony.
Putting this aside, the subject, being so short and intelligible,
is well adapted for contrapuntal working, and is combined

with the other chief ideas of the movement in a most

ingenious and effective manner. The Adagio in A flat is
in parts very beautiful but the same progressions and modu-
;

lations recur so often, though each time with more florid

expression, that one is at length wearied by them. The
Scherzo is most original and thoroughly romantic in colour ;

but the Trio, with its blustering double basses, is too grotesque
(barock) for my taste. The last movement pleased me least
of all by unmeaning babel but the return of the ScJierzo
its ;

in the Finale is so happy an idea that one cannot but envy

the composer for it. The effect is ravishing Pity that all that !

empty noise should come back and efface the impression !

'

Though the London Philharmonic band, at the first trial in

1814, received the opening with much laughter, apparently
180 FIFTH SYMPHONY.

thinking was intended to be comic, yet the C minor soon

it

grew into favour here, and a curious scene, indicative of this,

occurred at the York Festival of 1823, when, on account of
the non- arrival of some extra parts, an attempt was made to
omit the Symphony from the programme, and proceed to the
next number, a Scotch ballad *One of the Stewards on this
!

rose in the room, and with stentorian voice exclaimed: Sym- '

phony, Symphony, I insist on the Symphony being played '

;

and played at length it was, though with a small number

of strings, amid universal applause.!

Wagner, conducting a Court Concert at Dresden during the

insurrection of 1848, felt number
his spirits sink as each
of the programme seemed to bring a deeper gloom over
the audience, and gradually to extinguish all applause.
Leaning down from his desk, he whispered to the leader of
the violins, 'What is to be done?' 'Oh! go on,' said the
leader, there is the C minor coming, and all will be
'

right.' And so it was for with the magic sound of the

;

opening bars, everyone's spirit revived, applause burst

from the benches, and it was as if a bright light shone into
the room.

A circumstance in connection with the Symphony, of which

Beethoven could hardly have dreamed, is told by Schumann
in a letter to Hiller, April 25, 1853. '
Yesterday for the first

time we turned a table. A wonderful power ! Only think !

I asked it to give the rhythm of the two first bars of the

C minor Symphony. There was a longer pause than usual,
and then the answer began iff J*\ J |
— very slowly at
first. But, said I, the tempo is quicker, my dear table ; and
then he gave it right.'

* F. Maude, Esq., Recorder of Doncaster {Dictionary of Music, iv., 4956).

t See Dictionary of Music, iv., 4956.

 KEY OF C MINOR. — EARLY SYMPHONY. 181

Mr. Nottebohm* has given us a few bars of the sketch

of a Symphony in C minor, which dates from Beethoven's
early Bonn period, say 1785 and which we greet as a;

curiosity :

Presto. SLnfonia

m 33£ff=*c»;f
t=t^ &c.

The key C minor occupies a peculiar position in Bee-

of
thoven's compositions. The pieces for which he has employed
it are, with very few exceptions, remarkable for their beauty
and importance. Not to speak more of the Symphony, there
are the Overture to '
Coriolan '
; the Concerto No. 3, for
Piano and Orchestra ; the Fantasia for Piano, Orchestra, and
Chorus (' Choral Fantasia ') ; the String Quartet, Op. 18,
No. 4; the Piano Sonatas Pathetique,' Op. 10, No. 1, and
'

Op. Ill (the last). The fact is more particularly obvious in

the three Piano Trios (Op. 1) the three String Trios (Op. 9),
;

the three Sonatas for Piano and Violin (Op. 30), in each of
which cases the piece in C minor stands prominently out
from the others.

* Zweite Beethoveniana, p. 567.

SYMPHONY No. 6 (The Pastoral), in F (Op. 68).
Dedicated to Prince von Lobkowitz and Count von Rassumoffsky.

'
Pastoral Symphony, or a recollection of country life.

More an expression of feeling than a painting.'

Allegro ma non tro.ppo {& 66) — The cheerful impressions excited

on arriving in the country. (F major.)

Andante molto moto (J 50) —By the brook. (B flat.)

Allegro (<^._108) — Peasants' merry-making; Allegro (*__132).

(F major.)

Allegro (^__80)— Storm (F minor) ; and

i

Allegretto (J 60)— The Shepherds' Hymn, gratitude and thanks-

giving after the Storm. (F.)

Scoke.
2 Flutes. : 2 Trumpets.
1 Piccolo. 2 Drums.
2 Oboes. Alto and Tenor Trombones
2 Clarinets. 1st and 2nd Violins.
2 Horns. Viola.
2 Bassoons. Violoncellos.
Basses.

The trumpets and trombones are employed in the Storm and Finale
only; the piccolo in the Storm alone. In the Andante there are two
violoncellos, solo, muted, the other cellos playing with the basses.

The parts were published by Breitkopf & Hartel in April, 1809. The
score,an 8vo of 188 pages, was issued by the same firm in May, 1826,
so I am informed by the firm. Sixieme Sinfonie Pastorale en fa
'
— —
majeur F dur de Louis van Beethoven.
: : Oeuvre 68. Partition.
Propriety des Editeurs. Prix 3 Tblr. A Leipsic, chez Breitkopf &
Hartel.' T4B11.1
 Beethoven's love of nature. 183

If the three preceding Symphonies have been occupied with

the workings of the human mind and will, and have, as it
were, kept us suspended over the memory of a hero, the
rapture of an accepted lover, the conflict of his subsequent
joys and sorrows, and the ultimate triumph of his spirit over
all obstacles — if this be the case, the next Symphony in the
series takes us into an entirely different field. It is as
unlike in subject, in treatment, and in result anything that
has come before were the work of another mind.
it as if it

It is as if Beethoven, after excitement, had gone off to

all this

those scenes where alone his spirit could find rest and refresh-
ment. He is occupied with Nature only, and filled with the
calm which is always the result of love for her and affectionate
intercourse with her beauties. The Pastoral Symphony gives
us the first* intimation we have had in all Beethoven's music
of that devotion to Nature and outdoor life which, though
one of his especial characteristics, would not be inferred from
his compositions. Whatever pieces may have been inspired
by the country, he has left no music with any avowed
connection with Nature but this Symphony, and yet he
appears to have loved her with an overwhelming love.
Wordsworth himself can hardly have had a more intense
affection for Nature in all her forms. A countryman of
ours, the late Mr. Chas. Neate, one of the founders of the
Philharmonic Society, who lived in intimate friendship with

* The 'SonataPastorale,' Op. 28. did not get its name from him or with his
consent. Itwas so called by a publisher, probably because the theme of the
last movement recalls the 6-8 sequences which were formerly supposed to
represent the music of shepherds, Similarly the Moonlight Sonata got its
' '

name from the expression of a critic, who compares the first movement to the
wandering of a boat by moonlight among the shores and islands of the Lake of
Lucerne. Beethoven had nothing to do with either of them. See the list given
on page 51. He seems to have contemplated a Pastoral Sonata in 1815, as is
shown by the sketches quoted in Zweite Beetkoveniana, p. 317. These sketches
have an interest beyond their own in the fact that they are followed by some
exercises in double counterpoint, showing that even at that late date (his
46th year) he was still practising his technical studies.
184 SIXTH SYMPHONY.

Beethoven in Vienna for eight months in 1815, has given us a

remarkable testimony to this fact : he had '
never met any-
one who so delighted in Nature, or so thoroughly enjoyed
flowers or *clouds or other natural objects. Nature was
almost meat and drink to him he seemed positively to
;

exist upon it.' Other friends have recorded the same thing.
*
He loved,' says the Countess Theresa, in her high-flown
style, '
to be alone with Nature, to make her his only
confidante. When his brain was seething with confused
ideas, all times comforted him.
Nature at Often when his
him in the country in summer, he would rush
friends visited
away from them and thus it came to pass that he was often
;

at my brother's at Martonvasar.' A Baden tradition, which

the writer heard there from Dr. Rolletf in 1892, says that on
one occasion, on coming to take possession of a lodging
which had been engaged for him '
at the coppersmith's,'
he refused it because there were no trees near the house.
'
How is this? Where are your trees ? ' '
We have none.'
1
Then the house won't do for me. I love a tree more than
a man.' He even pushed his devotion to Nature to the pitch
of being very wrath with '
the miller' at Baden, who, seeing
him coming through the heavy rain, ran to him with an
umbrella. He refused it angrily.
Beethoven did not swim or ride as Mendelssohn did, but
when living in Vienna he| never omitted his daily walk, or
rather run, round the ramparts, whatever the weather might
be ; and the interesting account given by Michael Krenn, his
* How beautifully he lias set the 'leiehte Segeler '
of Jeitteles's Liederkreis
'an die feme Geliebte (Op. 08). '

t Dr. Hermann Rollet, Stadtarchivar of Baden, was born on August 20, 1819.
He had learned Beethoven's name from Nanette was his auntStreicher — who
or some other relation, and was constantly playing his music and on one ;

occasion, when the little Hermann was five or six years old, she was walking
with him in Baden and they came up to a man who was standing looking about
him, with his hat slung behind his back. '
There,' said Frail Streicher, 'that
is Beethoven.'
X Gerhard v. Breuning, A us d. iSchwarzvjjanierliaus.
 HIS WANDEKINGS IN THE WOODS 185

body- servant, of bis last summer, spent at bis brother's house

at Gneixendorf, and given at the end of my remarks on the
Fourth Symphony (p. 132), shows him in the open air, more or
less, from six in the morning till ten at night, roaming about

the fields, with or without his hat, and sketch-book in hand ;

shouting, flourishing his arms, and completely carried away

by the inspiration of the ideas in his mind. One of his
favourite proverbswas Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund ' '

'
The morning His diaries and
air has gold to spare.'
sketch-books contain frequent allusions to Nature. In one
place he mentions seeing day break in the woods, through the
still undisturbed night mists. In another we find a fragment
of a hymn, '
Gott allein on ist unser Herr,'* sung to himself '

the road in the evening, up and down among the mountains,'

as he felt the solemn and serene influences of the hour. He
addresses the setting sun,' on the same occasion, with a
'

fragment of a song, Leb' wohl, schone Abendsonne.' This was

'

in 1818, in the truly lovely (still lovely) environs of Modling

and the phrases with which no doubt he shouted his emotion
into the evening air are thus embalmed in the sketch-book:
'
Auf dern VVege Abends zwischen den und auf den Bergen
ifa^:
^=3fe^E§EE B^
Gott al - lein ist un - ser Herr, Er al - lein'

'
An die Abend - Sonne
y-
It -i

Leb'wohl, sehiine Abendsonne.'

The most beloved of all these spots, the situation of his
favourite inn of 'The fThree Ravens,' is more than once
referred to by him as the '
lovely, divine, Briihl,' or, in his
spelling, 'Briehl' — 'schone gottliche Briehl.' Every summer
he took refuge from the heat of Vienna in the delicious wooded
environs of Hetzendorf, Heiligenstadt, or Doblines at that time
* Zweite Beethovemana, p. 137.
+ Now 'The Two Ravens.' The Briihl cannot have been more beautiful
than it now is.
186 SIXTH SYMPHONY.

little villages absolutely in the country, though now absorbed in

Vienna ; or in Modling or Baden, farther off. To these, and
to the ' cheerful impressions excited by his arrival ' amongst
them, he looked forward, as he himself says, and as the first
movement of the Symphony shows, with the delight of a '

child.' . . .
'
No man on earth,' says he,
loves the country '

more ; woods, trees, and rocks give the response which man
requires.' seems to say Holy, Holy.' Two little
'
Every tree
memorandums, when his delight became too great to
written
be repressed, have been *preserved by Otto Jahn. The first is
in pencil and has no date the second was written at the end
;

of September, 1815 :

4
Allniachtigcr «
Gott welche
im Walde Herrlichkeit
ich bin selig in einer
gliicklich im solchen Waldgegend
Wald jeder in denHdhen
Baum spriclit Ruhe
ist
durch dich.' Euhe ihm zu
dienen —
'
When you are among those old ruins,' writes he to a dear
ffriend at Baden, '
do not forget that Beethoven has often
lingered there ; and when you wander through the silent pine
woods, remember that I have often made poetry (gedichtet), or,

as they say, composed, there.' In these charming places he

would stay out of doors for hours together, wandering in the
woods or sitting in the fork of some favourite tree and here his ;

great works, with few exceptions, were planned and com-

posed, and prepared for putting into score during the winter
in Vienna. Wordsworth's servant said of her master when
asked to show his study: 'This is the library where he
keeps his books, but his study is out of doors and so '
;

might Beethoven's servant have said of him. The par-

ticular spot from which he drew his inspiration for the

* Thayer, iiL, 159. t To Frau Streicher, 1817.

 PROGRAMME -MUSIC. 187

'
Pastoral Symphony was the AViesenthal near Heiligenstadt,
on the west of Vienna.*
This is not Beethoven's first attempt at 'Programme-
music '
in the widest sense of the word — music in which the
endeavour is made to represent a given scene or occurrence,
by the aid of instruments only, without the help of voices.
The Eroica Symphony belongs to the same category. It is a

portrait, but the extent of the portraiture is left so vague that

we are driven to be content with little more than the mere
fact. In fact, we shall find from several of his entries that
Beethoven was always anxious to avoid anything like actual
imitation of sounds or sights anything, in short, like the —
'branching' horns of the stag, the tread of heavy beasts,' *

or the undulations of the serpent in which Haydn indulged —

in the '
Creation.' The '
Creation had only been brought
'

out a few years before the date at which we have arrived, and
was more talked about in Vienna than any other work, so
that it is hardly fanciful to suppose that in the above
cautions Beethoven had his eye more or less directly
on Haydn's oratorio. But the Pastoral Symphony is a
great advance on the vagueness of the Eroica it is a '
'
;

series of pictures of Nature and natural scenes, so far

labelled as to assist greatly in the recognition. That
was nearly ninety years ago, and it is still undoubtedly the
greatest piece of programme-music yet composed. Titles
are now the rule rather than the exception, and we are so
accustomed to the '
Italian '
and '
Scotch ' Symphonies of
Mendelssohn the Overtures to A Midsummer Night's
;
'

Dream,' Fingal's Cave,' Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage,'

' '

by the same composer the Consecration of Sound and ;

'
'

'
Seasons Symphonies by Spohr
'
the Lenore and the ;
' '

' Forest Symphony '

of Raff ; the '
Paradise and Peri ' Overture
of Sterndale Bennett, &c, as to forget how modern the
practice is, as applied to the full orchestra —a thing of our
* See the spot discussed in Zweite Beethoveniana, p. 077.
188 SIXTH SYMPHONY.

own century. Like most musical innovations that have kept

their ground, though it did not originate in Beethoven — for
instances are found as early as 1545, the date of Jannequin's
'
La Bataille,' and many readers will still recollect the '
Battle
of Prague '
and the Siege of Valenciennes
'
it was
'
— at least
first successfully practised by him. Numerous as are the
pieces with programmes, dating before 1808, it may be safely
said that the Pastoral Symphony is the first which has
survived in public taste. But such is the force of Beethoven's
genius that after he had once opened the path, there was no
help but to follow it. When Frederick Schneider, a stout old
musical Tory, was complaining (says Schubring) of the modern
tendency to programme music, Mendelssohn maintained that
since Beethoven had taken the step he did in the Pastoral
Symphony, it was impossible to keep clear of it. And
Mendelssohn carried his convictions into practice in the
glorious programme -overtures just named, which bid fair to
maintain their ground as long as the Pastoral Symphony
itself.

In the Pastoral Symphony Beethoven has fortunately

indicated the images which were before his mind by the
titles prefixed to the movements ; though even these, with
admirable intuition and judgment, he has restricted by the
canon with which he heads the description of the Symphony
given in the programme of his concert of December 22nd,
1808, when it was first produced, a canon fixing for ever the
true principles of such compositions :
*
Pastoral Symphonic ;

mehr Ausdruck der Empjindung als Malerey ' — ' more expres-
sion of feeling than painting,' or, to render it freely, '
rather
the record of impressions than any actual representation of
facts/
The which form so very unusual and important
inscriptions
a portion of thework exist at least in four shapes, and give a
curious example of Beethoven's vacillation when he had the
pen in his hand. Once get him to the piano, and his thoughts
 THE AUTOGRAPHS. 189

seem to have issued through his fingers in the most complete

and electrifying manner but when he had to write it was quite
;

different, and these titles supply a very characteristic instance

of the impossibility which he found in putting down his ideas
in a shape satisfactory to himself. Litem scripta manet is a
maxim which was of terrible force to him.
These precious little documents are found, as has been said,
in at least four forms :

I. In the original MS. of the Symphony, in the possession

of Baron J. M. Huyssen van Kattendyke, of Arnhem, near
Utrecht, in Holland. Of this I can find no notice beyond that
in Nottebohm's Thematisches Verzeichniss of Beethoven's works
(1868), page 62 :— ' Sinf ia 6 ta . Da Luigi van Beethoven.
Angenehme heitre Empfindungen welche bey der Ankunft
auf dem Lande in Menschen erwa All ma non troppo — -

nicht ganz geschwind — N.B., Die deutschen Ueberschriften

schreiben Sie alle in die erste Violine — Sinfonie von Ludwig van
Beethoven.' These words are apparently copied from the first

page of the MS. only.

II. On the back of an original MS. first violin part,

preserved in the library of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde
in Vienna — and which may be supposed to be an exact repeti-
tion of the inscriptions on the score, as it is the work of a
copyist simply obeying Beethoven's injunction, given in No. I.

above — we find as follows. First, as general title :

Sinfonia Pastorella.
1
Pastoral Sinfonie oder Erinnerung
an das Landleben |: Mehr Ausdruck der Empfindung als
Mahlerei and then over each separate movement :-—
: j
'
;

Angenehme heitre Empfindungen, welche bey der

1st. '

Ankunft auf dem Lande im Menschen erwachen. Allegro ma

non troppo.'
2nd. '
Scene am Bach. Andante molto moto quasi Alle-
gretto.'
190 SIXTH SYMPHONY.

3rd. ' Lustiges Zusaminenseyn der Landleute. Allegro.'

4th. '
Donner, Sturm. Allegro.'
5th. Hirtengesang. Wohlthatige mit Dank an die Gottheit
'

verbundene Gefiihle nach dem Sturm. Allegretto.'

The above is found in Zweite Beethoveniana, p. 378.

III. As inserted in the programme-book of the first

performance, December 22, 1808, and published in the Allg.

musikalische Zeitung, January 25, 1809, thus :

'
Pastoral Symphonie *(No. mehr Ausdruck der Em-
5),
pfindung, als Malerey. lstes Stiick Angenehmene Empfin-
:

dungen, welche bey der Ankunft auf dem Lande in Menschen

erwachen. 2tes Stiick : Scene am Bach. 3tes Stiick : Lustiges
Beysammenseyn der Landleute fallt ein 4tes Stiick Donner
; : :

und Sturm in welches einfallt 5tes Stiick Wohlth'atige mit

; : :

Dank an die Gottheit verbundene Gefiihle nach dem Sturm.'

IV. As given on the back of the title-page of the engraved
first violin part (No. 1,337), published by Breitkopfs in April,
1809, and quoted by Nottebohm in his Beethoven Thematic
Catalogue of 1868, page 62, thus :

*
Auf der Ruckseite des Titels der ersten Violinstimme steht
Pastoral- Sinfonie oder Erinnerung an das Landleben (mehr
Ausdruck der Empfindung ma non
als Mahlerey). 1. Allegro,

molto. Erwachen Empfindungen bey der Ankunft

heiterer
auf dem Lande. —
2. Andante con moto. Scene am Bach. 3. —
Allegro. Lustiges Zusammenseyn der Landleute. 4. Allegro. —
Gewitter, Sturm. 5. Allegretto. —
Hirtengesang. Frohe und
dankbare Gefiihle nach dem Sturm.' These are translated in
the list at the head of these remarks.

V. With the foregoing agree the titles in the 8vo score

published by Breitkopfs in 1824 (No. 4,311), except that the
general title is altered as given above at the beginning, the

* The second part of the programme begins with :

Grosse Symphonie in
C moll (No. 6).'
 knecht's pastoeal symphony. 191

important motto omitted, and the inscriptions to the separate

movements only given.
These five ultimate expressions of his intentions in words
are the fruit of several attempts or offers, which occur in the
sketch-books,* and are too interesting not to be quoted here.
Thus :—
1
The hearers should be allowed to discover the situa-

tions.'
*
Sinfonia caracteristica, or a recollection of country-
life.'

*
A recollection of country-life.'
*
All painting in instrumental music, if pushed too far, is a
failure.'
* Sinfonia pastorella. Anyone who has an idea of country-
life can make out for himself the intentions of the author
without many titles.'

* People will not require titles to recognise the general

intention to be more a matter of feeling than of painting
in sounds.'
4
Pastoral Symphony
no picture, but something in which
:

the emotions are expressed which are aroused in men by

the pleasure of the country (or), in which some feelings
of country -life are set forth.'

The titles finally given to the movements of the work

are curiously similar to —indeed they are virtually identical
with — grand Symphony by Justin Heinrich
those of
a '
'

Knecht, a Suabian composer of the last century. This is

1
The Musical Portrait of Nature,' published in or about 1784,
by Bossier, of Spire, who also issued at the same date
Beethoven's earliest productions, the three juvenile Sonatas
for the piano. The two works —Knecht's and Beethoven's—
were advertised on the same page, and the boy must often
have read Knecht's suggestive titles on the cover of his

* Zweite Beethoveniana, pp. 375, 504.

192 SIXTH SYMPHONY.

own sonatas. If so, they lay dormant in his mind for

twenty-four years, until 1808, when they fructified in the
splendid Symphony now before us. Knecht's title-page is as

follows :—
'
Le Portrait Musical de la Nature ou Grande Simphonie
pour, &c, &c. Laquelle va exprimer par le moyen des
sons
'1. Une belle Contree ou le Soleil luit, les doux Zephyrs
voltigent, les Ruisseaux traversent le vallon, les oiseaux
gazouillent, un torrent tombe du haut en murmurant, le berger
siffle, les moutons sautent, et la bergere fait entendre sa douce
voix.
'
2. Le ciel commence a devenir soudain et sombre, tout le
voisinage a de la peine de respirer et s'effraye, les nuages noirs
montent, les vents se mettent a faire un bruit, le tonnerre
gronde de loin, et l'orage approche a pas lents.
4
3. L'orage accompagne des vents murmurans et des pluies
battans gronde avec toute la force, les sommets des arbres
font un murmure, et le torrent roule ses eaux avec un bruit
epouvantable.
'
4. L'orage s'appaise peu a peu, les nuages se dissipent et
le ciel devient clair.
'
5. La Nature transported de la joie eleve sa voix vers le ciel,

et rend au createur les plus vives graces par des chants doux et
agreables.'
The work is still in existence, and an examination of it
shows that beyond the titles thereis no likeness between

the two compositions.

We may now proceed to the examination of this masterpiece
of Beethoven's :

The Symphony opens without other introduction or

I.

preliminary than a double pedal on F and C in the violas and

cellos —with the principal theme in the violins, as sweet and
 THE ALLEGRO. THE PRINCIPAL SUBJECT. 193

soft as the air of May itself, with buds and blossoms and
new-mown grass :

No. 1.

Allegro ma non troppo.

Viol. 1.
qj^
pigiii=piiSi^
P Strings only

This beautiful subject may almost be said to contain in its

own bosom the whole of the wonderful movement which it

starts, and which is As

512 bars long. the piece proceeds
each theme germinates, and throws
joint, so to speak, of the
off phrases closely related to the parent stem in rhythm or

interval. It would be difficult to find in Art a greater amount

of confidence, not to say audacity, than Beethoven has

furnished by his incessant repetition of the same or similar
short phrases throughout this long movement and yet the ;

effect is such that when the end arrives, we would gladly hear

it all over again. The Violin Concerto gives another example

of the same practice. As an instance of this boldness in
repetition in the Symphony, we may quote a phrase of five
notes, formed out of theme No. 1 : —

&c.
194 SIXTH SYMPHONY.

which first occurs at the sixteenth bar, and is then repeated

no less than ten times successively. At the 116th bar a
somewhat similar phrase
No. 3.

is reiterated for twenty bars. Near the end of the first section
are another twelve

No. 4.

Str. dim. sempre.

*rt-t ~z=&*
Viola i?2> Cello 8va.

4^ u?>±zg s
After the repeat, at bar thirteen of the working-out, another
subject, also formed out of the first theme
No. 5.

Viol. 1.

&c.
p cres. poco a poco. cres.
Viol. 2.

is given out by the violins, is repeated for thirty-six bars, and

is thenceforward almost continually present. (This, by-the-
bye, is quoted by Schindler as being a phrase of national
Austrian* melody.) In fact, the movement is almost entirely
made of short phrases repeated over and over again. Even
so simple a feature as

:=*

is made to recur continually — in fact, something very like

* An instance of Beethoven's adoption of a theme not his own invention.

 PERSISTENT RHYTHMS. 195

it appears in the first *sketch of the music known to exist.

I believe that the delicious, natural, May-day, out-of-doors
feeling of this movement arises in a great measure from this
kind of repetition. It causes a monotony —which, however,
is never monotonous —and which, though no akin imitation, is
to the constant sounds of Nature — the monotony of rustling
leaves and swaying and running brooks and blowing
trees,

wind, the call of birds and the hum of insects. Of the same
nature is this delicious mockery of the bassoon and the violin
in the working-out section-

No. 6.
Violin

V-p—
i ^ - r ~V = r
z
£^H £^=? f=E

Fag.LT 8ves.

Another instance of a similar persistent rhythm is the

following subsidiary subject, where the string and wind
instruments answer each other in charming soft rivalry

No. 7. Oboe dolce

Viol./ P
***s

A temporary exception to this recurring motion is formed

by the second subject proper of the movement, given out thus
in the cellos

No. 8.

Cello

gg^^gjjpjf

* Zweite Beethoveniana, p. 370.

196 SIXTH SYMPHONY.

and then appearing in instruments of higher register

No. 9,
Flute cres.

—rciir
Vioi. cres
r ^ j -p-^i — *t-

a subject which, though allied to the others in tone and

feeling, is in different rhythm. The manner in which the
long notes of this beautiful phrase keep building themselves
up one over the other, and the monotony into which it fails at
last without power to escape, in the arpeggios, are too charming.

But with all this repetition there is no weariness. Though he

may not have known the axiom of d' Alembert, La nature est '

bonne a imiter, mais non pas jusqu'a l'ennui,' Beethoven

acted on it thoroughly. Indeed, he is steeped in Nature
itself; and when the sameness of fields, woods, and streams

can become distasteful, then will the Pastoral Symphony

weary its hearers.
The working-out begins with a passage or section of ninety-
two bars, mainly consisting of the incessant repetition of a
phrase taken from bar two of the original subject No. 1 (see
also No. 5) — or, rather, of one passage of forty-six bars,
exactly repeated, flat and D, and then in G and E.
first in B
Thus the monotony already noticed is still further ministered
to. But this portion is full of fresh beauties, all strictly in
character with the foregoing. Here is a charming change,
though simple enough

No. 10.

^
 ALLEGRO. THE WORKING-OUT. 197

-and here a delicious point

No. 11.

Viol. 1. Viol. 2. ,

ipplili^pgiig-

Then, after a repetition of the passage last quoted, in the

key of A, comes a new treatment of bars 9, 10, 11 of the first

theme (No. 1), given successively in the flutes and bassoons

(in D), in the violas and cellos (in A), and next (which we
quote) in the first violin only

No. 12.

Viol. 1.

mmmW&^m

In this, by giving the phrase in minor, and by a happy

importunity of sforzando at the beginning of the sections of
the phrase, quite a new character is given to the familiar
theme, as it whispers its tender griefs in graceful iteration.
After this we arrive at the reprise of the first section of the
movement. this last is much disguised, and is given
But
not con alcune licenze like the fugue of Op. 106, but with many

* This B flat is specially marked in the score.

198 SIXTH SYMPHONY.

a license. The key of F is given with no uncertain sound ;

but the form of the subject, though unmistakable, is consider-

ably modified. The theme comes back into the strings alone,
which originally announced it but the phrase is given to the
;

second violins and violas (see bar 3 of quotation), while the

first fiddles sustain a high D, then C, and then, descending

to G,

P
r:
m
^ShJSLm:
pp
rgJXCTi
^3=^ \rjS
stac.
1
^;^ Y &o.

n r
ptzz

execute a delicate passage of staccato notes, thus developing

the pause which, on the first occasion, occupied the fourth bar
of the passage (see No. 1) into one of the most charming
flourishes possible,and forming a sort of companion to the
unbarred oboe passage, which we noticed in the working-
out of the C minor Symphony as the development of a
previous pause, though of an entirely different complexion
from that striking lament. That was deeply pathetic
this, on the contrary, though delicate, is jubilant and full

of the spring feeling which animates the whole move-

ment.
 THE CODA. SCHUMANN S SUGGESTION. 199

The Coda (no less than ninety-five bars in length) is of the

same general character as the previous part of the movement,
but contains some new features, such as

No. 14

Viola
Viol. 1.

h*^
V. 2,

Sx- r
^^i
.

—where the alternations of the B flat and B natural are

charming. This also, a few bars from the end

No. 15.

Fag. 8ve. / Tutti

will not escape notice.

Schumann has pointed* out a place in the first movement
(p. 85 of the original 8vo score, shortly after the reprise) in
which he thinks that for three bars in the first violins the
preceding triplet figure should continue instead of pausing,
similimarks having been mistaken by the copyist for rests.
In Breitkopf and Hartel's new complete edition the passage
has been accordingly altered (page though without
16),
anything to indicate the change which has been made
from Beethoven's original edition. This certainly is a

* Gesamm. Schriflen, iv., 65.

200 SIXTH SYMPHONY.

regrettable omission. While suggesting the change, Schumann

himself makes a pertinent remark. He says How we have
:
'

gone on hearing the passage for years without altering it, is

only to be explained by the fact that the magic of Beethoven
is so great as to put our ears and our judgment to sleep/

Someone said a similar thing in regard to the apparent

mistake in the score of the Vivace of No. 7, which was
announced by Mr. Silas a few years ago (see p. 268).
If Schindler's express* statement is to be accepted,
Beethoven was driven to the key of F for this work. After
distinctly affirming, in words which are evidently intended
to be those of the composer himself, that certain keys are
inevitable for certain situations and emotions as inevitable —
as that two and two make four and do not make five — he goes
on to say, with reference to this very work, that in order to
obtain the most appropriate sounds for a picture of country
life, it would have been impossible any but F major
to choose
as the prevalent key of the composition. But F major is
also the prevalent key of the Eighth Symphony, the scene,
circumstances, and tone of which are entirely different from
those of the Pastoral. This depicts the quiet of the country ;

that the noisy intercourse of a crowded watering-place.

Moreover, in the few notes which we possess of the sketches
for a 'Sonate Pastorale,' already alluded to, the key is

certainly not F.f

Whether Beethoven's words on this interesting subject
are to be taken literally, or whether, with characteristic want
of the humour in which the composer was steeped, Schindler
has omitted something which considerably modified the
conversation, cannot now be told. From another part of the
same passage it must be which
inferred that the attributes
Beethoven ascribed to the various keys were independent of
pitch. At any rate, from his own written words, we know

* Biography (Ed. 3), ii., 166.

f See Zweite Beethoveniana, p. 317.

 D FLAT MAJOR. THE ANDANTE. 201

that his opinions on the subject were very strong. * H moll

schwarze Tonart '
—B minor is a black key —which is hardly
the characteristic of Schubert's unfinished Symphony. He
rebukes Thomson, of Edinburgh, for marking a song in four
flats (possibly F minor) as amoroso, and says it should be
rather barbaresco. In talking to Rochlitz* of his early

admiration for Klopstock and his ponderosities, he charac-

terises them as D flat major. '
You're astonished,' says he,
'
*
but isn't it so ?

II. Andante motto moto. — 'By the brook.' This movement

which thrown into the same form as the Allegro, except
is

that there is no repetition of the first section is based on a —

somewhat more definite picture than the former. That
represented in a general manner the pleasant feelings aroused
by the country. This is definitely laid by the brook-side, and
accordingly the murmur of the water, or, rather, in obedience
to Beethoven's canon, the prevailing impression made on the
mind by the sound, is heard throughout almost the entire
piece on the lower strings, either in quavers

Fg^Sp^PStff^r
Cello in 8ves.

or in semiquavers-

No. 17.

The actual sound of running water, whether the same

brook or another, he has recorded in a sketch -bookf of 1803,

* Fur Freunde der Tonkunst, iv., 356.

t See Ein Skizzenbuch aus dem Jahre 1803 .... von
' G. Nottebohm,
1880,' p. 56.
202 SIXTH SYMPHONY.

at a time when his hearing, though threatened, was better

than it became in 1808 — as follows
No. 18.

Andante molto. Murmur of the brook.

Into.
^PS &c.

The more water the deeper the tone.

It will be observed that in the Andante Beethoven has

changed the key of the figure representing the noise of the
water from what it was when he actually observed it. And
this no doubt he has done to avoid anything like actual imi-
tation. The brook forms the background of the scene but ;

above and through the ceaseless murmur of the figures in Nos. 16

and 17 are heard various motifs, none of them directly imita-
tive, but all suggesting the delights of the life of Nature.
And beside these Beethoven has managed, with the most
extraordinary skill, to fill his score with an atmosphere

of sound which conveys the glories of summer, and the busy

'
noise of life swarming on every sense.
'
The first of these
motifs —
the principal subject of the movement with which it
opens in the first violins— begins as follows to end (as ;

Beethoven generally ended) in a lovely consecutive melody

that of the last three bars of the passage

No. 19.

cres
 THE SHAKES. GLUCK S OKPHEE 203

This is supported by the lower strings, in the figure given

as No. 16, and by holding notes of the horns. The melody
is then taken by the clarinet, the lower strings adopting the
semiquaver figure (No. 17), while the first violins give a
series of shakes on the upper B flat and C, and the horns a
syncopated pedal of a charming vagueness

tr-
No. 20
V. 1.
5J
t=s-
JT m f » ^ f fwf-wT--, CI.
£SE
Y -5 -
feafea
Cor. 8ve higher
V: .*__*. r -J^J^J AJ^J-f&*£A
&A
&=& ±^t
r^z—\^-r =T

both shakes and pedal being prominent features throughout

the Andante. The syncopated notes of the pedal are heard
continually through the movement, in bassoons, oboes, and
other instruments successively. The shakes, and the grace
notes in the quotation, bear an important part, as they some-
how suggest heat. It is curious that Gluck in the beautiful
air, '
Quelle belle jour,' in '
Orphee,' sung in the brilliant sun-
light of Elysium, uses a similar expedient, with a similar result.
Next we have the following elegant phrase, given out, like
those just quoted, in the first violin

No. 21.

Viol. 1.

^ctS
it=m £=m-
£jF=r— »*W— f-
dolce cres. p>
204 SIXTH SYMPHONY.

the graceful and soothing flow of which is immediately re-

peated by the clarinet, while an accompaniment is added above
for the first violin, with the bassoon and cello in octaves—

Cello & Fag. in 8va.

Clar

This two-bar phrase has a highly important part assigned

to it at the close of the movement (see a, No. 31). After four
connecting bars, the first subject (No. 19) is resumed,
but with a delicious difference, as the quotation (at a) will
show

No.

ag3
23.
Viol. 1.

±H— — *- -n—js- -*—=»- -r_4_r_

i$==«*
!?
&c.

Cor. 8ve higher

. N

_ _^_ _ _ __!_
- .—.p- ^—1.
I
—^ ;r p 1 p

- -_-S-Tj.
Fag.
fc£L £?l

~=T n P - P *»
-5-

For music modulates into the key of F, the

this the
syncopated pedal is taken by the- horns, bassoons, flutes, and
clarinets, and by the flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons
 ANDANTE. THE SECOND SUBJECT. 205

alternately and the second part is ornamented with figures,

;

the lazy grace of which well befits the summer climate that
breathes around us, and seems indeed to hum

The murmur of a happy Pan.

These delicious phrases willremind the hearer irresistibly

of the similar figures in the Larghetto of the Second Symphony
(see No. 15, page 29).
Thus at length, after twelve connecting bars, we
arrive at the second principal subject of the movement.
This is of the same graceful, deliberate character as the
others

Tutti

r g J tp r P-ULt£=gT ^rcf?

It is brought in first by the rich tone of the first bassoon

never perhaps to more advantage ; it is shortly strengthened
by the violas and cellos, and accompanied by the shakes which
added such a summer feeling to the first subject (see No. 20).
It is then, in a shortened form, repeated by the first violin
206 SIXTH SYMPHONY.

and flute with the accompaniment of the initial figure of

No. 19—
No. 26
Viol. 1 & Fl. 1
jj7iJT14 j>

pizz. |

With two repetitions of the haunting phrase quoted as No. 21

the first portion of the Andante comes to an end. The same
principle of reiteration governs this movement that we found
prevailing in the Allegro. True there are more themes, but
they are, as a rule, so alike in character that they have all

the air of repetitions.

The working-out begins with a repetition of the opening, but
with considerable differences. The key is F the undulating ;

figure, which before formed the accompaniment on the lower

strings, is given to the clarinets and bassoons in octaves,
while the lower strings have the semiquaver version of the
same and the
figure, characteristic phrase of the first half
of the theme (No. 19) is enriched in form. This will be seen
from the following quotation
No. 27.
Viol. 1.
^*^t ^>- **£tt
m P
Clarinets
-=!-*=-

ft
-=*-*=-

ilS^So^as
t
Pag. sva.

«=
ST ^Sip-
2a£
dim.

££
 ANDANTE. THE WORKING-OUT. 207

Next we have a new phrase in the second violins and violas,

repeated by the flute in the key of G, and with an arpeggio
which is not only lovely in itself and in the modulation
which follows it, but has a special interest of its own, as will
be discovered later (see page 211) :

No 2$
VI. 2 & Violas in 8ves. ^ —^ ••

S—*— *1 _. r
! i
pj — __
d J m-
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U uDoe
Oboe

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n &c.
i

VI.
^—
1.& Viola
i

8va.
jr
FL«
t^^p^r-

Oboe

^^
These materials and the previous themes and phrases are
used in the most masterly way, with great contrivance and
combination, and considerable modulation, through the keys
of E C flat, E minor, and B flat, but without casting the
flat,

least shadow of labour or science over the natural feeling of

the music. The shakes, to which we have more than once
called attention, lose none of their warm feeling when they
are given thus

No.

^
29.
tr tr tr tr
=fcfc=pr
=t*t ^==P -^. f=^E^ f jj j rag
tr tr tr
T-g - g=g:

With the key of B flat comes the inevitable recapitulation of

208 SIXTH SYMPHONY.

the first part of the movement. The melody is now given to the
flute, the accompaniment in the lower strings remains much
as before, but great use is made of the arpeggios in the first
violins and the wind. There is also much enrichment of the
melodies, such as

No. 30.

t*~* ^t-^-it

The second subject (again in the bassoon, but this time in

the key of F) arrives much sooner than it did before. It is

not necessary to go into further details, everything is in

perfect keeping, and to comment upon such beauty is to
gild refined gold. The Coda is not long, but is very remark-
able. After seven bars occur the imitations, or rather carica-
tures, of the nightingale, and cuckoo, which have
quail,
become so celebrated, and, with the storm, always form the
popular points in the work. Beethoven would probably be
surprised if he could know what favourites these birds are, and
with how many hearers they are more enjoyed than the other
portions of the Symphony, with which they really hold no
comparison. In the programmes of the Conservatoire, at Paris,
they were, and probably are, called special attention to, and
Langage des oiseaux is added to Beethoven's simple title. He has
himself told us that the passage is intended for a joke.* But it
was hardly necessary to say so. It is obvious that the passage,
eight bars in length —
in which they really are only an episode,
with no part in the construction of the movement is one of —
those droll capricious interpolations which we have noticed

* '
Mit denen soil es nur Scherz sein.' Schindler, i., 154.
 ANDANTE. THE BIRDS. 209

in each Symphony, from the second onward, put in in

obedience to the promptings of his turbulent humour, and
in defiance of any consideration but his own absolute will.
It is more wilful and defiant here than ever, because it is
more strange, and also because it is more realistic, more in
direct transgression of the canon against mere 'malerei,'
which Beethoven placed at the head of his work, and which we
have already quoted. But surely he may be excused the ;

constant intimate contact of his divine strains with Nature

may well have bewitched his judgment, and, as if by mis-
take, guided his mind to a too realistic passage, in contra-
vention to the strict principle he formerly announced. Indeed
the parody is of the broadest and barest description ; a prac-
tical joke of the most open kind. And yet how the artist
triumphs over the humorist I How completely are the raw
and cuckoo atoned for and
travesties of nightingale, quail,
brought into keeping by the lovely phrase
(a, see example 21)

with which Beethoven has bound them together, and made

them one with the music which comes before and after
them

Vft o-i Quail (Oboe) Pi!

Nightingale (Flute) > > > M.-.9L

Just so in the equally anomalous arabesques of Oriental and

Kenaissance art do the feet and tails of the birds and
dragons and children, which play among the leaves, run off

into lovely tendrils, curving gracefully round, and connecting

210 SIXTH SYMPHONY.

the too-definite forms from which they spring with the vaguer
foliage all round. Two of these birds Beethoven has else-
where imitated — the nightingale in the opening of his setting
of Herder's* Song, ' Der Gesang der Nachtigal,' in 1813, five
years after the date of the Symphony

No. 32.

^- g
^ m- 0^^-
——
r\
I
m.
bs+>- — — ——h- —j^fW
^^ff-ff^ I ^r^^fim
Ri»d—!—N™«pH
I !

WIMW ^UNrin#-Ni
^^ i »l )
m

sf sf

To the quail he has devoted a song, '

Der Wachtelschlag,'f
in which the bird's note is set to the words with which it is

traditionally associated in Germany — ' fiirchte Gott, fiirchte

Gott.' Of the cuckoo, nothing need be said. A fourth bird

the yellow-hammer— has been suggested as taking an integral
part in the second portion of the movement, and this on the
strength of a conversation between Schindler and the composer,
reported in Schindler's biography of Beethoven (i., 153). It
summer of 1823, long after the great composer
occurred in the
had become entirely deaf, during a stroll in the wooded
meadows between Heiligenstadt and Grinzing, in the neigh-
bourhood of Vienna, the scene of the conception of this and
many others of his finest works. The passage gives a touching
picture, for which its insertion may be pardoned. '
Seating
himself on the turf,' and leaning against an
says Schindler, '

elm, Beethoven asked me if there were any yellow-hammers to

be heard in the tree above us. But all was still. He then said,

* The song was first published in the supplemental volume of Breitkopf s

great edition of Beethoven, in 1887, Serie 25, No. 277.

f Composed in 1799 and published in March, 1804 ; words by Sauter. See

Nottebohm, Thematisches VerzeicJmiss, p. 179.
 THE YELLOW-HAMMER. 211

" This where I wrote the Scene hy the Brook, while the
is

yellow-hammers were singing above me, and the quails,

nightingales, and cuckoos calling all around." I asked why
the yellow-hammer did not appear in the movement with the
others on which he took his sketch-book, and wrote the
;

following phrase (see No. 28)

No. 33

" There's the little composer," said he, " and you'll find that
he plays a more important part than the others ; for they are
nothing but a joke." And in fact the modulation of this
phrase into G major (after the preceding passage in F — see bars
4 and 5 of No. 28) gives the picture a fresh charm. On my
'

asking,' continues Schindler, why he had not mentioned the

'

yellow-hammer with the others, he said that to have done so

would only have increased the number of ill-natured remarks
on the Andante, which had already formed a sufficient obstacle
to the Symphony in Vienna and elsewhere. In fact, the
work was often treated as a mere jeu d'esprit on account
of the second movement, and in many places had shared
the fate of the Eroica. In Leipzig they thought that it

would be more appropriately called a Fantasia than a

Symphony.'
But the note of the yellow-hammer, both in England and
in Austria, is not an arpeggio — cannot in any way be twisted
into one, or represented by one. It is a quick succession of
the same note, ending with a longer one, sometimes rising
above the preceding note, but more frequently falling. In
fact, Schindler himself tells us that it was the origin of the
mighty theme which opens the C minor Symphony Taking 1

these things into account, remembering how irresistible a

212 SIXTH SYMPHONY.

practical joke was to how entirely destitute of

Beethoven, and
humour Scliindler always shows himself, it is difficult not to
come to the conclusion that in this elaborate proceeding
Beethoven was hoaxing his humble friend. The reader must
judge for himself.
A large collection of Slavonic tunes, by Professor F. Xaver
Kuhac, of Agram, recently published in four volumes (Agram,
—
1878 81), contains some melodies bearing a strong resem-
blance to the subjects of some of the music of Haydn and
Beethoven. Amongst others is the following (Vol. III.,
No. 1,016)—

No. 34.

which, it is safe to say, was either borrowed from the first

movement of the Pastoral Symphony or was used by
Beethoven in the composition of that work (compare quotation,
No. 1, and notice the interesting difference in the first three
notes) another is quoted a propos to the Finale, which we
;

shall notice farther on. A somewhat similar instance is

formed by the Trio in the Seventh Symphony, the melody cf

which is said, on the authority of the Abbe Stadler, to have
been a well-known pilgrims' chant. The Russian themes in
the last movement of the first and second of the Rasumoffsky
Quartets are quite a different matter, as in both cases the
theme is marked by Beethoven as '
Theme Russe.' The
subject of the Slavonic tunes has been discussed by Dr.
Heinrich Reimann(^4%. Musikzeitung for Oct. 6, 13, 20, 1893)
and Professor Kuhac himself {Ibid., July 20, August 3, 17,
1894), as well as in the Musical Times for November, 1893.
The question is — which is the original, the Symphony or the
 ANDANTE. SLAVONIC TUNES. 213

Volkslied? — and this does not appear to be yet made out.

Meantime Beethoven does not seem to have scrupled to use
materials wherever he found them. Attention was called by
Mr. C. A. Barry, in the Beethoven number of the Musical Times,
1892. to a similarity between a phrase of Beethoven's and one
in the old German Grossvatertanz. It is difficult to believe that

Beethoven had not seen Mozart's Overture to Bastien et '

Bastienne before writing the Eroica.

' Other instances of
similarity between his phrases and those of his predecessors
have been mentioned by Mr. Shedlock in his excellent book
The Pianoforte Sonata, and others are familiar to students of
his works. '
While walking one night with Beethoven in the
Mariahilf Strasse (apparently in Vienna), all at once,' says*
Gloggl, 4
he stopped, and I heard through a window some
one playing very charmingly. Beethoven took out a small
note-book and wrote in it, saying, "I like that idea."' On
another occasion he said, '
I quite agree with Cherubini as to
his Requiem,! and, if I ever write one, shall borrow much
from him, note for note.' It is hard to say why he should
not do so. Handel probably borrowed more themes than
anyone else, and he has shown us over and over again that
it is not the theme that constitutes the value of the com-

position, but the way in which ifc is used.

III. Allegro. — ' Peasants' Festival.' So far we have had to

do with Nature ; we now turn to the human beings who
people this delicate landscape ; the sentiment at once com-
pletely changes, and we are carried from graceful and quiet
contemplation to rude and boisterous merriment. The third
movement— answering to the usual Scherzo, though not so
entitled — is a village dance or fair. The wind instruments
most prominently heard are appropriately those of rustic

* Thayer, Biography, iii., 518 and 215.

+ Seyfried, ii., 22. He seems
to have seriously meditated a Requiem in 1818.
See Monatshefte f. Musikges., 1896, p. 54.
214 SIXTH SYMPHONY.

artists, the flute, tlie oboe, and bassoon. The strings begin
thus in F, leading into D minor

No. 35. Allegro.

Strings pp it -it

Strings & Flute

-P-P-

3$. dol.

but the flute and bassoons enter after a very few bars, and the
oboe shortly after. There is a delightfully rustic cast about
it all — the close of one portion of the melody

(/ sf sf sf

the false accent with which the oboe starts the second
section

No. 37.
Oboe p.
Viol. 1 dim. ~!
-ft ,-4- -h-1-
S^E
\iol. 2 dimin. PP
£ ^-
:{==!z=±zt£EE
I

to the quaint *accompaniment of the two fiddles (we seem to

see the village players bowing awayj are all in exquisite
keeping, and it is not too much to believe that the whole has
a '
foundation in fact.' Indeed, the very passage just quoted

* Recalling the accompaniment of a portion of the Scherzo in the .Second

Symphony (.see p. 33).
 THE RUSTIC BAND AT THE BRUHL. 215

is said to be an intentional caricature of a band of village

musicians whom Beethoven used to hear in the country and ;

the irregular halting rhythm in the bassoon shows how

drunk or how drowsy the player was

No. 33.

Bassoon p
we
while the two notes to which he is confined during this
episode prove how very moderate are his powers.
This party, seven in all (says Mr. Thayer in his Life of
Beethoven, iii. 43), had for many years played regularly in
the tavern of '
The Three Ravens,' in the Upper Briihl, near
Modling ; their music and their performance were both
absolutely national and characteristic, and seem to have
attracted Beethoven's notice shortly after his first arrival in
Vienna. He renewed the acquaintance at each visit to
Modling, and more than once wrote some waltzes for them.
In 1819 he was again staying at Modling, engaged on the
Mass in D. The band was still there, and Schindler was
present when the great master handed them some dances
which he had found time to write among his graver labours,
so arranged as to suit the peculiarities which had grown on
them ; and as Dean Aldrich, in his Smoking Catch, gives
each singer time to fill or light his pipe, or have a puff, so
Beethoven had given each player an opportunity of laying
down his instrument for a drink, or even for a nap. In the
course of the evening he asked Schindler if he had ever
noticed the way in which they would go on playing till
they dropped off to sleep and how the instrument would
;

falter and at last stop altogether, and then wake with

a random note, but generally in tune. '
In the Pastoral
Symphony,' continued Beethoven, *
I have tried to copy
this.'
216 SIXTH SYMPHONY.

The next movement Allegro 2-4 (answering to the Trio

of the Scherzo) — is said to represent a fight among the
dancers, though indeed it may just as well be a rough
dance. The harmony is of the same simple character as
that which forms so fine a feature in the opening move-
ment

No. 39.

Wind

IV. The Storm which bursts upon the revels and quarrels
of the peasants would require a whole pamphlet for its

adequate illustration and encomium. comes abruptly on

It

the scene. A modern composer would probably have let us

hear the thunder gathering in the distance, and have given
us the gradual dispersal of the dancers, and other incidents,
as the rain came on, and the flashes grew more vivid indeed, —
Knecht in his programme gives some indications of the kind.
—
But Beethoven whether because such realistic painting had
not yet invaded music, or because he so willed — stops the
it

dancing suddenly, draws a double bar through his page, adds

 THE STOKM. SUBLIMITY. 21'

a flauto piccolo to the score, alters the signature and the

time, slackens the tempo, and treats the storm as a distinct,

new, and independent scene

No. 40. „-*. -%--&%. Allegro. c'-80.

Cor.
m*m
&
sf
& rrT
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Fag. I
,

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1

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fc*ii:
e

It is simple treatment, but he can do nothing without

significance and effect. The sudden D flat* which begins the
change — like very distant thunder, so soft as to be hardly
audible —is, M. Saint-Saensf remarks, really sublime.' This '

depends on the interpretation given to that tremendous adjec-

tive. But sublime or not, it is very impressive. It has the '

light that never was on sea or land,' and throws at once a

mystical cast over the rustic gaiety of the preceding music,

* In the interesting conversation with which Rochlitz was honoured by-

Beethoven in 1822, the great composer, in speaking of his early fondness for
Klopstock and his solemnities, characertises them as always Maestoso ! D '

flat !Isn't it so? But for all that, he is really great, and lifts one's soul.' —
Rochlitz, Fur Freunde der Tonkunst, iv., 356.

f Harmonie et Melodic, p. 11.

218 SIXTH SYMPHONY.

much as a dark cloud might do on the actual field. This storm '

is movements of the
as distinct an addition to the usual four
Symphony Schumann's third or
as the Cathedral Scene in
'
Khenish Symphony is.* Fortunately it needs no com-
'

mentary, but is so grandly and broadly written that the

hearer has but to surrender himself to the impressions of the
moment as the splendid war of the elements rages before
him. It has no special '
form,' but one or two favourite
passages may be cited, such as the following bold pro-
gression

No. 41.
Strings in 8ves.

sf £223 sf
* sf
** **m^gr-
PP
—or this other, in which the basses virtually go down through
three octaves, with the violins in arpeggios of double notes
above them —curiously simple means for the immense effect
produced I

No. 42.

Cellos and Basses sf

sf sf
, g
sf
r&zr
§S sf

An extraordinary effect is produced at an early period of the

* At the first performance at Leipzig (March 26, 1809) it was specially

announced as in five movements. In fact there is no denying that three of the
Symphonies are in five movements, since the Introductions to Nos. 4 and 7
are so long and important that they cannot be taken as mere preludes to
the Allegros, but form separate and independent portions of the work. The
Niuth, of course, is in many more than five.
 CLOSING OF THE STORM. 219

tempest by making the cellos play in groups of five semi-

quavers while the double basses have groups of four
No. 43.
.£?.

Basses "£^ ££^ ^S» *« *w

an effect specially noticed by M. Berlioz.
Mention has often
been made of the truth to Nature shown in the mysterious lull
before the storm reaches its climax (where the chromatic
scales are first introduced), of the picturesque beauty of the
final clearing off of the tempest (first oboe solo, with second
violin in octaves)
No -«- Oboe-
2_r te_^2.
|jp^
rz^
fa 3=2=&
-4H- m -
"tip
Viol. 2 dolce

—which is really the passage at the commencement of the

movement (No. 40, bar 7), in minims instead of quavers
and the strip of blue sky (final scale upwards of the flute)

No. 45 m * -
b.j^j
do Zee
— J —
which is first found in the second Finale* to Fidelio,'
a feature '

and which Mendelssohn and Schumann have not forgotten,

* Apropos to this, a very interesting anecdote is told by the late Professor
Otto Jahn in his introductory article to Breitkopf ' complete edition
s In the :
'

autograph of the second Finale to Fidelio, ' says he, on one of the last pages,
'

at a place where it is absolutely unsuitable, occurs this scale passage ; and it

was only after the most careful investigation that the proper place for it could
be found. It now stands in the new score of '
Fidelio ' at page 284 in the
piccolo part, where it adds an extraordinary emphasis at the moment of the
greatest climax.' — Jahn's Gesamm. Aufsatze (1866), p. 315.
220 SIXTH SYMPHONY.

the former in the close of the scene on Sinai in i

Elijah,' the
latter in the first movement of his B flat Symphony, thirty-
five bars from the end.
A sketch of this storm will be found in the Prometheus
*

music, immediately succeeding the Overture ;and the com-

parison of the two pieces is most interesting, and will be found
to throw great light on Beethoven's modes of procedure in
such cases. It is a parallel to the two Overtures to Leonora,
where '
No. 2 '
is a *
first edition '
of '
No. 3.'

V. The Finale is an Allegretto, a *

Shepherds' hymn of
gratitude and ^thankfulness,' at the passing of the tempest.
Between the two there is no pause. Beethoven's original
memorandum of the title in his sketch-book ran thus :

'
Ausdruok des Dankes. Herr, wir danken dir,' as if he
had a thanksgiving hymn in view. The movement now
opens with a Jodel or Ranz des vaches, begun by the clarinet,
and repeated by the horn, though the sketch-books show that
this Jodel itself is an afterthought, and that the Finale
originally began with the melody of the hymn (No. 47). The
horn passage may be noticed because it is founded on a
solecism in harmony, for which in this and other places
Beethoven has been much censured by Oulibicheff, Fetis,
and other conservatives of the old school, but which, in the
music of our times, has been carried to lengths of which
Beethoven himself can hardly have dreamt —
No. 46. A llegretto.

Clar.^. '-

Cello
* Here again the French must add a definite programme and in the Con-
;

servatoire programmes we accordingly have '

Le calme renait. Les patres
rappelent leur troupcaux,' &c.
 THE FINALE. LA CHIMERE. 221

The which Oulibicheff nicknames la Chimere,'

offence, '

after the compound monster of classical mythology, con-

sists of his employing the tonic and dominant harmony
' ' '
'

together, at the same time. In this case the viola holds

the bass notes G and C (of the chord of C, the dominant '

of F), while the violoncello has the notes C and F (of the
chord of the tonic F), the horn at the same time sounding
' '

the same notes as the viola. Another instance is found in

the famous horn passage which finishes the working-out of the
first movement of the Eroica (see page 6G). The effect of such
combinations depends materially upon the way in which the
instrumentation is managed —a strong point with Beethoven
but our ears are accustomed to the combination, and it sounds
all right ; that is, it conveys the impression which Beethoven
intended it to convey, and which is therefore better than that
conveyed by the alteration of M. Fetis, who has actually taken
upon himself, in print, to improve this passage to suit the
ears of his own generation, naively remarking that '
with
these alterations the effect would be excellent.'
The ranz des vaches leads into the first and chief theme of
the Finale —the Hymn of the Shepherds — as follows

Viol. 1 pp

This theme is given out by the first violins, repeated by the

second violins and then by the violas, cellos, clarinets, and
bassoons in unison. It is followed immediately by a short
melody of two bars' length, given alternately by the violas and
cellos

No. 48.

^
mi&Em^mm^m ^ .^ V ins
L
ffi r ten. ^ .
.

Violas & Cellos

222 SIXTH SYMPHONY.

and by the first violins —by the latter in this sprightly

form

No. 49.

and relieved by a charming subsidiary melody. Then the last

group of the phrase is played with, first as above, and next
in a florid form

^ ^fe
No. 50.

H fefc
*&*
Next comes a new phrase

No. 51.

Violins .0.
m #fL -Jt
•i^ -S-
5E=3*I P •U-^ta
Mf #
I 1
1

p cres. /I

leading to an extended repetition of the original jodel in the

violins, with its '
wrong '
harmony supported successively by
the flute, oboe, clarinet, and horn, and diminishing to pianis-
simo. This leads back to the principal subject (No. 47),
richly accompanied, and modulating into the key of B flat, in
which key at length the second subject proper appears in the
clarinets and bassoons, and accompanied by the violas in
semiquaver figures

No. 52.

f^^Bmm
Clar. dolce ^ ^

Fags, in 8ves sf
I

p f sf p

*? '

fr f Sf sf ^ "^ ptitf
 FINALE. A SLAVONIC MELODY. 223

After the second subject we have a modulation through D fiat

into C, on which note there is a pedal for fifteen bars, with

the two violins in semiquaver passages over it, and later
still the original jodel returns in the wind. For the rest
of the movement the music consists of variations of the
themes already given &fugato on the principal subject, and a
second fugato with the subject in semiquavers ; and a passage
in which the fiddles descend note by note from the high G
over a pedal in the basses, at the same time diminishing from
ff to pp, and recalling a similar passage near the end of the
opening movement of the work a coincidence which, if
;

intentional, is of rare occurrence in the Symphonies. The

whole ends with a very peaceful Coda, terminating with the
original jodel in the horns pianissimo, which might be sup-
posed to indicate the retirement of the peasant band to a
distance, if we were not brought to our senses by two very
loud and startling chords.
The which we have quoted as No. 48 is the second
subject
one of the two on which there is so curious a correspondence
with the Croatian melodies (see page 212). The Volkslied is

given by Professor Kuhac (Vol. III., No. 810) as follows ; and,

as before, the resemblance is very strong (compare No. 52)

No. 53.

=^^g M=at
-*
4=ts&
* »:
IPC*
*=3r*—mT * **=*•

J=jJ=JS=fe J-*— I?= W- X=X

The Pastoral Symphony was first performed at a concert

given by Beethoven on Thursday, the 22nd of December,
1808, in the Imperial private theatre at Vienna. It stood
in the programme, and was described in the announce-
first

ments as follows Eine Symphonie unter dem Titel

:
'

Erinnerung an das Landleben, in F dur (No. 5).' The

programme also included the G major Pianoforte Concerto
224 SIXTH SYMPHONY.

—played by the composer ; the Symphonyin C minor (given

as '
No. 6 ') ; the Choral Fantasia and other pieces of
;

Beethoven's composition, '

quite new, and never before heard
in public' What a programme 1 We may well exclaim,
1
who is sufficient for these things !
' The circumstances of
its production make one shudder. Instead of appropriate
spring weather the cold was intense, and the theatre appears
tohave been unwarmed. The audience were very scanty in ;

the stalls, Beethoven's Russian friend, the Count Vielhorsky,

appears to have been the *only person the programme of ;

forbidding length, and the rehearsals but imperfect. Under

such untoward circumstances are the regenerators of mankind
born into the world !

The confusion between the priority of the C minor and

Pastoral Symphonies was in force as late as 1820, as appears
from the programme of the Concerts Spirituels of Vienna of
that year.f A similar confusion of numbers existed between
the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies some years later.
It was first publiclyj performed in London at a concert
given for the benefit of Mrs. Vaughan (formerly Miss Tennant),
at the Hanover Square Rooms, on May 27, 1811. Dr. Crotch §
was organ and the grand pianoforte.' A fortnight
'
at the
later was again performed at the concert of Mr. Griesbach,
it

the oboe player, on June 13.

A notice in an early number of the Musical World (June 21,
1838) says that at the first performance of the Symphony in

* '
He toLl me this himself,' said F. Hiller, '
and also that when Beethoven
was called forward he gave the Count a special nod (Buckling), half in fun and
half sarcastic' —Thayer, iii., 57, 8.

f Given by Hanslick, Oeschichtr der Concertwesens in Wien, p. 189.

I I
say publicly because there is some reason to suppose that it may have
' '

been practised by a Society called 'The Harmonic,' which held its meetings at
the London Tavern. See The Harmonicon of 1832, p. 247. I am much

indebted to my friend, Mr. F. G. Edwards, for this and much more interesting
information on similar points in connection with the Symphonies.
§ Com p. Ninth Symphony, p. 383, note. But this may have been for other

pieces in the programme.

 EARLY OPINIONS OF THE -WORK. 225

England it was divided into two parts, and that the interva
was relieved by the introduction of Hush, ye pretty warbling '

choir,' from Acis and Galatea.'

'
I am not able to say i
either of the two concerts just mentioned are referred to, or
whether it is a confusion with Bochsa's performance (see
next page) on June 22, 1829.
When performed *later by the Philharmonic Society, large
omissions were made in the Andante, to make it go down ; and
yet, notwithstanding this, the ancient members of the pro-
fession and most of the critics condemned it. Thus the
Harmonicon, the musical periodical of the day —edited by a
very intelligent man, and usually a fair critic — is never happy
without its fling at the length and the repetitions of this
Symphony. Opinions are much divided on its merits, but few
deny that it is too long. The Andante alone is upwards of a
quarter of an hour in performance, and, being a series of
repetitions, might be subjected to abridgment without any
violation of justice either to composer or hearer (1823, p. 86). '

1
Always too long, particularly the second movement, which,
abounding in repetitions, might be shortened without the
slightest danger of injuring that particular part, and with the
certainty of improving the effect of the whole '
(1826, p. 130).
1
The Pastoral Symphony is too long for the quantity of ideas
that it fcontains. ... He must be a great enthusiast who can
listen to it without some feelings of impatience ' (Ibid.,

p. 106). In such terms as these did our grandfathers, year

after year, receive a work which, with all its repetitions, does
not contain a redundant bar, and is now, next to the C minor,
the most popular of Beethoven's first eight Symphonies

* The dateof its first performance by the Philharmonic is uncertain. The

first time the name appears in the programmes is on April 14, 1817 but it ;

may have been given earlier, as, for the first four years of the Society, it was
not the custom to give the keys or names of the Symphonies performed.

f This reminds one of the judgment of the same gentleman on the Ninth
Symphony (see p. 393).
226 SIXTH SYMPHONY

Several attempts have been made to perform the Pastoral

Symphony with scenery and even action —in other words, to
disregard Beethoven's own injunction, and develop his
'
expression of emotions '
into a definite '
picture.'
1. A performance at the King's Theatre in the Haymarket,
on June 22nd, 1829, for the Benefit of Mr. Bochsa, the harp
player, a prominent personage of the day. The Symphony
was dramatised for the occasion by Monsieur Deshayes and
produced under his immediate direction, the principal
characters by six French actors assisted by a numerous
corps de ballet. It was preceded by a dramatic performance
of '
Acis and Galatea,' by eminent singers from the Italian
Opera. See The Times of June 24, 1829 ; the Quarterly
Musical Magazine, Vol. X., p. 803 ; and Moscheles's Life
(Transl., 1873), i., 229.
Mr. Bochsa made an experiment in the same direction,
at his Benefit Concert on June 23, 1830, by perform-
ing Beethoven's Battle Symphony, dramatised expressly
'

for the occasion,' with Guards from Waterloo on the

'

stage,' &c.
2. ' An Illustration of the Pastoral Symphony,' by the
Artists' Club, '
Der Malkasten,' of Diisseldorf, in February,
1863. This had scenery for the background, and groups of
reapers, peasants, &c, but apparently no
a village parson,
action. The and an
original prospectus (February 7, 1863)
article on the performance by Otto Jahn will be found in the
Gesammelte Aufsatze of that eminent critic (1866), page 260,
'
Beethoven im Malkasten.' Also see the A. m. Zeitung Jbr
1863, page 293, &c.
3. A performance, with pictorial and pantomimic illustra-
tions, atDrury Lane Theatre, January 30, 1864, as part
of the Benefit of Mr. Howard Glover. The scenery was
painted by Mr. Wm. Beverley the action composed and ;

arranged by Mr. Cormack principal dancers, the Misses

;

Gunniss.
 PERFORMANCES WITH SCENERY, ETC. 227

In taking leave of the Symphony it is impossible not to

feel deep gratitude to this great composer for the complete

and unalloyed pleasure which he here puts within our reach.

Gratitude, and also astonishment. In the great works of
Beethoven, what vast qualities are combined What boldness, !

what breadth, what beauty what a cheerful, genial,

! beneficent
view over the whole realm of Nature and man And then !

what extraordinary detail and so exquisitely managed, that

!

with all its minuteness, the general effect is never sacrificed

or impaired I The amount of contrivance and minute calcu-
lation of effect in this Andante (to speak of one movement
only) is all but inconceivable, and yet the ear is never
oppressed, or made aware of the subtle touches by which what
might have been blemishes, had the one necessary hairbreadth
been passed, become conspicuous beauties. However abstruse
or characteristic the mood of Beethoven, the expression of his
mind is never dry or repulsive. To hear one of his great
compositions is like contemplating, not a work of art, or man's
device, but a mountain, or forest, or other immense product
of Nature —at once so complex and so simple ; the whole so
great and overpowering ; the parts so minute, so lovely, and
so consistent ; and the effect so inspiring, so beneficial, and
so elevating.
 SYMPHONY No. 7, in A major (Op. 92).
Dedicated to Moritz, Count Imperial von Fries.

1. Poco sostenuto. (#>_69.) (A major.)

2. Vivace. (J. 104.) (A major.)

3. Allegretto. (J_76.) (A minor.)

4. Scherzo, Presto. (^-__132.) (F major.) Trio, Assai meno presto

I

(^ 84). (D major.)

5. Finale, Allegro con brio. (cu_72.) (A major.)

Score.
2 Flutes. 2 Trumpets.
2 Oboes. 2 Drums.
2 Clarinets. 1st and 2nd Violins.
2 Bassoons. Viola.
2 Horns. Cello.

Basses.

The Drums are tuned in A and E, except in the Scherzo, in which they
ic inF and A.
The *parts appear to have been published on December 21, 1816.
The score in a small quarto of 224 pages, lithographed, and published
by S. A. Steiner & Co., Vienna. A poor edition.
Siebente Grosse Sinfonie in A dur von Ludwig van Beethoven 92tes
•

Werk. Vollstandige Partitur. Eigenthum der Verleger. Preis 12 Fl. Wien

im Verlag bei S. A. Steiner und Comp. So wie auch zu haben,' &c, &c.
[Page 2.]
l
Dem
Hochgebornen Herrn Moritz Keichsgrafen von Fries,
S r k: k: Apost Majestat wirklichen Kammerer, &c, &c, &c, in
:

Ehrfurcht zugeeignet von Ludw: van Beethoven.' No. 2560.

A second and much better edition, folio, 180 pages, engraved, was
published by Tobias Haslinger, of Vienna, in 1827.

* One of the few defects in Mr. JNottebohm's Thematic Catalogue of Bee-

thoven (Breitkopf & Hartel) is that there is no indication of what the
various publications are. It is often impossible to tell whether they are score
r parts.
 DATE OF COMPOSITION. 229

The Seventh Symphony was completed in 1812, after an

interval of four years from the termination of the '
Pastoral.'
It was a longer time than had passed between any of the
other *Symphonies, and much had happened in it. During
the period of which we are speaking, though no Symphony
was in progress, a large number of scarcely less important
—
works were composed The String Quartets in E flat (Op. 74)
and F minor (Op. 95); the music to 'Egmont,' 'King
Stephen,' and the Ruins of Athens '
the Choral Fantasia '
;

the Solo- Sonata in F sharp minor, and that called Les '

Adieux, l'Absence, et le Retour the Trios in E flat and D '

;

(Op. 70) and in B flat (Op. 97) besides the Variations

; ;

in D (Op. 76); the Fantasia, Op. 77; and the Sonatina,

Op. 79.
The Overture in C, originally intended to embody Schiller's
Ode, but which we knowf as Op. 115, was constantly receiving
attention during the whole of the time in question, as is

shown by the sketch-books. The songs in Op. 75, 82, and 83

are more or less due to this date, and it was in 1810 that
he began the numerous arrangements of Scotch, Welsh, and
Irish songs for Thomson, of Edinburgh, which occupied him
at intervals from 1810 to 1815, and though not requiring the
highest flight of his genius, must have been sufficient to give
a good deal of employment to so conscientious a workman
as Beethoven. Thomson's proposal, made on iSeptember 17,
1810, that he should compose a cantata on Campbell's 'Battle
of the Baltic,' is an interesting one, and it is a great pity that it
was not carried out, as the words are very far above the usual
standard of such libretti and since Beethoven's stipulation
;

that they should not contain anything offensive to the Danes

* The following are the dates, as nearly as we have been able to ascertain
them: Symphony No. 1, 1800 No. 2, 1802 No. 3, 1804 No. 4, 1806 No
; ; ; ;

5, 1807 ; No. 6. 1807 or 8.

f Entitled in France 'La Chasse.'

% See Beethoven's letter in Thayer, iii., 448 ; also 175.

230 SEVENTH SYMPHONY.

is thoroughly respected, there is every reason to think that

he would have composed them con amove*
The engagement with Countess Theresa Brunswick, which
took place in 1806, had been broken off, though it is

impossible to say what way that event, or, indeed, any other
event, affected Beethoven as a composer. During the four
years a further development of his wonderful powers and
equally wonderful style had taken place, another step towards
the accomplishment of his great mission of freeing music
from dependence on the mechanical structure in which it had
grown up, and on the ingenuity of construction which was
still considered one of its merits, and making it more and
more the expression of the deepest and the most individual
emotions of men's nature. Hitherto he had expressed in his
Symphonies a very wide range of feelings, but he had not yet
attempted what may be called moods and manners. In the
opening movement of No. 5 he had shown himself severe and
—
perhaps intolerant what he did not approve of was crushed on
the instant. In the Finale of No. 4 he is thoroughly gay and
good humoured. But there was a temper or a mood which
he had not yet tried in his compositions, and that is the
boisterousness in which, as life went on, he wasprone to indulge
in his personal intercourse, both in writing and action. His
letters always more or less abounded with rough jokes,
puns, and nicknames and similarly his personal intercourse
;

* It is interesting to notice how like the methods of these great writers

sometimes are to one another. Campbell's early version of part of this
very tine poem has been preserved, and stood thus (Allingham, Sketch of
Campbell's Life, prefixed to poems) :

Of Nelson and the North

Sing the day,
When, their haughty powers to vex,
He engaged the Danish decks,
And with twenty floating wrecks
Crowned the fray.

No sketch of Beethoven's can have been more curiously inferior to the finished
work than this is. It is, indeed, a most instructive parallel.
 Beethoven's odd manners. 231

was of a very free *' unbuttoned ' description. To name two

instances. When lie came to dine enfamille with his old friend
Breuning, as he often did, if he had come through the rain,

the first thing to do on entering the dining-room was to take

off his broad-brimmed felt hat and dash the water off it in all

directions, regardless of the furniture or the inmates. When

his brother, shortly after buying an estate, left a card on
Ludwig containing the words, Johann van Beethoven,
'

Landed proprietor,' it was swiftly returned by one inscribed,

*
Ludwig van Beethoven, Brain proprietor and there are '
:

many such instances. But, characteristic as these rough

traits are, they had not yet made their appearance in his
music. The time was now come and this constitutes a
;

real difference between his Symphonies and the

first six
seventh and eighth, inasmuch as these two are more or less
permeated by the rough humour which we have just
been mentioning, as a part of his nature which was bound to
show itself sooner or later, and the occurrences of which w e T

shall point out as they arise. Here it will be sufficient to

notice it in a general way, and to say that when this
boisterousness is combined with the force and character which
are exhibited in the preceding six of these great works, as it is

in the Finale of No. 7 and the opening and closing move-

ments of No. 8 — the effect is indeed tremendous. Other
occurrences may have some bearing on the increasing
joviality of his expression. We must remember that to
balance the breach with Countess Theresa in 1810 it was

in the same year that he made the acquaintance of Bettina

von Arnim, who, with all her exaggeration and false
sentiment, evidently made a strong impression on his
susceptible nature. 1810, too, was the date of the appear-
ance of Hoffmann's criticism on the C minor, which was
perhaps the first piece of reasonable sympathy from the

* Aufgeknopft.
232 SEVENTH SYMPHONY.

outside world that bad reached him, and must surely have
affected him considerably.
Beethoven recorded the exact date — probably of his
beginning to score the work — on the right-hand top corner
of the first page of his manuscript, now in the possession
of Mr. Ernst Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, nephew of the com-
poser, who lives in the old family banking-house, 53,
Jagerstrasse, Berlin ; and if the MS. were still intact there
would be no difficulty in ascertaining it. But a wretched
binder has cut down the top and front of the page so far that
at present the following only can be inferred :
— ' Sinfonia. L.
v. Beethoven, 1812 ; 13ten. . . .' Then follows the loop of
a letter which may have belonged to either *May, June, or
July ; and this agrees with Beethoven's own statement in his
letter from Teplitz, July 19, 1812, to Varena A new — '

Symphony is now ready.' It was Beethoven's habit, as

we know, to reduce the materials of his great works to their
final form in Vienna, during the winter and early spring
months. Their real composition if one part of so complex—
an operation can be distinguished from another —took place
during the excursions which, with few exceptions, he regularly
took in the summer into the country more or less near the
Austrian capital. In 1811 he went farther
than usual. afield

He was kept in town

an unusually late date, but by the
till

end of August or beginning of September he was at Teplitz,

a watering-place fifty miles or so North-west of Prague .

and there, in the midst of an intellectual and musical society,

he seems to have enjoyed himself thoroughly. Varnhagen von
Ense and the famous Rahel, afterwards his wife, were there
the Countess von der Reckef from Berlin and the Sebalds, a ;

* The confidence with which such careful commentators as Nottebohm and

Thayer read this as 'Mai,' is puzzling.
f Can this be the family to whom the Recksche Palais in the
'
'

Potsdamer Strasse belonged, which afterwards became the Mendelssohns'

house, and is now the Herrenhaus of the German Parliament, completely
transmogrified from its ancient appearance, and bearing no trace of its former
illustrious occupant ?
 THE SOCIETY AT TEPLITZ. NAPOLEON. 233

musical family from the same city, with one of whom,

Amalie, the susceptible Beethoven at once fell violently in
love, as Weber had done before him Varena, Ludwig Lowe ;

the actor, Fichte the philosopher, *Tiedge the poet, and other
poets and artists were there too these formed a congenial ;

circle with whom his afternoons and evenings were passed in

the greatest good-fellowship and happiness and here, no doubt, ;

the early ideas of the Seventh Symphony were put into score
and gradually elaborated into the perfect state in which we
now possess them. Many pleasant traits are recorded by
Varnhagen in his letters t to his fiancee and others. The
coy but obstinate resistance which Beethoven usually offered
to extemporising he here laid entirely aside, and his friends
probably heard, on these occasions, many a portion of the
new Symphony which was seething in his heart and brain,
even though no word was dropped by the mighty player to
enlighten them. In his letters of this time he is, as usual,
quite dumb as what was occupying him. The sketch-
to
book of the Symphony, now in the Petter collection at
Vienna, and fully analysed by Nottebohm in the Zweite
Beethoveniana, p. 101, &c, gives apparently no information as
to date or place but on this head there need be little doubt.
;

It is a curious fact that three of Beethoven's great orches-

tralworks should be more or less closely connected with
Napoleon Bonaparte. His share in the 'Eroica' we have
already described ; the piece entitled the '
Battle Symphony
(Op. 91) was written to commemorate one of the greatest defeats
ever sustained by Napoleon's army, that of Yittoria ; and the

* Beethoven to the end of his life retained his and one Bonn soft dialect,
instance of it is that he pronounced Tiedge's name
Another is schenirteTiedsche.
for genirte. Such words as schwartzen and Tage he pronounced soft, as
' ' ' '

'schwartzen' and 'Tage.' Just so Garrick to the last said 'shupreme,' and
Johnson poonsh for punch.
'
Besides this, Beethoven's voice had a peculiarly-
'

—
' '

soft winning sound that low gentle tone,' says a correspondent quoted by
'

—
Thayer, iii., 209 'which in his genial moments is so peculiarly fetching.'

t See Thayer, iii., 176, &c.

234 SEVENTH SYMPHONY.

Seventh Symphony, if not written with a view to the French

Emperor, was first performed in public on December 8, 1813,
in the large hall of the University of Vienna, at a concert
undertaken by Maelzel for the benefit of the soldiers wounded
at the battle of Hanau, October 30, where the Austrian and
Bavarian troops endeavoured to cut off Napoleon's retreat
from Leipzig. But indeed he made no secret of his animosity
towards the Emperor, and Mr. Thayer (ii. 313) has preserved
a saying of his after Jena, to the he knew as effect that if

much about war as he did about music he would somehow

contrive to beat him. Much enthusiasm was felt in Vienna
on the subject of the concert of December 8, and everyone
was ready to lend a helping-hand. The programme also
contained the Battle Symphony,' and two Marches, by
*

Dussek and Pleyel, for Maelzel's Mechanical Trumpeter,' a '

strange mixture, though not unsuitable to the occasion.

Beethoven conducted the performance in person, hardly,
perhaps, to its advantage, considering the symbolical
gestures described by *Spohr, since he was then very deaf,
and heard what was going on around him with great
difficulty. The orchestra presented a striking appearance,
many of the desks being tenanted by the most famous
musicians and composers of the day. Haydn was gonet
to his rest, butSchuppanzigh, Romberg, Spohr, Mayseder,
and Dragonetti were present, and played among the rank
and file of the strings Meyerbeer (of whom Beethoven
;

* Spohr's Selbstbiographie, i., 200. Spohr's account is sufficiently interesting

to be extracted. '
At saw Beethoven conduct.
this concert I first Often as I
had heard of it, it surprised me extremely. He was accustomed to convey the
marks of expression to the band by the most peculiar motions of his body.
Thus at a sforzando he tore his arms, which were before crossed on his breast,
violently apart. At & piano he crouched down, bending lower the softer the
tone. At the crescendo he raised himself by degrees until at the, forte he sprang
up to his full height and, without knowing it, would often at the same time
;

shout aloud.' He has left some directions of the same kind on record on the
MS. of his setting of Goethe's Meerestille und gluckliche Fahrt (Op. 112). See
Nottebohm's Thematic Catalogue.
f He died May 31, 1809.
 FIRST PERFORMANCE, GLOGGL. 235

complained that he always came in after the beat) and

Hummel had the drums, and Moscheles, then a youth
of nineteen, the cymbals. Even Beethoven's old teacher,
Kapellmeister Salieri, was there, ' giving the time to the
drums and salvos.'There was a black-haired, sallow, thick-
set, spectacled lad of fifteen in Vienna at that time, named
Franz Schubert, son of a parish schoolmaster in the
suburbs, and himself but just out of the Cathedral School.
He had finished his own first Symphony only six weeks
before,* and we may depend upon it that he was some-
where in the room, though too shy or too juvenile to
take a part, or be mentioned in any of the accounts. The
effect which the Symphony produced on him is perpetuated in

the Finale to the remarkable Pianoforte Duet which he wrote

ten years afterwards among the Hungarian mountains, and
which since his death has become widely known as the
'Grand Duo, Op. 140.'
It was the good fortune of a young Austrian named Gloggl,
afterwards an eminent publisher, to accompany Beethoven
from his residence to the concert-room on the occasion of the
second performance and we are able, through his account, to
;

catch a glimpse of the composer in somewhat novel circum-

stances. Gloggl had made his acquaintance some time before,
had been admitted to the rehearsals, and had witnessed a little
scene between the fiddlers and the great master. A passage in
the Symphony was too much for them, and after two or three
attempts they stopped, and were bold enough to say that what
could not be played should not be written. Beethoven,
wonderful to relate, kept his temper, and with unusual for-
bearance begged '
the gentlemen to take their parts home with
them,' promising that with a little practice the passage
would go well enough. He was right. At the next rehearsal
it went perfectly, and a good deal of laughing and compli-

menting took place. But to return to our young Austrian.

* Schubert's first Symphony, in D, bears the date October 28, 1S13.
236 SEVENTH SYMPHONY.

The performance were all sold, and Glttggl

tickets for the
would have been shut out if Beethoven had not told him to
call at his lodgings at half-past ten the next morning. They
got into a carriage together, with the scores of the Symphony
and the Battle of Vittoria but nothing was said on the
;

road, Beethoven being quite absorbed in what was coming,

and showing where his thoughts were by now and then beating
time with his hand. No doubt he had his unapproachable
moments, and Schumann* was probably right in thinking that
if Weber were in Beethoven's place he would be easier to talk

to. Arrived at the hall, Gloggl was ordered to take the scores
under his arm and follow and thus he passed in, found a
;

place somewhere, and heard the whole concert without

difficulty, t

But to go back. The new works were both received with

enthusiasm ; Symphony, says Spohr4
the performance of the
was 'quite masterly,' the slow movement was encored, and
the success of the concert extraordinary. Schindler§ charac-
terises the event as 'one of the most important in Beethoven's
life, since, with the exception of a few members of the musical
profession, all persons,however they had previously dissented
from his music, now agreed to award him his laurels.' The
concert was repeated on the 12th of December, with equal
success, including the encore of the Allegretto and after this ;

Beethoven showed his gratification by publishing, in the

Wiener Zeitung, a long letter of thanks to his honoured '

colleagues '
'
for their zeal in contributing to so exalted a
result.' The Symphony was played again on the 2nd ot
January, as well as on the 27th of February, 1814, when it

was accompanied by its twin brother, No. 8 (Op. 93, dated

October, 1812). The two were published in December, 1816,
and the popularity of Beethoven's serious works at this date
* Gesammelte Schrif'ten (1st Ed.), i., 203. 'I like to picture him (Mendelssohn)
clinging with one hand to Beethoven and looking up in his face as if he were
—
a saint, while the other has hold of Weher no doubt the easier to talk to. .
.'

f Thayer, iii., 259, 261. \ SdbstMographie, i., 201. § Biography, i., 191.
 RECEPTION AT LEIPZIG. WEBER. 237

may be inferred from the fact that these most serious ones
were issued in no less than seven* different forms. The
arrangement for piano solo is dedicated to the Empress of
Eussia, probably in recognition of the generous support which
the Imperial family of Russia gave to the first performance.
Such was the reception of the new work in Austria. Not
so in North Germany when it reached Leipzig a few years
:

later we have the published testimony of Friedrich Wieck,

Madame Schumann's father, who was present at the first
rehearsal. According to Wieck's recollection, f musicians,
critics, connoisseurs, and people quite ignorant of music, each
and all were unanimously of opinion that the Symphony
— especially the and last movements could have been
first —
composed only an unfortunate drunken condition (trunkenen
in
Zustande) that it was poor in melody, and so on.
; This, no
doubt, was an honest opinion, but the 'whirligig of time brings
in his revenges' !
—A long respectful review of the work will
be found in the Allg. musik. Zeitung, of Leipzig, Nov. 27, 1816
(p. 817), very soon after publication. What happened on its

arrival in this country will be found at the close of these

remarks.
Weber is said to have expressed his opinion, after hearing
the Symphony, that Beethoven was now ripe for the mad-
house. have not been able to discover the reference but
I ;

remembering Weber's acrimonious remarks on Symphony

No. 4, which have been already quoted a propos to that work,
it is not
difficult to believe it. In the autumn of 1823 Weber
Beethoven in Vienna, on the occasion of the production
visited
of Euryanthe,' and then doubtless there was a rapprochement
'

between the two men. But a Nemesis awaited Weber in

* These are announced in the IntelligenzUatt of the Allgemeine musik.

Zeitung for March, 1816, and are as follows :

Full Score ; Orchestral Parts ; Arrangement for a wind band of nine

instruments for string quintet
; ; for piano, violin and cello ; for piano, four
hands for piano solo.
;

f Clavier und Oesang . . . von F. Wieck, Kap. 17, p. 110.

238 SEVENTH SYMPHONY.

reference to the Symphony in A. In 1826 he came to London

to bring out his '
Oberon,' and while here had to conduct
the Philharmonic Concert of April 3, the first piece in the
second part of which was the very work which he had before
so contemptuously censured !

A propos to this great composition, an interesting anecdote

is given in Killer's '
Mendelssohn.' Hiller and Mendelssohn,
when the latter was sixteen, went to call on Andre, the
well-known collector of Mozart's works, at Offenbach.
Andre was a thorough conservative in music even Beethoven ;

was a doubtful novelty to him. This was in 1825. The

great Viennese soon came on the tapis. The worst fault,' *

says Hiller, that Andre could allege against him was the way
*

in which he composed. Andre had seen the autograph of the

A major Symphony during its progress, and told us that there
were whole sheets left blank, to be filled up afterwards, the
pages before the blanks having no connection with those beyond
them. What continuity or connection could there be in music
so composed ? Mendelssohn's only answer was to keep on
playing movements and bits of movements from the
Symphony, till Andre was forced to stop for sheer *delight.'
It is a pleasant coincidence that Mendelssohn should after-
wards have become the owner of the very autograph alluded
to. A recent inspection of the manuscript shows that
Andre was right in his statement. Four such blank pages
—
occur in the first two movements the Poco sostenuto and the
Vivace and there are several instances in the same move-
\

ments of smaller blanks left in the course of the MS., as if

for filling up afterwards, thus differing from Beethoven's
usual procedure.
This is the only one of his nine Symphonies for which
Beethoven chose the key of A indeed, it is his only great
:

orchestral work in that key. Mozart, too, would seem to

* Hiller's Mendelssohn, translated by M. E. von Glehn. Macmillan 1874

(p. 6).
 KEY AND FOKM OF THE WOKK. 239

have avoided this key for orchestral compositions, out of his

forty-nine Symphonies only two being in A and of his ;

twenty-three Overtures only one the Oca del Cairo.' Of — '

nine Symphonies of Schubert and five of Schumann

(including the Overture, Scherzo, and Finale), not one is in
this key. But, on the other hand, of Mendelssohn's five
published Symphonies, both the 'Scotch' and the 'Italian'
are in A, as Walpurgis Night.' Beethoven had
is also the '

his idiosyncrasies on the subject of keys. B minor he calls

a 'black key' {schwarze Tonart), and evidently avoided;*
and he wrote to his Scotch publisher, who had sent him an
air in four flats, marked amoroso, to say that the key of four

flats should be marked barbaresco, and that he had altered the

signature accordingly.f
In '
form '
the Seventh Symphony shows nothing that has
not been already encountered in the previous six. The Intro-
duction more important even than that to No. 4, but it is
is

no novelty here. The Codas to the Vivace and the Finale are
hardly more serious than those in former Symphonies. The
repetition of the Trio to the Scherzo, which increases the
length of the movement to nearly double what it would have
been under the original plan, had been already introduced in
No. 4 (see page 121). Here, and in the eighth, the sister
Symphony to that now before us, Beethoven has substituted
an Allegretto for the usual Andante or Larghetto though —
beyond the name the two Allegrettos have no likeness what-

* The only important exception to this is formed by the Sanctus, Osanna,

and Agnus of the Mass in D. Schubert's symphonic movement in B minor is
deeply and brilliantly coloured, and can hardly be spoken of as 'black.'
Beethoven, however, contemplated at one time a Symphony in this key (with
the drums in D and A), and a few notes from the sketches are given in the
—
Zweite Beethoveniana, p. 317. Beethoven held, if we are to believe Schindler's
report (ii , emotions required certain keys for their expression,
166), that certain
quite irrespective of pitch and that to deny this was as absurd as to say that
;

two and two make five that his Pastoral Symphony was bound to be in the
;
'
'

key of F, and so on. What about No. 8, also in F ?

f Thayer, iii., 241, 451.
240 SEVENTH SYMPHONY.

ever. It is not in any innovation on form or on precedent of

arrangement that the greatness of the Seventh Symphony
consists, but in the originality, vivacity, power, and beauty of
the thoughts, and their treatment, and in a certain new
romantic character of sudden and unexpected transition
which pervades it, and which would as fairly entitle it to be
called the Romantic Symphony
' as its companions are to '

be called the \ Heroic '

and the '
Pastoral,' if only Beethoven

had so indicated it —which he has not. In the Finale, as we

shall see, this romance develops into a vein of boisterous
'
'

mirth, of which we have no example in any of the earlier

Symphonies.
What the qualities are which give the impression of size in
a musical work it is difficult to say but this Symphony ;

certainly leaves that impression on the hearer, to an extra-

ordinary degree as much —
though the two works are so
;

different — as Schubert's great Symphony in C does. What

is it that makes the impression ? not the force, for that we
have in its utmost in No. 5 ; nor the dignity, for that is one
of the great characteristics of No. 3 ; nor the passion, for that
is the attribute of No. 4 ; nor the pleasantness of the sound,
for in that nothing can exceed No.Whatever it is and 6. —
who shall tell? —there
no doubt that the mental image
is

raised by No. 7 is larger than that of any of its predecessors.

'
How the orchestra is treated what a sound it has said !
!
'

*Mendelssohn, and no doubt that is partly, though not all,

the explanation.
This noble work opens with an Introduction, Poco
sostenuto, far surpassing in dimensions, as well as in breadth
and grandeur of style, those of the first, second, and even
fourth Symphonies, the only others of the immortal nine
which exhibit that feature. In saying this, it is impossible not
to think of Schumann's remark. He says, in speaking of

Hiller's Mendelssohn, p. 7.
 THE INTRODUCTION. 241

Brahms Let him remember the beginnings of Beethoven's

:
'

Symphonies, and try to do something like them. The

beginning is the main thing. When you have once begun,
the end comes of its own *accord.' His Introductions — like

his Codas —are among Beethoven's most remarkable extensions

of the plan of the Symphony; and with this particular move-
ment he may be said to have established a proceeding which
he had essayed in the first, second, and fourth of his own
Symphonies, and which has been since adopted in the
splendid introductions to Schubert's C major, Mendelssohn's
1
Scotch,' Schumann's major, and Brahms' s C minor
Symphonies.

I. The Introduction starts with a short chord of A from

the full orchestra, which lets fdrop, as it were, a melodious
phrase in the first oboe, imitated successively by the clarinet,
horn, and bassoon

Poco sostenuto.
No. 1. •!

J\ Oboe p
r
J- "^

Tatti/* :g; " :8:Clarl/p |% 3£L.Qvt.^~

li Str. /n^ g^; 1 ft

T" Fag. *>,-P"

This, after eight bars (by which time it has for a moment
entered the remote key of F major), is interrupted and accom-
panied by a new feature — scales of two octaves in length,

* Letter, January 6, 1854. + This happy phrase is Dr. W. Pole's.

242 SEVENTH SYMPHONY.

like gigantic stairs, as someone calls them, and alternating

with the phrase in minims during seven repetitions

dim.
Strings
pp i ^^
1

4 '
4
* '

Clar. & Fag. 8va. clol.

This conducts to a third entirely new subject in the key of

C major, given cut by clarinets and bassoons thus—

No. 3.

aim
f? dolce
-

The dignity, originality, and grace of this third theme,

especially when repeated pianissimo by the fiddles, with a
graceful descending arpeggio to introduce it, and a delicious
accompaniment in the oboes and bassoons, as thus

No. 4.
Ob. & Fag, pp
Yiol. PPs. ,^R33 P=S

Viol. 2
8va. PP

— are quite *wonderfui. Beethoven gets back out of the

* Dr. H. Riemann, in his analysis of the Symphony in the programme-book

of the Berlin Philharmonic Concerts, states that '
out of this rhythmical figure
is developed the principal subject of the Vivace (No. 6) and, indeed, that all
;

the movements of the work have the closest relation to this passage.' It is, says
he, the thematic tie of unity (einheitliche motivische Band) which runs through
'

the entire composition in various forms.' In accordance with this idea he

again finds the same rhythm in the first four bars of the Finale. I confess
that I have failed to discover the connection.
 THE INTRODUCTION. THE VIVACE. 243

key of C by one sudden changes which are so

of those
characteristic ofSymphony, and the scales (No. 2)
this
begin again in the treble and bass alternately. They land
us in F, in which the third subject (No. 3) is repeated by
both wind and strings and then, by the charming phrase
;

which finishes our quotation, the original key is regained

No. 5.

—and in seven bars more the Introduction ends.

Then comes the First Movement proper, the Vivace; and
the transition from the Introduction to it, by an E sixty-one
times repeated, and echoed backwards and forwards between
the flutes and oboes and the violins, mixed with pauses and
with groups of semiquavers, for which the last quotation has
prepared us —a passage now listened for with delight as one
of the most characteristic in the work —was for a long time
a great stumbling-block to the reception of the Symphony
both in London and Paris. It gave Beethoven some trouble,
and sketches for it are quoted in Zweite Beethoveniana,
page 106.

II. The Vivace itself, 6-8, into which the passage just
alluded to leads, is a movement of wonderful fire and audacity.
Berlioz, in his Etudes sur Beethoven,' wishes us to believe
'

that a Ronde des Paysans, and would have been so entitled

it is

if Beethoven had disclosed his intention, as he did in the

'Pastoral.' But this is only another instance of the strange
want of accuracy (to call it by no worse name) which detracts
so much from the value of Berlioz's interesting comments.
244 SEVENTH SYMPHONY.

The statement is a mere invention of his own, and is entirety

destitute of any authority from the composer. The principal

theme, in its character and in the frequent employment of the
oboe, has no doubt a quasi-rustic air but, whatever it may ;

be at the outset, there is nothing rustic about the way in

which it is treated and developed on the contrary, the strains
;

confided to it are not surpassed in distinction, variety, and

richness in any of Beethoven's first movements. If the oboe
was originally a beggar-maid she has here found her King
Cophetua, and long before the end of the movement has
mounted the throne.
Similarly *Wagner calls the whole Symphony '
the Apo-
theosis (i.e., the deification) of the Dance; the Dance in its

highest condition ; the happiest realisation of the movements

of the body in an ideal form.' But surely this is, to say
the least, much exaggerated. Few will not feel indignant
at the ' Programme with which Rubinstein
' is said to have

illustrated the paceand the expression of the different sections

of the Funeral March in Chopin's B flat minor Sonata, which
was lately revived at a Piano Recital in London: 1. The pro-
cession to the grave ; 2. (Trio) A hymn sung over the remains
3. The return of the mourners. But outrageous as this is, it

is hardly more outrageous than Berlioz's proposal. All great

creations of the intellect, however, whether Shakespeare's
or Beethoven's, poems or symphonies, are liable to such vague
and violent interpretations as these. A list of nearly a dozen
of the interpretations that have been hazarded a propos to this
is given by f Brenet, and
amusing if it do not
is sufficiently

evoke a stronger feeling of annoyance. But surely some

practical clue should be given to the grounds on which such
violent attempts are based. For our purpose it is enough to
say that the Symphony is throughout perhaps more markedly

* Oesamm. Schriften, iii., 113.

f Ilistoire de la Symphonic, <£c, <fcc, par M. Michel Brenet, Paris, 1882,

p. 146. A book of much merit.
 THE VIVACE. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 245

rhythmical than any other of the nine, and that there is no

warrant for any such interpretations.
To proceed with the Vivace. After four preliminary bars the
theme is thus given out by the flutes, with an extraordinary
elasticity which distinguishes the entire movement

No. 6.

Flute ZF&'Wm-SfL' *±

>

. — « — — ^^—
,
t •
M~,
\
m- nfr L i-J
1^1 ' 1
j
— gf j
k-i i
T"
i -

Str.z z i = = 1 =

It is and presumptuous for anyone to compare

both difficult

masterpieces so beauty and strength, and differing so

full of

completely in their character, as the nine Symphonies of

Beethoven but if any one quality may be said to distinguish
;

that now before us, besides its rhythmical construction, it is

perhaps, as has already been hinted, that it is the most

romantic of the nine, or, in other words, that it is full of swift
unexpected changes and contrasts, exciting the imagination
in the highest degree, and whirling it suddenly into new and
strange regions. There are some places in this Vivace where
an instant change occurs from fortissimo to pianissimo, which
have an effect unknown elsewhere. A sudden hush from ff to
pp in the full hurry and swing of the movement is a favourite
device of Beethoven's, and is always highly effective; but
246 SEVENTH SYMPHONY.

here, where the change from loud to soft is accompanied by

a simultaneous change in harmony, or by an interruption
of the figure, or a bold leap from the top to the bottom of
—
the register the most surprising and irresistible effect is
produced. Two such passages may be quoted

&c.

—and then the following, with its beautiful variant four

bars later :

No. 8.

In the second example the resolution of the harmony (the

F sharp and E on to F natural) is an invention
in the violins
of Beethoven's, and adds greatly to the effect of the plunge
through two octaves, and the sudden hush in the tremolando.
(An analogous effect will occur to many hearers in the
third Overture to 'Leonora' —
a work which surely deserves
the epithet of romantic if anything in music does near
'
' —
the beginning of the Allegro, at an abrupt transition from the
key of C major to that of B minor, accompanied with a
change from loud to soft.) But, indeed, this Vivace is full of
 STKONG ROMANTIC FEELING. 247

these sudden effects — especially in its second portion ; and

they give it a character distinct from that of the opening
movements of any of the other Symphonies.
What can be more arresting, for instance, than the way in
which, at the beginning of the second half of the movement,
immediately following the double bar, after a rough ascent of
all the strings in unison, fortissimo, enforced in the intervals
by the wind, also fortissimo and on a strong discord, and
accented in a most marked manner by two pauses of two
bars each, as if every expedient to produce roughness had been
adopted —the first violins begin whispering pianissimo in the
remote key of C major, and the basses, four bars later, continue
the whisper in a mystic dance up and down the scale, all soft
and weird and truly romantic ? None the less so because of
the vague chord (a 6-4) on which the basses enter.
We quote a few bars as a guide to the place

No. 9.
Wind^ r
1st Viol.
tiiUd^=^^^if=^^
SS
Str.|jp I
"" =i l =J
1 gr^5«ESt
p p sempre

l$E*ii*E*Ett.
2nd Viol.
Pag.L±J UJ '

p —^—.ra zizq
q«i-«y up
pp g fr*
:££

W r
ssdte*?i
*..
r &0.

1
nJ-tr — ' I SS e — —it ~^J
p p sempre

The scale passage is continued in strings, oboe, flute,

and bassoon, successively, all pianissimo, with truly delightful
feeling.
248 SEVENTH SYMPHONY.

Another example of the same arresting romantic effect is

the sudden change from the chord of C sharp minor to that
of E flat, earlier in the movement

No. 10.

Strings , Flute —-9*-i ,

f5 se fei:
n«"
&%%$$*** m m m-m- -*&~
f> ;3
r— s-
1

i^g=^f=i -S=
anorjEEi b*: P -34^

with the subsequent no less rapid escape into E natural.

Another is the very emphatic passage of the violins,
with which the two parts of the '
second subject ' are divided;
like a blow into which Beelhoven has put all his strength

No.

m
11.

i w^~*t F^+mpt
£*»:

The second subject itself begins as follows-

No. 12.

Viol. & El.

^.t: *= tz€r £r
-£_
is/: I
ttlitzzzUc
&c.

and, recurring to the former rhythm, proceeds

No. 13. pi.

Oboe & Wind
*fe*= :p=i
^--Prfzt
I.-
choice
Strings cZoZce (a)

stamping itself effectually on the memory by the passage

quoted as No. 11, and by the broad massive phrase (a) in
 ROMANTIC AND INGENIOUS DEVICES. 249

which the subject itself is accompanied by the whole of the

strings in unison.
The reprise of the first section of the movement, after the

working-out (which begins with our quotation, No. 9), is an

astonishing instance of variety and skill. It is the same length

as the first section, and the melodies are mostly the same, but
treatment, instrumentation, feeling, all absolutely different.
The same freedom is here shown that has already been
noticed in the analogous portions of Nos. 5 and 6 — the
same adherence to the broad general lines of the structure
with constant novelty in the details. Thus, at the return to
the original key of A, after the working-out, the four bars of
high E's, which at the beginning precede the first subject,
as given in quotation No. 6, are now occupied by a pre-
liminary * offer at the subject by a playful scale of semi-
quavers in the strings, twice given until the theme itself is

reached :

No. 14.

WindJ i |
1 1 ! 1 j !
a— I

wft/"*;''*r*r "•"*"•:•!" "•!"'"*!"*: "•"' _!""*__"

_3__EEE_

_4.j3._4 .4. 4. .4 A.
1 r 1 *

^m^mm ff Strings
*£-
Jiit

^^^P^^i=3
* Somewhat of the same nature as the offers at the .subject oi' the Trio in the
C minor Symphony on its return.
250 SEVENTH SYMPHONY.

The scales are given again twenty-three bars later in the

oboe alone. This is a specimen of the freedom shown in
this movement and for which the reader must examine the
score for himself.
Again, the first Tutti, after the pause, where the violins
end of
originally led the entire band, sempre fortissimo (after the
quotation 6), in changed to an oboe solo dolce,
the reprise is

with quiet harmonies in the strings, and with imitative accom-

paniment in the flutes, clarinets, and bassoons, forming, with
the silvery tones of the oboe, a combination of extraordinary
beauty. And this, again, is followed by a passage of broad
chords in the strings, and staccato notes in the bass—

No. 15.

^.f.r^^jZiJ> qJ-Sa

The rhythm is marked as strongly as possible throughout

the movement, and there is hardly a bar which does not

contain two groups of dotted triplet-quavers, varied and

its

treated in the most astonishingly free and bold manner.

When Beethoven does abandon it, in the Coda at the close
of the movement, it is to introduce the celebrated passage
which one time excited the wrath and laughter of the
at
ablest of his contemporaries, though new universally regarded
 WEBER S JUDGMENT. 251

as perfectly effective, characteristic, and appropriate. In this

passage the violas and basses repeat the following two -bar
figure (in the bass) ten times, for twenty bars-

No. 16. (Skel eton).

Flutes J
^ -J.r

aM 7?* 1
-
I
-fLi
-r *-
5fcc
£>Ls. !#-• —
1

jn
=- &c.
' ' Violas & Basses (Sve lower)
-^
-^-. —_J3k
J=
:=£=£* sd
^•y
Cor. i
* *
^flj 5^ »r - —*•
lf'*=
pp
increasing in force throughout horn, pianissimo to fortissimo —
against a '
pedal point ' on E in the rest of the orchestra,
four octaves deep, from the low horns to the high notes of
the flute. It was for this that the great Carl Maria von Weber
is said to have pronounced Beethoven 'fit for a madhouse.'
Such mistakes are even the ablest, best instructed, and
most genial critics open to

III. Not less strongly marked or less persistent than the

Vivace is the march of the Allegretto, which is all built upon
the following rhythm

No. 17.

or, to use the terms of metre, a dactyl and a spondee

|
— v v | . This theme was originally intended for the
—in
I

second movement of the third Rasumoffsky Quartet G

(Op. 59, No. 3) — and is to be found among the sketches for
that Quartet in *180G.

* See Nottebolim, Zweite Beetle oveniana, pp. 101.

252 SEVENTH SYMPHONY.

Here, again, there is hardly a bar in the movement in which

the perpetual beat of the rhythm is not heard, and yet the
feeling of monotony never intrudes itself, any more than it
does in the Pastoral Symphony. This is the opening-

No. 18,

Wind
Strings p ten.

The dashes and dots are here given as they are in the
MS. at Mr. Mendelssohn's house, and in the edition of
Haslinger. In Breitkopf s complete edition dots are sub-
stituted for the dashes throughout. Surely this should not
have been done without a note to call attention to the
change. But to resume.
The movement is full of melancholy beauties ; the vague
softchord in the wind instruments with which it both begins
and ends; the incessant pulse of the rhythmical subject just
spoken of; the lovely second melody in accompaniment to
that last quoted

No. 19.

4K_-

Viola & Cello

1
which turns out to have been *concealed under the first

subject —a chain of notes linked in closest succession, like a

string of beauties hand-in-hand, each afraid to lose her hold
on her neighbours ; it begins in the violas as a mere sub-

* When Beethoven played before Mozart in 1790, Mozart gave him a subject
to extemporise upon which, if properly, understood, contained a counter-subject.
(Hogarth on Beethoven, p. 19.) Beethoven was not taken in he detected the ;

chance that Mozart had given him and here he has done something analogous.
;
 A BEAUTIFUL INTERMEZZO. 253

ordinate accompaniment, but becomes after a while the

principal tune of the orchestra. More striking still, perhaps,
is the passage where the clarinets come in with a fresh melody
(note the delicious syncopations), the music changing at the
same time from A minor to A major, the violins to a light
triplet figure, and the effect being *exactly like a sudden gleam

of sunshine

No. 20.
.Clarinet
df)l ^

One of the interests of this passage is that it may have

suggested a similar beautiful change (in the same key) in the
Andante con moto of Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony. At ' '

any Beethoven himself anticipated the change seven

rate,
years before, in the Intermezzo of the Funeral March in the
1
Eroica,' where the oboe preaches peace and hope as
touchingly as the clarinet does here, with a similar change
of mode too, and a similar accompaniment in the strings.
Even this however (but thirty-seven bars),
short relief,

does not appear to please the composer we seem to see :

him push the intruder away from him with an angry gesture
of impatience

No. 21.

irrj Tr-
/ s/ Strings 8ves. i i
Dr .

* The phrasing of this beautiful passage appears to have been somewhat

altered in the '
Complete Edition,' but without any notice to that effect.
254 SEVENTH SYMPHONY.

and almost hear him exclaim, <I won't have it,' as he

returns to the key of A
minor, and to the former melody (No.
18), given in three octaves by the flute, oboe, and bassoon,
with a semiquaver accompaniment in the strings. During
this, as well as during the truly heavenly melody which
we have been describing and quoting (No. 20), the bass,
with a kind of 'grim repose,' keeps up inexorably the
rhythm

No. 22.

with which the movement started, the

One fatal remembrance, one sorrow that throws

Its black shade alike o'er our joys and our woes,*

and maintains it even through the fugato which so effectively

continues the latter half of the movement

i
I — ——
S5SSB
' —
i
i .i

i
f— •-fl*^ffF
! !
*!
:1 ->—
m -»-m
«> Mi »m»m
L
-z-m-o
m -40
r l-

pp
^^=^=^=^^^^^s
* Berlioz's quotation from Moore (
Voyage musical, Paris, 1844, L, 326).
The passage shows how finely Berlioz can appreciate, when he can prevent his
imagination from running riot.
 THE ALLEGRETTO. A FAVOURITE IN FRANCE. 255
i ? i i

sempre pp
feE^^M^E
The fugato is as strict as if its composer had not been
Beethoven, but some mediaeval maker of '
canons,' to whom
structure was everything and fancy nothing.
No wonder that this Allegretto was encored at the first
performances of the Symphony, or that it was for long one of
the few of Beethoven's movements that could be endured in
Paris. ' La septieme symphonie,' says *Berlioz, '
est celebre
par son Andante, En parlant de Beethoven en France, on
dit VOrage de la Symphonie Pastorale, le Finale de la
Symphonie en ut mineur, V Andante de la Symphonie en la.
It iseven said that Beethoven's Second Symphony in D could
only be tolerated when this Andante (or, more accurately,
Allegretto) was substituted for its own most beautiful and
graceful Larghetto. Very good for those early days, but the
Concerts Populaires should have cured the Parisians of such
absurdities.
Beethoven appears in the latter part of his life to have
been very anxious that this movement should not be taken
too fast, and even to have wished that the tempo should
be changed to Andante quasi Allegretto. See the subject dis-
cussed in Nottebohm's Beethoveniana, page 21. There can
be no doubt that we now often play his music faster than he in-
tended, or perhaps than the orchestras of his day could play it.

IV. The fourth movement, Presto, with its subsidiary

Presto meno assai (not and Trio, though
entitled Scherzo
they are so in effect), one of Beethoven's greatest achieve-

Berlioz (
Voyage musical, i., 321).
256 SEVENTH SYMPHONY.

ments in a field peculiarly his own, is no less original,

spirited, and entrainant than the two which have preceded

it. As in No. 4, the Trio is twice *given. The movement

opens in the key of F ; but before the first twenty bars are
over it is in A, in which key the first division ends-

No. 24.
Tutti, Presto
A —
I-

4-^-h*
f
g^a BE^2 !
-*^£
m. :•!=•£
^m
? T t

^H ^m
f t 1
•M=W-
t=t £S » i i i i

cres.
4

j=t
^g
i=^=^==t *E
—r-ir^- j

Out of this region Beethoven escapes by a daring device-

No.
Str.
25.

& mm
a> Cor
^
Fag.

sPcrrd 51
fop r^r f ft; rs #1

— which brings him at a blow into C, and pleases him so

much that he immediately repeats the operation in the new
key, and so gets into B flat. The whole of this Scherzo is a
marvellous example of the grace and lightness which may be
made to play over enormous strength, and also of Beethoven's
audacity in repeating his phrases and subjects.

*
The repeats of the Trio seem to have been first played in England by Costa,
as Conductor of the Philharmonic Society. The Musical World of May 19,
1849, records The Scherzo was liked all the better for being played as
:
c

Beethoven wrote it. Mr. Costa had judiciously restored all the repeats.'
 SCHERZOAND TRIO. 257

In analysing Symphony No. 1, in C, and speajdng of its so-

called Minuet —
which is really a Scherzo we said (p. 11) that —
it has features which prove its relationship to the Scherzos of
the later Symphonies. Here is one of them, as will be seen
by a comparison of the following passage from the Minuet of
1800 with the quotation just given

No. 26.

m-»&- £. >f>—m- qgz b « -LiP b ?

T==i
I &c.

The Trio Presto meno an absolute

assai (slightly slower) — is

contrast to the Scherzo in every respect. It is one of those

movements, like the Andante in the G major Piano Concerto

of this great composer, which are absolutely original, were
done by no one before, and have been done by no one since.
It begins with a melody (which it is difficult to believe was

not floating in Schubert's mind when he wrote the first

phrase of his Fantasie- Sonata in G, Op. 78, for piano solo)

in the clarinets,accompanied as a bass by the horns and
bassoons, and also by a long holdingA in the violins. Of
this we quote an outline of the first portion. The key
changes from F to D :

No. 27.
Viol. 1.

Clar dolce

^^ ^> i tn
3==f=:

This melody we now know, on the perfectly trustworthy

authority of the *Abbe Stadler, to have been a pilgrims' hymn
Thayer, Beethoven, iii., 191.
258 SEVENTH SYMPHONY,

in common use in Lower Austria, and is an instance of Bee-

thoven's indifference to the sources of his materials when they
were what he wanted, and would submit to his treatment.
(See the Pastoral Symphony, page 212). The melody is re-
peated by the oboes, with a similar accompaniment.
The second portion of the Trio is in keeping with the first.

The long holding A is maintained

No. 28.

Horn 2 **

but the horn soon takes a more marked part than before, a
2-4 phrase forced into 8-4 rhythm, and gradually increasing
in oddness* —
and prominence a little less perhaps now than
in the days of the old French horns (when a horn was an
individual, a person, and not a mere orchestral instrument,
as the valve-horn is)

No. 29.
Cor.

— till it brings back the first portion of the tune, this time in
the full band. The return from this (key of D) to the Scherzo

(key of F), through a C natural ppp, is as strong, as affecting,

* Schumann (Ges. Schriften, 1st Ed., i., 184) gives this as an instance of the
comic. Of humour ; but surely not of fun.
 TRIO. THE HORNS. 259

and as ' romantic ' a point as can be found in the whole

Symphony
No. 30.
Violins

ig a^ r
-
1

-* — — — ^1- -4£ -t^

- 1
H 1.<

•••.,
h' -I ^—

—^
•

—g»— o ^
S 1
<S 1
1
;
IT
hr^-
-j-gj^
1

— P^'r
^^jU:~pg^-h — pg— 1

fig y&^ « f=-

iii cFir^- 1

The music seems almost to #o out, as if

it were a flame.

Powerful as he always Beethoven is never more a

is,

magician than when he has the horns to conjure with. We

have mentioned one most touching passage in the Trio of the
Eroica and the horn does miracles in the Adagio of the Ninth
;

Symphony.
V. The Finale forms an extraordinary climax to all that has
gone before
it. In the second and fourth Symphonies we have
called attention to Beethoven's curious wilfulness, and disregard
The Finale of the fourth
of the conventionalities of others.
gives us a fine example of him when overflowing with fun
and the first and last movements of No. 5 show, as nothing
else perhaps does, his extraordinary power, majesty, pomp,
260 SEVENTH SYMPHONY.

and strength. But all these are, if we may say so, within
bounds. Though strange, they contain nothing which can
offend the taste, or hurt the feelings, of the most fastidious.
Here, for the first time, we find a new element, a vein of
rough, hard, personal boisterousness, the same feeling which
and nicknames which abound
inspired the strange jests, puns,
in and the rough practical jokes of his later
his letters,
years a feeling which prompted him to insult the royal family
;

at Teplitz, for no reason, apparently, but to perpetrate a

practical joke on the sensitive courtier Goethe a feeling ;

which may lie at the bottom of the fugues of his later life.
For this condition he himself had a special and expressive
term aufgcknopft, or, as we should translate it, 'unbuttoned';
Schumann* calls it hitting out all round, schlagcn um sick.
* Here,' says Wagner, '
the purely rhythmical movement, so
to speak, celebrates its orgies.'
The movement shows its quality at the very outset. It is
marked Allegro con brio, and it opens with four preliminary
bars, containing two great explosions, thus

No. 31.

Str .z Wind

* Gesammelte Schriften, 1st Ed., i., 172.

f Wagner on Conducting, Mr. Dannreuther's translation, p. 37. But — '

compare the roughness of the opening and concluding movements of this

work with the grace, loftiness, and even deep devotional feeling of its middle
sections, and we are presented with similar puzzling contrasts to those so
often found in Beethoven's life, where, in his journals and letters, we find
religious and personal appeals to God, worthy of one of the Hebrew Psalmists,
side by side with nicknames and jokes which would befit a harlequin.'
 THE FINALE. 261

and these are arranged not only so as to give them the most
abrupt effect, but also so as to sound what they are not.
They are really the chords of the dominant of A, whereas they
sound as if they were the tonic of E and the D natural in the ,

second explosion is, in effect, a practical joke of the rudest

kind. After this comes the first subject of the Allegro, strange,
furious, and not attractive

No. 32. sf sf 8/

Strings s/
Wind >

accented on the weak beat of the bar, and accompanied by loud

chords, extending through four octaves of the rest of the orchestra.
The sketch-book contains an early form* of the figure

No. 33

— &c
and another one, more like that actually adopted (see No. 32),
will be found in Beethoven's accompaniments! to the Irish air
' Nora Creina '

te— ^,^n f S—
- , 1
fc-fi*I|.

r«=z£:
-wfL
w^zmtz^. zptT=pq=p: :*:S=rpt=p:

* Zweite Beethoveniana, p. 110.

=*& mm
f No. 8 in Part 258 of Breitkopf & H'artel's complete edition. —I owe this to
my friend, Dr. C. V. Stanford.
262 SEVENTH SYMPHONY.

Whether the Song was composed before the Symphony, or the

Symphony before the Song, is a matter of doubt, Mr. Thayer's
chronological *list only giving the general date 1810-1815 for
the whole of the national songs. But inasmuch as the triplet
figure and the interval of a minor sixth are integral parts of
both, and as the phrase is so much stronger in the Symphony
than it is in the song, the song is probably the earlier of
the two.
Then after a reference back to the crashing chords of the
initial four bars of the movement (No. 31), a new subject
appears (beginning in the wind and going on afterwards in the
strings in double notes), as harsh and uncompromising as the
first subject (No. 32)—

No. 35.
wmd » , »
t .

This leads into a modification of the first subject

No. 36.

Viol. 2. Viola 8ve lower.

&c.

which may have been in Goetz's mind when composing

the Finale to his Symphony.
This is continued in a series of phrases of dotted
quavers, all hard and harsh, and ends in C sharp minor,

* Chronologisches Verzeichniss, &c, 1865, p. 94.

 SECOND SUBJECT. TUKBULENT HUMOUR. 263

in which key the second subject proper appears, full of

'
'

vigour and elasticity, and with more sentiment than the

previous portion of the movement would have led us to
expect

No. 37.

Tutti/-^ *° "
u Sti"~ f
i i i i

Fag.U-
z

Fag. U*
- Fag. U»
dim.
J p

,-v . ten.

Notice the humorous octaves in the bassoon, in bars 5, 7,

and and the force obtained by throwing the emphasis on to
9,
the latter half of the bar, and taking it off the former, in the
last four measures of the quotation. In this rhythm there
is some charming capricious work, from top to bottom of the

scale among the strings, after which the first half of the
Finale ends. The movement is in the ordinary Symphony
form ; the first portion is repeated, and then the working-out
commences ; and here the wild humour and fun distance
anything that has gone before. The abrupt transitions and
sudden vagaries (as in the last line of the next quotation,
where the treble laughs at the bass, and the bass laughs
back in return), like the rough jokes and loud shouts
of a Polyphemus at play, are irresistible, and bring
Beethoven before us in his most playful, unconstrained, and
1
unbuttoned state of mind. The force which animates these
'
264 SEVENTH SYMPHONY.

violent actions is nowhere else so overpoweringly manifested

as here, unless it be in some parts of No. 8.

No. 38

i
^ggj^| g^»j^^gpS^
r -\

mb£=E=i^l^^^52^^
sf

The force that reigns throughout this movement is literally

prodigious, and reminds one of Carlyle's hero Ram Dass, who

had fire enough in his belly
'
to burn up the whole world.'
The state of mind which this movement reveals to us is

apparently very characteristic of the extremely free and playful,

though innocent, intercourse of the society at Teplitz in the
autumn months of 1811. Some evidence of this is given by
one of Beethoven's letters to Tiedge, dated Teplitz, 6th Sept.,
1811, containing the following odd passage, in which he has
curiously confounded his own personality with that of his
correspondent. Tiedge had left with the ladies mentioned
at the beginning of these remarks: *
And now,' says
Beethoven, ' may you fare as well as it is possible for
 SOCIETY AT TEPLITZ. 265

poor humanity to do. To the Countess (Recke) give a very

tender but respectful clasp of the hand Amalie (Sebald) a
; to

very fiery kiss, when there is no one to see us, and we two

embrace as men do who have the right to love and honour

one another.'
Indeed the place was pervaded by a wonderful atmosphere
of unrestraint. Varnhagen and Rahel may have been
examples of the high ideal, but the following story admits
us to a less formal school of attachment. Ludwig Lowe,
the actor, whom we have already mentioned, had fallen in
love with Theresa, the daughter of the host of the '
Stern.'
The father heard of the attachment and questioned the lover,

who thereupon, for the sake of the girl, discontinued his visits
but meeting Beethoven a few days afterwards and being
asked why he had given up the Stern, he confessed what had
happened, and asked the composer if he would take charge of
a note to the young lady. Beethoven at once consented not
only to do this, but to bring back the answer, and apparently
acted as go-between during the remainder of his visit. The
attachment was a perfectly honourable one, but Theresa died
soon after Lowe had left Teplitz. The story was
. . .

told to Mr. Thayer* by Marie von Breuning a few years ago.

Irregular conduct, no doubt but such is the natural soil
;

for fine music and poetry.

A somewhat similar picture to that given in the last
quotation will be found in the Coda of the Finale to the
Eighth Symphony, which was inspired by almost identical
surroundings, and breathes throughout the same spirit of
almost reckless joviality. A gigantic, irresistible humour
pervades the greater part of the movement, till the arrival of
the Coda. This portion of the movement exceeds in length any
of its predecessors. It is 124 bars long, and commences with

the same feature as that on which we commented at the outset

of the Finale (Ex. 31), and which indeed acts as the harbinger
* See Thayer, iii., 178.
266 SEVENTH SYMPHONY.

of each of its main In this truly noble final section

divisions.
composer approaches the close of his
of his work, as the great
labours, he lays aside for a time his animal spirits and
rough jokes, and surrenders himself to the broader and more
solemn impressions which always lay in his mind, impres-
sions graver even than those which inspired him during the
conclusion of the first movement, in connection with which we
have already referred to the passage we have now to consider.
(See page 251.) This is, like that, a moving pedal, on E,
alternating with D sharp, and lasting for more than twenty
bars. During the whole of these, and the preceding passage
of equal length, where the bass settles down semitone by
semitone till it reaches the low E

No. 39.

^^V^^J^tfJ-^^^^=^
^pF^P ^ &c.

the strings are occupied by imitations and repetitions of the

original figure (No. 31),and the wind by long holding notes,
the whole forming a passage of pathos, nobility, and interest
rivalled only by the passage which closes the opening move-
ment of the Ninth Symphony. But repose is no permanent
mood of Beethoven's at this time. Beneath the surface of this
broad noble calm we seem to hear the elements of the storm
still working below in the recesses o£ the ocean and gradually

forcing their way to the top. The figure so incessantly

repeated by the two violins is an incentive to more
in itself
violent agitation. As the long pedal proceeds the sound rises
always louder and louder until at length it reaches a very
—
unusual pitch of loudness (///) a truly furious burst. The
 INDIVIDUALITY OF BEETHOVEN'S WOEKS. 267

fourteen bars of this furious passage are then repeated, and the
two form an explosion without parallel in Beethoven's music,
or, indeed, in any music since. They fairly lift the hearer
from his seat, and form an unexampled climax to one of
the most stupendous movements in the whole range of
music. After this, in a short time, the Symphony comes to
an end.
The entire contrast between the foregoing Symphony and
this is truly extraordinary, perhaps the most remarkable
that can be found in the whole series. We have more
than once insisted on the distinct* individuality of these
wonderful works, and have drawn attention to the fact that
each Allegro, each Andante, each Scherzo, each Finale has
not even a family likeness to either of the corresponding
eight movements. But that so wonderfully calm and objective
a work as No. 6 should be followed by music so vivacious
energetic,and personal as that which we have just been
attempting to consider, is indeed almost beyond comprehen-
sion. For this power no one can compare with Beethoven
but Shakespeare.

The publication of the work seems to have caused

Beethoven even more than usual trouble. The original edition
of Steiner and Co., the quarto of December, 1816, is an ugly
production, in every respect inferior to the well- engraved and
careful octavos of the first six Symphonies. Nor was it
merely slovenly, itwas incorrect, and Mr. Thayer f has
printed a letter from Beethoven to the firm on the subject,
which not pleasant to read
is :

The matter of this Symphony is very annoying to me, since it is

unfortunately the case that neither parts nor score is correct. In
the copies which are already prepared the mistakes must be corrected
in Indian ink, which Schlemmer [his copyist] must do and a list of
;

* Coleridge remarks {Table Talk, February 17, 1833) that Shakespeare

cannot be copied because he is universal,' and 'has no manner
'
and this is
'
;

equally true of Beethoven, and probably explains why he founded no school.

t iii., 497.
268 SEVENTH SYMPHONY.

all mistakes without exception must also be printed and supplied. The
score as engraved might have been written by the most clumsy copyist
it isan inaccurate, defective affair, such as has hitherto never appeared
of any of my works. This is the consequence of your inattention to the
corrections and of your not having sent it me for my revision, or not
having reminded me about it. .You have treated the public with
. .

neglect, and the innocent author suffers in his reputation !

The passage in the Vivace (bar 109 after the double-bar) to

which Mr. Joseph Bennett, on the information of Mr. Silas,
called attention in the Daily Telegraph of July 22 and 29, 1893,
and which was the subject of letters and remarks in the Musical
Times of August, September, and October of the same year,
is probably one of the passages of which Beethoven complains.

In this bar the strings have the chord of A major and the
wind that of D major.
The first performance of the Symphony in England took
place at the Philharmonic on June 9th, 1817, so that the
Society had evidently been on the watch and had procured
the score immediately after publication.
its There is a very
fair notice for those days in the Morning Chronicle of June 16;
but excepting the Allegretto, which is qualified as one of '

the most exquisite pieces of music that we know, and a perfect

gem,' the work is not, in the opinion of the critic, *
in any
way comparable to many others by the same writer.' This
is hardly to be wondered and is of a piece with the opinions
at,

and even those of North Germany, which

of the Paris critics,
we have already noticed (p. 237). Beethoven was at this and
later date much interested in English opinion. At a later date
he took the English papers home with him, and read the
debates on the slave trade with admiration, and was familiar
with the names of Brougham and others. Now he seems to
have consulted them only on musical topics. The Morning
'

cronigle,' as he calls it, of March 22, 1816, had contained a

notice of another of his Symphonies (probably* the Eroica or '

'

C minor), which was performed at the concert of March 11 ;

* No key is named in the programme.

 EARLY ENGLISH OPINIONS. 269

and he not unnaturally supposed that this was his No. 7,

and wrote to Neate, then in London, on May 15 of the same
year, enquiring about it. Neate, however, corrected his
mistake,* and the Symphony did not, as we have said, make its
appearance here till the following year. A MS. note on this
performance, by the late William Ayr ton (one of the Founders
of the Philharmonic Society), says :
'
All except the movement
in A
minor (the Andante) proved cavia re; but other beauties by
degrees became patent, though a curtailment of at least ten
minutes would improve it.' And this from a ripe and by
no means reactionary musician Seven years later the
!

following paragraph appears in The Harmonicon, an excel-

lent musical periodical, edited with great care and skill by
the same writer Beethoven's Symphony in A has before
:
'

been mentioned in this work. Frequent repetition does not

reconcile us to its vagaries and dissonances, though we admit
the movement in A minor to be a chef d'ceuvre, and that which
in our opinion alone secures to the other parts of the com-
position a hearing' (1824, page 122). What musician, now-a-
days, would shorten the work by a semiquaver, or express so
absurd an opinion as to the proportion of the Allegretto to the
other movements ?

After 1817 the Symphony does not appear in the

Philharmonic programme for some
and the next years,
performance opened the first concert of 1821, on February 26.
In Paris the first performance took place on March 1, 1829, at
the second Concert of the Conservatoire for that season. It

was repeated four weeks later, and thenceforward appears on

the programmes with tolerable regularity.

In this glorious work there is no falling off. It has not

perhaps the terrible directness which is characteristic of the

* See Moscheles's Life of Beethoven (Trans, of Schindler), ii., 235, 239, 242.
270 SEVENTH SYMPHONY.

C minor ; but in variety, life, colour, elasticity, and unflagging

vigour it is, if possible, superior to any of its predecessors,
while, with all its force, length, and weight, no sense of
weariness is produced ; but notwithstanding its dimensions,
in which it exceeds all but the Ninth, one hears the last bar
with regret animated by its wonderful author with that
; it is

extraordinary and undying life of which he seems so fully to

have possessed the secret.

It is a rare thing for Beethoven to mention his compositions

in terms of praise or blame, but he has made an exception
in favour of this Symphony. He names it twice — first in a
letter toSalomon (June 1, 1815) A grand Symphony in A, :
*

one of my best works and again in an English letter to

'
;

Neate, in which occur the words among my best works :

'

which I can boldly say of the Symphony in A.'

N.B. — Page 266. The two fffs mentioned are given in

the first edition (4to, lithographed, 1816), which certainly had
Beethoven's full revision ; but in the folio (engraved, 1827),
of which the same is not so sure, they are given ff.
 SYMPHONY No. 8, in F majok (Op. 93).

1. Allegro vivace e con brio. {p. —69.) (F major.)

2. Allegretto seherzando. (#T_88.) (B flat.)

3. Tempo di minuetto. (J_126.) (F major.)

4. Allegro vivace. (c>__84.) (F major.)

Score.
2 Drums in F and C. 2 Oboes.
2 Trumpets in F. 2 Bassoons.
2 Horns in F. 1st and 2nd Violin3.
2 Flutes. Violas.
2 Clarinets. Violoncello.
Double bass.

N.B. —In the second movement the Trumpets and Drums are silent,
and the Horns become Corni in B flat basso. In the Finale the Drums
are tuned in F, and in octaves.

First Edition, a small 4to, lithographed, a companion to No. 7.

*Achte grosse Sinfonie in F dur, fur 2 Violinen, etc., von Ludwig van
Beethoven, 93tes Werk. Vollstandige Partitur. Eigenthum der Verleger.
Wien, im Verlage bey S. A. Steiner und Comp.' 1816.
The parts were published also by Steiner (No. 2,571), in 1816, probably
with those of No. 7.

Second Edition, large folio (No. 7,060), 133 pages, engraved, a com-
panion to that of No. 7, published in 1827, by Tobias Haslinger, of Vienna.

The original manuscript of the Eighth Symphony, once in

the possession of Herr Carl Haslinger of Vienna, and now
in the Royal Library at Berlin, has fortunately escaped the
destructive hands of the bookbinder, which inflicted so much
damage on that of No. 7. It is inscribed by the composer
*
Sinfonia — Lintz im Monath October 1812 —in '
other words,
four months after May, 1812, usually accepted as the date of
272 EIGHTH SYMPHONY.

its predecessor. Beethoven's practice was to sketch his

Symphonies during his summer holiday in the country, and
to elaborate and score them in town during the winter and
spring. He did this with No. 7 but the Eighth Symphony ;

is an exception to the rule. The *sketch-books show that it

was begun immediately after the completion of No. 7, and the
Symphony must, therefore, have been finished in the astonish-
ingly short period of time of four months! Nottebohm's
f verdict is that it was sketched in the main at the Bohemian
baths, and completed at Linz.
Beethoven had now been suffering for some time. Of the
nature of his ill-health we have no clear accounts. It was
probably some aggravated form of indigestion. At any rate,
it was now Jchronic, and sufficiently severe to take him again

to Teplitz, where he had passed so pleasant a time in the

preceding autumn and there we find him on July 7, 1812,
—
;

living at the Oak in der Eiche * whether an inn or a '

—
district does not appear— at No. 62.
On his arrival Teplitz was full of people of rank, who had
assembled there after the departure of the Emperor Napoleon
for |] Russia, to consult over their common unhappiness
amongst them were Beethoven's friends, the Princes Kinsky
—
and Carl Lichnowsky, and what was of more interest to
—
him Goethe, Varnhagen von Ense, Bettina von Arnim, her
brother Clemens Brentano, and her sister Frau von Savigny.
A concert for the benefit of the town of Baden, near
Vienna, which had recently been nearly burnt down, was
given at Teplitz on August 6, and in this Beethoven took
much interest. He left before the end of the month, by his
doctor's orders, for Karlsbad. On the road somewhere he

* See Zweite Beethoveniana, p. 101.

+ Ibid., p. 118.

X Bestandig is his own word, in a letter to Varena, July 19, 1812.

§ See the lists given in Thayer, iii , 203.

II He crossed the Niemen on June 24.

 AN IMMORTAL POSTILLION. TEPLITZ. 273

encountered a postillion, whose command over his horn

struck him sufficiently to make him *record a passage in
his note-book :—

Postilion von Karlsbad _-

At Karlsbad he apparently met Goethe for the first time, and

there he had the well-known encounter with the Austrian royal
—
family a freak of atrocious manners on his part, but probably
intended more as a piece of bravado for Goethe's benefit
than for any serious disrespect to his sovereign, or to rank in
general, as it is usually interpreted. On August 12 we find him
at Franzensbad, and as his health did not improve by the
change he returned to Teplitz. There, to his great pleasure,
he found his dear friend of the previous summer, Amalie
Sebald he renewed his love making, and a series of amusing
;

notes to her have been ^preserved, which testify to the uncon-

ventional nature of their friendship. The attachment, however,
came and she ultimately married a Prussian judge.
to nothing,
From Teplitz Beethoven proceeded to Linz on the Danube,
a long journey, and on a very singular errand, his object
being nothing else than to put an end to the irregular
connection between his brother Johann and Miss Therese
Obermeyer, a lady with whom Johann had for some time
been living in his house there. What right Ludwig had thus
to interfere with the most private concerns of his brother
a man nearly of his own age and independent in his
circumstances — does not appear. It supplies a warrant for
the expression contained in Goethe's Jletter about him, that
he was ' an entirely uncontrolled (ungebdndigt) person,'

* Zweite Beethoveniana, 289.

f Thayer, iii., 212, 213, 214.

% Goethe to Zelter, Karlsbad, September 2, 1812.

274 EIGHTH SYMPHONY.

—
whose unexpected bursts whether of noisy fury or equally
—
noisy fun must have been perfectly *alarming, even to those
who, like Zelter, had not so much sensitiveness as Goethe.
It is, however, certain that he invoked the aid of the bishop

and magistrates of Linz, and that the police were actually

authorised to expel the lady from the town. Anyone who
recollects Beethoven's impetuosity and the fact that he was
at this date extremely deaf^ can realise the amount of
excitement, wrath, and noise that must have accompanied
this singular transaction. It seems to have led, at length,

to nothing less than a personal combat between the two

brothers. Johann, however, completely checkmated the
furious Ludwig by marrying Miss Obermeyer on November 8.
Beethoven's animosity to her continued to the fend of
his -days, and 'Queen of Night' was one of the offensive
epithets that he used in speaking or writing of her.
These turbulent proceedings did not, however, interfere
with the composition of the Symphony, though they no
doubt considerably coloured it. The room which he occupied
at his brother's was a very pleasant one, commanding a
wide view of the Danube and the surrounding scenery and ;

between this and the eminence called the JPostlingsberg there

was ample room for the walks which were so necessary to him,
both for health and for the maturing of his compositions.
They would be enough to account for the boisterous character
of the Finale if the music did not, with all its roughness,
show an amount of good humour quite at variance with the
savage nature of the disputes we have just been describing.
But, indeed, it is exceedingly hazardous to attempt to connect
Beethoven's music with the simultaneous events of his life.

—
* "Audi ich bewimclere ihn mit Schrecken." Zelter to Goethe, Berlin,
—
September 14, 1812. Zelter belonged to the lower orders a rough man, who
for some time was a working mason.

f See page 134.

I In all these details, see the testimony given in Thayer, iii., 215.
 INFERENCES TO BE DRAWN WITH CAUTION. 275

Two instances are enough to show this, and many others

might be given. One is the fact that the despair of the letter
of 1802, known as '
Beethoven's Will ' (reprinted at page 45),
was coincident with the satisfied, happy mood depicted in the
Second Symphony, of the same date and the other ; is the
fact that the gay strains of the Finale to the great B fiat

Quartet (Op. 130) are actually dated with his own hand,
'November 6' (1826), when he was in the midst of most
unpleasant surroundings at the house of this very brother at
Gneixendorf, near Krems, in constant contact with the woman
whom he hated perhaps more than anyone else in the world, and
to whose marriage he had endeavoured to put a stop fourteen
years before.* (See the account by Michael Krenn, given on
pages 131-135). Inferences drawn from such external facts
as to the compositions of the time are, however, as already
said, at the best very doubtful. Some pregnant words of
Lord Tennyson's, given on
in a recent! work, seem to bear
this point —
they are to the effect that people in general have
no notion of the way in which we poets go to £work '
'

and if poets are thus inaccessible, how far more inscrutable

must be the still more irritable and unaccountable race of

* am at Gneixendorf,' says he to Tobias Haslinger during this visit, in a

'
I
letterheaded by a few bars of nourish on the name of Tobias.' The name ' '

is something like the breaking of an axle-tree (Nohl's Briefe, i., No. 383). '

The house, garden, and fields remain almost untouched, and were in excellent
order, in the possession of Herr von Schweitzer, when seen by the writer in
August, 1892. The distance from the village to Krems is about four miles,
a descending road, much exposed to the North-East wind, so that there
is no difficulty in believing that Beethoven's journey down it, in an open
trap, on December 2, 1826, may have given him the cold which killed him on
March 26. 1827.

f Tollemache's Benjamin Jowett (p. 103).

X
'
Tennyson once told me,' said the Master of Balliol. 'that he could form an
idea of the intellectual efforts of such poets as Byron and Shelley their state —
of mind and feelings were comprehensible to him. But of the state of mind
and feelings which found expression in Shakespeare's plays he could form no
conception whatever.'
276 EIGHTH SYMPHONY.

musicians. Handel's bankruptcy and paralysis do not appear to

have interfered with the freedom of his strains, any more than
did Mozart's constant impecuniosity and other worries with the
gaiety of '
Figaro or '
*
Don Juan.' In literature we know that
Walter Scott dictated some of his most dramatic scenes while
rolling on the floor in the agonies of cramp in the stomach,
and that he could not, on the arrival of the proofs, recollect
at all what he had written with so much power a day or two
before.
Beethoven had a great value for this Symphony. True, in
writing to Salomon, Haydn's ancient entrepreneur, then living
in London, on June 1, 1815, he speaks of it as '
a little

one ' Sinfonie

(kleine in F), from the
to distinguish it

'
Grand. Symphony in A, one of my most important (grosse '

Symphonie in A, einer meiner vorziiglichsten), which he mentions

with it in the catalogue of the music he had to dispose of.

But this obviously refers to its length. '

Little,' perhaps,
for indeed it is the shortest of the nine, except No. 1, and
that is only a minute and a half shorter in performance ; but
in any other respect it is vast. It may be said of it, as has
been said of Beethoven himself, who was shorter in stature
than most men, that within that limited space is con-
*

centrated the pluck of twenty battalions.' How prodigious a

work it is, no one knew better than he did, and his opinion
of it may be judged from the words which he let drop after its
poor reception (page 279). That such appreciation was con-
sistent with genuine modesty on the part of this wonderfully
constituted being may well be believed. How truly modest he
was at this very time is shown by one or two touching
expressions in a letter addressed by him at this date to a
very young lady-worshipper, Emilie M., from H.,' who,
'

*
with the sanction of her governess,' had ventured to
send him a letter-case, worked by herself, with a letter,
in which she had obviously compared him to other great
composers, to their disadvantage. His answer is one of
 Beethoven's letter to a child. 277

the many precious relics which we owe to the devotion of

Mr. Thayer.*

*
Toplitz, July 17, 1812.
'
My dear good Emilie, my dear friend,

'
My answer to your letter comes late ; a heap of
business and constant illness must be my excuse. The fact of
my being here for the restoration of my health proves the
truth of my plea. Don't take away their laurels from Handel,
Haydn, and Mozart they are theirs by right, but not so mine
;

yet. Your letter-case shall be put by with many other tokens

of esteem, which I don't yet deserve by a long way.
1
Go on don't only practise your art, but force your way
;

into its secrets art deserves that, for it and knowledge can
;

raise man to the Divine. Should you, my dear Emilie, ever

want anything, write to me without hesitation. A true artist
has no arrogance he sees with regret that art is limitless
;

he feels darkly how far he still is from the goal, and though
he may be applauded by the public, he knows with sorrow
that he is still far from the point where his good genius is
shining like a too distant sun. No doubt I would rather come
to you and your friends than to many wealthy people, who, with
all their riches, can't conceal the poverty of their minds. If
I ever am in H., I will come
you and your family. I know
to
no other signs of superiority than those which betoken good-
ness, and where I find these there I make my home.
If you want to write, dear Emilie, address here
'
where I —
shall still remain four weeks —
or to Vienna, it's all the same.
Think of me as yours, and the friend of your family.
*
Ludwig v. Beethoven.'

At this time of life (forty-two) his love of fun and practical

joking had increased so much on him as to have become a

* See liis Biography, iii., 205.

278 EIGHTH SYMPHONY.

habit ; his letters are full of jokes ; he bursts into horse-

laughs on every occasion makes the vilest puns, and bestows
;

the most execrable nicknames —

and all this the most when he
was most happy. In fact, he had an express term for this state
of things, aufgeknopft —
i.e., unbuttoned was his own word —
for it. And as what he had in his mind was bound to come
out in his music, this comes out here more than anywhere else
indeed, the work might with propriety be called the Humorous
—
Symphony often terribly humorous for the atmosphere of ;

broad rough enjoyment which pervades the first and last

movements is in the former darkened by bursts of un-
mistakable wrath, while every now and then there is a
special stroke — such as the octaves of bassoon, drum, &c,
in both first and last movements ; the bar's rest and staccato
notes which usher in the second subject in the first Allegro;
the way same move-
in which, in the working-out of the
ment, the first subject is persistently shoved away each time
it appears the provoking Italian cadence which finishes up
;

the Allegretto just as we want to hear the legitimate repeat

in the Finale the loud unmusical C sharps ; the burst of
laughter with which he explodes at the notion of making
his Coda, according to practice, out of the previous materia],
and then goes off into entirely fresh subjects and regions the ;

way in which the brass pull the orchestra back into F natural
when it had got into F sharp. These are some of the droll,
comic, points. But there was another humour which was as
dear and as natural to Beethoven as fun was the intense love —
of beauty; and this is also found in the Allegretto, than which
nothing is more lovely in the world in the Minuet — especially
;

the return to the subject by the bassoon — in the cantabile

passages in the Trio, and in the serenely beautiful second
subject of the Finale.

The key of this Symphony is the same as that of

the '
Pastoral,' which is remarkable when the very great
 THE FIRST PERFORMANCE. 279

difference in the contents of the two works is considered.

Schindler, *indeed, states, as from the mouth of the master
if

himself, that the peaceful atmosphere of the country can

only he conveyed by the key of F but the question of the ;

individuality of keys, and Beethoven's opinion in regard to

them, has been already alluded to (p. 239) and cannot be
discussed here.

The Eighth Symphony was first performed in the Great

Redoutensaal, Vienna, on February 27, 1814, at a concert the
programme which contained (1) The Seventh Symphony
of —
(2) the Trio Tremate,' sung for the first time by Milder-
*

Hauptmann, Siboni, and Weinmuller (3) the Symphony in F, ;

also for the first time and (4) the Battle of Yittoria. It was not
;

well received, much more applause being given to the Seventh

Symphony, the Allegretto of which was redemanded. The
non-success of his pet work greatly discomposed Beethoven,
but he bore it philosophically and, as on the occasion of ;

the first performance of one of his great String Quartets,

he simply said, 'It will please them some day,' so now he
remarked :
' That's because it's so much better than the
other. 'f It is deserves, and
not even yet appreciated as it

as it will be hereafter. by Marx in his

It is barely noticed

elaborate (though often absurd) work. It is held up by Lenz

as a problem for criticism,' as if in it Beethoven had gone

'

back to his earlier style the fact being that Lenz is misled by
;

the term Minuet,' and that the music is an advance in some

'

respects even on that of No. 7. It is patronised by Berlioz,

and abused by OulibicherT as la moins goutee,' and is less '

often performed than either of the other Symphonies after

No. 2. So much had it faded from the view of the musical
public in its native city that Hanslick J recalls the significant

* ii., 167.

f Thayer, iii., 273 ; from Czerny.

%Ausdem Concertsaal, p. 319.
 280 EIGHTH SYMPHONY.

factthat up to 1850 the Pastoral Symphony was always

announced as '
Symphony in F, Beethoven,' as if he had not
written a second in that key ! It did not appear in the
programmes du Conservatoire*
of the Societe des Concerts
till their fifth year —
on February 19, 1832, even later
viz.,

than the Choral Symphony and was then announced as

;

1
Symphonie inedite,' though the score had been published
since 1816. In England it seems not to have made its
appearance till the Philharmonic Concert of May 29, 1826,
and its performance was always the signal for sneers by
the critic of the Harmonicon, even smaller and nastier than
those which he levels at others of those now favourite
works. The reason of this, perhaps, may be found in the
overflowing fun and realism of the music. The hearer has
before him not so much a piece of music as a person. Not only
is every movement pervaded by humour, but each has some
special stroke of boisterous merriment, which to those whose
minds were full of the more dignified movements of the
1
Eroica,' the C minor, or the No. 7, may have made it

difficult to believe that the composer was in earnest and that

his composition was to be taken seriously. We would here
call attention to the fact that, though bent on so much
exhilaration,Beethoven has confined himself throughout
the work to the simplest orchestra not a single trombone is —
employed, and in the Allegretto there are no trumpets or
drums. In the Finale the drums are —probably for the first
time, unless Sebastian Bach has somewhere done it — tuned
in octaves.
Instances have already been given of the imaginary and
unfounded programmes, so confidently thrust upon their readers
by certain critics, in explanation of these great works, especially
of the Seventh Symphony. They have not been less at fault
in the present case, where they have attempted a similar task.

* See El wart's Histoire de la Societe des Concerts du Conservatoire, Paris, 1864,

p. 155.
 UNJUSTIFIABLE PROGRAMMES. 281

Thus Lenz* treats the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies

and the Battle of Vittoria as intended to form a Military '

Trilogy'; finds in the Finale of No. 8 a 'most poetical tattoo,'

and quotes his favourite authority, the Russian Seroff, for

the opinion that the triplet figure so frequent in that move-

ment is 'an idealised roll of the drum.' OulibichefT again
sees in the Allegretto a mere caricature of Rossini. Berlioz,
though he tells us that the same movement was composed at
—
a sitting tout d'un trait which is absurd is probably more —
correct in stating that the opening Allegro was written three
times for though he gives no authority for his statement,
;

it would, at any rate, be in keeping with Beethoven's

tentative method of composing. These gentlemen, in their
anxiety to form an ideal picture, forget the extraordinary
human element in Beethoven's nature. They shut their eyes
to the fact that, dearly as he loved to be in earnest, he loved
fun quite as dearly ; that Shakespeare himself did not revel
in jokes, good or bad, more than he did that he was not ;

always striving his utmost to reach the heights and depths of

some lofty and ideal theme. These writers are like the portrait-
painters who give us, not his natural expression would to —
God they did ! — but the expression which they think he
ought to have had, when engaged on the subjects they
deem appropriate to a great composer. And therefore of the
many portraits which exist of him there is notf one which is

satisfactory or can be accepted, any more than there is a

genuine programme of his works except in the rare cases in
which he has himself given us one. With regard to programme,
Beethoven has told us that it was his custom in composing

* Beethoven, e. Kunst-Studie (1855-60), iii., 254.

f We have elsewhere stated that Sir Thomas Lawrence was at Vienna

during the Congress. Had he painted Beethoven we should have, if not the
best possible representation of him, at least an adequate portrait (see p. 316),
It seems hard that there are no portraits of the greatest of masters to compare
with the delightful etchings of Wagner in Chamberlain's Richard Wagner
(Verlagsanstalt fur Kunst una Wissenschaft in Miinchen, 1895).
282 EIGHTH SYMPHONY.

to write to a picture, and had always a scene before him but ;

this does not authorise our inventing what we like. Are we sure
that in the endless variety of the imagination we should see the
picture or event as he saw it ? No, unless we have his own
assurance on the subject, we must be right to reject all such
interpretations as those alluded to. In the present case it is

surely enough to have the extraordinary spirit and power

which he has put into his notes the strong logic and
;

persistent common- sense the health, the humour, or the

;

beauty which animates every page the admirable combina-

;

tion of instruments and the general consistent purpose

which reign and run throughout this astonishing work from
end to end, and which, though they may not express them-
selves in words or visible pictures, military or other,
leave an indelible impression. No No in the Eroica I !
'
'

Beethoven is absorbed by his hero, in the Pastoral '

by the country, but in No 8, if we must label this

immortal work, it is sufficient to say that, perhaps more
than any other of the nine, it is a portrait of the author in
daily life, in his habit as he lived and we may be sure ;

that the more it is heard and studied, the more will he be

found there in his most natural and characteristic per-
sonality.

The Symphony is now in the key of F. But it is not

certain that it was always meant to be so. Mr. Thayer, in his
Chronologisches Verzeichniss, No. 170, has quoted from the
sketch-book a '
grand introduction of eleven bars in length,
beginning in the key of A major and leading to an embryonic
version of the present opening in the key of D major. This
is, however, unnoticed by Nottebohm in his citations from the
same sketch-book (Ziveite Beethoveniana, p. 111). He gives

the following as an early form of the opening— and it has

some slight resemblance to the ultimate shape of the
music :
 THE FIRST MOVEMENT 283

is§i± g
gsg ^ggjfegg^

Twenty- six large pages are occupied with attempts in this

direction before the actual present opening passage is arrived at.
In another part of the same sketch-book is a sketch of the
subject of the last movement, too remarkable not to quote,
since it is one of the many instances which show how different

the methods of invention are from our conception of them,

and in how crude and flat a shape ideas, which afterwards
became most successful, first occurred to the mind of this
greatest and most indefatigable of all composers. This is
especially the case with the legato passage forming the last
half of the quotation.
The sketch :—

—J- 5—1^;^==^
Eg±PgEg = S ^^±z:g M^zsr-
*sijjr»
The finished composition :

•' n ,
44 '

P^^^^ Sr SfSro E E

3=

Other instances, equally remarkable, of Beethoven's

gradual improvement of his ideas are found in connection
284 EIGHTH SYMPHONY,

with the Second Symphony (in D), the C minor and the
Choral Symphonies, to which attention has already been
called. In this, how like to Beethoven was Goethe (usually
so unlike), who says of his '
Ballade,' '
I carried it about with
me a long time before I wrote itdown there are whole years
;

of thought crammed into it, and I made not less than three or
four attempts before I could get it into its present shape.'

Whatever may have been the original speculation of the

I.

composer, there is now no Introduction to the first Allegro, but

the movement opens at once forte with the subject, without
even a bar of prelude as in the 'Eroica,' a note as in the
*
Pastoral,' or a rest as in the C minor. The following is the
melody of the first twelve bars :

No.L
Allegro vivace e con brio.
Clarinet

pfet
£&£:
tit
-

^m^ p
^fepjpgT^=*
dol.
'

Tutti /
Str

5/

The opening phrase may perhaps have been running in

Mendelssohn's head when he wrote his fine early String
Quintet in A, which begins with the same intervals, though in
different rhythm :

No. 2.
Allegro con moto

And here we may stop a moment to point out once more

how fond Beethoven is of framing his principal subjects in the
 THE FIRST MOVEMENT. 285

notes of the tonic chord, so as to impress the key of the

movement thoroughly on the hearer before he begins to
modulate.The principal subjects of the first movements of
the '
Eroica,' the First and Second Symphonies, and the
Choral Symphony, at once occur to the mind. The present
is another case.
The tune of the subject is prolonged as follows for
a further twenty bars (we have quoted the entire
passage) :

No. 3.

Viol. ^
&=& fiE ^ff-^^^^^^S
i/ learnt

Viol. 8va.

and treated with harmony of strange, humorous temper till, ;

afteran unresolved discord of eight bars, a bar's rest, and an

unexpected but grateful change of key to D minor, couched
in droll staccato leaps, the second principal subject is brought
in by the violins in octaves :

No. 4.
Viol, sempre p

— —^.^ *££ 3^fep*fi

i ^ s^ l^iin'w —— -
*«=^t H—^^—4
Viol. 2, 8va.

—P^i=^CI 3E9e. ^-^ fzfJa^z^£zSzft

P P TJ
ritard. a tempo
Flutes & Oboes
286 EIGHTH SYMPHONY.

The very fact of beginning the theme in D and ending it

in C is a stroke of humour, which is brought out still more
by the ritardando at the sixth bar. The subject itself is full
of grace— in fact, up to this point the leading part has been
almost one continuous melody. It is in the treatment,
the harmony and accompaniments, that Beethoven betrays
the uneasy, not to say angry, condition of his temper at the
time.
A staccato character is kept up all through the thirty-five bars
which connect the subject last quoted with the next melody.
This is of a still more flowing character than the foregoing.
It is given out by the flutes and oboes in octaves, with a

smooth accompaniment in the bassoons and the rest of the

wind, and a very pleasant quaver figure in the strings, and
ending with a return to the staccato figures which had pre-
ceded it :—

No. 5.

Flute & Ob. p

wVfV^ 4^
, , ,

4 4 A 4 i

Fag

i A J. ,
8va
* ,**4_jj>nj,ji
=jmr^T?% P ff Tutti

-AeA A^m -Whljr

The flowing grace of the two subjects last quoted is now

 THE FIEST MOVEMENT. 287

and then invaded by a spirit of mischief, as in the

delicate passage

No. 6.

2=ft % *
i
until we reach a more decided outbreak than before, har-
monised, too, in the contrary motion which is so obvious a
feature of this Symphony :
—
No. 7. sf
^^

J f sf sf

m ^PPPifiilli
At length comes a phrase which is a more absolute
embodiment of rude fun than anything yet employed :

No. 8.
sf

.*=
S
t=i

Strings in 8ves. sf
=P=^
iMB ^S£
Four bars of this phrase end the first section of the Allegro,
and it is employed to begin the working-out on the farther
side of the double-bar.* Beethoven has so far kept the wrath
which seems to animate him at bay but whatever the cause ;

it is no longer to remain in the background and it comes ;

out with the beginning of the working-out in very ominous

and intelligible tones. The phrase last quoted is now used
first as a prelude and then as an accompaniment to the
group of six notes which open the movement (No. 3) ; each

* Compare Mozart's similar course in the first movement of the '

Jupiter
'

Symphony.
288 EIGHTH SYMPHONY.

of the two is repeated four times consecutively, and then,

as it were, unceremoniously brushed away by a loud 'pooh!
!
pooh ' from the whole orchestra :

No. 9. Clar.
Fa<r. dol.

i
5=3=4==

Violas JO
&-
Violin?
S^S
»p^
-r -r r
£f it
S: -e.^:
feEig
P
, i

^4===t
FH r ^ij-h^Ld-^^
Ob. Tutti
"iJffii
fe^=ffl and so on for 3 bars

-i
— -^ t-.-i — r- fifr *- -i-
f
-- -ft. _ -F
more.

This occurs three times, arriving at last in D minor ; but

now the second of the two phrases (that from No. 1) forces
itself on the attention ; and then there is hardly a bar without
it,now in the first part of the bar, now in the last ; now low
down, now high up, as thus :

No. 10.
>k*- • km

and-
 FIRST MOVEMENT. REPRISE. 289

At length the tension so caused becomes almost unbearable,

and the original subject and key return in a wild tornado not —
in the ordinary way, with the theme in the treble, as at first,
but in the basses, with all the noise possible (even///, a mark
which Beethoven only very *rarely employs), and with the
rest of the band in long notes in the high regions :

No. 11.
Tutti 8ves.
fff-.
&-
^ %

The instrumentation of this portion (the opening of the

reprise), where the theme is somewhat overwhelmed by the

accompaniments, and not brought out with Beethoven's

accustomed definiteness, is possibly intentional, but it has
been conjectured to be one of the earliest instances of the
effect of his deafness, which by 1812 had become serious,

though not so bad as it was in 1824, when he had to be

turned round towards the audience that he might see the
applause which they were bestowing on his Choral Symphony
(see page 335). But to return. The reprise is treated with the
greatest freedom. The same subjects are employed as in
the corresponding earlier portion, but not always in the
same proportions ; while the instrumentation and effects

are often entirely changed and the phrases are made more
piquant by the use of staccato — as has been already noticed
in the Scherzo of the C minor Symphony. A new phrase
is introduced as the accompaniment to the subject quoted

The only instances that I am aware of in Beethoven are the two referred
*
toabove and on p. 291 Overture, Op. 115, fifth bar from end Overture to
; ;

'Leonora, No. 2,' twice in final Presto Overture to 'Leonora, No. 3,' once
;

in ditto.
290 EIGHTH SYMPHONY.

as No. 3, the phrase being most effectively placed in the

basses :

No. 12

-1
#

"i*
-
^ ^e^,
"1
'

sf &c.

"^
1

—^~=r
J ~d
kc —

The Coda, which is long — seventy-seven bars—is most

effective. It begins with the figure in No. 7, given with
irresistible effect to the bassoon. A new feature of great
ingenuity and charm is formed out of five notes of the
quotation No. 1 :

which are worked in every part of the scale and the bar. The
effect is extraordinarily telling in a pianissimo passage, full of
mystery, with the phrase in question in the basses staccato.
Apart, however, from individual phrases and modes of con-
struction, or any other such mechanical points, there is the
extraordinary amount of violent emotion and fury* which

* I admit that this does not always come out so strongly in performances ;
but such performances as those, for instance, under Mr. Manns or Dr.
in
Richter. it does and the effect is such as to leave no doubt in the mind of
;

the hearer that it is what Beethoven intended.

 THE ALLEGRETTO SCHERZANDO. 291

animates the greater part of the latter portion of this move-

ment. From
the double-bar onwards Beethoven betrays a
feeling ofwrath which I do not remember in any other of his
works, or in any other piece of music though I am not able —
to speak of Wagner. It is not the boisterous fun which we

find throughout the Finale. Here it is edged by a distinct

spirit of anger. After the final explosion, however—
second///", twenty-five bars from the termination — this dis-
appears, and after a few bars of alternate strings and wind,
the end is reached, with great point, by the soft repetition
of the identical six notes with which it started.
The present length of the Coda is the result of an altera-
tion after the first performance. It was originally thirty-
four bars shorter, as is proved by an ancient drum-part used
at the first performance, and still surviving.*

II. After so much commotion and combat,

the well-known
most remarkable effect. Its
Allegretto scherzando produces a
grace and elegance would be extraordinary whatever were its
surroundings, but in its present position the contrast is of
unspeakable relief. Gaiety, grace, rich, though quiet, humour
are its characteristics, clothed in a form of indolent, graceful
beauty, which is essential to the full enjoyment of this most
beautiful piece,and is missed entirely if the pace is taken too
fast. Wagner,
I know, suggests that the Allegretto should

be taken rather quick and the following Minuet slow. He

is probably right about the Minuet ; but I say it with deep —
respect —certainly not as to the Allegretto .f
The originality and beauty of its opening are remarkable,
the melody being in the strings and the accompaniment in

* Nottebohm, Beethoveniana, p. 25.

f Why must we take music at so much faster a pace than it could have been
played at in the time of its composer ? The whole world moved more slowly
then than it does now, even so soon after the impulse of the French Revolution.
Moreover, the players, especially the wind instrument players, could not have
played at the pace to which we are accustomed, however hard they tried.
292 EIGHTH SYMPHONY.

the wind instruments, who reiterate their crisp chords with

an indescribably charming effect :

No. 14 Allegretto ucherzando.

Wind pppj $& Viol. 1
^ ?

i*^-*r-r &c. r
^i be t-5
semp re stac\^ Basses p

&c.

C^s ^
Nothing can exceed the delicacy with which this delicious
dialogue is conducted.
Beethoven would have been amused if he could have fore-
Romberg* would adopt this melody for the
seen that his friend
opening of the Finale, Allegretto, of his Concerto for cello and
orchestra, No. 8, in A, but so it is :

mjdjgm^^g
No. 15.

Not less remarkable is the second subject, as graceful as

before, but with more obvious humour, and irresistibly sugges-
tive of a sportive conversation, with muttered objections from
the basses, though all with perfect good nature :

tr
tr
'H£
m
+- - Jr*~*- '1m > S^3SS-
^ p

I owe this to my friend, Mr. George Herbert.

 ALLEGRETTO SCHERZANDO. CANON. 293

&
pp cres. ^Oboe

Viol.

This Allegretto is the shortest of all the movements in

Beethoven's Symphonies. The abrupt and disappointing
close with the commonplace Italian cadence of tonic and
dominant, instead of the expected repeat, is obviously one of
the jokes incidental to Beethoven's frame of mind, and to
which one has to submit. OulibichefT interprets the movement
as a caricature of Rossini, whose extraordinary popularity in
Vienna was often a subject of remark with Beethoven but ;

there is no occasion for this. His spirits are just now so

high that everything he touches is turned to amusement.
The lovely opening itself is the embodiment of a piece of fun.
It exists in the form of a Canon extemporised at a supper in
the spring of 1812, and addressed to Maelzel, the inventor of
the metronome (originally called the chronometer), in which
the ticks of that instrument are represented by staccato semi-
quavers :

No. 17.
Vierstimmiger Canon.

ta ta ta ta ta ta ta tata ta ta ta ta ta ta ta lie-ber.lie-berMalzel.

&
\=£=*=^-
±L 3=
ta tatata tata ta ta la, . . . . lebenSiewohl.sebrwobl.

* The Canon is given in Breitkopf's complete Edition, No. 256, 2 ; see a] so

Zweite Beethoveniana, p. 289, &c.

294 EIGHTH SYMPHONY.

In one of the sketches for the Allegretto* the idea is differ ontly

given :

No. 18. Jg
Thema. f*
1
— &c.

The date of the Canon, as written, is uncertain ; it may be

later than that of the Symphonyf ; it may be earlier.
Berlioz I speaks of this Allegretto as having '
fallen from
heaven straight into the brain of its author, and been written
at a sitting ' — * tout d'un trait.' But this is not a very happy
conjecture, for there are § apparently about as many
sketches for it as this great composer made for any piece
of music, great or small, which he undertook. Here, as so
often elsewhere, in both literature and art, what appears most
spontaneous has been the most laboured. More fortunate was
the exclamation which the movement forced from Schopen-
hauer, prince of pessimists, that it was sufficient to make one
forget that the world was full of nothing but misery. ||

The Minuet, or, more accurately, the Tempo di Minu-

III.

etto,though not so sparklingiy elegant as the Allegretto, is not

less finished, and is a singular union of homely beauty and
humour. It begins very energetically with a passage of two
bars, somewhat boisterously emphasised by the trumpets, but
from which the lovely theme springs in the most spontaneous
manner :

No 19. ^^ 1 r-*to_ i

— ^
sf ^-^PJ?
-rr- &«• *
tfc£s* iSzfc
r

r< -r Ac.

Trump. 8va. /
* Zweite Beethoveniana, 113.

f See Thayer, iii., 221.

X Voyage Musical, Symphonie en fa, i., p. 334.
§ Nottebohm, Zweite Beethoveniana, p. 113.
|| Hanslick, Aus dem Concertsaal, p. 318.
 minuet, wagner's strictures. 295

The sketch-book shows that, contrary to his usual fortune,

Beethoven found this melody almost at once.*
The second strain is in absolute keeping with the first. A
charming feature of this section is the reprise of the air, in the
mellow notes of the bassoon, beautifully led up to. In the first
portion of this reprise the ancient ecclesiastical phrase of which
Beethoven was so fond appears in the basses pizzicato with the
best effect, the notes of the first bassoon (with second bassoon
legato) sliding over it like water over a stone in the brook
;

No. 20.

Fag. h
pp*L -*• bJ-T I I

§ifc
,

^*m T -*L
^±k
pp pizz.

The necessity for keeping down the pace of this movement

is strongly insisted on by Wagner, who makes it the subject
of a highly characteristic passage in his interesting pamphlet,
Ueber das Dirigiren.-f The remarks aimed at
are all

Mendelssohn, of whom, as is well-known, Wagner had a

poor opinion, and their effect is greatly interfered with by

the personal bias which they betray. We should like to know

Mendelssohn's reasons for the faster pace which he is said
to have adopted and adhered to.
The Trio (not so denominated by its author) is as spon-
taneous and graceful as the Minuet. The subject is given out
by the two horns, with an accompaniment for a somewhat
fidgetty cello solo, which, perhaps, points to some circum-
stance in the orchestra. We quote the opening as played :

No. 21.
dolce>

wm Cor. -*v.
Cello Sol o .*.
S*
*=*
^=f .it cres.

^n^T-fi
^?-
gPg^P
* Zweite Beethoveniana. p. 114.
:&c.

f Translated by Mr. Daunreuther (Reeves).

296 EIGHTH SYMPHONY.

The second half of the melody follows in the clarinet, in the

most reposeful and tender strain. There is a working-out, in
which a beautiful effect is made by bringing in the first bar
of the melody (No. 21) in the basses and bassoons staccato
with a light accompaniment over it.
The form of the melody of this Trio is curiously anticipated
in a Minuet for two flutes, dated 1792, August 23, abends 12'
*

(12 at night) and given by Thayer in his Chron. Verzeichniss,

No. 17 :—

No. 22.

Quasi Allegretto.
fi. i j J. A A
F1.2

A point in the Trio can hardly be said to be yet finally

settled. We allude to the third bar of the horn passage
(No. 21), which in the original edition (1816) appears thus,
in the same rhythm as the two preceding it :—

No. 23.

W=i

In the new critical and correct edition of Messrs. Breitkopf

*
'

and Hartel the rhythm is altered, and the bar is given as in

our No. 21. No authority for the change is, however, stated,
and the bar does not seem to be mentioned by Otto Jahn in
his well-known article on the edition. But at a performance
of the Symphony at a Philharmonic Concert at Berlin, on
January 21, 1889, under the direction of Dr. H. von Biilow,
the old reading (No. 23) was reverted to, on the ground* of a

* See the Berlin programme -book of the day.

 TRIO OF THE MINUET. THE FINALE. 297

'
correction of Beethoven's own, made in a copy of the four-
hand arrangement in the possession of Brahms.' We must
wait for more light upon the point. The case is probably an
instance of the vacillation so frequent in this great master in
fixing his final details. In one of the sketches the bar in
question appears* thus — with no dot at all, as in the early
little Minuet (No. 22) :—

No. 24.

Trio.

—gzzatz
=!=tqf=t

which looks as if Beethoven, at any rate, wished the rhythm

of this bar to be different from that of the preceding ones.

IV. After the studied grace and homely beauty of these

two elegant and soothing episodes, we are hardly prepared
for a return of violence and clamour equal to those of
the first movement. Beethoven, however, wills it so, and the
Finale, Allegro vivace, while it is the greatest portion
of this great Symphony —larger in dimensions and loftier

in spirit than either of the preceding movements — is

also the most humorous, not to say boisterous, of all. It

is pure Beethoven, in his most mature, individual, and

characteristic vein, full of that genuine humour, those

surprises and sudden unexpected effects, those mixtures of
tragedy and comedy, not to say farce, which played so large
a part in his existence, and which make his music a
true mirror of human life, as true in his branch of art as
the great plays of Shakespeare are in his and for similar —
reasons. The opening theme is one of those slight, trivial
ideas which appear to contain nothing, but which, like an
ordinary incident or a casual action, may become the germ of
the passion and conflict of a life. It is of such as this that

* Zweite Becthoveniuna, p. 116.

298 EIGHTH SYMPHONY.

Schumann says :
'
If you wish to know what can be made of
a simple thought by labour and anxious care, and, above all,

by genius, then look at Beethoven, and see how he can

ennoble and exalt his ideas and how what was at the outset
;

a mere commonplace phrase shall, before he has done with

it, become a lofty sentiment for the world to prize.'

With regard to the instrumentation, let us notice that,

though bent on being noisy, Beethoven has included no
trombones in his score, and also that the drums are here
(perhaps for the first time in musical history) tuned in
octaves.
The following is the unpretending way in which this
tremendous Finale enters the world :

No. 25.

Strings pfo

^fawiegj
r> V ^if f f fi r iM^f^gfe^-
'
il
t=± t=± 5E±

We have already quoted an early sketch of this theme (see

No. 2), and it is one of the most instructive extant, as an
illustration of the justice ofSchumann's remark. No other
example of the sketches shows more strikingly the common-
place nature of Beethoven's earliest rudimentary ideas, and
the patience and success with which he turned his thoughts
over and over till he had got all that could be extracted from
them. If genius has been defined as '
the art of taking pains,'
 FINALE. FIRST SUBJECT. HAYDN, 299

surely Beethoven is one of the most remarkable exemplifi-

cations of the definition. But this does not exhaust the
interest of the theme. It has been recently *pointed out that
it is not improbably an expansion of the opening of the
final Allegro in a Symphony of Haydn's in G, known in this
tcountry as '
Letter V '

No. 26.
Allegro.

Haydn's work appears to have been familiar to Beethoven,

inasmuch as he borrowed from it the melody of the Largo —
No. 27.
*7+'

I IS =p^

and has employed it no less than five times in his music. J

Such reminiscences, however, as we have already re-
marked (page 213), do not detract from the originality of the
composer to whom the reminiscence occurs. It is the
treatment that reveals the real creator, and in the present
case Beethoven has completely vindicated his originality by
the tremendous feature which he has attached to Haydn's
trivial little phrase. For this innocent, domestic, idyllic theme
is interrupted in its happiest and quietest moment by a loud
and sudden C sharp, in unison and octaves, given with the
whole force of the entire orchestra, following on an unusually
soft C natural. The change from natural to sharp, the sudden
energy of the fortissimo after the pianissimo, and its occurrence

* By Mr. Shedlock in The Pianoforte Sonata (Methuen), p. 167, note 1.

f No. 13 in the 8vo edition of Haydn's Symphonies by Breitkopf & Hartel.

t Namely, in the Solo Sonata, Op. 10, No. 1, Allegro motto; in the String
Quartet, Op. 18, No. 5, Trio; in the Violin Sonata, Op. 30, No. 3, Tempo di
minuetto; in the Pianoforte Trio, Op. 70, No. 2, Allegretto; and in the Solo
Sonata, Op. 110, Moderato cantabile, bar 5.
300 EIGIITH SYMPHONY.

in the weak portion (the 'up-beat') of the bar, all combine

to make this huge note as prominent and as unbearable as
possible. It comes upon the artless passage, which it so

rudely interrupts, like a sudden stroke of fate on the life of

some gentle child. Not that this great blow produces more
than a transient impression at first ; the theme is roused by
it only to temporary energy, and soon pursues its course with
all its original artlessness. The C sharp has, indeed, both
here and on its next occurrence, some pages ahead, no
musical significance. It is a mere cry or noise, and does
not affect the music, which proceeds after it in the key of F
exactly as before. It is not till the Coda (page 305) that it

causes any change in the modulation— any serious effect on the

course of the composition — in fact, till then it is a huge joke.
The '
second subject' is and graver
of a different character
beauty. upon a sudden A flat (after
The orchestra is arrested
—
G one of Beethoven's favourite transitions), and a soft
—
passage begins a lovely melody, first in the violins and then
in the oboes, one of those soft Lydian airs which truly pierce
'
'

'the melting soul,' and 'bring all heaven before the eyes,'
and which then passes, by a transition of remarkable beauty,
into the key of C major, in which it seems to go straight up
to heaven:

No. 28.

m Viol.

fapc
P
te=jt

'^mmm
is &<* J> # .- 1 f*to+*$F
gTlfr* g*g«
t=t

(Bar 7 in the first violin contains a fine example of what may

be called the '
appoggiatura of passion,' a favourite with
Beethoven.) The curious discrepancy between the tonality of
the beginning and end of this theme is itself a bit of humour,
 FINALE. SECOND SUBJECT. 301

and recalls the similar fact already noticed in the second

theme of the first movement (see No. 5).
This beautiful and dignified melody is repeated immediately
in the wind with a very full accompaniment in the strings,
and then has a Coda or termination of the following nature
— four bars up, and four down :

No. 29.

JEB^fe^feEgEgE^jEg
-ft-fT"
^^
f-r rT\F

all harmonised in the roughest and most boisterous manner,

and terminating with a loud explosion, exactly as if Beethoven
had jumped out in front of one with a loud and very terrible
« Boh !

The movement is cast in Rondo form, and thus ends its

first portion.
The second portion answers to the working-out in the '
'

form usually employed in these Symphonies. It begins at

once with a modification of the opening phrase of No. 25 :

and proceeds with a somewhat strict treatment of the latter

part of the subject, the bass commencing in similar motion to
the treble, and close imitation, in the following fashion :

No. 31.

m^rr^r^^m^^^^ semyre p
m
m^ T~ —
-l

aempre
l-

p
fe^^^e
302 EIGHTH SYMPHONY.

and afterwards going in contrary motion as thus :-

No. 32.
Violin 1

li
w^=fprr^
Viol. 2 /
^^r^^ ^ \

Basses &c.
£-e>i ^e %?-^>^ ^^-v *£-
5 i=M ^fcztJ*h*-0- ep*tp^t
:±£:p=4
= -J ! -5L

and thus :-

Viol. 1
No. 33.

I^rtrT
Viol. 1

Basses
^rM^teP^Faa" Viol. 2 -?-

-*—w-
-

E^fp^^P=3 =£=

JU- J-a
—r-M r-
:=TP= -*-f
I
I
r-4.
I
ife^

^rr^lg^^ t=t

which in the end has the better of the first. The wind is all
through fully employed, in sudden bursts from the brass,
answered by the bassoons and clarinets, and other passages
in which every humorous expedient is employed.
A phrase of seven notes from bars 7, 8, 9 of the original
subject (No. 25)—
No. 34.
' f . . f

ssfe t=t
I
is used again and again with a very abrupt effect.
 FINALE. WORKING-OUT AND CODA. 803

This section, though full, is but short, and ends with an

astonishing octave passage

No. 35.
Fl. P'

*s^Mmr
VI.'
\4 —L— -*~w.
\ i )4 = Fag. &Dr. pp
'

l~j ~£

Viol. & Cello

recalling the octaves in the first movement, though differently
treated.
We now arrive at the third portion of the Finale. This
again begins with the initial part of the first theme in the
violins,accompanied by the wonderful octaves, just quoted,
in the bassoon and drum, a holding F above the tune in
the flute and oboe, and with other rich support from the
wind. All is hushed and mysterious, full of sly humour,
which soon develops in the most telling style by the re-
introduction of the terrible C sharp, after a passage gradually
diminishing to ppp —like the sudden appearance of some
hideous mask. The comedy here is very unmistakable
and irresistible. Some passages seem to say, as plainly as
!
possible :
'
Look out '
*
I'm coming I '
*
I'm dangerous I

The contrary motion already noticed is next used, often with

very droll effect. The second subject has a good deal of
space devoted to it with its Coda (see No. 29), and the
passage again ends with a sudden very startling explosion.
We now come to the final section of the movement, call it
Coda or by any other name and this is the most important ;

of all nearly 240 bars in length, and exceeding in humour,

;

and, it must be said, also in violence, anything that we have

yet encountered. It begins once more with the original
triplets very quietly :

No. 36.

mm^ p
Violins

Violas P
304 EIGHTH SYMPHONY,

and we might suppose that all was joyous as before. But

not at all; whatever may have been Beethoven's intention,
a sudden thought strikes him as to the absurdity of thus
repeating himself. He gives two hearty laughs :

No. 37.

pp pp
Bass/ Bass/

(compare the Coda of the Finale of No. 7, page 264), makes a

pause, and goes off with an entirely fresh idea —a succession
of scales in exact contrary motion :—

No. 38.
Violins only, pp mm
m-m-m-9-Sm- -40-
i

p
rn rn i

-d-m-d-m -m^- -m-

T r
Oboe "^ J
dN—J
|
,

=^-zJ pr
*- J
semprepp
^ JJ|f- — Lf-

^^ to- vwwWW* ~m— — ' _ '

""

accompanied by the triplets of the original theme, and pro-

ducing a most overpowering effect. Here is another example
of a similar passage, the treble and bass being reversed in
position :

No - 39 -
Clar.& Bassoon VioL *

JDU33^ :g2zz=zzzzz_:g|l:
wyyy ^S
Ef ET
£2: : ;
*—"
Viol. '2

sempre pp e leg ato

Is^ :fg —frs

.JO-l-n-J-r-l-
-m-o-m-m-m m-\-9-
I ±22:
 THE FINALE. DROLLERY. 305

.aUKt «-«Lsb_*

Hi* SET ^S 1

&c.

3£S

This is the beginning of a section of more than fifty bars in

length, founded on the constant recurrence of the scales as
quoted, modulating into a fresh key at each repetition, until
at length we return to the original key of F and to the octave
by the first bassoon
figure already quoted; given out as before
and the drums without any accompaniment, pianissimo, and
the very soul of drollery :—
No. 40
Flute
Viol.
8va.t

-fc SE m-
r i
-m-
r
-F
i
+- rT 4-
!
I
Bassoon & Drum
-m-
rss--^ -i — 3t:
1
& Viola 8va. p
5 ***
Viol. 2 pp
Beethoven here gives loose to all the fun and quaint
humour with which he was overflowing. He is
at this time
truly in a most "unbuttoned" frame of mind, full of grotesque
joviality. His jokes follow one another with the most comical
effect. Such passages as that already quoted (No. 22), and
as the foregoing, where surely bassoon and drum were never
before at once so simply and so drolly treated such passages —
as these are irresistible.
This soft passage is succeeded by an equally loud one, in
which the terrible C sharp (No. 25) makes its appearance
amongst the modest murmurings of the fiddles with really
overpowering force. First it comes as D flat and then twice
as C sharp, each time roaring out its presence in a truly brutal
fashion. Here the intruder is not, as before, a mere joker,
but exercises its due effect on the fabric of the music. The
orchestra has now no alternative but to go entirely into F
306 EIGHTH SYMPHONY.

sharp minor. From this extreme position, however, they are

rescued by the trumpets and horns, who vociferate their F
natural at the top of their voices until they have again
collected the entire flock:

No. 41.

£JM=^ M^Ff^
5=t p=^ M^-?HMf
T=Z >^
*=» & t

8V8S

vfe-e
/

^rr^ff]^^^^^ ffe'f MM ;.
*_£:

! t I

=3
Trumpets / "and so on for
seventeen bars.
. &P- -P-
££=E=e -p-Pi
*=± £i :*iz£:
rz
fc=t

Through the whole of this long passage, more than 100

bars in all, it is difficult to shut out the image of the
composer, like Polyphemus, or Samson, or some other
mighty humorist of antiquity, roaring with laughter at the
rough fun which he is making, and the confusion and
disturbance he on everyone around him.
is inflicting

Beethoven, however, too much an artist and man of

is

sense to indulge this mood too long. A milder though still

droll humour succeeds, and the outbreak at length ends by
the introduction in the bass— in keeping with the similar
practice already noticed in the earlier movements of —
the and beautiful second subject (No. 28).
dignified It

is as if Beethoven could not refrain from making an old

friend look ridiculous, and ridiculous indeed he is made to

appear :
 THE FINALE. CHANGE OP MOOD. 307

No. 42. Viol. 1 > Ob. &o. ^ ^

~1, J3-.
^~~y
^
:=>=*

i^^J J ^J TfTF
b "
-^-^q^i=^P^ t==t
I

! i

Viol. 2

^ 4-r-4-
5t=t*
Si -P—^-P-

-#-r -I—tFH i
-d=

^5S* ^H
After this we seem to hear, as it were, a call for a parting
toast :

No. 43.
Flutes 8va.

t=
P T~P~P~^~~P~? * »- I I vy~

This, however, is the final burst of fun ; the mood softens,

the boisterous spirits of the great humorist break down, and
a softer change comes over the face of his music.
First we have a pause. Then, in the clarinets and
bassoons, comes a metamorphosis of the first bars of the
opening subject beginning thus :

No. 44

Then first the whole orchestra, through eight bars, in a

succession of sforzandos, and next the wind instruments,
308 EIGHTH SYMPHONY.

through twelve bars, as gentle as the others were fierce

over a pedal F and a beautiful string accompaniment

No. 45. Flutes

Ob.
Clar. Clar. °£ Ob.
Clar. Ob.
PL

EE
sempre p
&c.
Cor. Fag. Cor. Fag I

&i^:4-i -a 1 ^.-fc-, 1-
32
£
Bassi/p

repeat the chord of AF with which the Finale starts, in their

different registers, one after another, with an enchanting and
quite peculiar effect. Lastly comes a metamorphosis, lovely,
but too short, of bars six and seven of the same theme :

No. 46. Flutes 8va.

PP ~
SEfESEEI^EiS
i Clar.
—
accompanied by the drums in octaves, as in No. 40, all very
soft, and producing an extraordinarily tender effect, and

recalling, as in a dream, what the same instruments, now

so soft, were capable of doing when urged to excess. Here,
however, as at the close of the Andante of the C minor, the
master seems reluctant to allow his emotion to be seen, and
ends with a very noisy passage.

Beethoven was now forty-two years of age. In all his

works there exists no other instance of
That child's heart within the man's
to compare with the Symphony of which we have just taken
farewell. It is surely a matter of congratulation that on the

eve of the long and difficult period of life on which he is

about to enter he should have been permitted to enjoy

a time of such thoroughly hearty and innocent merriment as
he has depicted in his Eighth Symphony.
SYMPHONY No. 9 (Choral) in , D minor (Op. 125).
Allegro ma non troppo un poco maestoso. (^ 88.)

Molto vivace. (J. —116.) Presto. (J_ 116.)

Adagio molto e Cantabile. (* 60.) Andante moderato. (4 63.)

Presto. (J—96.)
Allegro ma non troppo. (#__.88.)

Allegro assai. (&— 80.)

Presto. (Solos and Chorus.) (D.) No metronome mark.
Allegro assai vivace. Alia marcia. (* —84.) (B flat.) (Tenor Solo
and Chorus.)

Andante maestoso. (&-JJ2.) (G.) (Chorus.)

Adagio ma non troppo, ma Divoto. (^_60.)

Allegro Energico, sempre ben marcato. (c) 84.) (D major.) (Chorus.)

Allegro ma non tanto. (& 120.) (D major.) (Solos and Chorus.)

Poco allegro, stringendo il tempo, sempre piu all -

Prestissimo. {<&— 132.) (D major.) Maestoso. (^_60.) Prestis-

simo. (D major.) (Chorus.)

Score.
2 Flutes. 2 Trumpets.
2 Oboes. 2 Drums.
2 Clarinets. 1st and 2nd Violins.
2 Bassoons. Violas.
4 Horns. Violoncellos.
Basses.

Four horns are used here, probably for the first time.

To the above are added, in some of the movements, 3 Trombones, a

Double Bassoon, a Piccolo, Triangle, Cymbals, and Big Drum.

First Ed., a folio of 226 pages. '

Sinfonie mit Schluss-Chor iiber
Schillers Ode "An die Freude," fur grosses Orchester, 4 Solo und4Chor-
Stimmen, componirt und seiner Majestaet dem Konig von Preussen
310 NINTH SYMPHONY.

Friedrich Wilhelm III. in tiefster Ehrfurcht zugeeignet von Lttdwig van

Beethoven. 125tes Werk. Eigenthum der Verleger. Mainz und Paris,
bey B. Schotts Sohnen. Antwerpen, bey A. Schott.' [No. 2322.] 1825
or '26.
The earliest copies contain no metronome marks. These were supplied
later, but at what date is uncertain.

The Ninth Symphony was not ready for performance until

the end of 1823 or beginning of 1824, and it is, therefore,
separated from No. 8 by a gap of not less than eleven years.
Of the manner in which these long years were filled up in
Beethoven's life it will be my endeavour to give a brief
account. It appears to me desirable to show what an
exceedingly unhappy and disturbed period it was, how filled

with events and circumstances which would seem to be in the

highest degree inimical to the production of music at all,

but to which, nevertheless, are due the Choral Symphony

the Mass in D ;
'
Fidelio ' in its ultimate form, including the
gay overture in E ; seven prodigious *Pianoforte works ; the
Liederkreis —the example of a Cycle of Songs,' and
earliest '

still the finest and several other works which would be

;

remarkable in any composer but Beethoven.

The Eighth Symphony was finished in October, 1812.
After his return to Vienna, at the beginning of December,
Beethoven again took up the Sonata for Piano and Violin in G
(Op. 96), and finished it, so that it was played by his pupil,
the Archduke Rudolph, and Rode on the 4th January, 1813.
Beethoven was not pleased with Rode's performance of his
work, and in his Bonn dialect hef writes to the Archduke that
it had even bored him a little
—
schenirte {i.e., genirte) mich
'

doch etwas.' The two new Symphonies appear to have been

rehearsed at the Archduke's on February the 20th; but at
present there was no public performance of either.
Meantime Napoleon's star was rapidly sinking. "We are in
1813. The spring months brought to Vienna the news of

* Sonatas, Op. 90, 101, 106, 109> 110, 111 ; 33 Vars., Op. 120.
+ Letter (Kochel, 1865), p. 22.
 MAELZEL. BATTLE SYMPHONY. 311

Moscow and the destruction of the immense army in the

retreat from Russia; the health of the Emperor had never
been* better, but 300,000 French soldiers had perished. The
War of Liberation had begun in Germany, and, notwith-
standing the defeats of Liitzen and Bautzen (May 2nd
and 21st), the spirit of the German people was fast rising.
On July 13 the battle of Vittoria (fought June 21) was known
in Vienna, and by the beginning of November the decisive rout
of Leipzig and the gallant attempt of the Austrian and
Bavarian troops to cut off the French retreat at Hanau on
October 30 were also known. Over this news Vienna was
in a state of great excitement. Beethoven was not behind
his fellow-citizens. He was at this time on terms of in-
timacy with Maelzel, a very clever mechanic, not only the
inventor of the metronome, but maker of Kempelen's
famous chess player, and of two musical automatons, the
Trumpeter and the Panharmonicon and he was induced to
;

set to music a programme of a musical piece representing the

battle of Vittoria, drawn up by this clever inventor. This,
after being arranged for the barrels of the Panharmonicon,
Beethoven scored for orchestra. It occupied him from August
to October, 1818, and an occasion for its production was found
at the Hall of the University, on the 8th December in that
year, when the programme contained,
in addition, the Seventh
Symphony, and two Marches for Maelzel's
for the first time,
automaton trumpeter. The Symphony was well received,
but the battle-piece took the fancy of the public to an extra-
ordinary degree, and the concert was repeated four days later,
on the 12th. The piece, entitled Wellington's Sieg, oder
'

die Schlacht bei Vittoria (Op. 91), is in two divisions

'
1st, :

the Schlacht or Battle, founded on Rule, Britannia,' and

*

'Marlbrouk'; and 2nd, the Sieges- Symphonie or Victory.

* 'La sante de S.M. n'a jamais ete meilleure,' is the concluding sentence of
Napoleon's despatch (Molodetsclmo, December 3, 1812) which detailed the
terrible events of the march from Smolensk.— See Le Conscrit,
312 NINTH SYMPHONY.

The score was published in 1816 by same Steiner, in the

mean lithographed form as Nos. 7 and and was dedi- 8,
cated to the Prince Regent of England afterwards George —
the Fourth. The dedication, however, was never *acknow-
ledged.
After the concert of December 12 a catastrophe occurred.
Beethoven discovered that Maelzel claimed the Battle-piece
as his own property in virtue of some money he had advanced.
He at once broke with the inventor and, more suo, proclaimed
him a rogue. After made off to Munich,
a time Maelzel
taking with him
Panharmonicon, and also a MS.
his
orchestral score of the Battle-piece, which he had obtained
without Beethoven's consent, and caused to be performed
in Munich. Beethoven at once entered an action against
him in the Vienna courts, which eventually came to
nothing and addressed letters of protest to the musicians of
;

Munich, and of London, whither Maelzel intended to go.

Meantime Beethoven had again given the concert on the
same general lines as before, but omitting the Marches
for the '
mechanical Trumpeter '
— on January 2nd, 1814 ;

and on February 27th he gave a fourth, with the important

addition of his Eighth Symphony. All these performances
were successful from a money point of view.
Beethoven was not, however, able, with Maelzel's depar-
ture, to shake off his unmusical worries. Prince Kinsky, one
of the threenoblemen who contributed to his income, died
on the 3rd November, 1812, t without having signed the
necessary engagement to maintain the annuity on which ;

Beethoven commenced a suit against his heirs. The suit

was withdrawn two years later, but meantime he was
extremely eager about it, and the correspondence and
anxiety must have been very trying to him. Such things,' '

* See letter to Salomon, June 1, 1815.

f Thayer, in Dictionary of Music, ii., 59

 Beethoven's last public appearances. 313

said he* to his legal adviser, ' exhaust me more than the
greatest efforts in composition.'
It is pleasant to turn to more congenial subjects. In the
spring of 1814 he twice played the piano part of his great
B flat Trio (Op. 97) in public, at concerts of his old friend
Schuppanzigh ; first on April 11th, for the benefit of a
military charity, and again a few weeks later. This was his
flast appearance in public as a piano player.
The revival of this year must have afforded him
£
Fidelio '

much gratification. was produced in its final shape, in two

It

acts, at the Karnthnerthor Theatre, on May 23, 1814. The

revision of the book had been in progress for some months
under Beethoven's old friend Treitschke. It had involved much
labour to Beethoven, but he seems to have been very good-
humoured over this attempt to J rebuild the ruins of an ancient
'

fortress.' It necessitated also the composition of the fourth

overture — in E ; which, however, was not played till the second
performance, on May 26. His benefit -concert took place on
July 18. A pianoforte score of the opera, prepared by
Moscheles under Beethoven's own direction, was published in
August. And this gives Moscheles an opportunity for an
interesting § anecdote: * Under the last piece of the arrange-

ment,' says he, had written Fine mit Gottes Hulfe The
'
I —
end, with God's help. Beethoven was not at home when I
brought my manuscript to him and on receiving it back I ;

found the words added Mensch hilf dir selber -0 man, —

help thyself.'
On April 15 Prince Carl Lichnowsky, one of his earliest,
kindest, and (notwithstanding many a needless rebuff) most
forbearing friends, died.

* Letter to Kauka, February 24, 1815.

f But see Zweite Beethoveniana, p. 357, as to his playing Op. 101 at

a Gescllschaft.

I Eis own expression. Letter to Treitschke, March, 1814.

§ Life, Translation, i., 15.

314 NINTH SYMPHONY.

August 18, 1814,* is the date on the autograph of the

beautiful Solo Sonata, Op. 90, in E minor, written for Count
Moritz Lichnowsky, brother of Prince Carl, by way of
sympathy and expostulation on his attachment to an actress.
Schindler tells us that the first movement was to be entitled
1
Kampf ziviscJien Kopf und Herz '
— Contest between head and
heart ; and the second (there are only two), '
Conversation mit
der Geliebten' — Conversation with the beloved
and that such ;

was the composer's own explanation to the Count when he

enquired if the music had a meaning. The piece was
accompanied by a charming letter dated September 21, 1814,
in unusually good spirits, though coloured by a certain vein
of sentiment in a few playful notes given at the end, on the
word but '
' (allein) —
Adagio.

im
w Al - lein, allein, al - lein.
Silentium 1 1

which are a minor version of Paesiello's famous air Nel cor *

piu,' on which he had composed six Variations some twenty

years before.
In this Sonata we find Beethoven for the first time writing
his directions in German instead of Italian. He had for some
time quite a fit of this nature, in which Hammerklavier takes
the place of Pianoforte, lebhaft of Allegro, and langsam of
Adagio, &c.
A week later died the wife of Beethoven's very good friend,
Baron Pasqualati. He commemorated her death soon after
in the beautiful Elegischer Gesang,' Op. 118, a most
'

characteristic work, evidently inspired "by affection.

On October Weinmonath') he completes the
1 ('Ersten
Overture in C, Op. 115, a piece which had been in hand since

* Zweite Beethoveniana, p, 298.

f In the autograph it is 1841.

 CONGRESS OF VIENNA. CANTATA. 315

*1809, as the long contemplated embodiment of Schiller's *

Ode
to Joy.' All allusions to Schiller's Ode, however, were
postponed for the present, and the autograph of the Overture
is inscribed as for the Name day of our Emperor,' and as
'

*
gedichtetf fur grosses Orchester.'
In April, 1814, Napoleon was banished to Elba, and by
the end of September the representatives of the various
allied had assembled at Vienna, though they did
states
not go to business till November. This was the famous
*
Congress of Vienna,' an immense collection of royalties and
other celebrities. It was, in fact, the first breathing time of
Europe after its dozen years of slavery and apprehension under
Napoleon's domination. No wonder the plenipotentiaries
could not at once settle to work ! Notwithstanding the presence
of Wellington and Castlereagh progress was so slow and the
festivities so gay as to give rise to the well known remark,
*
Le congres ne marche pas, il danse.' Beethoven seized the
opportunity of performing his new Symphonies, and also of
composing some music specially appropriate to so great an
occasion. For this he chose a cantata, entitled The glorious '

moment —
Der \glorreiche Augenblick' written by Weissen-
'
' —
bach he began its composition for solos, chorus and orchestra
;

in September, and the first performance was given on Novem-

ber 29, in the Redouten-Saal, which had been placed at his
disposal for the purpose by the Government. Beethoven was
permitted to issue the invitations in his own name— a remark-
able tribute to his position in Vienna. The concert was for his
benefit ; it was announced for the 26th, but postponed to the
29th. The programme contained the Seventh Symphony, the
Cantata, and the Battle Symphony. The large room of the

* Zweite Beethoveniana, p. 275.

f The word is ordinarily used only in reference to poetry. But see Beethoven's
use of it in a letter of 1817 to Madame Streicher (Nohl, Briefe, No. 200).

J Republished to other words in 1836 as '

Preis der Tonkunst' — 'Praise of
Music.'
316 NINTH SYMPHONY.

establishment was crowded with an audience of 6,000 persons,

#
and in a letter to the Archduke Rudolph, Beethoven describes
himself as ' exhausted with fatigue, vexation, satisfaction, and
delight.'
The programme was repeated on Friday, December 2nd, but
with a comparatively poor result.A third performance was
intended, but was given up. One of the fetes provided for
the Congress was a Tournament or Carrousel, in the Riding
School, on November 23, and it would appear from anotherf
letter of Beethoven's to the Archduke that he was composing
music for which he promises shall arrive at full gallop
it, '
'

(mit dem schnellsten Galopp), though nothing of it has yet been

discovered.^
In addition to the two concerts, and also to
profits of the
his share of those in December, 1813, and January, 1814,
Beethoven probably received presents from the various exalted
—
personages we hear§ of 200 ducats (£100) being sent by the
Emperor of Russia and there were doubtless others. At any
;

rate, he now found himself able to lay by money, which he

invested in shares (Actien) in the Bank of Austria.
To all this rejoicing the sudden news of Napoleon's escape
from Elba and arrival in France on the 1st of March, 1815,
put an end. Then ensued the Hundred Days, Waterloo, and
the occupation of Paris — for which last event Beethoven
composed a chorus, Est '
ist vollbrachtj as Finale to a dramatic
piece by Treitschke.
It is not generally known that Sir Thomas Lawrence visited
Vienna in 1819. He was sent by the Prince Regent to paint

* Kochel, No. 18.

f Ibid., No. 15.

I Anentry in Moscheles's journal seems to claim this for him (Life of

The pieces for
•'

Moscheles. Trans., Vol. i., p. 15). Miisik zu einem

Jiitterballet,' given supplemental volume to Breitkopfs complete
in the
edition (Serie 25, No. 286), are youthful compositions of 1790.

§ Nohl, Beethovens Leben, iii., 808.

 SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE AT VIENNA. 317

the celebrities assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle, and thence he

went and remaining there
to Vienna, arriving early in 1819,
till May 3rd.* It is much Beethoven was
to be regretted that
not included in this commission, as the world would then
have possessed a worthy likeness of the great composer, while
the honour would have been a pleasant return to him for his
dedication of the Battle Symphony to the Prince Regent, for
which no acknowledgment appears ever to have been made.
A violent quarrel with Stephan Breuning, which deprived
Beethoven for many years of one of his oldest and most faithful
friends, occurred some time during the summer of 1815, and
was not adjusted till 1826. f
Through all this maze of excitement lawsuits, fetes, —
quarrels, concerts, production of the opera, interviews with
emperors, &c. —the music that was composed, if small in
quantity, was of first-rate quality. True, the two Cello
Sonatas which form Op. 102 have never become popular, and
the Overture in C (Op. 115) has not obtained the public
appreciation which Beethoven's orchestral works usually
receive. But the Overture in E, known as '
Fidelio,' and
the Sonatas, Op. 90, 96, and 101, stand very high in that
class of work. It is impossible not to regret that the
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in D, of which Nottebohm
has given % so very tempting a description, and which that
accurate investigator assigns to 1814 and 1815, was not
completed. It occupies more than fifty pages in the sketch-

books, and thirty leaves (Blatter) of score were begun in

June, 1815. The piano was to come in after ten bars of
full orchestra.

To the quarrels, excitements, and other unmusical dis-

tractions already mentioned as besetting this period, there is,

* I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Cosmo Monkhouse for these facts.

f .Dictionary of Music and Musicians, i., 192&.

% See Zweite Beethoveniana, pp. 223, 321, &c.

318 NINTH SYMPHONY.

however, one of a more malignant nature to be added.

still

There was, indeed, a fatal shadow ahead in Beethoven's

path. On November 15, 1815, his brother Caspar died,
bequeathing to him the maintenance of his son Carl, then
a lad of eight. This involved a lawsuit with the widow, who
was one of Beethoven's betes noires, and endless worries as to
the education of the boy, for the details of which we have no
room, but which penetrated into the deepest recesses of his
life and and must have given him the keenest and most
feeling,

constant annoyance till January 7, 1820, when the litigation

was compromised, and indeed up to the very *end of
his life. To an irregular, impulsive being, like Beethoven,
such occupations as this involved— the writing of long
detailed letters, the keeping of appointments must have —
been sadly annoying. One quotation from his diaries,
expressing his dislike to business matters, has been already
given. The following entry is still more touching, and is

a good specimen of the way in which his inmost being was

rent and racked at this period of his life. It dates from the
early part of 1818 :
— ' God, God, my Guardian, my
Rock, my Thou seest my heart, and knowest how it
All,
distresses me to do harm to others through doing right to my
darling Karl. Hear Thou unutterable hear Thy unhappy, !

most unhappy of mortals.' 'I have no friend,' he says to

Fraulein del Rio at this time, 'and am alone in the world.'
Perhaps, however, we have here the secret of the greatness
of the Choral Symphony. For what says Schubertf under
similar distress ? He may almost be said to have formulated
this despondent mood in the following entry :
'
Grief sharpens
the understanding and strengthens the soul : Joy, on the other
hand, seldom troubles itself about the one and makes the other

* But for this wretched lad's neglect of his uncle's death-bed, Beethoven's
days might have been prolonged.

f See Schubert's diaries in The Dictionary of Music and Musicians, iii.,

340.
 ANNOYANCES AND DESPONDENCY. 319

effeminate or frivolous.' '

My musical works are the offspring
of my genius and my misery; and what the public most
relish is that which has given me the greatest distress.'
Who that reads such passionate appeals as those just
—
quoted and there are many such at this date or hears the ;

first movement of this Symphony, especially its concluding

forty bars, can doubt that Beethoven was then profoundly

miserable that his heart, morbid no doubt, was torn almost
;

beyond endurance by the unseemly, squalid disorder which

attended his home -life, and the unavailing anxieties and
privations which he endured for his nephew ? Whatever its
result upon his music, there could hardly be a dispensation
of Providence so destructive of his happiness as that
which brought these too incompatible natures together on —
the one hand, a wretched, thoughtless, selfish, commonplace
ne'er-do-weel, and, on the other, one of the simplest, noblest,
most sensitive hearts in the world
Against a settled habit of despondency, such as henceforth
was Beethoven's prevailing mood of mind, external events,
however pleasant in themselves, can have had little influence.
Such were the bestowal of the freedom of the city of Vienna
by the Municipal Council, at Christmas, 1815 the purchase ;

by the Philharmonic Society of London of the Overtures to

the Ruins of Athens and King Stephen for seventy-five
'
'
' '

guineas (July 11, 1815) ; thepianoforte from the

gift of a

reigning Broadwood early in 1818 and other similar occur-

;

rences. To balance these pleasurable things were the death

of his old friend and benefactor, Prince Lobkowitz, on
December 16, 1816, and the consequent reduction of his
income by a third. It is also astonishing to see from his letters
and entries the amount of unnecessary annoyance which he
endured during these years from his servants, and from other
household matters, notwithstanding the assistance he received
from the good Frau Streicher, who was never weary of her
endeavours to obtain order in that most disorderly of houses.
320 NINTH SYMPHONY.

True, his correspondence was not uniformly occupied with

such degrading details. In 1817 several letters passed
through Kies (then in London) between Beethoven and the
Philharmonic Society, as to his visiting this country in 1818.
The project came to nothing, but must have gratified him,
even though the letters and the pecuniary proposals, which
were gone into with much minuteness, doubtless caused him
considerable trouble and filled him with worry.
Through all this runs a stream of the very finest music.
In April,* 1816, occurs the first sketch of the exquisite
Liederkreis, Beethoven's greatest composition for the solo
voice (Op. 98). The same sketch-book f contains the
passage which ultimately became the theme of the Scherzo
of the Ninth Symphony, though originally only noted as the
subject of a fugue. This memorable entry stands as shown
on page 828. In the winter of 1817 the great Sonata, which
became Op. 106, seems to have been begun, though it was
not finished till the following summer. But all these works,
great as they were, were to be soon overwhelmed by much
larger and more elaborate compositions. These were the
Ninth Symphony, the first movement of which was seriously
begunj in 1817, and the Mass in D, which was attacked a
year later, after the announcement of the Archduke Rudolph's
appointment to the see of Olnriitz, in the summer of 1818
which entirely took up the year 1819, and occupied the
greater part of his time and energy till the beginning of
1823. Equally great in their own line with both Mass and
Symphony, and eminently characteristic of Beethoven's later
styleand genius, are the last three of his Pianoforte Sonatas,
—
which belong to this period namely, Op. 109, finished in
1820, concurrently with the 'Credo' of the Mass; Op. 110,
dated Christmas Day, 1821 and Op. Ill, dated January 13th,
;

* Ziceite Beethoveniana, p. 334.

+ 2lk,p. 328.

Xlbid., p. 159.
 Beethoven's development of the symphony. 321

1822.* He was now therefore free to devote himself entirely

to the great work before us.
It may be well here to recapitulate the chief developments
which Beethoven had already made in the Symphony, since
he received it from his great predecessors.
He had increased the Introduction from the twelve bars
which it occupied in Haydn's works and in his own No. 1, to
the sixty- two of his No. 7. In his hands the Coda had assumed
the vast proportions which it takes in the Eroica and No. 8 ;

and in the Eroica, and especially the Pastoral Symphony,

he had sanctioned the adoption of programme in music and
the attempt to represent external objects. He was now to
make a further and most material modification in the same
great department of orchestral music, in the choral Finale ;

and here again the difference was all his own. No example of
it is to be found in the works of either Haydn or Mozart, but

Beethoven first attempted it in his tChoral Fantasia; and

hitherto it has been followed at least with success —
only by —
Mendelssohn, whose Lobgesang, or Hymn of Praise,' is a '

characteristic example of the same class of composition as the

Ninth Symphony of Beethoven .J

Schiller's ode To Joy, An die Freude (1785)—from which the

* The seventh great pianoforte composition of this period, the *

Thirty-three
Variations on a theme of Diabelli's '
(Op. 120), being really his farewell to the
piano, belongs to the year 1823.

f He describes the Symphony in a letter to Probst, the publisher, of

March 10, 1824, as '
in the style of my Choral Fantasia, but very much more
—
extended.' Nohl, Briefe, i., p. 255. It is not necessary to encumber our
pages with a comparison of the two works. Sufficient to say that there is a
strong resemblance in the general plan, while the subjects of the two Finales
are similar in the fact that in both the chief subjects consist almost entirely of
consecutive notes. It is surely too much, however, to speak of them as
1
identical,' as seems to be implied in Kretzschmar's excellent Fuhrer (lurch
den Concertsaal (1887), i. , 113.

X At the Philharmonic Concert of March 25, 1822, a MS. Concerto of

Steibelt's for piano and orchestra, 'with characteristic rondo and chorus,' was
performed. Liszt has employed a chorus in the Finale of his Faust Symphony.
322 NINTH SYMPHONY.

words for the Finale of the Symphony are selected, and which is

as characteristic of Beethoven as the more directly devotional

text of the Lobgesang is of his successor —was always a
favourite with him. It is almost incredible that he started in
his musical life with the same intention which he only carried
out near its close. And yet we discover in a letter from
Fischenich to Schiller's sister Charlotte, written from Bonn,*
the following notice of that intention, when Beethoven, at
the age of twenty- two, was just beginning his public career. '
I
have preserved,' says he, '
you
a f setting of the Feuerfarbe for
on which I should like your opinion. It is by a young man of
this place, whose musical talent is becoming known, and whom
the Elector has just sent to Haydn at Vienna. He intends to
compose Schiller's Freude verse by verse.' This was in 17934
The musical theme to which Beethoven at last wedded the
words thus fondly cherished by his republican nature for so
long was, as usual with him, no sudden inspiration, but the
fruit of long consideration and many a trial. Of this his
sketch-books contain many evidences. The first time we §meet
with the sacred words is in a sketch-book of 1798, between
memoranda Piano Rondo in G, Op. 51, No.
for the 2, and an
Intermezzo for the Sonata in C minor, Op. 10, No. 1 :
—
No. 1.

*3= ^
Muss ein lie - ber Va - ter won - - - nen.

It is perhaps not safe to find a reference to the Ode in the

reiterated use of the word Freude in the poignant postscript
' '

of the famous letter of 1802, where die Freude appears twice,

once italicised by Beethoven himself (see Symphony No. 2,

* Thayer, Leben, i., 237.

f Published in 1805, as Op. 52, No. 2.

% Weber, writing in June, 1811, to Simroek, the publisher, of Bonn, says that
he is composing Schiller's Ode an die Freude for orchestra, solos, and chorus,
and asks if he will publish it. (Told to the writer by Herr Joachim in 1879.)
§ Nottebohm, Z-uxite Beethoveniana, p. 479.
 THEMES FOR SCHILLER S WORDS. 323

page 48) — Lass ' einmal einen reinen Tag der Freude mir
erscheinen— so lange schon ist der wabren Freude innigerer
Widerhall mir fremd.'
Then again some words out of the same Ode are to be found
in 1811, among the sketches for the Seventh and Eighth
Symphonies, thus cited by Mr. Nottebohm* :

No. 2.

Presto

i j*-£-l== 31

Freu - de send - ner

p f= p Hzzpqg:

Got ter
r g 1

Fun
g g
^
h

ken
p=p=:zpzp=p:

Toch

-
31

ter
=P=P= I

aus
h i-
PC -£=^-

E - - ly -
gf^ =
si - um.
&c.

with a memorandum, not very legible, somewhat as but

followsf :
— ' Funken Toch ter
Finale, Freude schoner Gotter
Elisium. The Symphony in four movements but the 2nd ;

movement in 2-4 time like the 1st. The 4th may be in 6-8
—
time major and the 4th movement well fugued.'
;

Then a longer fsketch of the same date in the sketches for

the Overture in C (Op. 115) :

No. 3.

Text
tt^l^ =*-*-£-

vielleicht so anfangen
£2-
fc=t
s*£i
Freu - de, Freu - de, Freu - - de

iygsfifgb^is
scho - ner Gob ter Fun - ken.

* See Nottebohm, Beethoveniana, pp. 41, 42.

f Thayer, Chronologisches Verzeichniss, p. 149.

324 NINTH SYMPHONY.

Then, still later, in 1822, among the *sketches for the

Overture in C name of Bach, and
(Op. 124), an Overture on the
the Mass D, occur other attempts, each in turn scratched
in
out, with the word mellieur added (Beethoven's French for
*
'

meilleur). Then comes the following German Symphony, :

— '

either with variations (the chorus entering), or without them '

No. 4.

=SPS=£:
1 tlL

Freu-de send- ncr Got - ter Fun ken Toch-ter aus

- E - ii - si -urn.

with another memorandum, « End of the Symphony with

Turkish musicf and chorus to the rhythm of three bars in the
Gloria.' Then a variation of the fore^oim?:

No. 5.

Freu- de scho ner Got - ter Fun-ken

At length he gets into a new melody, which then occupies

his sketch-book, sometimes in triple, sometimes in common
time, until at length it issues in the present magnificent tune,
a tune surely destined to last as long as music itself.

Beethoven has not used half of Schiller's words, nor has

lie employed them in the order in which they stand in the

poem; and the arrangement and selection appear to have

troubled him much. The note-books already cited abound with
references to the '
disjointed fragments ' (ahyerissene Satze)
which he was trying to arrange and connect — so as not
necessarily to employ the whole of Schiller's long Ode

* Thayer, Chrnn. Verzeichniss, No. 238.

f 'Turkish Music' is the German term

drum, cymbals, and for the big
triangle, and these are introduced and 7 ('Be
in Nos. 3 ('Haste like suns')
embraced.') The 'Gloria' is probably the Gloria in the Mass in D, then
just completed. The writer has not been able to trace any resemblance in the
two pieces The ritmo di tre battute occurs in the Scherzo.
'
'
 CONNECTION OF VOCAL AND INSTRUMENTAL PORTIONS. 325

f
Abgerissene Satze wie *Fursten sind Bettler u. s. w. nicht das
Ganze.' In making his selection Beethoven has omitted, either
by chance or intention, some of the passages which strike
an English mind as most risques in Schiller's Ode such as :

Dieses Glas dem guten Geist

Ueberm Sternenzelt dort oben !

Here's a glass to the good Spirit

Up above the stars so high !

and the omissions furnish an example of the taste by which

his colossal powers were, with few exceptions, guided. Another
point which puzzled him greatly was how to connect the
vocal movements with the instrumental ones. His biographer,
Schindler, gives an interesting description of his walking
up and down the room endeavouring to discover how to
do it, and at length crying out, I've got it, I've got it.'
'

Holding out his sketch-book, Schindler perceived the words,

1
Lasst uns das Lied des unsterblichen Schiller singen '

Let us sing the song of the immortal Schiller —as a

recitative for the basses, with the words of the Ode itself

following immediately for soprano solo. And though this was

altered almost as soon as written —
down the words of the
changed into
recitative being friends, not these tones let
'
;

us sing something pleasanter, and fuller of joy and the !

'

words of the Ode itself being given first to a solo voice

yet the method of the connection remained the same. How
strongly is all this hesitation corroborated by Beethoven's own
words to t Rochlitz in 1822 —
You see, for some time past
'

I have not been able to write easily, I sit and think, and

* These strange words refer to a line, Bettler werden Fiirsten-Briider

'
'

(
beggars shall be royal brothers which formerly stood in Schiller's poem.
'),

Schiller's original title of the Ode is said to have been An die Freiheit '—to
'

Freedom, not to Joy ; which throws a light on the tumultuous revolutionary

phrases of the poetry.

f Fur Freunde der Tonkunst, iv., 358.

826 NINTH SYMPHONY.

think, and get it all settled but it won't come on the paper,
;

and a great work troubles me immensely at the outset once ;

get into it, and it's all right.'

Of the instrumental movements, the first trace yet
discovered is (as has been already said) in a sketch-book of
1815,* where, after the materials of the Cello Sonata, Op. 102,
No. 2, and very definite memoranda for a Symphony in
B flat, we come on four bars of what w as destined
T
several
years later to be the germ of the Scherzo of the Ninth
Symphony. Here it is, a fugue subject :

Encle langcnm.

—and a fugue subject it remains until it unconsciously

assumes its present more rhythmical shape. Still, we have
here the first memorandum of the theme of this great move-
ment ; and, if Czerny is right in his anecdote, it suddenly
entered his mind as he came out of the darkness into a
brilliant light.
The actual beginning of the composition of the work occurs
two years later, in 1817, while he was engaged on the Piano-
forte Sonata, Op. 106. t Here the memoranda, entitled Zur '

Sinfonie in D,' are chiefly for the first movement and Scherzo
then given as third movement (though without any sketch of
the second). As to the Finale, there is no appearance of
Schiller's Ode or any unusual intention.
In 1818 we find the following memorandum, disclosing an
intention to write two Symphonies :

Adagio C antique
1
:

Religious song in a Symphony in the old modes (Herr

'

Gott dich loben wir — Allelnja), either independently or as

* Zweite Beetk&veniana, p. 157.

f Ibid., j). 159.

 ATTEMPT TO USE TRIO OF SECOND SYMPHONY. 327

introductory to a fugue. Possibly the whole second Symphony

to be thus characterised : the voices entering either in the
Finale or as early as the Adagio. The orchestral violins, etc.,

to be increased tenfold for the lastmovements, the voices to

enter one by one. Or the Adagio to be in some way repeated
in the last movements. In the Adagio the text to be a Greek
mythos (or) Cantique Ecclesiastique. In the Allegro a
Bacchus festival.' This dates from the progress of Op. 106,
and shows how highly excited Beethoven's imagination must
then have been to deal with two such vast compositions
at once. Amongst the sketches of this date, evidently for the
Scherzo, is found one which is a curious adaptation of the Trio
of the early Symphony in D major (1802 !). It is transposed
into D flat and treated in a different manner from the earlier
piece.*

No. Sinfonia 3tes Stuck.

—
7.

JforP* f&=
. i .
~Tf^ f-F-T"f"
i — i — — L fT"—I
=f=-Pf*f=*
4_J 1 !
-F-|

ft

^
«-. i E m) p
3E33j3feSptz=J&—M- tFFF
1

-j-i rlf-L 1
r r

By the winter of 1822 the Mass in D was finished, the

wonderful chain of Sonatas, Op. 109, 110, 111, and the Overture
for the opening of the Theatre (Op. 124), were all out of hand,
and the somewhat crude vision of the religious Symphony not —
more crude than Beethoven's first conceptions usually are, with
its strange mixture of Greek myth, German chorale, and Can-

tique ecclesiastique —
'Jehovah, Jove, and Lord' seems to —
have retired into the background.! He now speaks of the first

* Nottebohm, Ziveite Beethoveniana p. 165.

,

t But he speaks to Kochlitz, in 1822, of having two grand symphonies '

round his neck, different from each other and different from any of my others.'
{Far Freunde der Tonkunst, iv., 357, 358.) But it is not heard of again.
328 NINTH SYMPHONY.

of the pair (no doubt the '

Ninth ') as '
Sinfonie Allemande '

German Symphony. '

Variations ' are mentioned, and, in
addition to recognisable passages of the first movement, the
following most pregnant passage appears :

No. 8.

Finale
,1

&—m.
J^EfPPEgEg
§ Freu-de scho-ner Got-ter-Funken Toeh-ter aus E - li -
ifcazzt

si-um.

A loose memorandum of this date gives a thematic Catalogue

of the whole except the Adagio, as far as the order was then
determined on :

No. 9.

comincia

i=r^ M :£=
2tes
w—w
Stuck f^^^^
presto
^=*=
'M^-
3 Adagio fc ^=f &c.
tfes.

—
I r-=E=5=f:
5tes.

accompanied by this note, also instead of a new Symphony

'

a new Overture on Bach much fugued, with three Trombones, '

the words New Symphony obviously pointing to another

' '

one in addition to that on which he is now so deeply

engaged.

* Two points in this thematic catalogue require notice (1) That the :
—
Scherzo begins in the Bass and (2) that the notes quoted for the fourth
;

movement, Presto, do not agree with anything which stands in the work.
The Philharmonic MS. of the Symphony (corrected by Beethoven) entitles the
movements Erster Saiz, &c.
 TRIO AND ADAGIO. 829

Shortly afterwards appears the first germ of the present

Trio of the Scherzo :

No. 10. Trio

g
3E tz±

and a better instance could hardly be found

^ 3==t
^^of the elementary
shape in which Beethoven's finest themes often came into his
mind for the first time.
The slow movement was the last to come into existence.
Indeed not even the theme had been conceived when the
thematic catalogue above quoted (No. 9) was written down.
First we find the second section of the movement, Andante
moderate, in the key of A, and designated as Alia menuetto.
The opening theme of the Adayio itself first appears in this
rudimentary form :

No. n.
Yi-

3E3
EE :£=*: -(•::£
SSTbr

V m £* 3*^
95c &C.
:

Then later, somewhat nearer to its ultimate shape (see bars

13, 14) :—

No. 12.

x=x
I
— —p-d bJ U

WM^m 16
*=Fft

ss
SESgfrg^gEgEfcg &C.
330 NINTH SYMPHONY.

though without the echoes of each concluding phrase of

still

the strings by the wind, which form so touching a feature in

the completed work, and no hint of the three crescendo
quavers which produce such an overpowering effect in bars
16 and 21 of the present Adagio (see No. 45).
Notwithstanding his long preoccupation with Schiller's Ode,
and even after making considerable progress with the present
last movements, Beethoven appears* to have entertained the
idea of an instrumental Finale to the Symphony even as late
as June or July, 1823. This is evident from the following,
which is found among the -(-sketches of that date, and was
afterwards used in another key for the A minor Quartet,
Op. 132 :—

No. 13.

Finale instromentale.

m
-a
^55 m 'z$z;
*fc
s
sfefet=t :e=£:

*pf=*p=;
"-g-T
m-
*
Indeed so far was this carried that, according to the evidence
of Czerny (as vouched J for by Josef Sonnleithner), some time

* Given on the authority of Sonnleithner and Czerny by Nohl (Beethoven's

Leben, 1877, iii., 925). The statement must, however, be taken with caution.
Even his most intimate companions were quite unable to rise to the height of
Beethoven's genius, but were puzzled by his progress. He was too far ahead
of them.

f Zweite Beethoveniana, p. 180.

% See the Allg. musik. Zeitung, April 1S64.

 DOUBTS ABOUT VOCAL FINALE. 331

after the first performance of the Symphony, Beethoven

expressed to a circle of his intimate friends his conviction
that the vocal Finale was a mistake, and that it was his
intention to substitute a purely orchestral piece for it, for

which he already had a theme —namely, the subject last

quoted.

The original MS. of the first three movements of the Choral

Symphony, embodying the long and painful elaboration of
the materials alluded to, is in the Royal Library at Berlin.
Though more orderly than the originals of many of Beethoven's
—
works indeed, Schindler cites it as a model of neatness and
distinctness —
it is a rough manuscript, with many a blot and

many a smear ; not smooth and clean like those of Mozart,

Schubert, or Mendelssohn. But it does not appear to contain
any afterthought of importance, such as those in the MS. of
Schubert's Grand Symphony in 0. Neither the well-known
oboe passage in the Trio nor the chromatic pedal-bass at the
end of the first movement —
so wonderfully personal and
characteristic of the composer~-nor any other of the many
individual points in the work, has been interpolated. Each
appears in its place from the beginning, after the long
continued sifting of his ideas due to the sketch-books.
Here and there a date or a note of place or circumstance
is scrawled on the margin, every one of which has its interest;
and it is greatly to be wished that these could be inserted in
an edition of the score, for the advantage of those who love
every trace of the great musician and desire to connect his
person with his works down to the minutest detail. A better
method still would be to photograph the manuscript in fac-
simile, as has been so well done with respect to Beethoven's

Op. 26, and in the last volume of the Bachgesellschaft

publications. We should then practically possess Beethoven's
own manuscript, and it cannot be doubted that the study of it

would reveal many a fact at present undreamt of. One such

332 NINTH SYMPHONY.

fact appears hitherto to have escaped notice — namely, that

in the original MS. just named the Trio is not written in 4-4,
as it stands in the printed scores, but is in 2-4 time, and is

put into 4-4 by cancelling every alternate bar- line. Though

not very material, this is and worthy of record.
interesting
In the *MS. by the copyist, carefully corrected by Beethoven
himself, and containing the fdedication to King Frederick
William III., the time is altered, and appears as printed.
There exists, however, another dedication of the Symphony,
to a body who had more right to that honour than was
possessed by King or Kaiser— namely, the Philharmonic
Society of London, These gentlemen, prompted probably by
Beethoven's pupil and friend, Ries, who was then settled in
England, and to whom Beethoven had written on the 6th
April, 1822, asking what the Philharmonic Society were
*

likely to offer him for a Symphony —

-passed a resolution on
'

the 10th of the following November (1822), offering him £50

for a MS. Symphony to be delivered in March, 1823, and to
be their exclusive property for eighteen months, at the end of
which time it was to revert to the composer. This offer was
communicated to Beethoven by Eies, and accepted by him
in his letter of the 20th December. The money was at once
despatched. :f The manuscript copy in the possession of the
Philharmonic Society bears the following inscription in the
handwriting of the great composer :
—
* In the Royal Library, Berlin.

f See Beethoven's own letter to Wegeler, October 7, 1826 (Nohl, Briefe, i., pp.
327-8). It went through a certain Dr. Spieker.'
' In his letter to Eies (Notizen,
p. 155) he tells Ries he has dedicated it to him Similarly in his letter to Ries,
!

July 16, 1823, he tells him he has dedicated the thirty-three Variations
(Op. 120) to Ries's wife, whereas they are really dedicated to Frau Antonie
Brentano

X Hogarth's History of the Philharmonic Society,' page 32. The amount

'

was generous for those days, but contrasts sadly with the much larger prices
paid to composers of the last few years.
 PERFOKMANCB BY PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY. 333

1
Grosse Sinfonie geschrieben
fur die Philharmonische Gesellsehaft
in London
von Ludwig van Beethoven
erster Satz.'

How came to pass that after the engagement, and the

it

payment of the money by the Philharmonic Society, Beethoven

should have allowed the Symphony to be first performed in
Vienna, and have dedicated it to the King of Prussia, is a
mystery which must be Mr. Thayer to unravel in the
left to

forthcoming volumes of his Biography.* Certain it is that

it was not performed in London till the 21st March, 1825,

when it formed (with Italian words) the second portion of the

programme of the Philharmonic Concert for that evening.
Sir George Smart was the conductor, and his experience of
the difficulties of the performance not improbably made him
take the trouble to go to Vienna, in the following September,
on purpose to get the right tempos from Beethoven himself. In
particular he seems to have asked the composer after dinner,
on September 6, to play him the recitative passages which
connect the last movements with their predecessors.f On
this occasion Sir George received a Canon from the great
composer, the autograph of which, dated September 16, *

1825, Baden near Vienna,' is still preserved in the Smart

family.
The actual first performance of the Symphony was on May
7, 1824, at theKarnthnerthor Theatre, Vienna, at a concert
given by Beethoven, in compliance with a request addressed
to him by all the principal musicians, both professional and
amateur, of that city. Notwithstanding this enthusiasm,
however, only two rehearsals were possible ! There would

* '
Ludwig van Beethoven's Leben.' Von Alexander Wheelock Thayer,
Vols. L, IT., III., 1866-79.

f Nohl ; on Schuppanzigh's authority {Beethoven's Leben , iii., 643-4).

834 NINTH SYMPHONY.

have been a *third, but that some ballet music had to be

practised by the band What such rehearsals even those of
! —
—
the best orchestras were twenty years only before the date
in question, may be judged from the expressions contained in
Beethoven's own f complaints as to the rehearsals for '
Fidelio'
in 1805 — 'Of the wind I say nothing; but all pp, cres., all
decres., and all f,ff may as well be struck out of my music,
since not one of them is attended to. I lose all desire to
write anything more if my music is to be so played.'— In a
letter to Schindler, quoted by Lenz, he calls the day
'
Fracktag,' because he had the bore of putting on a smarter
coat than usual. On this occasion it was a green coat,
and he probably also wore a three-cornered cocked hat.
The preparations had somewhat upset him, and his dress had
to be discussed with Schindler in one of the conversation
books. J His deafness had by this time become total, but that
did not keep him out of the orchestra. He stood by the side
of Umlauf, the conductor, to indicate the times of the various
movements. The house was tolerably full, though not crowded,
and his reception was all that his warmest friends could desire.
To use Schindler's expression, it was more than Imperial.' '

Three successive bursts of applause were the rule for the

Imperial Family, and he had five After the fifth the Com-
!

missary of Police interfered and called for silence Beethoven !

acknowledged the applause by a bow.§ The Scherzo was so

—
completely interrupted at the Ritmo di tre battute, where the
drums give the motif— that it had to be begun again. A ||

great deal of emotion was naturally enough visible in the

orchestra and we hear of such eminent players as Mayseder
;

and Bolim even weeping. At the close of the performance an

* Schindler (Biography, ii., 72, note).

f In a letter to Mayer (Nohl, Briefs, i., p. 50).

X See Nohl, Beethoven's Lebe?i, iii., 491 and 503.
§ See Nohl, lMd., iii., 493.
II Ibid.
 TOUCHING INSTANCE OF BEETHOVEN'S DEAFNESS. 335

incident occurred which must have brought the tears to many

an eye in the room. The master, though placed in the midst
of this confluence of music, heard nothing of it at all and
was not even sensible of the applause of the audience at the
end of his great work, but continued standing with his back to
the audience, and beating the time, till Fraulein Ungher, who
had sung the contralto part, turned him, or induced him to
turn round and face the people, who were still clapping their
hands, and giving way to the greatest demonstrations of
pleasure. His turning round, and the sudden conviction
thereby forced on everybody that he had not done so before
because he could not hear what was going on, acted like an electric
shock on all present, and a volcanic explosion of sympathy
and admiration followed, which was repeated again and again,
and seemed as if it would never end.*
Our previous quotations show that there is no lack of the
progressive sketches for the music of this mighty work but of ;

the dates and circumstances attending its later stages, the

connected composition of its first three movements, we have
at present only a meagre account. The earliest apparent
mention of the work in Beethoven's correspondence is in the
letter to Ries mentioned above, and in a second letter to the
same, dated December 20, 1822, in which he offers to write
a Symphony for the Philharmonic Society — ' the first artists

in Europe.' Six months later, in a letter to the Archduke

Rodolph, dated July 1, 1823, we catch another indication
that the work is occupying his thoughts :
— * I thank Him who
is above the stars, that I am beginning to use my eyes again,'
the words *
den iiber den Sternen ' evidently alluding to the
line in Schiller's poem, '
iiber Sternen muss er wohnen.' In
fact, at the moment of writing this letter he was in the very

* This anecdote, which is given in several forms in the books, was told to
the writer exactly as above by Madame Sabatier- Ungher (the lady referred to),
in the end gallery of the Crystal Palace Concert Room during her visit to
London in 1869.
336 NINTH SYMPHONY.

heat of composition. 'By the end of June,' says Schindler,

' the thirty- three Variations for Diabelli were finished ; then he
embarked full sail on the Symphony, and at once all the good
humour which had recently made him so pleasant and
accessible disappeared, all visits were forbidden except to the
most intimate and these much restricted.' At length,
friends,
in a letter dated from his favourite Baden, the 5th September,
1823, to Eies, we find these words The score of the
:
'

Symphony has been finished to-day by the copyist.' But

this must have been some mere preliminary draught or, at ;

any rate, can refer only to the earliest movements since three ;

weeks after this, on the 28th September, 1823, he is visited

at Baden by Mr. Schulz,* and questions him on the
'
highest possible note of the Trombone, for a particular
composition he was then about '
— surely for this very work.
It also seems plain, both from Schindler's statements and
from the fact that Beethoven does not offer it for sale till
March 10, 1824 (letter to Probst), that the Symphony was
not absolutely complete till that time. Schindler states that
Beethoven returned to Vienna from Baden for the winter at

the end of October, 1823. Contrary to his usual practice, he

made no secret of the work on which he was engaged, but let it
be known that his new Symphony was ready — ready, that must
mean, head and in his sketch-books, and complete except
in his
as to writing out the detailed score— down to the concluding
vocal portion, with regard to which he was unable yet to
satisfy himself as to the stanzas to be selected from Schiller's
Ode. To the completion of the first movement he applied
himself directly after his return, with great ardour and ;

the manuscript is (as already mentioned) remarkable among

his autographs for its comparative legibility and clean-
ness, and for the small number of corrections which it dis-
plays.

* See Harmonicon, January, 1824, p. 10 ; the name was given me by the

late Mr. W. Ayrton, son of Dr. Ayrton.
 BEETHOVEN S METRONOME-MARKS, 337

The metronome -marks in Beethoven's works are not always

of his own putting but in the Ninth Symphony there can
;

be no mistake, as they are stated at length for the benefit of

the Philharmonic Society in a letter to Moscheles, which he
dictated on March 18th, 1827, only seven days before his
death, which letter was exhibited in the Loan collection of the^
Inventions Exhibition of 1885 in the Albert Hall. I give
them verbatim, because they are not correctly given either
in Moscheles' s reprint of the letter (in his translation of
Schindler) or even in the last '
critical ' edition of Beethoven's
works :

Allegro ma non troppo, Allegro assai- - • 80 d

un poco maestoso - - 88 4 Alia marcia - - - 84 4.
Molto vivace 116 o*< Andante maestoso - 72 o<
Presto - - - - - - 116 d Adagio divoto - -
60 J
Adagio molto e Cantabile- 60 # Allegro energico 84 J
Andante moderato - - - 63 J Allegro ma non tanto 120 gJ
Finale, presto - - - - 96 J. Prestissimo - - - 132 c)
Allegro ma non troppo - 88 J Maestoso - . - 60 J

The first edition of 'this great work was published by Messrs.

Schott, of Mainz, at the end of 1825 or the beginning of
1826, with the Mass in D and the Overture in C (Op. 124),
in score (folio) and parts. The publishers' number for the
score is 2,322, and for the parts 2,321. The invitation to
subscribe to these was issued earlier, and Czerny's copy,
which has been preserved, is dated Wien, im August, 1825.' '

* In all the modern editions, including those of Schott, this is given '116=^'.

But though in Schott's original score the minim in the metronome-mark above
the staves has lost its tail, so as at first sight to look something {only something)
like a semibreve, yet in that below the staves it remains an unmistakable

minim, as Beethoven meant it to be. See the Proceedings of the Musical

Association, for February 12, 1S95.
838 NINTH SYMPHONY.

The metronome marks were added to the edition later.

In 1867 Messrs. Schott published a second edition in 8vo,

numbered and the engraved plates of the first
as before 2,322 ;

edition were then melted down.*

In 1863 or '64 the work
appeared in the critical and tcorrect edition
'
of Messrs. '

Breitkopf and Hartel. Neither of these two reprints adequately

represents the original edition.

I. The Symphony starts in a different manner from any

other of the nine, with a prologue which is not an introduction
properly speaking, and yet introduces the principal subject of
the movement. The tempo is the same from the beginning
Allegro ma non troppo,un poco maestoso. It begins, not with
the chord of D. but with that of A, whether major or minor
is uncertain, as the '
third ' of the chord is left out ; neither
C sharp nor C natural are present. All is pianissimo ; the
second violins and cellos sound the accompaniment, with
the horns in unison, to give it more consistency, while the
first violins, tenors, and basses are heard successively
whispering their way through them from the top of the treble
stave to the bottom of the bass — still, however, avoiding the
third of the chord :

No. 14.

p p sempre

Bass

* I am indebted for this information to Dr. Strecher, of the house of Schott

at Mainz.

f Issued between January, 1862, and November, 1865.

 THE FIRST MOVEMENT. 339

This is repeated, after a bar's interval, with the difference

that the first violins begin on the upper A instead of on the
E, and that a clarinet is added to the accompaniment; and
then the phrase is given a third time, but with a very
Beethovenish difference : the intervals remain the same, but
the phrase is hurried— twice, the second time more hurried
than the first :—

No. 15.
cres. fc

PW »±*
yiEfei
,-d-J-
J-WS S
&
SS=i
S *£
S±^T
^-^c
S
And so, at last, the wind instruments coming in one by one,
and the whole increasing in force bar by bar, we are launched
into that tremendous unison of the whole orchestra in the
successive intervals of the chord of *D minor, which really
forms the principal subject or animating spirit of the move-
ment :

No - 16 -

(a)
f

^^B ...^V^j-fe
/

It is now easy to see, what at first sight may not be

apparent, that the first broken phrases of the first violins,

* It is startling to find this chord almost identically given at bar 23 of the

introductory Adagio of Symphony No. 2, see p. 25.
840 NINTH SYMPHONY.

tenors, and basses are, in fact, the same with the great
subject itself, except for the mysterious vagueness which
they acquire from the suppression of the third, and the secret
manner of their entrance. Each consists of the intervals of
a common chord descending through a couple of octaves.
This is even more apparent when the prologue is repeated in
the key and on the chord of D, in the strings, with long
holding notes in the clarinets and horns, as it is shortly after
the conclusion of the last extract :

No. 17.

m Viol.l

Cor.
r=^=
pp
sotto voce.
-=^=2 5.

&c.

^=^:
i'-F— —
:

This time, however (to proceed with our analysis), the great
subject-passage is given in B flat :

No. 18.

mmm
#*

perhaps as a remote preparation for the entrance of the

'
second subject in that key.
' And then we have an indication
(ut ex ungue leonem) —
No. 19.

sf

of what Beethoven intends to do with the rhythm and inter-

vals of the semiquavers which are contained in that great
 FIRST MOVEMENT. SUBSIDIARY THEMES. 341

phrase (see No. 16), notes for which a very remarkable and
a,

important role is destined. But though for a moment in B flat,

he has no present intention of remaining there, and he imme-
diately returns into D minor, and gives us this vigorous new
phrase, ben marcato end forte in the whole orchestra a phrase ;

which he has put down at an early period* in the sketch-

book, as one of the principal stones to be employed in his
edifice :—

No. 20.

Sjf lien marcato.

This he immediately repeats, according to a favourite habit,

in a more florid form, showing, at the same time, how it may
be made to imitate at a bar's interval

No. 21.

cTSS*

and at length arriving at the '

second subject ' in the key of
B flat. According to the usual rule, the '
second subject
should be in F, the relative major of D minor, but Beethoven
has chosen otherwise, and having reached the key of B flat,

he plainly signifies his intention of not going back for

some considerable time to D minor by the unusual course of
drawing a double bar through the score, and altering the
signature to two flats.

* See Zweite Beethuveniana, p. 151

342 NINTH SYMPHONY.

The second subject is as strong a contrast to the first as can

be desired or devised :

Oboes Clar.

S
1JF#^f^i
w
Fl.

E—fBiz^ybk^-- t=&= ^;
*=^£
n ~W=Z*-Si &gs
*~*
^~
Strings
~^£f^ kzk %
-S^n-J ^ &c.

ssss s*r,
a t i i a i
s=»
it
s=r. gs». bss,

It begins with a Z^/^o phrase, in three members of two bars

each, divided between the flutes, oboes, and clarinets ; and
continues with bolder phrases, also distributed between the
various members of the wind band (somewhat after the
fashion of the second subject in the Allegro of the Eroica),
while to the latter portion the strings maintain an interesting
accompaniment in semiquaver arpeggios. An indication of
the restlessness implied in the hurrying already noticed is

change of the phrase in the last three

visible here again in the
bars of the quotation, and the more rapid repetition of the
arpeggios in the accompaniment.
It may be mentioned en imssant that this subject (No. 22) is

maintained by Seroff, a Russian critic, to be '

identical ' with
the theme of the Finale (No. 62), and that this curious
identification is adopted by Lenz as a ' thematic reference of
the most striking importance, vindicating the unity of the
entire work, and placing the whole in a perfectly new light.'
 QUESTIONABLE SUGGESTIONS. 343

(Lenz, Beethoven, eine Kunst-Studie, 4ter Theil, p. 178.) This

is too strong a statement, as is also that of a writer in the
Orchestra of May 1st, 1874, who calls attention to the '
form
and figure '
of the opening phrase of the second part of the
Scherzo (Trio, No. 41) as an 'announcement' of the 'vocal
portion of the work.' But the subject of the Finale is in
D major, and starts on the third of the scale. The one may
be a modification of the other, but they are certainly not
'identical.' It is, however, very remarkable that so many
of the melodies in the Symphony should consist of consecu-
tive notes, and that in no less than four of them the notes
should run up a portion of the scale and down again
apparently pointing to a consistent condition of Beethoven's
mind throughout this work. But surely the unity of the '

work does not require to be vindicated or denoted by

'
'
'

such mechanical means as this However, to return. !

The second subject has a Codetta in the wind instruments,

which finishes it— not in B flat, but in G minor and after :

this the following stormy phrase is started by the violins, in

E flat :

No. 23.

L ^ —Sc^ **-m _

repeated by the clarinet and bassoons in the same key;

by the clarinet, bassoon, and flute in C minor and lastly by ;

the strings again in D minor. In each case the phrase is

accompanied in contrary motion, though never in the same

way. By this bridge we are landed fortissimo on an
episode :

No. 24.
Tutti f , Clar.^ Tutti
344 NINTH SYMPHONY.

the march-like rhythm of which (bars 1, 2, 5, 6) plays a large

part in subsequent portions of the movement.
Out of it grows a broad melody in the key of B major :

No. 25

Cellos

which, however, after a short existence of four bars is dissolved

into an astounding passage of semiquavers for all the strings
(except the basses) in unison and sempre pianissimo, leading
into an episode entirely different and distinct from anything
that has come before it, and of the most beautiful effect :

Viol, i

The G flat and G natural with which the members of the

passage alternately commence, seem to be entirely accidental
to the chords which follow them ; and perhaps it is this

fact that is the secret of the peculiar tender poignant effect

that they produce. The passages repose on the figure
quoted in No. 25, here given in the drum, and it will be

* This group stands as above in the printed scores. But it surely ought to
be B, A, A, like the others. At the repetition of -the passage (in E flat) after the
working-out, another variation is given, in the new edition —viz., E, I), E.
Still, on its very first appearance, it stands in the basses thus :

JfegEgEg^F-EJ^

Rhythm perhaps was more than phrase to Beethoven.

 FIRST MOVEMENT. DEVELOPMENT. 345

observed that the phrases are again hurried as the conclusion

is approached:

No. 27.

Viol. 1

VT2^-

From here to the end of the first division of the movement

Beethoven remains almost entirely in B flat. He closes this
portion of his work with a loud passage of eight bars, in which
the whole orchestra ranges in unison up and down through
the intervals of the common chord of the key, in the rhythm
of No. 25 :—

No. 28.
f
f* */ J H 1—-— PJL-t-H h
_ - _£l

fm.
=fcc

f ^•V/ -J.-ar'

and here once more we encounter the restless hurrying

already spoken of. The first division is not repeated as usual,
Beethoven doubtless having an eye to the unusual length to
which his Finale was to stretch so he makes a transition in his
;

own wonderfully direct way from B flat to A, draws a double

bar through the score, restores the signature to one flat, and
proceeds at once with the working-out. For this he makes
use of the prologue in somewhat more concise form than at
the opening, but very soon introduces the striking rhythm
quoted in Nos. 25 and 28, always with violent sforzandos.
For key, he is evidently leaning towards G minor. He has
already (see No. 19) given an indication that he knows what
346 NINTH SYMPHONY.

levelopment his main subject i= :::_:''.:- of. and he no-

commences the process of treating the four semiquavers (a of
No. 16) as a regular melody, in a phrase of four bars given
and clarinets, and ending with a short
alternately to the oboes
ritardando, which becomes very characteristic before the move-
ment is over. However, he abandons this phrase for a time,
and goes back to the main subject itself, the grand phrase
quoted in No. 16. And now we see how nobly this great com-
poser and poet could treat a subject after his own heart. Surely
there is nothing in the whole range of music more noble than
the effect of this great theme, sweeping down through its

simple natural intervals from top to bottom of the scale,

and met by the equally simple pizzicato bass, which is in
fact little but the theme itself in reversed order. The A fiat
which Beethoven has added to the phrase on its second
occurrence (*) :

N: --

m ^L*-J£\—*£+±=pe m m-z&tL

-*— Ks-
Sec.

Bassesjtt'-zz.

has an astonishingly passionate effect. It is no exaggeration

to say, asGeminiani* said of a certain semitone in the fugal
answer in Handel's Overture to Muzio Scevola : Quel '

semitono vale un mondo '

—
that A flat is truly worth the
world ! But Beethoven is still too restless to remain in
this noble and dignified frame of mind, and he brings it to an
end as he did the prologue, with impatient sforzandos— this
time in C minor, and again introduces his four semiquavers,
ms to love, as a mother sometimes loves a puny

* See ilainwaring's Memoirs of Handel [1760 , p. 44, note.

 FTRSI MOVEMENT. WOBKEN'O-OrT. 847

child, almost in inverse roportion t: then, significance

Something appears him, and he r:c? at last to decide off

into a lengthened passage founded entirely on these :~: : -.: =

of his original sal jeet :

yo. 30.
J) *=w w -o-
•
/ . m •

It begins as follows :

NC :

vio] :
;-

i
v -: :

^ - « * ' -*->

- _; : & Basses

^=^
-
« ; :» • •

The second violins sad basses have the working :: the subject
while the first violins indulge in wild leaps from theii

lowest G to the same note twc octaves higher. This passage

— six bars in length — is repeated three times in 'doable
counterpoint '
—thai is :; ay, the instalments change then
parts am::: g themselves, thai which was above being played
below, that which was below, above : and with other variations
suggested by the skill of :_r composer. La the present case,
as will be seen from the quotation, there arc three subjects
348 NINTH SYMPHONY.

that in semiquavers, that in quavers, and the octave passage

of the violins and each of the three is made to do duty in
:

and parts of the scale with an effect of

different positions
which the hearer may judge for himself. At length the
semiquavers are consigned to the basses, who retain them
for twenty bars, while the violins execute their leaps in the
latter portion of the figure. It takes Beethoven in all forty

bars to work off this mood, and at the end of it he seems more
than ever alive to the capabilities of his little subject for
expressing the feelings which are in his mind. But the mood
has softened, and now the phrase appears as a ' Cantabile '

a word which Beethoven never uses without special meaning,

and never with more intense meaning than here. The
passage is a duet between the first and second violins, the
cellos accompanying with the quaver portion of the theme :

No. 32.
Viol. 2. with Flute
Viol. 1, with Oboe cantabile ,

o... j-

VI. 2 ~
cres.
g
, — s pizz
m
=£=£:

At length he seems to recollect that there are other materials

at command, and turning to the second half of the second
subject (No. 22), he gives it in F, treating it partly as
 FIRST MOVEMENT. THE REPRISE. 349

before and partly in double counterpoint, the melody in the

basses and the arpeggios in the treble. But the charm of
the little semiquaver phrase is still too much for him he ;

returns to it once more, trying it this time mixed with

inversions and at length, as if resolved to dismiss it for ever
;

from his thoughts, gives it with one grand burst of the whole
orchestra.
Here I would though with reluctance, to a
call attention,
—
work namely, to the occurrence
singular feature in this great
more than once during the working-out of the first move-
ment of a vacillation or hesitancy in expression of which I
know no trace in any of the other Symphonies, but which
cannot but be recognised here by a loyal hearer where the ;

notes of flutes and oboes seem to tremble and falter as if they

were the utterance of human lips, the organs of an oppressed
human heart. These places need not be specified, they
cannot but strike the sympathetic listener, and will almost
suggest, if it be not disrespectful to entertain such a thought,
that the great Beethoven was, with all his experience, too
much overpowered by his feelings to find adequate expression
for them. These tokens of human weakness may be safely
left to the affectionate sympathy of the friends and admirers
of this great poet.
At length the composer completes the due circle of the
form, and arrives at the resumption of the original subject
(No. 16) in its entirety, after having made so thorough a
treatment of the several parts. For this he prepares by a
recapitulation of the originaltheme from the prologue (No. 14);
but in how different a style from that in which it first crept on
our notice Instead of that vagueness and mystery which made
!

it so captivating, it is now given with the fullest force of the

orchestra and the loudest clamour of the drum, and ending
unmistakably in D major. Its purpose is accomplished, its

mission fulfilled, its triumph assured ; no need now for

concealment or hesitation ! And so it merges into the great
350 NINTH SYMPHONY.

descent of the main subject, not a mere unison as before —but

in fullharmony, with a bass ascending in contrary motion, and
with all possible ostentation. Nor is this all. To give greater
weight to the main features of the subject, it is lengthened
out by the insertion of two bars in the middle and two bars
at the end. See (a) (a) and (b) (b) :

No. 33.
Wind#-

•qr—err-*—*—«£U=»M=3—
#

This is a difference far more pronounced than that in which

Beethoven has indulged himself at the return of the subject
either in No. 5, 6, 7, or even No. 8, where the theme comes
back in the bass ; —
and it shows if such a thing wanted
—
showing how entirely the prescriptive forms of music had
become subordinated in Beethoven's mind to the expression
of the thoughts and emotions which were animating him.
The ben marcato phrase (No. 20) is next given, but with a
and on a pedal D
difference, — The second subject
six times over.

(No. 22) follows on this, in D major, and then the various

passages and episodes already enumerated, with corresponding
changes of keys, and important modifications in the
 FIRST MOVEMENT. THE CODA. 351

distribution of the instruments. At length the repetition of

the first portion of the movement is concluded, not as before
in B flat, but in D minor, and now begins a peroration, or Coda,
which is so immense in its proportions, so dignified, noble,
and passionate in its sentiment, and so crowded with touching
beauties, as almost to put out of mind even the noble
music we have been already hearing. This Coda begins with
the descending phrase of the first subject (No. 16), harmonised
as before by pizzicato basses in contrary motion, but treated
at much and with constant variety.
greater length than before,
Next a great deal is made of the stormy phrase quoted as No.
23. The two favourite bars which formed so prominent a
feature in the working-out (No. 30) are once more brought
forward and worked between the horns and oboe, over a
holding A in the strings then by the strings themselves
;

in unison, with the holding A in the horns then the stormy

;

phrase recurs with an astonishing passage in contrary motion

in the violins and then the ritardando, twice given. So far
;

Beethoven is dealing with previous materials. But, before

finishing, he has something to tell us entirely different from
anything that he has already said. The earlier portions of
this movement, notwithstanding the occasional hesitation to
which we have referred, paint in unmistakable colours the
independence and impatience which characterise him
throughout life, and which in 1823 had increased to an
almost morbid degree. They show all the nobility and vigour,
and much of the tenderness and yearning, which go to make
up that individual being who was called Beethoven. But this
the former Symphonies do also in their degree. He will now
show us a side of himself which he has hitherto kept veiled.
He will reveal to us the secret of his inmost grief, and we
shall see that, great and noble and stupendous as he is, his
heart can be a prey to pangs as bitter and as unassuageable
as those which rack the fondest woman. And this he does
as no one but himself ever could do. The strings begin a
352 NINTH SYMPHONY.

passage consisting of repetitions of the following phrase of

two bars :

No. 34.

All String's pp~

This passage, like the somewhat analogous one in the
first movement of the Seventh Symphony, may be regarded
as a '
pedal point ' on D, It commences pianissimo, and
gradually increases in tone through sixteen bars till it

reaches double forte; while over it, in the touching accents

of oboes, clarinets, and flutes, is heard the following affecting
wail :

No. 35.
tr tr
Oboes p -***» ,

j. ^ j
fc*
*^mm ±2=t=:

Was ever grief at once more simply, more fully, and more
touchingly told ? The sorrows which wounded the great
composer during so many of the last years of his life, through
his deafness, his poverty, his sensitiveness, his bodily sufferings,
the annoyances of business, the ingratitude and rascality of
his nephew, the slights of friends, the neglect of the world*
sorrows on which he kept silence, except by a few words in
his letters, are here beheld in all their depth and bitterness.
Surely anywhere he has here produced his proprio e proposto
if

effetto. We
almost seem to see the tears on his cheek. But if
Beethoven thus succumbs to emotion, it is only for a moment.
His independence quickly returns, and the movement ends
with the great subject in its most emphatic and self-reliant
tones and, like the first Allegro of the Eighth Symphony, in
;

the very notes of the chief subject. Mendelssohn has left his

* It is of no avail to say that these griefs were often imaginary. Possibly

so : but they were real enough to Beethoven.
 FIRST MOVEMENT. MENDELSSOHN'S JUDGMENT. 353

opinion of this portion of the Symphony on record * in the

following interesting words The conclusion of the first
:
'

movement (of Beethoven's Violin Sonata in C minor, Op. 30,

No. 2) has a 'go' (Schwung) which I hardly know in any other
piece of his except, perhaps, the end of the first movement
;

of the Ninth Symphony, which certainly surpasses in 'go'

everything in the world.'
The opening movement is almost always the most important
portion of a Symphony. It gives the key to the work, in
every sense of the word, and is usually the representative
member of the entire composition. To this rule the opening
Allegro of the Ninth Symphony is no exception. Great as
are the beauties of the second and third movements — and it

is impossible to exaggerate them — and original, vigorous, and

impressive as are many portions of the Finale, it is still

the opening Allegro that one thinks of when the Ninth

Symphony is mentioned. In many respects it differs from
other first movements of Beethoven ; everything seems to
combine to make it the greatest of them all. The mysterious
opening, which takes one captive at once ; the extra-
ordinary severity, simplicity, and force of the main subject
the number of the subsidiary themes ; the manner in which
they grow out of the principal one, as the branches, twigs,
and leaves grow out of a tree the persistence with which
;

they are forced on the notice the remarkable dignity of some

;

portions and the constant and obvious restlessness of others

the incessant alternation (as in no other work) of impatience
and tenderness, with the strange tone of melancholy and
yearning the inevitable conviction, here and there, that with
;

all his experience Beethoven has not succeeded in express-

ing himself as he wants, and the consequent difficulty of

grasping his ideas, notwithstanding the increasing conviction
that they must be grasped — all these things make the opening

* To Mad. Voigt, January 10, 1835 {Acht Briefe, &c, Leipzig, 1871, p. 12).
354 NINTH SYMPHONY.

Allegro of the Ninth Symphony a thing quite apart from all

the others. It is startling to think how much the world

would have missed if Beethoven had not written this
work, and especially the first movement of it. Several
of the eight others would still have been the greatest
Symphonies in the world, but we should not have known how
far they could be surpassed. It is in the hope of elucidating
some of the difficulties of the movement, and thus leaving
the hearer more free to realise the total effect, that the
foregoing imperfect analysis has been attempted.
It must be here said that no connection need be looked for
between the first three movements of the Choral Symphony
and the *
Ode to Joy ' which inspired its Finale. The very
title of —
the work Beethoven's own — is conclusive on this
point. It is not a Symphony on Schiller's Ode to Joy, but
it is a Symphony with Final Chorus on Schiller's Ode to
Joy — ' Sinfonie mit Schiuss-Chor iiber Schillers Ode an die
Freude.' Beethoven, says an intelligent *critic, *
has not
given us any programme to the movement, not even a
first

descriptive title, as he does in the Pastoral Symphony.' The

first three movements might have had another Finale —
indeed, they nearly had one (see No. 13) and it is not ;

necessary to attempt to reconcile either the opening Allegro,

the Scherzo (so called), or the Adagio with the train of
thought and feeling suggested by the Ode which is embodied in
the latter portion of the work. In fact, as we shall see farther
on, Beethoven tries the three first movements one after the
other, to see if any of them will suit for a Finale, and rejects

them all

So far, then, the first movement of this great Symphony.

II. The second movement is the Molto vivace ; in fact,

though not so entitled, the Scherzo— here, for the first

* Ehlert, Briefe, p. 14.

 THE SCHERZO. 355

time in the nine * Symphonies, put second. It has a

double interest from the fact, already noticed, that, as far as
at present known, its chief subject is the first actual morsel
of the Symphony ever put on paper. The movement is in
the same key with the Allegro, and, like all Beethoven's other
Orchestral! Scherzos, in triple time. It has been called a
'miracle of repetition without monotony,' and truly it is so ;

for it is not only founded upon — it may almost be said to

consist of —one which is said to
single phrase of three notes,
have come suddenly into Beethoven's mind as he stepped
from darkness into brilliant light. The autograph sketch in —
the collection at the Royal Library at ^Berlin bears Bee-
thoven's favourite proverb, Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund.'
'

That there may be no mistake as to his intention, he opens

this —
at once the longest and greatest of his Scherzos with —
a prelude of eight bars, in which the phrase in question is
given four times successively in the four intervals of the chord
of D minor, though with a strange irregularity of rhythm in
the sixth bar :

No. 36. „

is «£ —*-*+—— "R?

w ffi
ist±
—Sf T= -H—
f ff

The movement then starts pianissimo (and observe, almost

wholly in consecutive notes), in the second violin, the oboe
accenting the first note of each bar. The subject on its original
appearance, in 1815 (see page 326), is labelled '
Fuge,' and it

* This alteration of the order of the

movements is rarely found in Beethoven's
earlierworks (see, for an instance, the Quartet in F, Op. 59, No. 1). In his later
years he did it more frequently, as in the last four Pianoforte Sonatas the ;

B flat Trio the last two Quartets. In such things Beethoven acknowledged
;

no prescription in his later life, but did exactly as his imagination dictated.
—
f In his Pianoforte Sonatas at least, in the Sonata, Op. 31, No. 3 he has —
written a Scherzo d deux temps. Mendelssohn's finest Scherzos witness that —
—
of the Scotch Symphony are in common time.

X See Dr. A. C. Kalischer in Monatshefte fur Musik-Geschichte, 1896, p. 19.

356 NINTH SYMPHONY.

is here treated in a fugal style. After four bars the viola

answers in the 5th below in strict imitation, accompanied
' '

—
by the clarinet then at intervals of four bars the cello,
; —
first violin, and double bass follow, each with its strict

response :

No. 37.

m^Mm^m
Viol. 2

P PP :*=afc t^=nr
Viola pp

$ P*ip^
jgpg33s:
sempre pp &c.
3=3:
m *=t EESpB '-*=*=?:
m*
Cello pp

The second motif— a perfect contrast to the foregoing — is a

delicious crescendo in the wind instruments (note the harmonies
at * and *) accompanied in the strings by the incessant octave
figure :—

No. 38.

Oboe PL ..
a. jr.
•

I
^iffLr FrffrTg* S±±± <oy^ »
-'-

1 :p2^: II %3E&±±
Fag. cre&\
8va.

T=" !="
. r &0 #
This is given twice, and is followed by another very melodious
 THE SCHERZO. DEVELOPMENT. 357

*phrase, also given out by the wind, and accompanied as before

by the strings in the initial figure

No. 39. ,
T
> --' ' f , r
f

*y -is"-* -m-f -m- -a^> -m- -m-r -m- -&-' -m-T -m- -*-
-m-T -m- -m-F-m-
-»-T r -o-
-»- f -m- -m
-te~-
Cor. | I I I I

Strings

1 F ~-b— 5
~5^
¥^§: 5W 9§
~-&cl

and this again is soon succeeded by a long and tuneful passage,

ofwhich we can only quote a few of the commencing bars :

Wind p cres Viol.8va.

After this, the tone diminishes to pianissimo, and with a

pause of three bars we arrive at the end of the first portion
of the Scherzo. This portion is then repeated. After the
repetition a connecting-link or '
inter- chapter ' of eight bars
(ending with three bars' pause) brings us into E flat, and the
second portion of the movement. And here, under the same
form as before, and in the narrow limit of eighteen bars, we
encounter a great deal of modulation, and pass from E flat,
through D flat, flat, E, into E minor. In this last key the
original theme (No. 36) starts off with great drollery in
the bassoons, and, as Beethoven has marked the score, in the
rhythm of three beats, 'Ritmo di tre battute' — the phrases
being three bars long. In the course of this it will not escape
notice how the drum, with characteristic audacity, puts the

*Wagner (Zum Vortrag d. neunten Symphonieri Beetlwvens) seriously proposes

to strengthen the melody in this place by adding horns and modern valve-
trumpets, with other modifications. The wonder is that so great a composer
should not have felt that any alteration of a completed work, by any but the
author himself, is impossible. Mozart's authority is of no avail here. Make
the same proposition in regard to a picture or a poem and its inadmissibility
is at once obvious to everyone.
358 NINTH SYMPHONY.

composer's direction at defiance by coming in four times at

intervals of three bars, and the fifth time making the interval
four. This, with the co-operation of the bassoon, seems to have
been one of the points which specially enraptured the audience
*at the first performance. The rhythm of three bars is succeeded
by a '
rhythm of four bars,' containing some charming effects
of the horns and trumpets. —We cannot help noticing at this
place the extraordinary persistence with which Beethoven has
given his directions throughout these movements. In the
original folio score, and probably still more if we could

examine the autograph manuscript, the various indications

are sown thick through the staves. It was his constant

practice. He had certain very definite intentions and it

should be no fault of his if they were not carried out. This
most characteristic things about a
reiteration is one of the
Beethoven manuscript, and it has here found its way to a
certain extent into the engraved score.
The is maintained almost throughout, and this
pianissimo
part of thework contains some truly splendid music. It is
wonderful with what persistence the original figure is
maintained, and how it is made to serve for melody,
accompaniment, filling up, and every other purpose. The
second portion of the Scherzo is repeated we then have ;

another '
inter-chapter ' of twenty-four bars, the last eight of

them marked Stringendo il tempo —in other words, slightly

accelerating the time and fortifying the impulse. By these

we suddenly reach the Trio, in this case called simply a

1
Presto.' This Presto is in the key of D major, and in
common time of four crotchets. In the original MS. of the
Symphony, in the Imperial Library, Berlin, it is in two
crotchets but Beethoven afterwards changed this by erasing
;

each alternate bar, and in the fair copy corrected by his own
hand, and dedicated to the King of Prussia, it appears as in

Nohl, Lcben, iii., p. 493, on Holz's authority.

 THE TRIO. 359

the printed scores. At the same time the pace changes to

Presto,an indication which, in the original folio score, is
accompanied, both over and under the score, by the metronome
mark cL_116,'
*
in accordance with Beethoven's own letters to

Moscheles and Schott already quoted (see p. 337). In Schott's

octavo score and in the later '
critical edition '
of Breitkopf and
Hartel this minim is changed to a semibreve, thus doubling
the pace and making it almost impossible for the her. is to
play the passages given to them. No warrant whatever exists
for the change, and it ought to be at once rectified.

The Trio brings in the wind with a subject of eight bars,

made sixteen by repetition. The bass trombone wakes up
from its long sleep and utters its first note, a high *D,
fortissimo , to welcome it ;

No. 41.

Oboes &Clar. , |
« |
g JW-JJJ J I ,^-v i I I.

^
^m^^^^mm
B. Tromb. * ^ &c.

B Fag. stac.
B

Thisf theme —a slight modification of the familiar ancient

melody on which Non nobis is founded, employed by Handel
' '

in The horse and his rider,' and elsewhere, and simple

'

—
almost to rusticity is succeeded by a charming motif, in
which the violas and cellos run up the scale crescendo with a

* This is the note that Mendelssohn brought out more prominently than
before at his performance of the Symphony at Leipzig in 1841 (the fourth time
he had conducted it at the Gewandhaus), and which Schumann notices as
having given quite a new life to the passage.' (Ges. Schriften, iv., 98.)
'

f Some would have us accept this old melody as unmistakably the result
' '

of Beethoven's studies in Russian music ! Others, with equal probability,

would look upon it as an announcement of the subject of the Finale !
360 NINTH SYMPHONY.

delicious eagerness, as if rejoicing in the freedom of the major

scale after so much minor :

No. 42.
m. m ,m- Sr -m-
, . .0. jl -J?

mmrw^^^ =±=t=t=x* It=± I I I I :

m
Cello & Viola p cres.

42.

The first motif then re- appears in the horns, with the
melody which before accompanied it as a bass divided between
the strings in turns —now now below the theme.
above and
The theme then shifts to the bassoons, and the accompaniment
(see No. 41) —in its turn a theme, and a most charming
one— to the oboes, the horns gradually joining with a sub-
stratum of harmony :

No. 43

'kMjmmiatgmMmm

The whole of this passage is well known, and the delicat

temporary modulation into F at bar 7 —
No. 44.

Oboe

S
Cor.! ^
cres.
~f*~
^tee^i
k P
J=^
Fag. .&T \&. -^
t= t= i= e
- g?- igL :{=zi aS
r?=2?3
 THE SCHERZO. CODA. ROSSINI. 361
1

fP
*-fr» ir d 1- ff— -i fc-3 1
— <& h

cres. Tutti

^=^t: 3EE=
/p'

is as anxiously watched for and as keenly enjoyed as

any passage in Beethoven's works. The delicious effect
of the peculiar tones of the oboe in this place must be
heard to be understood. Berlioz is not far* wrong when he
classes it with the effect produced by the fresh morning air
and the first rays of the rising sun in Whatever
May.
privations his deafness had inflicted on Beethoven, it had not
deprived him of the memory of nature, or of the sense of
the combination of sounds Here he is possibly reproducing
!

the feeling of some sunrise which he had seen through the '

mist ' on the hills above his beloved '

Briihl ' at Modling,
or at Baden— occasions which seem to have awakened all

his religion and all his poetry.

—
In the Coda after the repetition of the first portion of the
Trio —the whole orchestra comes into play and the effect of ;

the great crescendo and diminuendo, with the grand clang

of horns and trombones, and trumpets in low register (some-
what unusual with Beethoven), is truly splendid. After this
the Scherzo is repeated throughout and then, with a short ;

allusion to the Trio, this long but most interesting, elaborate,

and exhilarating movement comes to a close.
A characteristic anecdote connected with this movement, at
the first performance of the Symphony at the Conservatoire
at Paris, has been preserved by Elwart in his history of those
famous concerts (p. 204). As Bossini was coming out of the
building after the performance, he was heard to say to

* Voyage Musical. Eludes sur Beethoven (1844), i. 346.

;
362 NINTH SYMPHONY.

Ferdinand Hiller, ' I know nothing finer (plus beau) than that
Scherzo. I myself could not make anything to touch it.
The rest of the work wants charm, and what is music without
that ? '
Hardly less interesting is the anecdote told by *Lenz
of the behaviour of his friend Glinka, at the first performance
of the Symphony at St Petersburg. He was completely
overcome by the Scherzo ; weeping violently and hiding his
face in his hands he said, '
Mais on ne touche pas la ! Oh
c'est impossible.' Interesting; but it is difficult to say
which of the two composers, Glinka or Rossini, was the
more self-conscious in his remarks.
III.The Adagio is absolutely original in form and in ;

effect more calmly, purely, nobly beautiful than anything that

even this great master who knows so well how to search —
the heart, and try the spirit, and elevate the soul: — has
accomplished elsewhere in his Symphonies.
It consists of two distinct pieces distinct in tune, in —
character, in key, —
and in speed which are heard alternately
until the one yields, as it were, to the superior charms of the
other, and retires. The first of the two is in B flat, and in
common time, Adagio molto e cantabile. A prelude of two bars
— the second containing a crescendo full of such unutterable
yearning as seems almost to burst the heart of the author
introduces this broad, sweet, and tender melody, f in four
separate strains: —
No 45
Adagio.
Strings only
-
I l~
it:

* Beethoven et ses trois styles (1852), ii., 189.

t Dr. Charles Wood has pointed out to me that the bass of the first two bars
of this melody is identical with that of the beginning of the slow movement
in the Sonate Pathetique (Op. 13).
 THE SLOW MOVEMENT. 363
Clars.

- ,\ i J""^ ,
Strings ^ ^

... m
Clars.
r* i
k i
Strings
- — ^
-*
n , .
^_
i^n r
ffffT;

Clar.
wmj^t^r ^-p» |p^ :ff=K

<ZoZ.
Pt
-t- — fej
p &c.

harmonised in the same style. The two choirs of the

orchestra, string and wind, are kept distinct. The melody is
given out on the strings alone, and the effect of the echo of the
last fewnotes of each strain by the clarinets, bassoons, and horns
is exceedingly beautiful, quite original, and always fresh.

After the strings have completed the melody, the last two
strains are taken up by the wind, with an arpeggio accompani-
ment in the strings, and the first portion of the movement,
twenty-two bars in length, ends. The time then changes
to 3-4, and the key to D, the speed quickens to Andante
moderato, and the second violins and tenors give out the
following melody (a polacca, as it has been sometimes termed !)
in unison, accompanied by the basses and bassoons in an
exquisite rhythm, and by the upper portion of the wind :

No. 46.

Viol. & Viola, espressivo

•*
* J j j*
I e n^^u=*£*EaE N I

3 L. J &H"Jti^si=3£
Basses & Fag.

-
» * J I d 1
-

morendo
364 NINTH SYMPHONY.

J3J-
— &c.

In the autograph sketches in the Koyal Library at *Berlin,

shortly before the arrival of the second theme, we find the
words, The chorus may perhaps appropriately enter here
' '

and immediately before the theme itself, as if an indication

of tempo, '
Grandioso, alia Menuetto.'
On the repetition of this tune (over a pedal A in the cellos)
the first violin accompanies
with an independent melody of
it

great charm (see (a) in the last quotation). The Andante is

eighteen bars long, and it gives place at once to the Adagio
in its old key. The tune is now varied, after Beethoven's own
noble and f incomparable manner, by the first violins, in
semiquaver figures

No. 47.

Violins

^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^<m^^^ &c.

and the treatment of the wind and the other strings in the first
portion is entirely different from what it was before. After
each section of the tune has been completed, the clarinets
and their companions echo the concluding notes as before, and
with the same accompaniment. The delicious lazy grace of the
figures just quoted —
due to the syncopation introduced— is

* See the Catalogue of the Beethoven-autographs by Dr. A. C. Kalischer

appearing monthly in the Monatshefte fur Musik-Geschichte, 1896, No. 3, p. 19.

t Schubert, in the variations in his grand String Quartet in D minor, is the

only one who has rivalled this style of Beethoven's.
 THE SLOW MOVEMENT. HORN. 365

almost a repetition of that which gives such a charm to a portion

of the Larghetto in Beethoven's Second Symphony, namely :

No. 48.

This over, the Andante returns, but now in the key of G :-

No. 49.
Flute & Obcas

Pag. in 8ves.

The tune remains unaltered, but it is taken by the flutes and

reed instruments. On the repetition, the accompaniment
melody in the first violins (a, No. 46) is strengthened and
made more prominent.
We now return to the Adagio, and arrive at a most beautiful
section of the movement. The melody (in E flat) is given by
the clarinets and bassoons, with a deep horn as bass, and
occasional pizzicato notes distributed over the strings. The
effect of the opening is so strange and so beautiful that we

give a skeleton of the first few bars. Note the G flat (*) and
the mysterious effect produced by the distance between the
melody and the bass :

No. 50.
Ciar.

m §e£
Cor.
l I lt- 5^
-m— m-
m
366 NINTH SYMPHONY.

Note too the imitation by the horn, in bars 3 and 4, of the

tune as given by the clarinet in bars 1 and 2. Here, too, is a
melody, the speaking beauty of which is, if possible, increased
by the peculiar tones of the horn — the fourth horn be it

—
observed which delivers it :

No. 51. 4th Horn -=r =—

±

^^
This section of the movement is only sixteen bars long. It
is not a repetition of the former Adagio, and if a variation
it is a remote one ; most beautiful.
but whatever it be, it is

Farther on is a *passage in which the fourth horn runs in

semiquavers up and down the scale of C flat :

No. 52. 4th Horn

-W-

EEEEEjEEESgytiai
a feat of no ordinary difficulty for that much-tried instrument,
and, like other trials of life, not always successfully accom-
plished.
These sixteen bars lead into the second variation proper of
the original melody the key B flat as before, the time 12-8,
;

and the figure a semiquaver one, of wonderful beauty, dignity,

and elegance :

No. 53.

* In the new edition of the orchestral parts of the Symphony (in Breitkopf &
Hartel's Orchesterbibliothek) this scale is slurred and marked in the most
elaborate way — quite unnecessary, especially as Beethoven has not marked it.
 THE SLOW MOVEMENT. VAEIATIONS. 367

with a pizzicato accompaniment, and at the same time extra-

ordinarily full of vigour. No passages of Beethoven's or
anyone else's can surpass the following for irrepressible

brilliancy and majestic sweep of life — full of dignified

sentiment, without a grain of sentimentality or any other
morbid thing :—

No. 54

and there are several of such !

In the course of this variation, the horn has again some

difficult feats to accomplish (we quote a couple of specimens) :

No - 55 -
4th Horn

and

but Beethoven has amply repaid this most human instrument

for any such trials by the lovely part which he has given it
368 NINTH SYMPHONY.

in this Adagio. The fourth horn was in his good* graces

all through the movement, and a horn -player might well
choose to have engraven on his tomb the beautiful notes
which are given to his instrument — either those already
quoted (No. 50) or the delightful accompaniment of triplets
which we give farther on (No. 58).
As he approaches the end of the variation, Beethoven
gives a specimen of his skill in counterpoint by adding a new
melody in the flute (doubled in the octave below by the oboe)
above the long violin figure, while taking as bass to the passage
a portion of the primal melody of the movement. The latter
melody is sustained by the bassoons and two horns, and given
in detached notes in the basses :

No. 57.
Cantabile ,
^ —^ ^o^M. i

Flute & Oboe

^gg ^^l^g^gg^^^fe
_J_. .J.. _J. J M. t

* The fourth horn. An indication of Beethoven's scoring being influenced

by circumstances has been noticed in Symphony No. 4, which is scored for one
flute only, as indeed are the Piano Concertos in C and B flat, the Triple
Concerto (Op. 56), and the Violin ditto. And this while the other orchestral
pieces of the same date have two flutes. In the above cases Beethoven was
probably writing for private or special orchestras. In the present case the
fourth horn may have been a friend to whom he wished to do a special favour.
Professor Prout has referred to a Minuet of Mozart's in which the melody is
given to the second violin and the accompaniment to the first possibly for —
some similar cause (see The Monthly Musical Record, June, 1887).
 SLOW MOVEMENT. CODA. 869

It will not be overlooked that the melody for the flute is

marked with Beethoven's special term Cantabile.

The Coda of the Adagio, like the Coda of the opening
Allegro, is almost more striking and more beautiful than the
body of the movement itself. We cannot resist quoting the
beginning :

No. 58.

Viol. Viol. S

4th Horn

«/ m sf pi. * viol. Fil-r^J>«i

nays ggggiggESES
iS^^Wg^=W» JS I

i r
jjjj esprpss. doi.

m nrm Viol.

&c.

where the A flat (*) and G flat (*) have an effect truly

magical; and the resumption of the florid figuresby the

violin — first in quavers (Cantabile) and then in semiquavers—
with the response of the flute, is too beautiful for words.
Another passage of four bars with a transition into D flat,
shortly after the last quotation, might be headed Vanitas
Vanitatum, for no more solemn or impressive dirge was ever
uttered. But indeed the whole of the Coda is a gem of the
purest lustre. The movement ends without any mark of
pause — a thing carefully observed in all the other sections of
the work. And this is so not only in Beethoven's own first

edition, the proofs of which were repeatedly through his hands,

but in the manuscripts. No indication of a pause at this place
370 NINTH SYMPHONY.

is to be found in any of them. Recollecting his extreme care to

note everything necessary for the exact performance of his
music —a care which increased upon him towards the end
of his life — it seems impossible not to believe that he*
intended the interruption which follows to be as sudden as a
thunder-clap. It is to be hoped that no future Editor
will supply the sts without a word of warning ! Alas ! it is

not improbable.
At the same time, is it possible to make the necessary
changes in the horns and drums to suit the change of key in
the next movement, without a pause? In our own days
it may be done, as Sir Arthur Sullivan showed at the
Leeds Festival of 1889, but in 1823 there were no valve-
horns or other mechanical helps to the player, except his
* crooks.'

IV. The disturbance of the beautiful dream which has so

long held us spell-bound is indeed of the roughest description
—a horrible clamour or fanfare, Presto, given with all the
force of the drums and wind instruments, including the
contra-fagotto, or an octave lower than
double bassoon,
the ordinary instrument, which was employed in the Finale to
the C minor Symphony, and is here introduced into the score
for the remainder of the work :

T T T
No. 59. * T
*

Presto.

I
&c.

* Beethoven's care that ail the indications of tempo, &c, should be fully
given in his published works was as minute and unfailing as usual. To give an
 CONNECTION OF VOCAL PORTION. 371

A whole of the cellos and double

dignified recitative by the
basses, to which the composer has affixed this direction,
*
Selon le caractere d'un Recitatif mais in tempo,' seems to
rebuke this demoniacal uproar. We say the whole,' «

because in the *early performances by the Philharmonic

Society it was the custom for Dragonetti to play it as a solo.
True, expression is imperative, as is proved by Schindler's
question to Beethoven on the point in the conversation
books :
'
also ganz so als standen Worte darunter ?
1
exactly, then, as if it had words to it ? 'f but this is a
different thing from giving the passage to a solo player,
however eminent. The rebuke, however, is administered to
no purpose ; the blow is repeated with even aggravated
roughness :

No. 60. Wind

Trumpet

feM^^N
instance from this very Symphony. On September 29, 1826, he writes to
—
Schott— evidently with the proofs in his hands that the D. S. (i.e., Da capo al
Segno) after the last bar of the D major section of the Scherzo (i.e., the Trio)
has been forgotten by the engraver. On January 27, 1827, he again points out
the same omission, giving also the page of the score (73). Will it be believed
that after all this care the score was published without any indication that the
Scherzo was to be repeated ? Another indication relating to p. 65 of the
score, corrected by him in the same letter of January 27, was also neglected.
(See Nohl'sNeue Briefe Beethovens, pp. 290, 297, 298). Surely with so sensitive
an eye he would not have omitted to notice that the rr\ was left out at the end
of the Adagio if he had intended it to be there !

* David's letter to Mendelssohn on the performance of May 3, 1841

(Eckardt's Ferdinand David, p. 123). Also C. Severn to A. C. White, in
Musical Association Proceedings, 1886-7, p. 106.
f Nohl, Beethoven, iii., p. 484.
372 NINTH SYMPHONY.

Again the basses interpose, and then a remarkable passage

occurs in which Beethoven passes in review each of the
preceding three movements, as if to see whether either of
them will suit for his Finale. All this singular passage
as truly dramatic '
as if it had words to it '
— is Beethoven's
device, of which Schindler tells us (and indeed gives, in the
facsimile of Beethoven's writing at the *end of his Biography),
to connect Schiller's words with his previous music. Hitherto,
in the three orchestral movements, Beethoven has been
depicting '
Joy ' in his own proper character : first, as part
of the complex life of the individual man; secondly, for
the world at large ; thirdly, in all the ideal hues that art
can throw over it. He has now to illustrate what Schiller
intended in his Ode, and the method he adopts of connecting
what he has done with what he has to do is truly a simple
one, but it is effectual. He makes a horrible clamour and
then says: '
friends, not these noises! as we are to sing
about this great thing in words, let us sing the words of
the immortal Schiller.' But will the themes of any of
'

the preceding movements be suitable for the new under-

taking ? Let us try. The first few bars of each move-
'

ment are then brought on in order, and each is instantly

dismissed by its author, speaking through the voices of his

cellos and double basses the Allegro and Scherzo are even
;

sent back with some show of impatience. The heavenly

opening of the melody of the Adagio, though but two bars,
alone has power to shake his resolution, and the recitative
which succeeds it is softer in tone, and almost caressing
in manner, though still sternly antagonistic in its con-
clusions. It is too plain that no portion of his preceding

movements will suit him to express the new idea. At

lengthwe hear a new, fresh motif stealing-in in the wind
instruments

* See Schindler, ii., p. 55, and facsimile, No. 1.

 ANNOUNCEMENT OF SUBJECT OF FINALE. 373

No. 61.

Alio, assai. Oboe

and then at last not only the basses, but other members of
the orchestra welcome the dew ex machind with every mark
of applause. It is only a sketch of the great tune which is to

come, but it contains infinite promise.

If not too technical for these imperfect notices, it is right
to mention here the slight point by which Beethoven has
differenced his sketch of the new subject from the perfect
theme as it appears later, and which gives it a distinct
flavour. There it is frankly in the tonic of D major (see
the next quotation) here it is in the dominant of the key,
;

over a pedal A
and he has even enforced the fact by
;

marking the Gtl in the score in the fourth and twelfth notes
of the second bassoon, which had had G# in the preceding
bar.
And now the Finale begins in earnest. First we have the
theme, the prediction of which has just been welcomed —the
result, as we have seen, of years and years of search, and
worthy of all the pains that have been lavished on it, for a
nobler or more enduring tune surely does not exist. Bee- '

thoven,' says Wagner finely, '

has emancipated this melody
from all and variations of taste, and has
influences of fashion
raised it and lasting humanity.' And
into a type of pure
here, just before we enter upon this grand melody, think of
the astonishing boldness and originality, and yet the perfect
propriety in so great a master of the orchestra in giving —
out with the Band a theme which was to be varied by the
Chorus! Beethoven still lingers among his beloved instru-
874 NINTH SYMPHONY.

ments, as if unwilling to forsake them for a field less

peculiarly bis own. *
Whenan idea occurs to me,' said
he, * I always hear it in some instrument or other never in —
the voice.'
And now, here at last is the theme of the Finale, frankly,
as we have said, in the key of D major :

No. 62.

^^
Allegro assai.

mw-f^W^-- Cellos and Basses p

:

«
r-g-7^- z(g S=t
*o£-
m
^^^^Ep^^^^^^i
cres. /-s

p
*=£l
t=± ^Ffff^F :£=*?:
-*-r

And note —while we are still listening to the simple tune

itself, before the variations begin —how very simple it is ; the
plain diatonic scale, not a single chromatic interval, and
out of fifty-six notes only three not consecutive. Much the
same is the case with the melody of the vocal Finale to the
Choral Fantasia ; the melody in the Adagio of the Grand Trio
in B flat ; the Adagio of the Fourth Symphony, and others of
Beethoven's noblest and most enduring themes. It is indeed

a grand and pregnant tune. Schubert could not escape the

spell of it in his Great Symphony in C see the working-out —
of the Finale of that noble work immediately after the
double -bar :

No. 63.

&*£=& e
-ne-ff.

m
But to return to Beethoven. The tune is first given soft,

stealing upon the ear piano in the double basses and

 FINALE. THE SUBJECT ITSELF. 375

cellos alone ; then it is taken up by cellos and violas with an

independent bass, and a separate counterpoint for the
bassoon :

No. 64.
Violas & Cellos p
i=r fcf
39B r^CT"*^
r
p£=*t
i

Fag. p
:J=*i
PP^ &c.

:?=*=£:
Basses sempre p

Next the first violins take it up, accompanied by the whole

of the strings, and with occasional help from the bassoon
and lastly it is given forte by the whole power of the orchestra.
Then comes a Coda containing new features : first a ritornel*
melody :

No. 65.

i ~~T~^ * te :
-S--S-

soz

obviously formed out of a phrase of the principal tune ; then

an accompaniment figure —
No. 66.

Wincf'

m a rhythm which we shall meet again in the accompaniment

* Mendelssohn could not avoid the unconscious influence of this part of the
Symphony any more than Schubert could. This melody (No. 65) is all but
identical with the opening of his lovely Volkslied —
Es ist bestimmt' (Op. 47, '

No. 4).
376 NINTH SYMPHONY.

to one cf the vocal pieces and closely following

: tliis, a
vague and wistful phrase of one bar, poco ritenente —
No. 67.
P

"W^f
poco ritenente.

almost conveying the impression that he was uncertain or

unwilling to proceed farther in his task — an impression
which is strengthened by the repetition of the phrase four
times, in the four strangely unrelated keys of A major,
B minor, E flat minor, and A major again.
And yet noble and endearing as this great tune appears to
us — fully meriting Wagner's warm eulogium just quoted — so
far in advance of its time was and ableit that we find ripe
musicians like Spohr and Oulibicheff speaking of it in the most
depreciatory terms. Oulibicheff *finds in the theme of the
Finale no reflex of the fiery words of Schiller, and the
*

immense and sublime feeling which animates them but a ;

languishing Cantilene repeating itself over and over again,

and furnishing no images but those of age and exhaustion!'
He even suggests that it has been borrowed from the old
Grossvatertanz of the German nurseries, as another sapient
critic, Ortlepp,-)- derives it from the old hymn, Freu dich sehr, '

o meine Seele '—

No. 68.

fe^^^^^rrt^^^^^
Freu dich sehr, o mei -ne See - le, und ver - giss all Noth und Qual.

* Oulibicheff, Biog. de Mozart (1843), iii., 247, 248.

201.
f Lenz, Beethoven et ses trois styles (1852), i.,
 FINALE. FIRST RECITATIVE. 877

It is more to the point to notice, as Herr Wasie-

lewsky* has Beethoven himself has closely
done, that
anticipated his great subject in a song (Op. 83, No. 3) of
1810 to Goethe's words-

No. <

Klei - lie Bin - men, klei-ne Blat-ter.

Spohr, while tjudging the first three movements to be,

<
in spite of occasional flashes of genius, inferior to either of
the previous eight Symphonies,' finds the Finale '
so
monstrous and tasteless, and as an expression of Schiller's
Ode so trivial, that he cannot understand how a genius like

Beethoven can have put it on paper.'

And now, that he may carry out consistently the plan
which he had conceived for introducing Schiller's poem,
Beethoven again suddenly dismisses his irresolution, and
allows his music to be interrupted by the horrible cry which
we have heard twice already, and which might well be an
impersonation of the opposite to all that is embodied in the
1
Ode to Joy.' But this time the rebuke of the prophet finds
an articulate voice, and Beethoven addresses us in his own
words and through the bass singer, in a noble strain of florid
recitative :

1
Freunde, nicht diese Tone Sondern lasst uns !

angenehmere anstimmen und freudenvollere !

'

'
friends, no more these sounds But let us sing some- !

thing more cheerful, and more full of gladness

'

* L. van Beethoven, ii. , 258.

f Selbstbiographie, i., 202.

378 NINTH SYMPHONY.

This recitative stands in the score as follows :•

No. 70.

Baeitone Solo. Becitative.

Si t^fe gg>3t=1=^
Freun de, nicht die - se T6-ne son-dern

!
—— mmm '
SEE,

v-t-
lasst uus an - " - ge - neh- me-re an-stimmen,

frf,*1% —p. — J
,~{* ad
— lib.

liit--w^ -i ^
-* Pi >o fr- pT-r-r":
Pj^«
i

1 ! v
^£fi£ N=

imd freu den-Yolle-re.

But the latter part was too much for Preisinger, a basso

profondo who was engaged to sing the part ; and, notwith-

standing Beethoven's dislike to changes for the sake of
executants, and his rebuffs to MademoisellesSontag and
Ungher, we are told by Schindler* that Beethoven altered
it as f follows, both in range and length :

No. 71.

und freu den-vol-le-re.

With which exhortation and a third repetition of the four

noisy bars we enter the vocal portion of the Symphony. The
whole of the following six numbers are formed on the great
melody so recently played (No. 62), or on motifs formed out of
it or upon it.

* Biography, ii. , 78.

f Preisinger, however, did not sing it after all ; but at the performance it

was taken by Seipelt with one rehearsal (Schindler, ii., 78).

 Beethoven's alteration of schillek's worst 379

1. Quartet and Chorus Allegro assai. (D major.)

Freude, schoner Gotterfunken, Sing,Jthen,oftheheav'n-descended

Tochter aus Elysium, Daughter of the starry realm,
Wir betreten f euertrunken, Joy by love and hope attended,
Himmlische, dein Heiligthum. Joy whose raptures overwhelm
Deine Zauber binden wieder,
Joy whose magic re-uniteth
Was die Mode streng getheilt.*
All that custom sternly parts ;

Alle Menschen werden Briider,

Brothers all whom joy delighteth,
Wo dein sanfter Fliigel weilt.
Reconciler sweet of hearts

Wem der grosse Wurf gelungen, Ye who own the crowning treasure,
Loyal heart of faithful friend,
Eines Freundes Freund zu sein,
ein holdes Weib errungen, Ye whose love is woe and pleasure,
fWer
Mische seinen Jubel ein To our strain your voices lend.
—
Ja wer auch nur eine Seele Yea, who e'er mid life's delusion,
Sein nennt auf dem Erdenrund One fond heart hath called his
Und wer's nie gekonnt, der stehle own,
Weinend sick aus diesem Bund. Join us— but on him confusion,
Who nor love nor joy hath known.
Freude trinken alle Wesen Draughts of Joy from cup o'er-
An den Briisten der Natur flowing,
Alle Guten, alle Bosen Bounteous Nature freely gives j
Folgen ihrer Rosenspur Grace to just and unjust showing,
Kiisse gab sie uns und Reben, Blessing everything that lives.
Einen Freund, geprtif t im Tod
Wine she gave to us and kisses,
Wollust ward dem Wurm gegeben,
Friend to gladden our abode,
Und der Cherub stent vor Gott 1

E'en the worm can feel life's blisses,

And the Seraph dwells with God.
Freude, schoner Gotterfunken, &c. Sing, then, of the heav'n-descended
&c.

* A historical interest attaches to this line. Schiller is said to have first

written it '
Was der Mode Schwert zertheilt,' —That
which Fashion's sword
divides. Beethoven in composing the line in its later form (as above) substituted
frech (audaciously) for streng (strictly) and frech will be found in the first bar of
p. 207 of the first folio score —
in No. 5 of the Finale. It has, however, been
erased by the publishers of the subsequent editions in favour of Schiller's word
streng, and Beethoven's alteration is no longer to be found.
t It will be remembered that these two lines form a part of the libretto of
Beethoven's 'Fidelio.'
X This version, by Lady Macfarren, is now generally adopted in performance

and is used in Messrs. Novello's edition of the vocal score.

880 NINTH SYMPHONY.

This begins with a bass solo on the tune itself, in-

troduced by the four bars which predict the tune (see
No. and afterwards
61), beautifully accompanied in inde-
pendent counterpoint by the oboes and clarinets. The
wealth of melody in such accompaniments throughout this
number is extraordinary. Here is a fragment of one of the
tunes

Wir be-tre-ten feu -ertrunlcen, &c. Dei - ne Zau-ber,&c.

Joy by love and hope attend-ed, &c. Joy whose magic, <fcc.

sa^^m WfL
•£=X
&c.

gfp^^^gEj E

(in which observe (at a) the Beethovenish touch of repeating a

phrase in notes of half the value). There is another accom-
paniment—quite as independent— in the flute and bassoon,
and the melody quoted in No. 65 also appears furtively, in the
flutes, as a ritornel. After the bass solo the chorus and quartet
join in, at first with the melody in crotchets, but towards the
end in a more florid shape :

SSE*g£g^jg
Freu de trin-ken al-le -We- sen, An den Briisten der Na-tur;
Draughts of joy from cup o'er-flowing, Bounteous Na-ture free-ly gives];
 Beethoven's idea of cherubim. 381

with a jubilant accompaniment in the strings :

No. 74.
„ tr tr tr^-^ <r.

sfi.mnnrp. 40 N
•^ sempre
p —y *^^*m taHii Eiin
£
The foregoing sparkling figures and the loud fiery accom-
paniment of the following nature, in double octaves, given to
the long high holding notes which carry the words vor '

Gott '—

No. 75.

ff Gott vor Gott

m&*&
Strings in double 8ves.

seem to show that Beethoven's conception of the Cherubim

who surrounded the throne of the Almighty was of a *fiery
being. They do not inspire him with the awe which he feels
when he contemplates the '
loving Father dwelling above the
tent-roof of the stars, with His children bowing down before
Him,' in the impressive passage which terminates the next
movement but one. (See page 385).

2. Tenor Solo and Chorus : Allegro assai vivace: alia Marcia,

(B flat, &c.)

Froh, wie seine Sonnen fliegen Glad as suns thro' ether wending
Durch des Himmels pracht'gen Their flaming course with might
Plan, pursue,
Laufet, Briider, eure Bahn, Speed ye brothers glad and true.
Freudig, wie ein Held zum Siegen. Conquest in your train attending.

Freude, schoner Gotterfunken, &g. ?

Sing, then, of the heav n-descended,
&c.

* Thisthe interpretation of 'Seraph' rather than of Cherub' in the Jewish

is '

writers. See Gesenius's Lexicon, under each of the words. But Beethoven
had no taste for such etymological enquiries.
382 NINTH SYMPHONY.

For these stanzas we seem to come down from Leaven to

earth; but a splendid earth, full of the pomp and circumstance
and also the griefs of war. This is a showy military march-
movement with big drum, piccolo, flute, triangle, cymbals, and
all other apparatus of warlike parade. It begins with a long
wind only (contra-fagotto very
orchestral introduction, for the
prominent), on the following variation of the theme in 6-8 :

No. 76.
Alia marcia.

*T TTlntAS
Flutes
^aFf
Allegro assai vivace.

&
ft. P.lai
Clars. pp
i^^^l^i IT—:
3e=£

&c.
at* rrtr=g
Then follows the tenor solo :

No. 77.

:g±
Froh,
3^
xoiesein-e
-P^-P- p=£
Son-nen
a^!=K:

/ro7?, Son-nen, sein - e file - gen,

Glad, glad, glad as his suns, his suns thro' e - ther wend - ing,

supported, after thirty-six bars, by a chorus of men's voices

then a long orchestral interlude with the signatures of B flat

and B minor, containing some beautiful points, especially a

diminuendo episode, eighteen bars in length, for horns, oboes,
and bassoons, beginning with a very arresting passage for
horns in octaves. The whole episode might well convey the
poet's dread at the thought of battle*

No. 78. Oboes 1 & 2,

& Fag. 8va.
j
m±

Stx.p
1

* The figure of the oboes and bassoons (bars 5 and 6, 11 and 12 of the
quotation) will be recognised as a part of the original main theme.
 TKICKS IN PERFOKMANCE, 383

piu pp pp sempre

and lastly a short chorus in D major.* The following phrase,

beginning in the basses and gradually pervading the whole
orchestra, is largely used in the accompaniment of this
movement :

No. 79.
-*- 4*1?.

?:
f^ i=— :

sempre ff
'
^^= r& j « ^= - _r_ r i

3. Chorus : Andante maestoso. (G major.)

Seid umschlungen, Millionen ye millions, I embrace ye,
Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt Here's a joyful kiss for all
—
Bruder iiberm Sternenzelt To the power that here doth place ye,
Muss ein lieber Vater wohnen. Brothers, let us prostrate fall.

* At the performance of the Symphony at Moscheles's '

Morning Concert,'
at the Hanover Square Rooms, May 23rd, 1838, Mr. Moscheles introduced an
organ accompaniment to the latter part of the Finale. Mr. Turle will preside
'

at the organ in the Choral part of the Symphony such is the advertisement ' ;

in the Musical World, May 10, 1838. It begins eighteen bars before the entry
of the chorus in D major in this movement, and lasts, with considerable
intermissions, to the end of the work. It is obviously intended to sustain the
voices which are so sorely tried in some of the choruses. The title of the MS.
which I have had an opportunity of inspecting through the kindness of my
friend, Mr. Felix Moscheles, is as follows Organ Beethoven's Ninth :
'
:

Symphony, movement written for the use of the Philharmonic Society by

last ;

I. Moscheles, May, 1838.' The accompaniment was used at the Society's next
performance, May 3, 1841 since F. David, then in London, mentions it in his
;

letter toMendelssohn of the 4th. Yesterday I heard the Ninth Symphony

'
.

conducted by Moscheles and, would you believe it ? the bass recitative in the
;

last movement was played by old Dragonetti as a solo. In the " stiirzet nieder,
Millionen " there was an organ accompaniment, and in several places the voice
parts were greatly altered. If Moscheles plays such tricks, what can be
expected from others?' (Eckardt, Ferdinand David, &c. (Leipzig, 1888),
p. 123. See also Musical World, May 10 and 31, 1841, pp. 40, 84.)
384 NINTH SYMPHONY,

Adagio ma non troppo, ma divoto. (G major.)

*Ihr stiirzt nieder, Millionen ? ye millions, kneel before Him,
Ahnest du den Schopfer, Welt ? Tremble, earth, before thy Lord,
Such' ihn uberm Sternenzelt Mercy holds His flashing sword,
Ueber Sternen muss er wohnen. As our Father we implore Him

This movement is throughout choral, and as distinctly

religious in character as the last was military. The three
trombones appear here in the score for the first time, and the
chorus opens with the following subject for the tenors aud
basses in unison finely sustained by the solemn tones of the
,

bass trombone :—
No. 80.
Andante maestoso. SL
Sr &- 42. &- & -

2=Z
!H=t
Seidumschlungen,Mil
m - li-on-en, Dies-en Euss der gan-zen Welt.
O ye mil-lions, I . . embrace ye, Here's a joy-ful kiss for all.

— answered by the full chorus, with grand accompaniment in

the following imposing figure :—

No. 81.

:p-^e
-A
s
Contrafagotto col Bassi
I^^^^Eg£3=g£NiNg
* These words occur in the final chorus of the Cantata on the accession of
the Emperor Leopold II. to the throne of Austria, composed by Beethoven
in 1790 :—
Stiirzet nieder, Millionen, an dem rauchenden Altar.
TuttiSva. I i i

l
i

fA J *E* M. J. J. J-

m^ -r&-

Stiir-zet nie
izr^

- der,
j£L *=

Mil - li - on- en, an dem rauch-en-den Al - tar.

There is no similarity between the two pieces of music, '

and yet,' says Dr.
Hanslick, in the Neue Freie Presse, May 13, 1884, the Cantata unconsciously '

reminds one of this Symphony as if, after thirty years, a dim recollection of the
;

identity of the words had visited Beethoven in composing Schiller's Ode.' It is

an interesting coincidence. The Cantata is published in the Supplement to
Breitkopf and Hartel's large edition (Serie 25, No. 265).
 MYSTERY AND DEVOTION. 385

The second portion (Adagio ma non troppo, ma divoto) opens

with a passage of interlude, in which the wood instruments,
cellos and violas produce a beautiful effect. This is a most
impressive piece, full of mystery and devotion, especially at

the words, Ueber Sternen muss

* er wohnen.' The accom-
paniments are wonderfully original and beautiful throughout,,
and by keeping the voices and instruments in the upper
registers, Beethoven has produced an effect which is not
easily forgotten. The flutes, oboes, and clarinets seem to
wing their way up among the stars themselves. The germ
of this most mystical and beautiful effect is found in the
Finale to Fidelio
* and then more developed in the Choral
; '

Fantasia. It has been alluded to by Schumann in the Finals

to the third part of his ' Faust.'

4. Chorus : Allegro energico sempre ben marcato.

}
(D major.)
Freude, schoner, &g. Sing then of the, &c.
Seidumschlungen, Millionen,&c. ye millions, &o.

Beethoven does not intend his hearers to remain in this

mood of mystic devotion. The next movement is a chorus of
extraordinary energy and formed on two motifs
spirit. It is —
the original tune (in triple time), supported by trumpet and
trombones, and the theme of the last chorus, which we now
discover to have a most intimate relation with the main
theme— and it starts thus :—

No. 82. Freu de, schdn er Gott er - funk en,

Sing then of the Heav'n de - scend ed,

J- J. J-J.

ff ff
386 NINTH SYMPHONY.

Toch
Daugh

The brilliant accompaniment for the violins is afterwards

transferred to the basses.
This is one of the most trying movements in the work for
the chorus, and though not so exacting as the well-known
passage of the Credo of the *Mass in D —where the sopranos
lead off the subject of the Et vitam venturi with four high
'
'

B flats — it has a passagef in which the high A natural has to

be sustained for twelve bars, as well as other all but impossible
feats. Many representations and remonstrances were addressed
at the time to Beethoven, not only by Sontag and Ungher,
but by the % chorus-master, but without effect, he would
change nothing and it is affecting (though not unnatural) to
;

find that at last the singers were compelled by the necessities

of the case either to be silent in these impossible passages or
to take advantage of Beethoven's deafness and sing what they
could for what he had written. § The only exception he
made was for Preisinger, the bass singer and that we have
;

already noticed. Moscheles took his own remedy, which will

be seen in his version of Schindler.|| He was certainly
carrying Beethoven's hint (see page 313) into practice, and
1
helping himself.'

* Page 167 of the first folio edition (page 84 of Novello's 8vo score).

f Page 190 of the first folio edition.

% Schindler, Biography, ii., 76.

§ Ibid.,?. 77.

j| His alterations are given in his Life of Beethoven, 1841, ii., pp. 19-22,
 THE FINALE. 387

5. Quabtet and Chorus : Allegro ma non tanto. (D major.)

Freude, schoner Gotterfunken, &c. Sing we of the, &c.
Deine Zauber binden wieder, &c. Joy whose magic, &c.

This is for solos and chorus alternately. It opens with

four bars of introduction, in which the original theme is at
once given in shorter notes (' in diminution ' is the technical
term), and treated with close imitation :—

No. 83. Allegro ma non tanto.

Viol. 2
Viola.

After four bars of this the solo voices enter with a motif to
the words, *
Joy, whose magic,' &c, which, though related to
the original one, is new, and not unlike one of Mozart's gay,
spontaneous little themes:

No. 84.

t=t
Toch ter,Toch-ter aus E - li - si -um.
Joy, . thou daugh-ter of the star- ry realm.

Farther on the soli soprano and tenor (and afterwards the

alto and bass) move in strict '
canon '
with one another :

No. 85.
SOPBANO.
j-J-UU^j 4—1- J-J

Dei
Joy,
- ne Zauber,
thy magic^^g
x ENO r.' '
w~w '
nn^TT ^ ^r n '
' '
'
1
WZZ0Z "
r
"

Zauher Unden wieder, &c

Joy, thy magic, &c.

The movement contains a cadence for the solo voices of the

most elaborate kind, Poco adagio, at once very difficult, very
388 NINTH SYMPHONY.

singular, and very beautiful it has a strong resemblance in

;

effect, though not in passages, to the cadenza in the Mass

in D, near the end of the Et vitam.' For this the sig-

'

nature is changed to that of B natural, and a double-bar

drawn through the score.* At the close of the cadence ten
bars of increasingly rapid Allegro connect the number with
the final movement.

6. Chorus : Prestissimo. (D major.)

Seid umschlungen, Millionen, <fec. | ye millions, I embrace ye.

This is the Coda to the Finale, and is on a theme closely

related to the second theme of No. 81, but in shorter notes,
and entirely altered in character. The noisy military
instruments here re-appear in the score :

No. 86.
Prestissimo.

lferi^J']T=rr7Tr=g ^^^^
Unis. -Seid um-schlungen, Mil- li • on- en, Dies - en Kuss der ganz-en Welti
O ye mil-lions, I embrace ye, Here's a joy - ful kiss for alL

Near the close the sudden introduction of four bars, maestoso,

makes a remarkable effect, after which the Prestissimo returns,
and the chorus ends with a mighty shout :

Tochter aus Elisium, Daughter of the starry realm,

Freude, schoner GdUerfunken Sing we of the Heav'n-descended I

Gotterf unken 1 Heav'n-descended

Such is Beethoven's music in his last Symphony. The first

threemovements contain his most human and some of his
most beautiful orchestral strains and if in the Finale a;

* For some reason — doubtless a good one — Beethoven makes this change
three bars after the beginning of the cadenza. The editor of the critical and
correct edition of Messrs. Breitkopf and Hartel, with that curious disregard of
the composer's wishes which we have elsewhere noticed, takes upon himself,
without a word of notice, to introduce the double-bar four measures earlier
 Schiller's extravagances. 389

restless, boisterous spirit occasionally manifests itself, not in

keeping with the English feeling of the solemnity, even the
sanctity, of the subject, this is only a reflection, and by no
means an exaggerated bad taste which is
reflection, of the
manifested in parts of the lines adopted from Schiller's Ode,
and which Beethoven, no doubt, thought it was his duty to
carry out in his music. That he did not entirely approve of
such extravagance may be inferred from the fact that, in
his selection of the words, he has omitted some of the more
flagrant escapades, as will be seen by comparing the Ode itself,
which is given entire at the end of these remarks.
Such lines as those which close the thirteenth and fourteenth
stanzas of the Ode are only intelligible in connection with
the solemn scenes described when we remember the frantic
delight so widely felt throughout the Continent at the
magnificent prospects held out by the philosophers of France,
and which more or less upset even the best spirits of the times
which in four years after the date of Schiller's poem were to
culminate in the Revolution and the Reign of Terror, and the
recollection of which several years later probably influenced
even our own Wordsworth, in his splendid Ode, to use the
words 'jollity' and 'shouts,' and to impersonate the universal
gladness under the image of a hot, noisy young rustic*

Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy shepherd-boy.

We must also remember that Beethoven — and it throws a

strong light on the sobriety and dignity of his genius —had
already uttered his raptures at the new era in the '
Eroica
'

Symphony, the conception of which dates from 1797,

first

many years before the date of the Ninth, and which does not
contain a trace of extravagance.

We have witnessed the reception of the Symphony in

Vienna. In Germany the welcome was naturally not so warm.

* '
Ode on the Intimations of Immortality,' &c. (1803-6), Stanza 3.
390 NINTH SYMPHONY.

The first performance outside Austria appears to have taken

place at the concert of Herr Guhr — a Kapellmeister to whom
Mendelssohn was indebted for an autograph of Bach's and
much* else at — Frankfort, on Good Friday, April 1, 1825.
The second was at the Lower Khine Festival of May 23 of
the same year, at Aix-la-Chapelle. The performance was
conducted by Beethoven's pupil, F. Kies, but it cannot be
called satisfactory, inasmuch as the whole of the second
movement and part of the Adagio were omitted. It is not
necessary to quote the report of the Allg. musik. Zcitung,-\ but
its tendency may be inferred from its concluding words In :
*

spite of all, we may say of Beethoven, as has been said of

Handel, great even in his mistakes.' At the Gewandhaus
Concerts at Leipzig the work was brought forward under
Schulz, the then conductor, on March 6, 1826. After this the
following appeal appeared in the newspaper of three days later
(March 9) :
'
A request. The honourable board of directors of
the Concerts is most earnestly requested to give, if possible, a
second performance of Beethoven's last Symphony at the
Concert for the poor onPalm Sunday, that a repetition of this
noble poem may enable its inmost depths to be revealed. In the
names of several friends of music, 'i Doubtless in obedience
to this request, a second performance took place on March
29th, and a third was given on October 19th of the same
year (the second of these without the Finale). A long
and adverse criticism of the last of the three (doubtless by
Fink) will be found in the A. m. Z. of that year, p. 853.
*
Beethoven is still a magician and it has pleased him on
;

this occasion to raise something supernatural to which this ;

critic does not consent.' These judgments cannot be

wondered at. The standpoint of the work is in advance of that

* Mendelssohn, Letter, June 18, 1839.

f xxvii. (1825), 447*

J Dorffel, Festschrift ; 'Chronik,' p. 58.

 Mendelssohn's performance on the piano. 391

of even the latest of Splendid and beautiful

its predecessors.
as several of the orchestral movements are, they contained

none which at once fastened on the world as the Allegrettos of

No. 7 and No. 8 had done while in addition to its length and
;

its native strangeness and frequent obscurity, there was the

executive difficulty of the music, which was really above* the

heads of the orchestras of the day, and the serious obstacle of
the novelty of the vocal Finale. Some such consideration
may have induced Moser, then a concert- director in Berlin,
to take the singular course of engaging young Felix Mendels-
sohn, then a lad of seventeen, to play the work through or
the piano as an introduction to an orchestral performance a
fortnight later.Mendelssohn's feat took place on the 13th
ofNovember, 1826, at the Jagerhall, at Berlin, before the most
eminent musicians and amateurs of the city, and a report of
itwas made at the time by L. Rellstab —who turned over for
him on the occasion — which is given in his Gesammelte
Schriften, xx., p. 5. Moser' s orchestral performance took
place on the 27th of the same month.
The first performance at the Gewandhaus Concerts, under
Mendelssohn's direction, took place on February 11, 1836.
Schumann thought the tempi too f rapid, but in other respects
doeshim justice. For instance, in the concert of February
11, 1841, he notices J the note of the bass trombone at the
beginning of the Trio, which Mendelssohn had brought out
for the first time with an astonishing effect, giving quite a
'

new life to the passage.'

With all her unusual opportunities for music Mendelssohn's
sister Fanny, strange to say, had not heard the Symphony
till 1836, when she heard it under her brother's baton at

* Even when they had a fair chance What hope could there have been
!

when, as at the concert mentioned by Hanslick (Geschichte Concerlwesen in

Wien, p. 62), the conductor had never seen the score !

+ Gesam. Schriften (Ed. 1), ii., 214.

± Ibid., iv., 98.

892 NINTH SYMPHONY.

Dusseldorff. Her remarks upon it are worth reading, though

they were probably modified as she became acquainted with the
music. '
This gigantic Ninth Symphony,' says she,*
which is '

so grand and in parts so abominable, as only the work of the

greatest composer could be, was played as if by one man the ;

finest nuances, the most hidden meanings were expressed to

perfection; the masses fell into shape, the music became
comprehensible, and for the most part exquisitely beautiful.
A gigantic tragedy with a conclusion meant to be f dithyrambic,
but falling from its height into the opposite extreme into —
burlesque.'
In Paris, Habeneck, with his usual caution, deferred the
production till he had had sufficient rehearsals and it was ;

first performed at the Conservatoire Concert of March 27,

1831. J After that time, and after a little coquetting with

the instrumental movements only, it took a regular place in
the programmes.
In England the Symphony was first heard at the Phil-
harmonic Society, at a concert of the early date of March 21,
1825, conducted by Sir George Smart. The score was not yet
published, and a MS. copy had been obtained from Beethoven,
still in the possession of the Society, which, though not wholly
an autograph, had been corrected throughout by him and bore
these words, in his own hand, on the title-page Grosse :
'

Symphonie geschrieben fur die Philharmonische Gesellschaft

in London, von Ludwig van Beethoven. Erster Satz.'
(' Grand Symphony written for the Philharmonic Society of

London by Ludwig van Beethoven. First Movement.') The

words of the Finale were translated into § Italian, and the
solos were sung by Madame Caradori, Miss Goodall, Mr.

* Die Familie Mendelssohn (Ed. 2), ii., 9.

f Dithyrambic
'
: Any poem written with wildness and enthusiasm.'
Johnson.
X A year earlier than No. 8.
§ A prose English version was printed on the programme -card for the
information of the hearers.
 PERFORMANCE BY PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY. 393

Vaughan, and Mr. Phillips. The performance lasted for one

hour and four minutes.
Sir George Smart had taken great pains on the occasion.
We do not know how many rehearsals there were, but the
work met with no favour from the audience, as is evident
from the remarks in the Harmo?iicon, at that time the
loading musical paper in London, edited by Wm. Ayrton, a
musician of much intelligence, and, for the time, of liberal
views. But, as we have already said, no proper judgment
could be expected, either here or in Germany, in the teeth of
a poor performance and extreme novelty, from gentlemen who
were not only far behind the great composer whom they were
criticising, but believed themselves to be so far his superiors
as even to advise him how to modify his work that it might
obtain their approbation.*
Apropos of the rehearsal or trial— probably there was only one
— Wm. Ayrton saysf that the composition '
embodies enough
and skilful contrivances,
of original matter, of beautiful effects
to form an admirable Symphony of ordinary duration, but
that unfortunately the author has spun it out to so unusual a
length that he has drawn out the thread of his verbosity finer
than the staple of his argument.' Of the performance itself,

a month | later, he remarks :

The new Symphony of Beethoven, composed

*
for, and
purchased at a liberal price by, this society, was now first
publicly produced. We see no reason for altering the opinion
offered in our last number. ...
In the present Symphony
we discover no diminution of Beethoven's creative talent it ;

* Mendelssohn, of course, was in a different boat and yet I fear that there
;

is no doubt that he made cuts in Schubert's great Symphony for the performance
at Leipzig. Berlioz, too, allowed himself some strange freaks in reference to
Weber's Freischutz.'
'

f Harmonicon, 1825, p. 47. It is difficult to understand the statement (p. 48)

that the Symphony would take an hour and twenty minutes in performance.
+ Ibid., p. 69.
394 NINTH SYMPHONY.

exhibits many perfectly new

and in its technical
traits,

formation shews amazing ingenuity and unabated vigour

of mind. But with all the merits which it unquestionably
possesses, it is at least twice as long as it should be ; it repeats
itself, and the subjects in consequence become weak by
reiteration. The last movement, a chorus, is heterogeneous,
and though there is much vocal beauty in parts of it, yet it
does not, and no habit will ever make it, mix up with the
first three movements. This chorus is a hymn to joy,
commencing with a recitative, and relieved by many soli
passages. What relation it bears to the Symphony we could
not make out; and here, as well as in other parts, the want of
intelligible design is too apparent. . . . The most original feature
in this Symphony is the Minuet, and the most singular part,
the succeeding Trio — striking, because in duple time, for
which we are not acquainted with anything in the shape of a
precedent. We were also much pleased by a very noble march
which is introduced. In quitting the present subject, we must
express oar hope that this new work of the great Beethoven
may be put into a produceable form ; that, the repetitions may
be omitted, and the chorus removed altogether. The Symphony
will then be heard with unmixed pleasure, and the reputation
of its author will, if possible, be further augmented.'
The next performance in London was on April 26, 1830, at
the concert of Mr. Charles Neate, a well-known musician of
the time, who had spent a year in very intimate contact with
Beethoven. George Smart was the conductor. The Phil-
Sir
harmonic Society resumed their performances on April 17,
1837; April 23, 1838; and May 3, 1841, &c. each time ;

under the conduct of Moscheles. On March 26, 1855, the

Symphony was given under the conduct of Wagner.
The following performances are also recorded the Koyal :

Academy of Music, June 20, 1835, and again April 15, 1836.
Mr. Charles Lucas conducted both times, and Oxenford's trans-
lation was first used the Societa Armonica, March 24, 1836,
;
 LATER PERFORMANCES IN LONDON. 395

conductor, Mr. H. Forbes; at Drury Lane Theatre for the

Beethoven Monument at Bonn, July 19, 1837, conductor,

Mr. Moscheles Moscheles's Morning Concert, May 23, 1838
;

(already mentioned). London can hardly be said to have

been wanting in anxiety to hear the masterpiece !

An epoch in the history of the Ninth Symphony in this

country is formed by the performances of the so-called New
Philharmonic Society, under Berlioz and Spohr,in 1852 (twice)
and 1853 respectively. They were held in Exeter Hall, and
many persons then heard this mighty work for the first time.
A fresh translation was made by Gr. Linley. —At the Crystal
Palace it was first performed on April 22, 1865, and has been
played twenty-five times since. now one of the most It is

attractive pieces that can be given inLondon, and even if

the *proposal of Dr. von Biilow to perform it twice at one
concert, with an interval of half-an-hour between the two
performances, were attempted, we should probably be
astounded at the number who would remain to the second
In the United States the first performance was given on
May 20, 1846, by the Philharmonic Society of New York.f
There would seem to be a certain difference between the
position of the Ninth Symphony in England and in other
countries. It is received with a special sentiment by
Englishmen, a sentiment which attaches to no other of the
nine. When classical orchestral music began to be brought
before the public of non-professional hearers, through the
performances of the New Philharmonic '
and the Crystal '

Palace, the Choral Symphony, to those who heard it, as many

did, for the first time, assumed a special position outside its
individual musical qualities. This was more or less based
on the following facts. It was Beethoven's last and greatest

* This was carried into effect at the Berlin Philharmonic Concert of March 6,
1889.

f See The Philharmonic Society of New York, by Henry Edward Krehbiel,

1892.
896 NINTH SYMPHONY.

orchestral work. It was said to be extraordinarily difficult, if

not impossible of execution. It stood alone among Symphonies
as having a chorus. This flavoured the whole performance,
and one felt through the Finale a desponding sympathy with
the singers, who, do their best, could never execute their
parts properly. It was strangely different from Handel's
choruses, at that time to English hearers the accepted model
for choral music. It was
most part pervaded for the
by a lofty, mystical, almost religious tone, which
none of
the others possessed. There never was a doubt in one's
mind that in this work one was entering a higher, more
remote heaven than even the Eroica,' the C minor, or the '

No. 7. Hence the hearing of this work was an event in one's

life and to some, certainly to the writer, this feeling remains.
;

To me, I am happy to say, the Ninth Symphony still possesses

the strange cast and mysterious fascination with which I first
heard it under Berlioz and Spohr in 1852 and 1853. Com-
parisons are always undesirable, but sometimes they are
inevitable. The impression left by Mont Blanc or the Great
Pyramid is unique, and so is that of the Ninth Symphony.
There can be no doubt that Beethoven's last Symphony is
also his greatest. This was Schumann's opinion. He says :*
•
It seems as if we were at last beginning to understand
that in this work the great man has given us of his greatest.'
In his fletter to von Hatzfeld, the Prussian
Prince
Ambassador at Vienna, Beethoven too says I am just :
'

publishing the greatest Symphony I have yet written — ' die

grosste Symphonie die ich bisher geschrieben '
— (not '
one of
my best,' as in the case of No. 7, see page 270).
These judgments, by the master himself and one of the
greatest of his disciples and followers, have been amply
ratified by the world in the interval, and there is perhaps

* Ges. Schriften, iv., 98. Concert of February 11, 1841.

+ Nohl, Briefe, i., 328, note.

 Beethoven's last years. 397

now no one able to judge who does not fully join in the
opinion that the Ninth Symphony was the climax of
Beethoven's work.

In the last few years of his life, the thoughts of the

composer of '
Fidelio ' and the * Mount of Olives ' often
strayed in the direction of opera and oratorio, but without
any definite result. A large number of MS. opera libretti had
accumulated in his possession, but none of them was to his
mind. What he wanted he told Gerhard von Breuning on his
death-bed. He craved something to interest and absorb him,
but of a moral and elevating tendency, of the nature of Les '

deux journees' or Die Vestalin,' both which he thoroughly

'

approved. Immoral stories like those of Mozart's operas had

no attraction for him, and he could never be brought to set
them.
At the request of the '
Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde ' of
Vienna, Beethoven had undertaken, somewhere about 1818,
an oratorio to a libretto to be supplied by a certain
to write
Herr von Bernard and though he would have preferred a
;

heroic subject to a sacred one, so far did he look upon the

engagement as bona fide that on August 18, 1819, he received
from the Committee a sum of four hundred florins in respect
of the work. It dragged on, however, in spite of repeated
enquiries and remonstrances, and died a natural death in
1826.f
Meantime, in 1823, he received a communication from an
unexpected quarter, the Handel and Haydn Society,' of
'

Boston, U.S.A., inviting him to write a Biblical oratorio for

* This is put in an exaggerated form by the Duchesse d'Abrantes, in the notice

of Beethoven's death in her Memoires sur la Restauration (1837), vii., 69. 70 :

'II pretendait que Mozart ne devait pas prostituer son talent, c'est son mot, .sur
un sujet si scandaleux.'

t See the story in C. F. Pohl's Die Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Wien, 1871,
pp. 8, 10.
398 NINTH SYMPHONY.

them, on a text translated into German from an original in

English by the U.S. Consul at Vienna. This also came to
nothing ; but the attempt will always redound to the lasting
honour of the Boston Society.*
Another very important proposition was made to him by
the eminent publishing firm of Breitkopf and Hartel, of
Leipzig, through fRochlitz, at his visit to Vienna in 1823
— namely, the composition of Faust in a similar style to
'
'

the Egmont music. It seems to have inspired the old

'
'

admirer of Goethe with unusual interest That,' said he, :

'

'
would be a fine piece of work.' Something might be
. . .
'

done with that.' But no progress seems to have been made

with it. He was now probably too far advanced in life to look
with the favour necessary for composition on any subject not
entirely spontaneous.
There was, however, one department of music which
Beethoven still pursued with the greatest success. To the
last two years and a half of his life are due those wonderful
String Quartets which, under the name of posthumous,' '

have been the admiration and astonishment of the world

up to the present time, and which bear a somewhat similar
relation to the earlier Quartets that the Ninth Symphony
bears to the earlier Symphonies. The last Quartet that he
produced before the period of which we are speaking was that
in F minor, Op. 95, which bears his own title, Quartett
serioso, and date of October, 1810. Those of this period are
as follows : —
E flat, Op. 127. 1824.
B flat, Op. 130. 1825.
C* minor, Op. 131. 1826.
A minor, Op. 132. 1825.
F major, Op. 135. 1826.

* See The History of the Handel and Haydn Society (Boston, 1893), p. 87.

f See Rochlitz, Fur Freunde der Tonkunst (Leipzig, 1832), Vol. IV., p. 357.
 BEETHOVEN AND SHAKESPEARE. 399

The very last piece of work completed by the master was

a fresh Finale — the existing one —to the Op. 130, to replace
the extremely long and elaborate fugue which had originally
terminated it, but which is virtually unplayable. (It is now

known intwo forms, as Op. 133 and 134.) The new Finale
was written at Gneixendorf (see page 133), and though dated
November, 1826, within four months of his death, on
March 26, 1827, is extraordinarily gay.

These great works he did as no one ever did, and probably

no one ever will. But of orchestral music he wrote no more
after the Ninth Symphony. Music will advance in richness,
scope, and difficulty; but such music as Beethoven's great
instrumental works, in which thought, emotion, melody, and
romance combine with extraordinary judgment and common
sense, and a truly wonderful industry, to make a perfect
whole, can hardly any more be written. The time for such an
event, such a concurrence of the man and the circumstances,
will not again arrive. There can never be a second Beethoven
or a second Shakespeare. However much orchestras may
improve and execution increase, Beethoven's Symphonies
will always remain at the head of music as Shakespeare's
plays are at the head of the literature of the modern world

Age cannot wither them, nor custom stalo

Their infinite variety.
 400 NINTH SYMPHONY.

SCHILLEE'S ODE, AN DIE FKEUDE (1785).

N.B.— T?ie stanzas marked by the side-rules were not composed by Beethoven.

Freude, schoner Gotterfunken, Aus der Wahrheit Feuerspiegel

Tochter aus Elysium, Lachelt sie den Forscher an.
Wir betreten feuertrunken, Zu der Tugend steilem Hiigel
Himmlische, dein Heiligthum. Leitet sie des Dulders Bahn.
Deine Zauber binden wieder, Auf des Glaubens Sonnenberge
Was die Mode streng getheilt Sieht man ihre Fahnen wehn,
Alle Menschen werden Briider, Durch den Riss gesprengter Surge
Wo dein sanfter Fliigel weilt. Sie im Chor der Engel stehn.

Chor. Chor.
Seid umschlnngen, Millionen Duldet muthig, Millionen
Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt I Duldet fur die bess're Welt!
Briider— uberra Sternenzelt Droben iiberm Sternenzelt
Muss ein lieber Vater wohnen I Wird ein grosser Gott belohnen.

Wem der grosse Wurf gelungen, Gottern kann man nicht vergelten
Eines Freundes Freund zu sein,
Schon ist's, ihnen gleich zu sein.
Wer ein holdes Weib errungen, Gram und Armuth soil sich melden
Mische seinen Jubel ein 1 Mit den Frohen sich erfreun.
Ja—wer auch nur eine Seele Groll und Rache sei vergessen,
Sein nennt auf dem Erdenrund! Unserm Todfeind sei verziehn.
Und wer's nie gekonnt, der stehle Keine Thrane soil ihn pressen,
Weinend sioh aus diesem Bund. Keine Reue nage ihn.

Chor. Chor.
Was den grossen Ring bewohnet, Unser Schuldbuch sei vernichtet!
Huldige der Sympathie Ausgesohnt die ganze Welt
Zu den Sternen leitet sie, Briider—iiberm Sternenzelt
Wo der Unbekannte thronet. Richtet Gott, wie wir gerichtet.

Freude trinken alle Wesen

Freude sprudelt in Pokalen,
In der Traube goldnem Blut
An den Brusten der Natur; Trinken Sanftmuth Kannibalen,
Alle Guten, alle Bosen
Die Verzweiflung Heldenmuth—
Folgen Hirer Rosenspur. Briider, fliegt von euren Sitzen,
Kusse gab sie uns und Reben, Wenn der voile Romer kreist,
Einen Freund, gepriift im Tod
Wollust ward dem Wurm gegeben,
Lasst den Schaum zum Himmel
spritzen
Und der Cherub steht vor Gott. Dieses Glas dem guten Geist I

Chor. Chor.
Ibr sturzt nieder, Millionen? Den der Sterne Wirbel loben,
Abnest du den Schopfer, Welt? Den des Seraphs Hymne preist,
Such' ihn iiberm Sternenzelt I
Dieses Glas dem guten Geist
Ueber Sternen muss er wohnen. Ueberm Sternenzelt dort oben!
Freude heisst die starke Feder Festen Muth in schwerem Leiden,
In der ewigen Natur. Hilfe, wo die Unschuld weint,
Freude, Freude treibt die Rader Ewigkeit gescbwornen Eiden,
In der grossen Weltenuhr. Wahrheit gegen Freund und Feind,
Bluinen lockt sie aus den Keimen, Mannerstolz vor Konigsthronen,
Sonnen aus dem Firmament, Briider, gait' es Gut und Blut
Spharen rollt sie in den Raumen, Dem Verdienste seine Kronen,
Die des Sehers Rohr nicht kcnct. Untergang der Lugenbrut
Chor. Chor.
Froh, wie seine Sonnen fliegen Schliesst den heil'gen Zirkel dichter,
Durch des Himmels pracht'gen Plan, Schwort bei diesem goldnen Wein,
Wandelt, Briider, eure Babn, Dem Geliibde treu zu sein,
Freudig, wie ein Held zum Siegen. Schwort es bei dem Stemenrichter |
 INDEX.

PAGE
Andre* 238
Arabesques 209
aufgeknopft 124, 231, 260, 263, 278, 305
Ayrton, Mr. W 269, 336 note, 393

Bach, J. S 4
Baden, near Vienna 184
Barry, Mr. C. A 213
Bastien et Bastienne 60, 93
Battle of the Baltic 229
Bennett, Mr. Joseph 268
Berlioz ... 36, 117, 152, 161, 165, 169 note, 178, 219, 243, 254,
255, 279, 281, 294, 393 note
Bernadotte 51
Bettina 231
Bonaparte ... 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 64, 71, 172, 233, 310, 311 note, 315
Bonn-dialect =. ... 233 note, 310
Borrowing, Beethoven's 194 note, 213, 223, 258
Brahms 9, 18, 58, 59, 60
Breitkopf's complete edition 77 note, 199, 252, 293 note, 337,
366 note, 379 note, 388 note
Brenet, M. 244 note
Bruhl, The 185
Brunswick, Countess Theresa 112, 140, 151, 154, 230
Billow, Hans von 296, 395

Campbell, Thos. 230 note

'Cantabile' 115,348,369
Cantata on accession of Leopold II., Beethoven's 384 note
Carlyle 77 note, 264
Carlyle's French Revolution 23
Carrousel e 316
Caspar Beethoven 318
402 INDEX.
PAGE
Ghimere, la 66, 221
Choral Fantasia, Op. 80, Beethoven's ... 321
Cibbini, Madame 43
Coda ... 8, 68
Coda to Adagio of No. 9 ... 369
Coda to Finale of No. 2 38
Coleridge 72
Coleridge quoted 144 note, 146 note, 267 note
Conducting, Beethoven's 234 note
Costa, Sir M 66 note, 256 note
Countess Theresa Brunswick (see Brunswick).
Cramer's Studies .. Ill

Dannreuther, Mr. E 41 note

David, Ferdinand 383 note
Davison, J. W., quoted 10
Deafness, Beethoven's ... 19, 45, 335
Development of the Symphony, Beethoven's .,. 50, 68, 321
Dorffel, Alfred 91
Dragonetti 371
Drum 9, 107, 109, 280

Ehlert 354
Emilie M., from H.' 276
Empereur, L' 172

Faust 398
Fes 159 note
Fidelio .. 219 note, 313, 334, 379 note, 385
frech 379 note
Freude ... 48 note, 322

gedichtet ... 186

Geminiani 346
Glinka ... 362
Gloggl ... 213, 235
Gluck 203
Gneixendorf 78, 127, 131-135, 275 note
Goethe ... ... 137, 273, 284
Goss, Sir John 162
Gounod ... 87
Grossvatertanz 159 note, 213, 376
 INDEX. 403
PAGE
flabeneck 92, 169 note, 175, 392
Ham, General 43 note
Handel 60, 146, 213, 346, 390
'Handel and Haydn Society ' of Boston 397
Hanslick, Dr 384 note
Haydn ... 11, 12, 30, 176, 299
Hensel, Fanny ... 391
Hiller, F 180, 238
Hoffmann, E. T. W 139 and note, 176, 231
Horns ... 76, 121, 258, 259, 368 note
*Hush, ye pretty warbling choir 225

Individuality of Beethoven's compositions 267

Jahn, Otto 10, 175, 219 note

Joachim, Professor Joseph 32 note, 322 note

Kalischer, Dr. A. G. 355 note, 364 note

Karrer 131
Keys 200, 201, 239 note
Kinsky, Prince ... 312
Klopstock ... 201, 217 note
Knecht 191
Krehbiel, Mr. H. E. 395 note
Krenn, Michael ...
132, 275
Kretzschmar 321 note
Kreutzer, Rudolph 51 note
Kuhac, Prof. 212, 223
Kyd, General 43 note

Lawrence, Sir Thos. ... 281 note, 316

Lenz 66, 279, 342, 362
Leonora, Overture to ... 246
Lesueur 178
Lichnowsky, Moritz 314
Lichnowsky, Prince Charles ... 42, 47, 313
Liederkreis, The 184 note
Liszt 321 note
Lobkowitz, Prince ... 88, 149, 319
Louis Ferdinand, Prince 88
 404 INDEX.
PAGB
Maelzel 293, 311, 312
Manns, Mr. August , ... v., 290 note
Marlowe 59
Martonvasar 156
Marx 75, 279
Mass in D, Beethoven's 320, 386 note, 388
Matthison 42
Mendelssohn 60, 74, 97, 100, 137, 148, 158, 174, 232, 238, 253, 284,
295, 321, 352, 355 note, 359 note, 375 note, 391, 393 note
Meyerbeer ., 234
Minuet, the term 50 note, 78, 118, 394
Moderation in scoring, Beethoven's 123 note
Modling 215
Monkhouse, Mr. Cosmo 317 note
Moore, Thos 254
Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund 185,355
Morning Chronicle 268
Moscheles 316 note, 337, 383 note, 386
74, 235, 313,
Mozart 8, 10, 35, 37, 60, 93, 177, 252 note, 287 note, 397
'
Musical Association '
The 337 note, 371 note
Musical Portrait of Nature, A 191

Neate, Chas ... 158 note, 183, 269, 394

Neglect of Beethoven's corrections 267, 370 note
Nel cor piu, ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ••• 314
Nephew, Beethoven's 318
Nora Creina 261
Nottebohm 136 note, 177, 228 note

Obermeyer, Miss 273

Oulibicheff 99, 159 note, 221, 279, 293, 376
Overture in C, Op. 115 229, 323
Parry, Dr. Hubert, quoted 6, 167 note
Pastorale, Sonata, Op. 28 183 note
Pastoral Symphony performed with scenery 226
Pathetique, Sonata ... 362 note
Philharmonic Society, The 44, 91, 127, 141 note, 162, 179, 383 note, 392
Philharmonic Society of New York 395
Photographs of MSS vii., 331
Pianoforte Concerto in D 317
Pole, Dr. W 104 note, 241 note
 INDEX. 405
PAGE
Portraits of Beethoven ... 281
Postillion at Carlsbad 273
Potter, Cipriani 22
Preisinger ,.. ., 378
Prieger,Dr vii

Programme-music 187
Prometheus-music 81
Prout, Professor, quoted 107 note, 368 note

Quartets, Beethoven's 127, 398

Raben, Die drei 185, 215

Bam Dass 264
Basumoffsky Quartets 149, 251
Behearsals in Beethoven's time 334
Beimann, Dr. Heinrich 212, 242 note
Bellstab, L 391
Bequiem 213
Bichter, Dr 290 note
Bies, Ferdinand 22, 390
Bode 310
Bollet, Dr 184
Bomantic 246
Bomantic movement, The 138
Bomberg 234, 292
Bossini 293, 361

Saint-Saens, M 217
Scherzo ... 78,163,164
Schiller's extravagances 52, 325
Seipelt 378 note
Schindler 200,210,325,334,372,378
Schopenhauer 294
Schubert 32, 59, 235, 239, 240, 257, 318, 331, 364 note, 374
Schumann 18, 58, 70, 98, 110, 114 note, 116 note, 121, 165 note,
180, 199, 218, 239, 258 note, 260, 298, 385, 391, 396
Sebald, Amalie 233, 273
Seroff 342
Shakespeare v., 43, 59, 126, 267 note, 281, 297, 399
Shakespeare quoted 28, 399
Shedlock, Mr. J. S 28, 111, 213, 299 note
406 INDEX.
PAGE
Silas, Mr 268
Smart, Sir George 333, 392
Spohr 170, 179, 234 note, 376, 377
Stadler, Abbe 212,257
Stanford, Professor C. V 261 note
Steibelt 321 note
Steiner & Co 267
Streicher, Frau 43, 184 note, 186 note, 319
Sublimity 217, 146 note
Sullivan, Sir A 370

Tenger, Mariam ., 112 note, 156

Tennyson quoted ... 73, 78, 143, 146 note, 202, 205, 275 note, 308
Teplitz 232,272
1
Testament,' Beethoven's 45
Thayer vi, 112 note, 282, 296
Theresa, Countess of Brunswick (see Brunswick).
Tiedge 264
Tiedsche (Tiedge) 233 note
Titles to Beethoven's Works 51 note
Tollemache's '
Jowett' 275
TroupSnas 161 note
Turk 13
Turkish Music S2i note
Turle, Mr 383 note

Ungher, Fraulein 335

Vanitas Vanitatum 369

Violins, fiery attack of 26,38,40
Violin Sonata, Op. 30, No. 1 117
Violin Sonata, Op. 30, No. 2 353

Wagner 41, 66 note, 146, 180, 244, 295, 357 note, 373, 394
'Waldstein Sonata '
110
Watson, Mr. W., quoted 126
Weber, C. M. von 322 note
his criticisms 15, 101, 124, 237, 251
Weber, Dionys 4,90
White, Mr. A. C 371 note
Wieck, Friedrich .» 237
 INDEX. 407
PAGE
Wood, Dr. Chas 94, 362 note
Wordsworth 148, 183, 186
Wordsworth quoted 62, 77, 99, 217, 389

Yellowhammer 147, 210

York Festival 180

Zelter ... 274 note

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raphy, geography, and geology. 62 illustrations, maps. 515pp. 5% x 8^.
20187-2 Pa. $6.95

THE DISCOVERY OF THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMEN, Howard

Carter, A. C. Mace. Accompany Carter in the thrill of discovery, as ruined
passage suddenly reveals unique, untouched, fabulously rich tomb. Fascin-
ating account, with 106 illustrations. New introduction by J. M. White.
Total of 382pp. 5% x 8V2 (Available in U.S. only)
. 23500-9 Pa. $5.50

THE WORLD'S GREATEST SPEECHES, edited by Lewis Copeland and

Lawrence W. Lamm. Vast collection of 278 speeches from Greeks up to
present. Powerful and effective models; unique look at history. Revised
to 1970. Indices. 842pp. 5% x 8Y2 . 20468-5 Pa. $9.95

THE 100 GREATEST ADVERTISEMENTS, Julian Watkins. The priceless

ingredient; His master's voice; 99 44/100% pure; over 100 others. How
they were written, their impact, etc. Remarkable record. 130 illustrations.
233pp. 7y8 x 10 3/5. 20540-1 Pa. $6.95

CRUICKSHANK PRINTS FOR HAND COLORING, George Cruickshank.

18 one side of a page, on fine-quality paper suitable for water-
illustrations,
colors. Caricatures of people in society (c. 1820) full of trenchant wit.
Very large format. 32pp. 11 x 16. 23684-6 Pa. $6.00

THIRTY-TWO COLOR POSTCARDS OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY

AMERICAN ART, Whitney Museum of American Art. Reproduced in
postcard form are 31 art works and one shot of the museum.
full color in
Calder, Hopper, Rauschenberg, others. Detachable. 16pp. 8 2A x 11.
23629-3 Pa. $3.50

MUSIC OF THE SPHERES: THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE FROM

ATOM TO QUASAR SIMPLY EXPLAINED, Guy Murchie. Planets, stars,
geology, atoms, radiation, relativity, quantum theory, light, antimatter,
similar topics. 319 figures. 664pp. 5% x 8%.
21809-0, 21810-4 Pa„ Two- vol. set $11.00

EINSTEIN'S THEORY
OF RELATIVITY, Max Born. Finest semi-technical
account; covers Einstein, Lorentz, Minkowski, and others, with much de-
tail, much explanation of ideas and math not readily available elsewhere

on this level. For student, non-specialist. 376pp. 5% x 8Y2.

60769-0 Pa. $5.00
 CATALOGUE OF DOVER BOOKS
THE SENSE OF BEAUTY, George Santayana. Masterfully written dis-
cussion of nature of beauty, materials of beauty, form, expression; art, litera-
ture, social sciences all involved. 168pp. x 8Y2 5%
20238-0 Pa. $3.50
.

ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE UNDERSTANDING, Benedict

Spinoza. Also contains Ethics, Correspondence, all in excellent R. Elwes
translation. Basic works on entry to philosophy, pantheism, exchange of
ideas with great contemporaries. 402pp. 5% x 8Y2. 20250-X Pa. $5.95

THE TRAGIC SENSE OF LIFE, Miguel de Unamuno. Acknowledged

masterpiece of existential literature, one of most important books of 20th
century. Introduction by Madariaga. 367pp. 5% x 8Y2.
20257-7 Pa. $6.00

THE GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED, Moses Maimonides. Great classic

of medieval Judaism attempts to reconcile revealed religion (Pentateuch,
commentaries) with Aristotelian philosophy. Important historically, still

relevant in problems. Unabridged Friedlander translation. Total of 473pp.

5% x 8Y2 . 20351-4 Pa. $6.95

THE I CHING (THE BOOK OF CHANGES), translated by James Legge.

Complete translation of basic text plus appendices by Confucius, and

Chinese commentary of most penetrating divination manual ever prepared.
Indispensable to study of early Oriental civilizations, to modern inquiring
reader. 448pp. 5% x 8Y2. 21062-6 Pa. $6.00

THE EGYPTIAN BOOK OF THE DEAD, E. A. Wallis Budge. Complete

reproduction of Ani's papyrus, finest ever found. Full hieroglyphic text, in-
terlinear transliteration, word for word translation, smooth translation.
Basic work, for Egyptology, for modern study of psychic matters. Total of
533pp. 6V2 x 91/4. (USCO) 21866-X Pa. $8.50

THE GODS OF THE EGYPTIANS, E. A. Wallis Budge. Never excelled

for richness, fullness: all gods, goddesses, demons, mythical figures of
Ancient Egypt; their legends, rites, incarnations, variations, powers, etc.
Many hieroglyphic texts cited. Over 225 illustrations, plus 6 color plates.
Total of 988pp. 6V8 x 9V4 (EBE)
.

22055-9, 22056-7 Pa., Two-vol. set $20.00

THE STANDARD BOOK OF QUILT MAKING AND COLLECTING,

Marguerite Ickis. Full information, full-sized patterns for making 46 tra-
ditional quilts, also 150 other patterns. Quilted cloths, lame, satin quilts,
etc. 483 illustrations. 273pp. 6% x 9%. 20582-7 Pa. $5.95

CORAL GARDENS AND THEIR MAGIC, Bronsilaw Malinowski. Classic

study of the methods of tilling the soil and of agricultural rites in the
Trobriand Islands of Melanesia. Author is one of the most important figures
in the field of modern social anthropology. 143 illustrations. Indexes. Total
of 911pp. of text. 5% x 8y4 (Available in U.S. only)
.

23597-1 Pa. $12.95

 CATALOGUE OF DOVER BOOKS
THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY, Georg W. Hegel. Great classic of
Western thought develops concept that history is not chance but a rational
process, the evolution of freedom. 457pp. 5% x 8V2. 20112-0 Pa. $6.50

LANGUAGE, TRUTH AND

LOGIC, Alfred J. Ayer. Famous, clear intro-
duction to Vienna, Cambridge schools of Logical Positivism. Role of phil-
osophy, elimination of metaphysics, nature of analysis, etc. 160pp.
5% x 8Y2. (USCO) 20010-8 Pa. $2.75

A PREFACE TO LOGIC, Morris R. Cohen. Great City College teacher

in renowned, easily followed exposition of formal logic, probability, values,
logic and world order and similar topics; no previous background needed.
209pp. 5% x 8y2 . 23517-3 Pa. $4.95

REASON AND NATURE, Morris R. Cohen. Brilliant analysis of reason and

itsmultitudinous ramifications by charismatic teacher. Interdisciplinary, syn-
thesizing work widely praised when it first appeared in 1931. Second
(1953) edition. Indexes. 496pp. 5% x 8V2. 23633-1 Pa. $7.50

AN ESSAY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING, John Locke.

The only complete edition of enormously important classic, with authorita-
tive editorial material by A. C. Fraser. Total of 1176pp. 5% x 8%.
20530-4, 20531-2 Pa., Two-vol. set $17.90

HANDBOOK OF MATHEMATICAL FUNCTIONS WITH FORMULAS,

GRAPHS, AND MATHEMATICAL TABLES, edited by Milton Abramo-
witz and Irene A. Stegun. Vast compendium: 29 sets of tables, some to
as high as 20 places. 1,046pp. 8 x 10%. 61272-4 Pa. $19.95

MATHEMATICS FOR THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES, Herbert S. Wilf.

Highly acclaimed work offers clear vector spaces and
presentations of
matrices, orthogonal functions, roots of polynomial equations, conformal
mapping, calculus of variations, etc. Knowledge of theory of functions of
real and complex variables is assumed. Exercises and solutions. Index.
284pp. 5% x 8y4 . 63635-6 Pa. $5.00

THE PRINCIPLE OF RELATIVITY, Albert Einstein et al. Eleven most

important original papers on special and general theories. Seven by Ein-
stein, two by Lorentz, one each by Minkowski and Weyl. All translated,
unabridged. 216pp. 5% x 8y2 . 60081-5 Pa. $3.50

THERMODYNAMICS, Enrico Fermi. A classic of modern science. Clear,

organized treatment of systems, first and second laws, entropy, thermody-
namic potentials, gaseous reactions, dilute solutions, entropy constant. No
math beyond calculus required. Problems. 160pp. 5% x 8%.
60361-X Pa. $4.00

ELEMENTARY MECHANICS OF FLUIDS, Hunter Rouse. Classic under-

graduate text widely considered to be far better than many later books.
Ranges from fluid velocity and acceleration to role of compressibility in
fluidmotion. Numerous examples, questions, problems. 224 illustrations.
376pp. 5% x 8V4 . 63699-2 Pa. $7.00
 CATALOGUE OF DOVER BOOKS
THE AMERICAN SENATOR, Anthony Trollope. Little known, long un-
available Trollope novel on a grand scale. Here are humorous comment
on American vs. English culture, and stunning portrayal of a heroine/
Superb evocation of Victorian village life. 561pp. 5% x 8V2.
villainess.
23801-6 Pa. $7.95

WAS IT MURDER?James Hilton. The author of Lost Horizon and Good-

bye, Mr. Chips wrote one detective novel (under a pen-name) which was
quickly forgotten and virtually lost, even at the height of Hilton's fame.
—
This edition brings it back a finely crafted public school puzzle resplen-
dent with Hilton's stylish atmosphere. A thoroughly English thriller by
the creator of Shangri-la. 252pp. 5% x 8. (Available in U.S. only)
23774-5 Pa. $3.00

CENTRAL PARK: A PHOTOGRAPHIC GUIDE, Victor Laredo and

Henry Hope Reed. 121 superb photographs show dramatic views of
Central Park: Bethesda Fountain, Cleopatra's Needle, Sheep Meadow, the
Blockhouse, plus people engaged in many park activities: ice skating, bike
riding, etc. Captions by former Curator of Central Park, Henry Hope
Reed, provide historical view, changes, etc. Also photos of N.Y. landmarks
on park's periphery. 96pp. 8Y2 x 11. 23750-8 Pa. $4.95

NANTUCKET IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, Clay Lancaster. ISO

rare photographs, maps, drawings and floor plans recreate
stereographs,
unique American island society. Authentic scenes of shipwreck, light-
houses, streets, homes are arranged in geographic sequence to provide
walking-tour guide to old Nantucket existing today. Introduction, captions.
160pp. 8y8 x 11%. 23747-8 Pa. $7.95

STONE AND MAN: A PHOTOGRAPHIC EXPLORATION, Andreas

Feininger. 106 photographs by Life photographer Feininger portray man's
deep passion for stone through the ages. Stonehenge-like megaliths, forti-
fied towns, sculpted marble and crumbling tenements show textures, beau-
ties, fascination. 128pp. 9V4 x 10%. 23756-7 Pa. $6.95

CIRCLES, A MATHEMATICAL VIEW, D. Pedoe. Fundamental aspects

of college geometry, non-Euclidean geometry, and other branches of mathe-
matics: representing circle by point. Poincare model, isoperimetric prop-
erty, etc. Stimulating recreational reading. 66 figures. 96pp. 5% x 8*4.
63698-4 Pa. $3.50

THE DISCOVERY OF NEPTUNE, Morton Grosser. Dramatic scientific

history the investigations leading up to the actual discovery of the
of
eighth planet of our solar system. Lucid, well-researched book by well-
known historian of science. 172pp. 5%
x 8Y2. 23726-5 Pa. $3.95

THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY. Ambrose Bierce. Barbed, bitter, brilliant

witticisms in the form of a dictionary. Best, most ferocious satire America
has produced. 145pp. 5%
x 8Y2. 20487-1 Pa. $2.50
 CATALOGUE OF DOVER BOOKS
THE ART OF THE CINEMATOGRAPHER, Leonard Maltin. Survey of
American cinematography history and anecdotal interviews with 5 masters
Arthur Miller, Hal Mohr, Hal Rosson, Lucien Ballard, and Conrad Hall.
Very large selection of behind-the-scenes production photos. 105 photo-
graphs. Filmographies. Index. Originally Behind the Camera. 144pp.
8y4 x 11. 23686-2 Pa. $5.00

THE COMPLETE NONSENSE OF EDWARD LEAR, Edward Lear. All

nonsense limericks, zany alphabets, Owl and Pussycat, songs, nonsense
botany, etc., illustrated by Lear. Total of 321pp. 5% x 8%.(Available
in U.S. only) 20167-8 Pa. $4.50

INGENIOUS MATHEMATICAL PROBLEMS AND METHODS, Louis

A. Graham. Sophisticated material from Graham Dial, applied and pure;
stresses solution methods. Logic, number theory, networks, inversions, etc.
237pp. 5% x 8y2 . 20545-2 Pa. $4.95

BEST MATHEMATICAL PUZZLES OF SAM LOYD, edited by Martin

Gardner. Bizarre, original, whimsical puzzles by America's greatest puzzler.
From fabulously rare Cyclopedia, including famous 14-15 puzzles, the
Horse of a Different Color, 115 more. Elementary math. 150 illustrations.
167pp. 5% x 8%. 20498-7 Pa. $3.50

THE BASIS OF COMBINATION IN CHESS, J. du Mont. Easy-to-follow,

instructivebook on elements of combination play, with chapters on each
—
piece and every powerful combination team two knights, bishop and
knight, rook and bishop, etc. 250 diagrams. 218pp. 5% x 8V2. (Available
in U.S. only) 23644-7 Pa. $4.50

MODERN CHESS STRATEGY, Ludek Pachman. The use of the queen,

the active king, exchanges, pawn play, the center, weak squares, etc.
Section on rook alone worth price of the book. Stress on the moderns.
Often considered the most important book on strategy. 314pp. x 8%. 5%
20290-9 Pa. $5.00

LASKER'S MANUAL OF CHESS, Dr. Emanuel Lasker. Great world

champion very thorough coverage of all aspects of chess. Combina-
offers
tions, position play, openings, end game, aesthetics of chess, philosophy of
struggle, much more. Filled with analyzed games. 390pp. 5% x 8Y2.
20640-8 Pa. $5.95

500 MASTER GAMES OF CHESS, S. Tartakower, J. du Mont. Vast

collection of great chessgames from 1798-1938, with much material no-
where else readily available. Fully annoted, arranged by opening for
easier study. 664pp. 5% x 8y2 . 23208-5 Pa. $8.50

A GUIDE TO CHESS ENDINGS, Dr. Max Euwe, David Hooper. One

of the finest modern works on Thorough analysis of the
chess endings.
most frequently encountered endings by former world champion. 331
examples, each with diagram. 248pp. 5% x 8Y2. 23332-4 Pa. $3.95
 CATALOGUE OF DOVER BOOKS
THE COMPLETE BOOK OF DOLL MAKING AND COLLECTING,
Catherine Christopher. Instructions, patterns for dozens of dolls, from rag
doll on up to elaborate, historically accurate figures. Mould faces, sew
clothing, make doll houses, etc. Also collecting information. Many illus-
trations. 288pp. 6x9. 22066-4 Pa. $4.95

THE DAGUERREOTYPE IN AMERICA, Beaumont Newhall. Wonderful

portraits, 1850's townscapes, landscapes; full text plus 104 photographs.
The basic book. Enlarged 1976 edition. 272pp. 8V4 x 11%.
23322-7 Pa. $7.95

CRAFTSMAN HOMES, Gustav Stickley. 296 architectural drawings, floor

plans, and photographs illustrate 40 different kinds of "Mission-style"
homes from The Craftsman (1901-16), voice of American style of simplicity
and organic harmony. Thorough coverage of Craftsman idea in text and
picture, now collector's item. 224pp. 8% x 11. 23791-5 Pa. $6.50

PEWTER-WORKING: INSTRUCTIONS AND PROJECTS, Burl N. Os-

born. & Gordon O. Wilber. Introduction to pewter-working for amateur
craftsman. History and characteristics of pewter; tools, materials, step-by-
step instructions. Photos, line drawings, diagrams. Total of 160pp.
7y8 x 103/4 . 23786-9 Pa. $4.50

THE GREAT CHICAGO FIRE, edited by David Lowe. 10 dramatic, eye-

witness accounts of the 1871 disaster, including one of the aftermath and
rebuilding, plus 70 contemporary photographs and illustrations of the
ruins —courthouse, Palmer House, Great Central Depot, etc. Introduction
by David Lowe. 87pp. 8y4 x 11. 23771-0 Pa. $4.95

SILHOUETTES: A PICTORIAL ARCHIVE OF VARIED ILLUSTRA-

TIONS, edited by Carol Belanger Grafton. Over 600 silhouettes from the
18th to 20th centuries include profiles and full figures of men and women,
children, birds and animals, groups and scenes, nature, ships, an alphabet.
Dozens of uses for commercial artists and craftspeople. 144pp. 8% x 11%.
23781-8 Pa. $4.50

ANIMALS: 1,419 COPYRIGHT-FREE ILLUSTRATIONS OF MAM-

MALS, BIRDS, FISH, INSECTS, ETC., edited by Jim Harter. Clear wood
engravings present, in extremely lifelike poses, over 1,000 species of ani-
mals. One of the most extensive copyright-free pictorial sourcebooks of its
kind. Captions. Index. 284pp. 9 x 12. 23766-4 Pa. $8.95

INDIAN DESIGNS FROM ANCIENT ECUADOR, Frederick W. Shaffer.

282 by pre-Columbian Indians of Ecuador (500-1500 A.D.).
original designs
Designs include people, mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, plants, heads, geo-
metric designs. Use as is or alter for advertising, textiles, leathercraft, etc.
Introduction. 95pp. 8% x 11 %. 23764-8 Pa. $4.95

SZIGETI ON THE VIOLIN, Joseph Szigeti. Genial, loosely structured

tour by premier featuring a pleasant mixture of reminiscenes,
violinist,
insights into great music and musicians, innumerable tips for practicing
violinists. 385 musical passages. 256pp. 5%
x 8%. 23763-X Pa. $5.00
 CATALOGUE OF DOVER BOOKS
TONE POEMS, SERIES II: TILL EULENSPIEGELS LUSTIGE
STREICHE, ALSO SPRACH ZARATHUSTRA, AND EIN HELDEN-
LEBEN, Richard Strauss. Three important orchestral works, including very
popular Till Eulenspie gel's Marry Pranks, reproduced in full score from
original editions. Study score. 315pp. 9% x 12*4. (Available in U.S. only)
23755-9 Pa. $9.95

TONE POEMS, SERIES I: DON JUAN, TOD UND VERKLARUNG

AND DON QUIXOTE, Richard Strauss. Three of the most often per-
formed and recorded works in entire orchestral repertoire, reproduced in
full score from original editions. Study score. 286pp. 9% x 12^4. (Avail-
able in U.S. only) 23754-0 Pa. $9.95

11 LATE STRING QUARTETS, Franz Joseph Haydn. The form which

Haydn defined and "brought to perfection." (Grove's). 11 string quartets
in complete score, his last and his best. The first in a projected series of
the complete Haydn string quartets. Reliable modern Eulenberg edition,
otherwise difficult to obtain. 320pp. 8% x liy4. (Available in U.S. only)
23753-2 Pa. $8.95

FOURTH, FIFTH AND SIXTH SYMPHONIES IN FULL SCORE, Peter

IlyitchTchaikovsky. Complete orchestral scores of Symphony No. 4 in
F Minor, Op. 36; Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64; Symphony No. 6
in B Minor, "Pathetique," Op. 74. Bretikopf & Hartel eds. Study score.
480pp. 93/8 x 12i/4 . 23861-X Pa. $12.95

THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO: COMPLETE SCORE, Wolfgang A.

Mozart. Finest comic opera ever written. Full score, not to be confused
with piano renderings. Peters edition. Study score. 448pp. 9% x 12^.
(Available in U.S. only) 23751-6 Pa. $13.95

"IMAGE" ON THE ART AND

EVOLUTION OF THE FILM, edited by
Marshall Deutelbaum. Pioneering book brings together for first time 38
groundbreaking articles on early silent films from Image and 263 illustra-
tions newly shot from rare prints in the collection of the International
Museum of Photography. A landmark work. Index. 256pp. 8V4 x 11.
23777-X Pa. $8.95

AROUND-THE-WORLD COOKY BOOK, Lois Lintner Sumption and

Marguerite Lintner Ashbrook. 373 cooky and frosting recipes from 28
countries (America, Austria, China, Russia, Italy, etc.) include Viennese
kisses, rice wafers, London strips, lady fingers, hony, sugar spice, maple
cookies, etc. Clear instructions. All tested. 38 drawings. 182pp. 5% x 8.
23802-4 Pa. $2.75

THE ART NOUVEAU STYLE, edited by Roberta Waddell. 579 rare

photographs, not available elsewhere, of works in jewelry, metalwork, glass,
ceramics, textiles, architecture and furniture by 175 artists —
Mucha, Seguy,
Lalique, Tiffany, Gaudin, Hohlwein, Saarinen, and many others. 288pp.
8% x liy4 . 23515-7 Pa. $8.95
 CATALOGUE OF DOVER BOOKS
THE CURVES OF LIFE, Theodore A. Cook. Examination of shells, leaves,
horns, human body, art, etc., in "the classic reference on how the golden
ratio applies to spirals and helices in nature .... "
—
Martin Gardner.
426 illustrations. Total of 512pp. 53/8 x 8V2. 23701-X Pa. $6.95

AN ILLUSTRATED FLORA OF THE NORTHERN UNITED STATES

AND CANADA, Nathaniel L. Britton, Addison Brown. Encyclopedic work
covers 4666 species, ferns on up. Everything. Full botanical information,
illustration for each. This earlier edition is preferred by many to more
recent revisions. 1913 edition. Over 4000 illustrations, total of 2087pp.
6Va x 9V4 . 22642-5, 22643-3, 22644-1 Pa., Three-vol. set $28.50

MANUAL OF THE GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES, A. S. Hitch-

cock, Dept. of Agriculture. The basic study of American grasses,
U.S.
both indigenous and escapes, cultivated and wild. Over 1400 species. Full
descriptions, information. Over 1100 maps, illustrations. Total of 1051pp.
5% x 8Y2. 22717-0, 22718-9 Pa., Two-vol. set $17.00

THE CACTACEAE,, Nathaniel L. Britton, John N. Rose. Exhaustive,

definitive. in the world. Full botanical descriptions. Thorough
Every cactus
statement of nomenclatures, habitat, detailed finding keys. The one book
needed by every cactus enthusiast. Over 1275 illustrations. Total of 1080pp.
8 x 10y4. 21191-6, 21192-4 Clothbd., Two-vol. set $50.00

AMERICAN MEDICINAL PLANTS, Charles F. Millspaugh. Full descrip-

tions,180 plants covered: history; physical description; methods of prepa-
ration with all chemical constituents extracted; all claimed curative or
adverse effects. 180 full-page plates. Classification table. 804pp. 6% x 9V4.
23034-1 Pa. $13.95

A MODERN HERBAL, Margaret Grieve. Much the fullest, most exact,

most useful compilation of herbal material. Gigantic alphabetical encyclo-
pedia, from aconite to zedoary, gives botanical information, medical prop-
erties, folklore, economic uses, and much else. Indispensable to serious
reader. 161 illustrations. 888pp. 6y2 x 9*4. (Available in U.S. only)
22798-7, 22799-5 Pa., Two-vol. set $15.00

THE HERBAL or GENERAL HISTORY OF PLANTS,

John Gerard.
The 1633 and enlarged by Thomas Johnson. Containing
edition revised
almost 2850 plant descriptions and 2705 superb illustrations, Gerard's
Herbal is a monumental work, the book all modern English herbals are
derived from, the one herbal every serious enthusiast should have in its
entirety. Original editions are worth perhaps $750. 1678pp. 8V2 x 12^4.
23147-X Clothbd. $75.00

MANUAL OF THE TREES OF NORTH AMERICA, Charles S. Sargent.

The basic survey of every native tree and tree-like shrub, 717 species in
all. Extremely full information on habitat, growth, locales,
descriptions,
economics, etc. Necessary to every serious tree lover. Over 100 finding
keys. 783 illustrations. Total of 986pp. 5% x 8V2.
20277-1, 20278-X Pa, Two-vol. set $12.00
 CATALOGUE OF DOVER BOOKS
GREAT NEWS PHOTOS AND THE STORIES BEHIND THEM, John
Faber. Dramatic volume of 140 great news photos, 1855 through 1976,
and revealing stories behind them, with both historical and technical in-
formation. Hindenburg disaster, shooting of Oswald, nomination of Jimmy
Carter, etc. 160pp. 8*4 x 11. 23667-6 Pa. $6.00

CRUICKSHANK'S PHOTOGRAPHS OF BIRDS OF AMERICA, Allan D.

Cruickshank. Great ornithologist, photographer presents 177 closeups,
groupings, panoramas, Sightings, etc., of about 150 different birds. Ex-
panded Wings in the Wilderness. Introduction by Helen G. Cruickshank.
191pp. 8V4 x 11. 23497-5 Pa. $7.95

AMERICAN WILDLIFE AND PLANTS, A. C. Martin, et al. Describes

food habits of more than 1000 species of mammals, birds, fish. Special
treatment of important food plants. Over 300 illustrations. 500pp. 5% x 8 J/2.
20793-5 Pa. $6.50

THE PEOPLE CALLED SHAKERS, Edward D. Andrews. Lifetime of

research, definitive study of Shakers: origins, beliefs, practices, dances,
social organization, furniture and on 19th-century USA,
crafts, impact
present heritage. Indispensable to student of American history, collector.
33 illustrations. 351pp. 5% x 8V2 . 21081-2 Pa. $5.50

OLD NEW YORK IN EARLY PHOTOGRAPHS, Mary Black. New York

City as it was in 1853-1901, through 196 wonderful photographs from
N.-Y. Historical Society. Great Blizzard, Lincoln's funeral procession,
great buildings. 228pp. 9 x 12. 22907-6 Pa. $9.95

MR. LINCOLN'S CAMERA MAN: MATHEW BRADY, Roy Meredith.

Over 300 Brady photos reproduced directly from
negatives, original
photos. Jackson, Webster, Grant, Lee, Carnegie, Barnum; Lincoln; Battle
Smoke, Death of Rebel Sniper, Atlanta Just After Capture. Lively com-
mentary. 368pp. 83/8 x 11%. 23021-X Pa. $11.95

TRAVELS OF WILLIAM BARTRAM, William Bartram. From 1773-8,

Bartram explored Northern Florida, Georgia, Carolinas, and reported on
wild life, plants, Indians, early settlers. Basic account for period, enter-
taining reading. Edited by Mark Van Doren. 13 illustrations. 141pp.
5% x 8V2 . 20013-2 Pa. $6.00

THE GENTLEMAN AND CABINET MAKER'S DIRECTOR, Thomas

Chippendale. Full reprint, 1762 style book, most influential of all time;
chairs, tables, sofas, mirrors, cabinets, etc. 200 plates, plus 24 photographs
of surviving pieces. 249pp. 9% x 123/4 . 21601-2 Pa. $8.95

AMERICAN CARRIAGES, SLEIGHS, SULKIES AND CARTS, edited by

Don H. Berkebile. 168 Victorian illustrations from catalogues, trade journals,
fully captioned. Useful for artists. Author is Assoc. Curator, Div. of Trans-
portation of Smithsonian Institution. 168pp. 8%
x 9%.
23328-6 Pa. $6.50
 CATALOGUE OF DOVER BOOKS
SECOND PIATIGORSKY CUP, edited by Isaac Kashdan. One of the
greatest tournament books ever produced in the English language. All 90
games of the 1966 tournament, annotated by players, most annotated by
both players. Features Petrosian, Spassky, Fischer, Larsen, six others.
228pp. 5% x 8y2 . 23572-6 Pa. $3.50

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CARD TRICKS, revised and edited by Jean Hugard.

How to perform over 600 card tricks, devised by the world's greatest
magicians:impromptus, spelling tricks, key cards, using special packs,
much, much more. Additional chapter on card technique. 66 illustrations.
402pp. 5% x 8V2 (Available in U.S. only)
. 21252-1 Pa. $5.95

MAGIC: STAGE ILLUSIONS, SPECIAL EFFECTS AND TRICK PHO-

TOGRAPHY, Albert A. Hopkins, Henry R. Evans. One of the great classics;
fullest, most authorative explanation of vanishing lady, levitations, scores
of other great stage effects. Also small magic, automata, stunts. 446 illus-
trations. 556pp. 5% x 8Y2. 23344-8 Pa. $6.95

THE SECRETS OF HOUDINI, J. C. Cannell. Classic study of Houdini's

incredible magic, exposing closely-kept professional secrets and revealing,
in general terms, the whole art of stage magic. 67 illustrations. 279pp.
53/8 x 8Y2. 22913-0 Pa. $5.95

HOFFMANN'S MODERN MAGIC, Professor Hoffmann. One of the best,

and best-known, magicians' manuals of the past century. Hundreds of
tricks from card tricks and simple sleight of hand to elaborate illusions
involving construction of complicated machinery. 332 illustrations. 563pp.
5% x 8Y2. 23623-4 Pa. $6.95

THOMAS NAST'S CHRISTMAS DRAWINGS, Thomas Nast. Almost all

Christmas drawings by creator of image of Santa Claus as we know it,
and one of America's foremost illustrators and political cartoonists. 66
illustrations. 3 illustrations in color on covers. 96pp. 8% x 11*4.
23660-9 Pa. $3.50

FRENCH COUNTRY COOKING FOR AMERICANS, Louis Diat. 500

easy-to-make, authentic provincial recipes compiled by former head chef
at New York's Fitz-Carlton Hotel: onion soup, lamb stew, potato pie, more.
309pp. 5%
x 8Y2. 23665-X Pa. $3.95

SAUCES, FRENCH AND FAMOUS,

Louis Diat. Complete book gives over
200 bechamel, Bordelaise, hollandaise, Cumberland, apri-
specific recipes:
cot, etc. Author was one of this century's finest chefs, originator of
vichyssoise and many other dishes. Index. 156pp. 5% x 8.
23663-3 Pa. $2.95

TOLL HOUSE TRIED AND TRUE RECIPES, Ruth Graves Wakefield.

Authentic recipes from the famous Mass. restaurant: popovers, veal and
ham loaf, Toll House baked beans, chocolate cake crumb pudding, much
more. Many helpful hints. Nearly 700 recipes. Index. 376pp. 5% x 8Y2.
23560-2 Pa. $4.95
 CATALOGUE OF DOVER BOOKS
ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO SHAKER FURNITURE, Robert Meader.
Director, Shaker Museum, Old Chatham, presents up-to-date coverage of
all furniture and appurtenances, with much on local styles not available
elsewhere. 235 photos. 146pp. 9 x 12. 22819-3 Pa. $6.95

COOKING WITH BEER, Carole Fahy. Beer has as superb an effect on

food as wine, and at fraction of cost. Over 250 recipes for appetizers,
soups, main dishes, desserts, breads, etc. Index. 144pp. 5% x 8Y2. (Avail-
able in U.S. only) 23661-7 Pa. $3.00

STEWS AND RAGOUTS, Kay Shaw Nelson. This international cookbook

offers wide range of 108 recipes perfect for everyday, special occasions,
meals-in-themselves, main dishes. Economical, nutritious, easy-to-prepare:
goulash, Irish stew, boeuf bourguignon, etc. Index. 134pp. 5% x 8Y2.
23662-5 Pa. $3.95

DELICIOUS MAIN COURSE DISHES, Marian Tracy. Main courses are

the most important part of any meal. These 200 nutritious, economical
recipes from around the world make every meal a delight. "I have . . .

found it so useful in my own household," N.Y. Times. Index. 219pp.

53/8 x 8Y2. 23664-1 Pa. $3.95

FIVE ACRES AND INDEPENDENCE, Maurice G. Kains. Great back-

to-the-land classic explains basics of self-sufficient farming: economics,
plants, crops, animals, orchards, soils, land selection, host of other neces-
sary things. Do not confuse with skimpy faddist literature; Kains was
one of America's greatest agriculturalists. 95 illustrations. 397pp. 5% x 8Vz.
20974-1 Pa. $4.95

A PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR THE BEGINNING FARMER, Herbert

Jacobs. Basic, extremely useful first book for anyone thinking about moving
to the country and starting a farm. Simpler than Kains, with greater em-
phasis on country living in general. 246pp. 5% x 8^.
23675-7 Pa. $3.95

PAPERMAKING, Dard Hunter. Definitive book on the subject by the fore-

most authority Chapters dealing with every aspect of history
in the field.
of craft in every part of the world. Over 320 illustrations. 2nd, revised and
enlarged (1947) edition. 672pp. 5% x 8Y2. 23619-6 Pa. $8.95

THE ART DECO STYLE, edited by Theodore Menten. Furniture, jewelry,

metalwork, ceramics, fabrics, lighting fixtures, interior decors, exteriors,
graphics from pure French sources. Best sampling around. Over 400
photographs. 183pp. 83/8 x liy4 . 22824-X Pa. $6.95

ACKERMANN'S COSTUME PLATES, Rudolph Ackermann. Selection of

96 plates from the Repository of Arts, best published source of costume
for English fashion during the early 19th century. 12 plates also in color.
Captions, glossary and introduction by editor Stella Blum. Total of 120pp.
8% x liy4 . 23690-0 Pa. $5.00
 CATALOGUE OF DOVER BOOKS
THE ANATOMY OF THE HORSE, George Stubbs. Often considered the
great masterpiece of animal anatomy. Full reproduction of 1766 edition,
plus prospectus; original text and modernized text. 36 plates. Introduction
by Eleanor Garvey. 121pp. 11 x 143/4 . 23402-9 Pa. $8.95

BRIDGMAN'S LIFE DRAWING, George B. Bridgman. More than 500

illustrative drawings and you to abstract the body into its major
text teach
masses, use light and shade, proportion; as well as specific areas of anatomy,
of which Bridgman is master. 192pp. 6Y2 x 9*4. (Available in U.S. only)
22710-3 Pa. $4.50

ART NOUVEAU DESIGNS IN COLOR, Alphonse Mucha, Maurice

Verneuil, Georges Auriol. Full-color reproduction of Combinaisons orne-
mentales (c. 1900) by Art Nouveau masters. Floral, animal, geometric,
interlacings, swashes —
borders, frames, spots —all incredibly beautiful. 60
plates, hundreds of designs. 9% x 8-1/16. 22885-1 Pa. $4.50

FULL-COLOR FLORAL DESIGNS IN THE ART NOUVEAU STYLE,

E. A. Seguy. 166 motifs, on 40 plates, from Les fleurs et leurs applications
decoratives (1902): borders, circular designs, repeats, allovers, "spots."
All in authentic Art Nouveau colors. 48pp. 9% x 12 V4.
23439-8 Pa. $6.00

A DIDEROT PICTORIAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TRADES AND IN-

DUSTRY, edited by Charles C. Gillispie. 485 most interesting plates from
the great French Encyclopedia of the 18th century show hundreds of
working figures, artifacts, process, land and cityscapes; glassmaking, paper-
making, metal extraction, construction, weaving, making furniture, clothing,
wigs, dozens of other activities. Plates fully explained. 920pp. 9 x 12.
22284-5, 22285-3 Clothbd., Two-vol. set $50.00

HANDBOOK OF EARLY ADVERTISING ART, Clarence P. Hornung.

Largest collection of copyright-free early and antique advertising art ever
compiled. Over 6,000 illustrations, from Franklin's time to the 1890's for
special effects, novelty. Valuable source, almost inexhaustible.
Pictorial Volume. Agriculture, the zodiac, animals, autos, birds, Christmas,
fire engines, flowers, trees, musical instruments, ships, games and sports,
much more. Arranged by subject matter and use. 237 plates. 288pp. 9 x 12.
20122-8 Clothbd. $15.95

Typographical Volume. Roman and Gothic faces ranging from 10 point to

300 point,"Barnum," German and Old English faces, script, logotypes,
scrolls and flourishes, 1115 ornamental initials, 67 complete alphabets,
more. 310 plates. 320pp. 9 x 12. 20123-6 Clothbd. $16.95

CALLIGRAPHY ( CALLIGRAPHIA LATINA), J. G. Schwandner. High

point of 18th-century ornamental calligraphy. Very ornate initials, scrolls,
borders, cherubs, birds, lettered examples. 172pp. 9 x 13.
20475-8 Pa. $7.95
 CATALOGUE OF DOVER BOOKS
GEOMETRY, RELATIVITY AND THE FOURTH DIMENSION, Rudolf
Rucker. Exposition of fourth dimension, means of visualization, concepts
of relativity as Flatland characters continue adventures. Popular, easily
followed yet accurate, profound. 141 illustrations. 133pp. 5% x 8V2.
23400-2 Pa. $2.75

THE ORIGIN OF LIFE, A. I. Oparin. Modern classic in biochemistry, the

rigorous examination of possible evolution of life from nitrocarbon com-
first

pounds. Non-technical, easily followed. Total of 295pp. 5%

x 8V2.
60213-3 Pa. $5.95

PLANETS, STARS AND GALAXIES, A. E. Fanning. Comprehensive in-

troductory survey: the sun, solar system, stars, galaxies, universe, cosmology;
quasars, radio stars, etc. 24pp. of photographs. 189pp. 5% x 8V2. (Avail-
able in U.S. only) 21680-2 Pa. $3.75

THE THIRTEEN BOOKS OF EUCLID'S ELEMENTS, translated with

introduction and commentary by Sir Thomas L. Heath. Definitive edition.
Textual and linguistic notes, mathematical analysis, 2500 years of critical
commentary. Do not confuse with abridged school editions. Total of 1414pp.
5% x 8Y2. 60088-2, 60089-0, 60090-4 Pa., Three-vol. set $19.50

Prices subject to change without notice.

Available at your book dealer or write for free catalogue to Dept. GI, Dover
Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd St. Mineola., N.Y. 11501. Dover publishes more
than 175 books each year on science, elementary and advanced mathematics,
biology, music, art, literary history, social sciences and other areas.
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