Speaking of Beethoven (who've I've been listening to again), here's alittle something I wrote for another forum (where folks are rather new to Beethoven):
Practically everyone knows the first movement of the 5th Symphony, at least the beginning bars. As the symphony unfolds, a grand journey from darkness to light, or from struggle to freedom is achieved in a direct manner that astonishes on practically every hearing. With the exception of Mozart’s late G minor Symphony, no other symphony is so driven and thematically compressed, with the famous four note “fate” motive inherent in almost every bar. Concise and lean, the first four notes sounded like a flippant joke to first audiences. Perhaps this
is a kind of musical joke. After all, Beethoven's pupil Carl Czerny claimed the famous motto of the 5th Symphony derived from the call of a finch, yet as the music progresses, a demanding architecture unfolds, one-pointed and serious.
Depending on the performance or interpretation, this first movement can sound angry, defiant, heroic, terrifying or all these things and much more...a testament to Beethoven’s genius. I prefer the movement to sound profoundly angry. Not anger over a small frustration, but over a great affront to truth, or even over the deterioration of the body (Beethoven’s own illness and deafness comes to mind). There is a wonderful purifying quality to this “angry” and volatile music. Indeed the whole work proceeds like a session in a psychoanalyst’s office. From the initial anger of the first movement we hear a quieter reflection from the “patient” (perhaps discussing a dream or a recalled memory) during the second movement. This seems to be questioned by the psychoanalyst during the third movement, and an argument and hashing out between the patient and doctor ensues until we reach the finale, where revelation and healing is received and celebrated, even through a return to the dilemma just before the end. I imagine the psychoanalyst office to be bright and sunny, thanks to a large picture window over the patient. I also imagine the patient had to walk for miles, like Beethoven’s walks through the Austrian countryside, through bright, cold sunshine and piles of light snow to get to this bright office. The psychoanalyst would be a beautiful women, a women who appears in the patient’s dreams, causing dilemma and wonder for the patient during his search for truth.
Personally, I have always been entranced by the epic second movement, a music suggesting wandering in a grand landscape, very Schubertian. A military sounding fanfare interrupts the flow during the course of the argument, a hint of the triumph in the finale. The introspective woodwinds are a total contrast to the extrovert brass and timpani, a questioning over all that has appeared before, or perhaps resignation, and the soft wandering of the quieter sections foreshadows the pastoral pastures of the 6th symphony. The flutes in the second movement always brings to mind Beethoven’s so called
Heiligenstadt Testament, written in a state of depression over his deafness and loneliness in 1802 in the town of Heiligenstadt, a country retreat about an hour away from Vienna. Here is an excerpt:
For my brothers Carl and Johann Beethoven
Oh you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn, or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you. From childhood on, my heart and soul have been full of the tender feeling of goodwill, and I was even inclined to accomplish great things. But, think that for six years now I have been hopelessly afflicted, made worse by senseless physicians, from year to year deceived with hopes of improvement, finally compelled to face the prospect of a lasting malady (whose cure will take years or, perhaps, be impossible).
Though born with a fiery, active temperament, even susceptible to the diversions of society, I was soon compelled to isolate myself, to live life alone. If at times I tried to forget all this, oh, how harshly was I flung back by the doubly sad experience of my bad hearing. Yet it was impossible for me to say to people, "Speak Louder, shout, for I am deaf". Oh, how could I possibly admit an infirmity in the one sense which ought to be more perfect in me than others, a sense which I once possessed in the hightést perfection, a perfection such as few in my profession enjoy or ever have enjoyed. – Oh I cannot do it; therefore forgive me when you see me draw back when I would have gladly mingled with you.
My misfortune is doubly painful to me because I am bound to be misunderstood; for me there can be no relaxation with my fellow men, no refined conversations, no mutual exchange of ideas. I must live almost alone, like one who has been banished. I can mix with society only as much as true necessity demands. If I approach near to people a hot terror seizes upon me, and I fear being exposed to the danger that my condition might be noticed. Thus it has been during the last six months which I have spent in the country. By ordering me to spare my hearing as much as possible, my intelligent doctor almost fell in with my own present frame of mind, though sometimes I ran counter to it by yielding to my desire for companionship.
But what a humiliation for me when someone standing next to me heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing, or someone standing next to me heard a shepherd singing and again I heard nothing. Such incidents drove me almost to despair; a little more of that and I would have ended my life. It was only my art that held me back. Oh, it seemed to me impossible to leave the world until I had forth all that I felt was within me. So I endured this wretched existence, truly wretched for so susceptible a body, which can be thrown by a sudden change from the best condition to the worst. Patience, they say, is what I must now choose for my guide, and I have done so - I hope my determination will remain firm to endure until it pleases the inexorable Parcae to break the thread. Perhaps I shall get better, perhaps not; I am ready. - Forced to become a philosopher already in my twenty-eight year, oh, it is not easy, and for the artist much more difficult than for anyone else. Divine One, thou seest my inmost soul thou knowest that therein dwells the love of mankind and the desire to do good. Oh, fellow men, when at some point you read this, consider then that you have done me injustice. Someone who has had misfortune may console himself to find a similar case to his, who despite all the limitations of Nature nevertheless did everything within his powers to become accepted among worthy artist and men. The sound world of the 6th Symphony, the “Pastoral”, is completely the opposite. Where the 5th is concise, the 6th is leisurely. Beethoven titles the first movement an “awakening of cheerful feelings upon arrival in the country.” As the symphony progresses we are treated to various vignettes of country existence. Even a storm appears to break up a celebration dance of pheasants, but the storm disperses quickly, replaced by the calm thanksgiving of the finale (the transition to the finale is among the most sublime of all symphonic literature). Despite the programmatic aspect of the work, the symphony is formally and structurally as sound as the 5th, just not as obvious.
Again, the highlight for me is the second movement, “by the Brook” as Beethoven titles it. In the second movement we walk along a brook, and hear various species of birds chirp over the running of a river. Here, Beethoven includes references to bird song, and even names the types of birds at one point in the score; nightingale (flute), quail (oboe), and cuckoo (clarinet). It is interesting to note how the motto of the 5th is subtly evoked between the quail and the cuckoo.
As musicologist Raymond Knapp reveals in his essay,
A Tale of Two Symphonies: Converging Narratives of Divine Reconciliation in Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth, the 5th and 6th can be seen as a pair, not thematically, but in structure and concept. Raymond Knapp has shown how the outline, or structure of the 6th is essentially modeled upon the structure of the 5th. Using the rigorous structure of the 5th as a model may have helped prevent the programmatic aspect of the “pastoral” symphony from sounding like a series of separate vignettes. Conceptually, the 6th is similar to the 5th in terms of the introspective journey. Not a journey from darkness to light, as in the 5th, but a journey of reflection towards thanksgiving. That Beethoven could come up with two completely different musical worlds, even by using the same musical and structural devices for both works, is truly a wonder.
I uploaded the article for anyone interested on reading more on the similarities between these two symphonies:
A Tale of Two Symphonies: Converging Narratives of Divine Reconciliation in Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixthhttp://rs171tl.rapidshare.com/files/67164512/Beethovenarticle.pdfI used to ponder these two symphonies during long walks along forests surrounding a community college in Rochester, MN. This small college (where I studied music) had a periodical called The Musical Quarterly, and I loved to walk to the college to look up articles on these works, as well and Mahler and Ives among others. The “nature” meditation of the Pastoral Symphony struck me as most profound and very funny...Beethoven writing “Cuckoo” over a bar of music in the score was just hilarious. I knew Beethoven took long hikes amongst the countryside to write music and get ideas, and even sing loudly while he sketched notes onto a pocket sketchbook, or just walk with his hands clasped behind his back. This image of him walking haunts me to this day...it is a powerful image of independence.
His fourth Piano Concerto, in G Major has a similar pastoral quality. The music is soft, gentle...it questions in a state of surrender. The main theme evokes the 5th symphony, turns the motto of the 5th inside out towards a quieter reflection. This piano concerto doesn’t feel like a journey towards a goal. The still-life meditation of the middle movement (strings and piano only) is surrounded by two landscape views outside Vienna, as heard in the allegro movements. The short central movement is the heart of the concerto. The music is almost operatic, proceeding like a recitative, except we never hear the aria that usually follows the recitative. As in Ives’s
Unanswered Question, the strings never answer the piano’s interior questions...rather the answer is hidden by the question itself. I can’t help but remember a woman named Antonie Bretano (1780-1869), the women thought to be Beethoven’s “Immortal Beloved”...a woman he loved but last saw in 1812.
Antonie Brentano
Beethoven’s three letters to his Immortal Beloved were found after his death in 1827. Found in a drawer in his desk, it is not known if these letters were actually sent, or returned by the addressee. Here are his three letters to her:
(The first letter)
July 6, in the morning
My angel, my all, my very self - Only a few words today and at that with pencil (with yours) - Not till tomorrow will my lodgings be definitely determined upon - what a useless waste of time - Why this deep sorrow when necessity speaks - can our love endure except through sacrifices, through not demanding everything from one another; can you change the fact that you are not wholly mine, I not wholly thine - Oh God, look out into the beauties of nature and comfort your heart with that which must be - Love demands everything and that very justly - thus it is to me with you, and to your with me. But you forget so easily that I must live for me and for you; if we were wholly united you would feel the pain of it as little as I - My journey was a fearful one; I did not reach here until 4 o'clock yesterday morning. Lacking horses the post-coach chose another route, but what an awful one; at the stage before the last I was warned not to travel at night; I was made fearful of a forest, but that only made me the more eager - and I was wrong. The coach must needs break down on the wretched road, a bottomless mud road. Without such postilions as I had with me I should have remained stuck in the road. Esterhazy, traveling the usual road here, had the same fate with eight horses that I had with four - Yet I got some pleasure out of it, as I always do when I successfully overcome difficulties - Now a quick change to things internal from things external. We shall surely see each other soon; moreover, today I cannot share with you the thoughts I have had during these last few days touching my own life - If our hearts were always close together, I would have none of these. My heart is full of so many things to say to you - ah - there are moments when I feel that speech amounts to nothing at all - Cheer up - remain my true, my only treasure, my all as I am yours. The gods must send us the rest, what for us must and shall be -
Your faithful LUDWIG.(The second letter)
Evening, Monday, July 6
You are suffering, my dearest creature - only now have I learned that letters must be posted very early in the morning on Mondays to Thursdays - the only days on which the mail-coach goes from here to K. - You are suffering - Ah, wherever I am, there you are also - I will arrange it with you and me that I can live with you. What a life!!! thus!!! without you - pursued by the goodness of mankind hither and thither - which I as little want to deserve as I deserve it - Humility of man towards man - it pains me - and when I consider myself in relation to the universe, what am I and what is He - whom we call the greatest - and yet - herein lies the divine in man - I weep when I reflect that you will probably not receive the first report from me until Saturday - Much as you love me - I love you more - But do not ever conceal yourself from me - good night - As I am taking the baths I must go to bed - Oh God - so near! so far! Is not our love truly a heavenly structure, and also as firm as the vault of heaven?(The third letter)
Good morning, on July 7
Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, now and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn whether or not fate will hear us - I can live only wholly with you or not at all - Yes, I am resolved to wander so long away from you until I can fly to your arms and say that I am really at home with you, and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits - Yes, unhappily it must be so - You will be the more contained since you know my fidelity to you. No one else can ever possess my heart - never - never - Oh God, why must one be parted from one whom one so loves. And yet my life in V is now a wretched life - Your love makes me at once the happiest and the unhappiest of men - At my age I need a steady, quiet life - can that be so in our connection? My angel, I have just been told that the mailcoach goes every day - therefore I must close at once so that you may receive the letter at once - Be calm, only by a calm consideration of our existence can we achieve our purpose to live together - Be calm - love me - today - yesterday - what tearful longings for you - you - you - my life - my all - farewell. Oh continue to love me - never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.
ever thine
ever mine
ever ours
