an alternative instrumental Finale of the 9th symphony

[gprengel]

Im the summer of 1823 Beethoven began concepting the final movement of his 9th symphony and he was struggling whether it should be a choral or an instrumental movement. . There are 3 sketches from July and even from autumn with a theme which later in 1825 he would use (in a changed and more elaborated form) for the main theme of the Finale of the a-minor string quartet op. 132 and also for a 2nd theme. In the recent days one question arose in my heart: How might Beethoven have written the alternative instrumental Finale of the 9th? So I began brooding over the sketches and orchestrated the 5th movement of op. 132 and began now to write a symphonic Finale. In this I use certain orchestrated passages from the expostion/recapitulation and the Coda of the quartet movement. But the opening and the development will be completely new. I hope to present to you the outcome in a few weeks ... both a crazy and fascinating task :-).

[Peter]

Good luck with that! Quite an undertaking.

[Quijote]

Im the summer of 1823 Beethoven began concepting the final movement of his 9th symphony and he was struggling whether it should be a choral or an instrumental movement. . There are 3 sketches from July and even from autumn with a theme which later in 1825 he would use (in a changed and more elaborated form) for the main theme of the Finale of the a-minor string quartet op. 132 and also for a 2nd theme. In the recent days one question arose in my heart: How might Beethoven have written the alternative instrumental Finale of the 9th? So I began brooding over the sketches and orchestrated the 5th movement of op. 132 and began now to write a symphonic Finale. In this I use certain orchestrated passages from the expostion/recapitulation and the Coda of the quartet movement. But the opening and the development will be completely new. I hope to present to you the outcome in a few weeks ... both a crazy and fascinating task :-).

Crazy and fascinating! Good luck and please keep us posted.

[gprengel]

I can't believe that I could finish the movement in hardly 3 weeks... 40% comes from the Finale from op. 132, which I had orchestrated before, the rest is from me. What are your impressions? My second theme was inspired by the sketch of Beethoven, but I think it is much more melodious now... http://gerdprengel.de/alternFinale.mp3
Tomorrow I may present also Beethovens skeches for the instrumental Finale ...
Gerd

[Quijote]

I can't believe that I could finish the movement in hardly 3 weeks... 40% comes from the Finale from op. 132, which I had orchestrated before, the rest is from me. What are your impressions? My second theme was inspired by the sketch of Beethoven, but I think it is much more melodious now... http://gerdprengel.de/alternFinale.mp3
Tomorrow I may present also Beethovens skeches for the instrumental Finale ...
Gerd

Hello Gerd,
Where do you find the time to do all this? And would you mind posting your score, too?

[gprengel]

Hello Gerd,
Where do you find the time to do all this? And would you mind posting your score, too?

Well, mostly I worked in the weekends and late at night ;-) Here is my score and also some of the sketches which were most important for me.

http://www.gerdprengel.de/alternFinale.pdf

http://www.gerdprengel.de/alternFinale_sketches.pdf

http://www.gerdprengel.de/alternFinale_sketches.mp3

[Peter]

Well much as I admire your work Gerd, I have to say I'm glad we have the choral version of the finale Beethoven gave us. That final movement had enormous influence on later 19th century music and we have to ask what might we have lost had Beethoven reverted to an instrumental finale based on those quartet sketches?

[gprengel]

Well much as I admire your work Gerd, I have to say I'm glad we have the choral version of the finale Beethoven gave us... what might we have lost had Beethoven reverted to an instrumental finale based on those quartet sketches?

Of course, Peter, with my little project I did not intend to throw the slightest doubt on that!!!

[gprengel]

By now I have it also in YT together with the score which makes it easier to follow the notes: https://youtu.be/CCiRkgZFVaI

[Quijote]

By now I have it also in YT together with the score which makes it easier to follow the notes: https://youtu.be/CCiRkgZFVaI

Well, I enjoyed that very much indeed and applaud you for some excellent work. Even though you took inspiration from some Beethoven sketches I heard some other stylistic influences that reminded me of Mendelssohn and Schubert, and even some Landler that reminded me of Bruckner! But once again, excellent work, well done!
On a technical point, I did notice a few places in the score where you wrote notes that couldn't be played by the double bass or bassoon, for example in bars 289-290, but such details can be corrected easily in your software.