Your Favourite Beethoven Symphony?

[Haffner]

Such a profound and perfect body of work I believe deserves its own topic so here it is. There are many to choose from, and this is certainly no easy choice, but I am more than curious to hear everyone's favourite and why that symphony has moved them so greatly.

For a long time my favourite was the 7th; it is so emotionally varied and expresses joy, sadness, desperation, humour and triumph throughout the course of its four wonderful movements.

I had never really "heard" the 3rd though, I had listened but not yet heard it. So, after giving it my full attention for the first time, I was immensely moved and from that point on, that was the only Beethoven symphony for me. Such a feeling of grief prevails throughout this work, a feeling which I feel is never resolved but simply ignored as we move from a sad and reaching fugato subject in the finale to a flamboyant fanfare.

Also, the whole idea of this work, that it was dedicated to the "Memory of a Great Man", that man of course being Napoleon. This idea of loss, the loss of an ideal and the great disappointment associated with this loss, is one of the greatest statements in the history of music. This symphony is, I believe, the real precursor to the 9th in its personal emotional expression, harmonic sophistication and sincere continuity. No other work of art as genuinely and as faithfully expresses a single emotion as Beethoven's 3rd symphony; I think everyone would agree that upon analysis there is nothing "heroic" about the Erocia.

So, what is your favourite Beethoven symphony?

[Peter]

I always find these favourite questions impossible to answer - Your favourite composer, your favourite piece of music etc..! Music isn't set in stone and we react differently to the same pieces/composers on different days and circumstances. Beethoven's symphonies are all so different but they all have that quality of genius and inspiration that draws you back time and time again to listen.

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'Man know thyself'

[Ateach Asc]

Originally posted by Peter:
I always find these favourite questions impossible to answer - Your favourite composer, your favourite piece of music etc..! Music isn't set in stone and we react differently to the same pieces/composers on different days and circumstances. Beethoven's symphonies are all so different but they all have that quality of genius and inspiration that draws you back time and time again to listen.

If it is permissible to expand a bit on this question, I would like to offer the Missa Solemnis as my favourite *symphony*. If you listen to the 9th (op 125) you realize that it constantly moves from a very powerful opening to a less than intense musical experience... although it is very well crafted and has few peers in the symphonic realms... (not even Mahler's much vaunted 8th).

Going back to the MS (op 123)... B could have easily dropped into it the very first movement of the 9th and have noone notice... because that movement has all of the dynamics and tensions found in significant portions of the MS.

Also, it is very difficult to readjust one's listening moods to the other B symphs once one has heard the MS in its full glories a few times.

So that's why I feel that the MS, for all of its programmation, is actually part of the B symphonic repertoire... and I'm not surprised that it is followed chronologically by the weaker sister 9th symphony (opus 125).

This does not in any way bar me from stating categorically that much of Beethoven's musical compositions are my most favourites... but the MS does tower over the symphonically styled repetoire, imho.



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Must it be? It must be!

[Gurn Blanston]

Well, I don't buy this premise for a second. Would you also say that the 4th Piano Concerto is Beethoven's best String Quartet?
Also, the 9th Symphony is far better than you give it credit for, I don't think it si the "weak sister" to anything else ever composed.
That being said, for the last year or so I have felt that the 8th is my favorite symphony. It bears up well to repeated listening, and has the strange power to sound modern and somewhat groundbreaking while at the same time managing to evoke the bygone Classical Age of the Late Enlightenment.



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Regards,
Gurn
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That's my opinion, I may be wrong.
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[Chris]

Well, it changes practically day to day, but for me, it is most often the 4th.

[Joy]

I have to agree with Peter on this one. Music isn't set in stone and your reaction to certian pieces does change from day to day regarding your own circumstances and emotions. I have gone from my favourites being the 4th and then some time later the 5th and then the 8th for certain reasons. If my back is up against the wall and I have to choose I would have to choose the 9th as that is the first Beethoven symphony I heard when I was young and it grabbed me immediately and has had a profound effect on me throughout the years.

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'Truth and beauty joined'

[JA Gardiner]

I'd agree on the 9th - if only Maestro Kleiber had recorded it I'd be in heaven. However in recent months his recording of the 6th is the one I keep finding myself drawn to as it brings out qualities that I never suspected in a piece that, since I was young, I've heard done to death and had begun to feel was perhaps just too obvious in comparison with the others.

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Beethoven the Man!

[Gurn Blanston]

Originally posted by Joy:
....If my back is up against the wall and I have to choose I would have to choose the 9th as that is the first Beethoven symphony I heard when I was young and it grabbed me immediately and has had a profound effect on me throughout the years.

Joy,
I always suspected that this was the real reason that you changed your name to "Joy" As ya'll well know, the 9th is the Grail to me, I don't count it in competition with the others as it stands alone. So, properly speaking, it is the 9th, then the 8th.


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Regards,
Gurn
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That's my opinion, I may be wrong.
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[This message has been edited by Gurn Blanston (edited 10-22-2004).]

[Joy]

Originally posted by Gurn Blanston:
Joy,
I always suspected that this was the real reason that you changed your name to "Joy" As ya'll well know, the 9th is the Grail to me, I don't count it in competition with the others as it stands alone. So, properly speaking, it is the 9th, then the 8th.

You are right about the name, Gurn!
and I totally agree with you that the 9th stands alone. I have always thought that way!
So, I have my favourites (although they do change from time to time depending upon my mood) with regard to the 'other' eight!



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'Truth and beauty joined'

[Haffner]

Well I agree with Peter as some of you do but I posted the topic because I feel each symphony is very unique. Each expresses emotion in a unique way and thus I feel everyone is so independant from the last.

In response to those of you who admire the 4th, may I ask why? This is in no way questioning your view but I feel I have never really understood the 4th, it has always left me somewhat cold, thus your insight on the work may help me to understand it better.

[Sorrano]

Originally posted by Haffner:
Well I agree with Peter as some of you do but I posted the topic because I feel each symphony is very unique. Each expresses emotion in a unique way and thus I feel everyone is so independant from the last.

In response to those of you who admire the 4th, may I ask why? This is in no way questioning your view but I feel I have never really understood the 4th, it has always left me somewhat cold, thus your insight on the work may help me to understand it better.

The 5th Symphony has special meaning to me as it is the work that propelled me into the world of music. However, as said above, each symphony is unique and has qualities that the others do not have.

I find it difficult, too, to listen to the 4th. I think my primary reason is that in my subconscious I am aware that this work sits between two colossal giants and it's hard to focus on this, a more subtle work, as my mind goes to the 3rd and 5th. I seldom listen to it without having listened to either the 3rd or 5th recently.

[lvbfanatic]

Originally posted by Gurn Blanston:
Well, I don't buy this premise for a second. Would you also say that the 4th Piano Concerto is Beethoven's best String Quartet?
Also, the 9th Symphony is far better than you give it credit for, I don't think it si the "weak sister" to anything else ever composed.

hmmmm.... the last time i heard the MS and the 9th they both seemed to have a full symphonic orchestra pitted against an overwhelmingly large choir together drowning out a foreground quartet of really good singers. so the comparison is very well placed... and i have to agree with ateach and thumbs down on gurn.

as for the string qt vs the 4th pc... well here we're short in one work by at least one piano and several dozen other instruments... but if you analize the sense of the quartets... they seem to be the distilled essences of much larger musical works... and that is perhaps why the quartets are so enthralling.

as for the 9th symph being characterized as the weak sister of the MS... that is a very appropriate appellation... it does not detract from the magnificence of that work... it merely suggests that the MS has a power that transcends the 9th... and in fact the Gloria and the Credo put together do overwhelm that freude schoener thingamajig of the 9th... so ateach is very correct... and in this case gurn is wrong...


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A Calm Sea and A Prosperous Voyage

[Big D]

Dear B lovers: The greatest symphony ever written by Beethoven or anyone else is B's 9th in D minor. No other work in the symphonic repetoire can match this one. If you feel otherwise, YOU'RE WRONG!

[This message has been edited by Big D (edited 10-26-2004).]

[Geratlas]

Originally posted by Big D:
[B]Dear B lovers: The greatest symphony ever written by Beethoven or anyone else is B's 9th in D minor. No other work in the symphonic repetoire can match this one. If you feel otherwise, YOU'RE WRONG! B]

Day to You, Mr. D.
I am (probably more than) willing myself to champion this symphony as superior to (LvB's) others, or rather I would be, if it was not that I conceive it to be perceived as more than a symphony! It is a entirely new genre form´, I belive. And so also a whole new world in musical expression. Greatest, though? I wonder:
By what do you measure that!?
Paragrimphics? Pseudometers? or perhaps Quasificial improxibits? - I am curious.
Of course the symphony is great. (for fact?)
And so by almost any standard, but it is pointless to state that one's own Feelings make it so to others but oneself. This is because Feelings are neither 'right' nor 'wrong'.
But they surely can lead one to think they are. What do you thinh of nos. 1-8?

[Big D]

Originally posted by Geratlas:
[b]

Originally posted by Big D:
Dear B lovers: The greatest symphony ever written by Beethoven or anyone else is B's 9th in D minor. No other work in the symphonic repetoire can match this one. If you feel otherwise, YOU'RE WRONG! B]

Day to You, Mr. D.
I am (probably more than) willing myself to champion this symphony as superior to (LvB's) others, or rather I would be, if it was not that I conceive it to be perceived as more than a symphony! It is a entirely new genre form´, I belive. And so also a whole new world in musical expression. Greatest, though? I wonder:
By what do you measure that!?
Paragrimphics? Pseudometers? or perhaps Quasificial improxibits? - I am curious.
Of course the symphony is great. (for fact?)
And so by almost any standard, but it is pointless to state that one's own Feelings make it so to others but oneself. This is because Feelings are neither 'right' nor 'wrong'.
But they surely can lead one to think they are. What do you thinh of nos. 1-8?

Dear Geratlas: I think B's symphonies #1-8 are outstanding and, for the their size and scope and innovativness (at least #3,#5 and #7) are miles ahead of the ones written by Haydn and Mozart.
However, I do not think that any one of these symphonies mentioned or any ones written by different composers later (and there are some great ones out there!) can match the brilliance and genius of the Ninth. It simply stands by it self, in my humble opinion, because it is the culmination of B's ingenuity and creative spirit in regards to his symphonic works.

Much Love,
Big D