Turkish March in 4th Mvmt of 9th Symphony - What was Beethoven Thinking?

[Joy]

To me Beethoven's use of a "military" march here makes very much sense, for the words used here speak of a "hero who went out to win", so what would fit better here??
I love this march but especially I love it because it opens the door to this awesome fugatto which follows! Again another variation of the theme of joy. But what a dramatic gesture, it makes me tremble!!!

Gerd

Very nicely described gprengel. My sentiments exactly!

[gprengel]

Regarding our discussion on the 4th mov. on the 9th I was reminded of my visit to Beethoven's house in baden where he composed the symphony. It was so funny there to see the notes of the main theme and "Brüder, seid umschlungen"
written on the window shutter. Beethoven wrote on there when he was in lack of paper, neighours who saw this came and bought the window shutter from the owner of the house!!

see the picture I took there:

http://gerdprengel.de/vienna.html

[Phil Leeds]

Great pictures gprengel. Thanks for sharing them

[DavidO]

The Turkish style was also very popular in Vienna and had been for a long time. Mozart was among many composers who employed it. This was due to the siege of Vienna by the Turks many years earlier. It represented exoticism to the nth degree as well as the military connotations. Thus the "Rondo: alla Turca" in keyboard sonata K 331, and indeed, "The Abduction from the Seraglio".

Was the Turkish style still this popular in Vienna in 1823-24?

[Peter]

I don't think so - Italian opera was the rage.

[Sorrano]

I don't think so - Italian opera was the rage.

How in touch was Beethoven with the current styles of the time? I doubt that he had much capacity to attend concerts at the current deficiency of aural abilities.

[Peter]

How in touch was Beethoven with the current styles of the time? I doubt that he had much capacity to attend concerts at the current deficiency of aural abilities.

Yes but he was fully aware of what was going on through various other means - music journals, publishers, friends and of course bill boards with Rossini written all over them!

[Quijote]

There is just so much self-depracation in Beethoven. I think the Turkish fashion had gone out with Mozart, but Beethoven's humour got the better of him, and the "carnival" aspect of which you speak is about spot on and in keeping with his general feeling of artistic freedom and cocking a snook. The 9th is the greatest symphony of all time, but what spurred Beethoven on to finish it (its gestation period was unusually long) was not "his art" but the promise of £25 from the Royal London Society...

A few points, if I may, PDG. You speak about 'self-deprecation' (note spelling, old boy!), but I wonder if you rather mean 'irony' in this context. I also ask in all honesty, to whom is LvB cocking a snook (I admit unfamiliarity with this expression)?

As to your proclamation that LvB's Ninth is 'the greatest symphony of all time', whilst I share your enthusiasm for this momentous work I hesitate to make such categoric statements; further, we know from the literature that LvB wrote what he wanted when he wanted, and in the latter part of his career did not write solely for pecuniary motives, so I feel obliged to question a mere £25 as providing the stimulus to its completion.

[Quijote]

Yes it is the last movement that has always come in for the greatest criticism yet paradoxically it is the movement best known and loved! Honestly I think the march is splendid and highly original in its context.

Rather like the 'Eroica', where we can read many scholarly 'amounts of ink' expounding on the the first movement alone. I am not entirely convinced that the 4th movement (IXth) is the best known and loved. Personally (please forgive me if I am breaking some taboos in saying so) I have always felt a slight 'disappointment' with the choral finale, and take some succour from the reported 'fact' that LvB even considered he may have made a mistake. That said, even if it were an aesthetic 'miscalculation' on B's part, it remains one hell of a glorioius mistake.

[Quijote]

[...] the march section of the finale was described as Beethoven taking the music "outdoors". The beginning of the march does seem to suggest an army of musicians in the distance and gradually coming closer.

Michael raises an interesting point : 'taking the music outdoors'. According to the literature Beethoven advised against using / imagining too overt a 'programme' in his music. We must consider this statement in light of the Pastoral symphony, but why not too in the IXth? In certain ways the concept ("taking music outdoors") raises issues concerning 'absolute' music (as a symphony would have been perceived at that time) and 'extra-musical' constructs; certainly, this 'Turkish March' may be construed as 'relocating the live', but its modernist approach is staggering for someone writing in the early part of the 19th century.

[Quijote]

I think the march is highly inspired with a wonderful counter melody in the tenor - nobody criticised Haydn for using cymbals, triangles and tambourines in his symphony no.100.

I agree with the first part of your posting Peter : yes, an inspired 'Alla marcia' with a wonderful counter melody. The fact that nobody (really?) has criticised Haydn for using cymbals, triangles and so on misses the point somewhat. I would tentatively suggest that Haydn uses percussion as 'decoration'. Beethoven, on the other hand, uses it as a motor force, as we know well in the Scherzo of the Ninth : surely, never before had the timpani been used in such a manner and for such structural purposes.

[Quijote]

The musicologist where I studied music taught that one of the reasons for using the Turkish March was to give the audience something familiar to hear with all the newness of a choral symphony. The very nature of the work was so vastly different than anything that had come before; even the first three movements are unlike anything else that Beethoven had composed. The Turkish March, then would represent something that would enable the audience to get a hold of that was somewhat familiar.

I do not think for one moment that LvB wrote to 'accommodate' the common listener, Sorrano. The speculation of your musicologist (why not just say 'music teacher'?) is interesting, but does not finally hold water.

[Quijote]

Nice idea Sorrano, but I don't buy it - after all there was nothing much familiar about having a Turkish march in a symphony! I don't think for one moment Beethoven was thinking along anything other than artistic lines - the march (which is simply a variation of the theme) provides an almost operatic interlude before the double fugue and a dramatic contrast to the preceding episode.

We are also perhaps overlooking something here, in the Alla Marcia (or so-called 'Turkish' march) : we should forget the military element and imagine instead the steady 'march' of the millions that represent the brotherhood of man, walking (marching?) toward a Utopian (dare I say 'socialist'?) state.

[Quijote]

I think everyone's about half right with this. The march is a devastating puncturing device, breaking up the emotional overload before we are subconsciously primed for even more intensity.

Perhaps I am half wrong, but I feel you may have hit the proverbial nail on the head, PDG. I am not sure to what extent B was aware of 'puncturing devices' as 'structural tools', but surely as you say, there is a clear feeling of our emotions being controlled and guided. Thus it ever was, with B.

[Quijote]

IMHO the entire 9th rests entirely on the massively solid foundation of its first movement. the rest of the music is no match in contrast to the surging dynamics of the first movement.

Does anyone have anything solid to say about those opening crashing chords... and that thunderous musical explosion in the middle of the first movement?

Can anyone possibly fathom the imagery described in that music?

Hello LvBfanatic : as I have said elsewhere on this forum before, reponses to such issues as you raise will be (necessarily) grossly inadequate, given that internet forums by their nature will lend themselves only to 'soundbite' answers. That said, let me try to address your points :

In your honest opinion the entire IXth rests on the [...] first movement. In as much that most symphonies are 'defined' by their opening first movements this is certainly true, but is only half the picture. The point you are perhaps unintentionally raising is one of 'structural weighting' (other writers refer to 'centres of gravty' in a given work), and it is this that - in part - distinguishes LvB from his contemporaries (and why I have decided not to be drawn into the 'Classical v. Romantic' argument on another thread on this forum). Whereas your comments would normally apply quite validly to many if not most of Haydn's (and Mozart's) symphonies, sonatas and quartets, this is decidedly not the case with our dear belovèd LvB, who, in contrast to accepted classical procedures (which were, incidently, not at all formalised in B's day), chose to play with this 'structural' aspect.

The point then, about the IXth in particular, is that the 'centre of gravity' is not only in the 1st movement, momentous though this movement is. The question for me is whether or not the 4th movement matches up to the 1st movement from this point of view, and as I said above, I do feel a certain 'disappointment' in that regard. This is a point that would be the subject of many a musicological convention, so I can hardly hope to do justice to it here, but perhaps it will set in motion an interesting debate.

As to your last comment above about 'fathoming the imagery' : let yourself be guided by your own imagination, as B himself would not have wanted to 'spell it out' for you!