Listening to Beethoven
People listen to Beethoven as if he merely strung together pretty notes to make exciting passages. It is as if we were to read Proust but mistake him for a comic book. Bernstein was scathing, saying that mere pretty sounds did not music make. The mature Beethoven was just as contemptuous, having made the mistake of writing lyric pieces when he was younger - the Septet, op. 20 comes immediately to mind - and seeing the results. Beethoven challenges us to think about what we are hearing. A great deal of thought went into his notes, as the sketchbooks prove.
The Eroica is unique in that it combines two completely different musical styles. The first two movements are programmatic. In them, Beethoven uses organized sound to describe concrete events, specific ideas. This is the reason why the forms he used, sonata form in the first, ABA (supposedly) for the second, are exploded. When a composer replaces musical themes with thematic motifs, he must handle them in a thematic, not musical, way. This is why supposed "new material" appears in both the development and coda sections of the first: When you bring one motif to another motif, they interact & "something new" is created. The proper place for that interaction, and its result, is the development section. This process continues in the coda, explaining its enormous length. A different organizing technique is at play in the second movement, which is why an A-B-A form wanders off into something else entirely, and with stunning results.
Beethoven, unlike Richard Strauss, was no greater than than when he balanced thematic motifs with pure music. He did not feel the need to make every note "mean something", unlike Richard Wagner. It is absurd to think the famous Funeral March was written for a young & healthy Napoleon with the best years of his life still (presumably) ahead of him. Or that that it was for Beethoven himself. (Can any one find me another example of this kind of musical ego on Beethoven's part? His "Domestic Symphony"?).
Beethoven starts the funeral march with a motif derived from watching grown men (not women) burst uncontrollably into tears. First the man sucks in his breath, and then he burst out sobbing & cannot stop. Cue up the movement. At the very first note, suck your breath in. Then burst out sobbing. You will then try to stop (sucking in a spastic breath in two sections), but burst out all over again. You will mimic the music precisely. This is how the composer worked. This is how he obtained his themes. But you will note that what Beethoven subsequently does with his hard-won theme has nothing to do with following the sobbing man around. He uses his theme in a purely musical fashion, before going on, as in the first movement, to purely descriptive music.
There is some actual person described in the second movement. That person was dead, had been dead, when Beethoven came to describe their death. The moment of death itself is at bar 209. A second death seems to follow at bar 211, when the first violins join in. (Get out your score.) Why is this not more dramatic?
Two reasons. One, at the time there were no historical parallels for this kind of musical intensity. Beethoven is making it up as he goes. Blazing a trail, as he did so often. Berlioz had Beethoven as an example, which is a hint. Secondly, Beethoven, while personally vulgar, was never musically so.
So in the Eroica's funeral march, we are looking for someone who is dead. Someone famous. Someone whose death was a shock. As much of a shock as Kennedy's death, or 9-11. Listen to the remainder of the movement, after bar 209. Find out who Marie's father was, and you will solve the mystery.
So what about Napoleon? He's there. He's the last two movements. Purely musical movements. Purely musical because Beethoven knew as much about him as America knows about Barak Obama. These two movements are written with hope. Hope for the future. The only thing Beethoven knows about Obama, I mean Bonaparte, is that he likes bees: Third movement. Work it out. For the very first time, see Beethoven at work.
Fourth movement, theme & variations, is the Life of the Hero. Does not make any difference which hero. It's the same life, one way or another. How does that life end? The hero has his great triumph, and then fades away, only to be recalled by the People themselves, because the hero, upon whom we place our hopes, never really dies, he only goes into hiding. Beethoven's famous comment, late in life, that he had already written music for the death of Napoleon, refers to the end of the 4th movement, and his eternal hope that a hero would appear. Unlike the first two movements, the Scherzo & finale of the Eroica run strictly to form. When you're writing pure music, there's no need to play with form. Beethoven never disturbs his forms unless the music demands it.
So what does that make the first movement? What does that make of the famous footsteps - and I agree there are footsteps in it - ? 1789, the French Revolution itself? Does it end with the storming of the Bastille? We can all speculate.
People listen to Beethoven as if he merely strung together pretty notes to make exciting passages. It is as if we were to read Proust but mistake him for a comic book. Bernstein was scathing, saying that mere pretty sounds did not music make. The mature Beethoven was just as contemptuous, having made the mistake of writing lyric pieces when he was younger - the Septet, op. 20 comes immediately to mind - and seeing the results. Beethoven challenges us to think about what we are hearing. A great deal of thought went into his notes, as the sketchbooks prove.
The Eroica is unique in that it combines two completely different musical styles. The first two movements are programmatic. In them, Beethoven uses organized sound to describe concrete events, specific ideas. This is the reason why the forms he used, sonata form in the first, ABA (supposedly) for the second, are exploded. When a composer replaces musical themes with thematic motifs, he must handle them in a thematic, not musical, way. This is why supposed "new material" appears in both the development and coda sections of the first: When you bring one motif to another motif, they interact & "something new" is created. The proper place for that interaction, and its result, is the development section. This process continues in the coda, explaining its enormous length. A different organizing technique is at play in the second movement, which is why an A-B-A form wanders off into something else entirely, and with stunning results.
Beethoven, unlike Richard Strauss, was no greater than than when he balanced thematic motifs with pure music. He did not feel the need to make every note "mean something", unlike Richard Wagner. It is absurd to think the famous Funeral March was written for a young & healthy Napoleon with the best years of his life still (presumably) ahead of him. Or that that it was for Beethoven himself. (Can any one find me another example of this kind of musical ego on Beethoven's part? His "Domestic Symphony"?).
Beethoven starts the funeral march with a motif derived from watching grown men (not women) burst uncontrollably into tears. First the man sucks in his breath, and then he burst out sobbing & cannot stop. Cue up the movement. At the very first note, suck your breath in. Then burst out sobbing. You will then try to stop (sucking in a spastic breath in two sections), but burst out all over again. You will mimic the music precisely. This is how the composer worked. This is how he obtained his themes. But you will note that what Beethoven subsequently does with his hard-won theme has nothing to do with following the sobbing man around. He uses his theme in a purely musical fashion, before going on, as in the first movement, to purely descriptive music.
There is some actual person described in the second movement. That person was dead, had been dead, when Beethoven came to describe their death. The moment of death itself is at bar 209. A second death seems to follow at bar 211, when the first violins join in. (Get out your score.) Why is this not more dramatic?
Two reasons. One, at the time there were no historical parallels for this kind of musical intensity. Beethoven is making it up as he goes. Blazing a trail, as he did so often. Berlioz had Beethoven as an example, which is a hint. Secondly, Beethoven, while personally vulgar, was never musically so.
So in the Eroica's funeral march, we are looking for someone who is dead. Someone famous. Someone whose death was a shock. As much of a shock as Kennedy's death, or 9-11. Listen to the remainder of the movement, after bar 209. Find out who Marie's father was, and you will solve the mystery.
So what about Napoleon? He's there. He's the last two movements. Purely musical movements. Purely musical because Beethoven knew as much about him as America knows about Barak Obama. These two movements are written with hope. Hope for the future. The only thing Beethoven knows about Obama, I mean Bonaparte, is that he likes bees: Third movement. Work it out. For the very first time, see Beethoven at work.
Fourth movement, theme & variations, is the Life of the Hero. Does not make any difference which hero. It's the same life, one way or another. How does that life end? The hero has his great triumph, and then fades away, only to be recalled by the People themselves, because the hero, upon whom we place our hopes, never really dies, he only goes into hiding. Beethoven's famous comment, late in life, that he had already written music for the death of Napoleon, refers to the end of the 4th movement, and his eternal hope that a hero would appear. Unlike the first two movements, the Scherzo & finale of the Eroica run strictly to form. When you're writing pure music, there's no need to play with form. Beethoven never disturbs his forms unless the music demands it.
So what does that make the first movement? What does that make of the famous footsteps - and I agree there are footsteps in it - ? 1789, the French Revolution itself? Does it end with the storming of the Bastille? We can all speculate.
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