A bit of an oddity.

[Enrique]

I was listening to the fourth symphony, the second movement's just beginning, as I took my tuning fork and tried to determine the tonality. I found the movement main tonality to be E flat major. Of course, the symphony is in B flat major. "So", said I, "still like Mozart did it". Then I thought of the first and second symphonies which, surely, I guessed, must have the same overall tonal plan. And they do, but with a little oddity. In the second, the second movement is written not a fifth below, but a fifth above: its fundamental tonality is A major. I was expecting to hear either G major or E minor. Isn't it funny?

[Peter]

Well what about the first piano concerto in C which has a slow movement in Ab? Haydn also did this frequently.

[Enrique]

Thanks Peter. Haydn seems to have done everything first! You made me go to a concert guide I have, only to discover how little familiarization I have with that slow movement. There the author says: "However, the second movement changes the picture: the tonality of A flat will be Beethoven's favorite one for many a slow and deeply felt movements. The melody expresses that unction of the soul so often found interspersed in between the beethovian tempests" [free translation] That is, he highlights the fact of the tonality being A flat.

[Michael]

I've gone a bit crazy over the Fourth Symphony in the past few weeks. Though I first heard it over forty years ago, it still surprises me. It's in a kind of limbo between the two mighty giants: the 3rd and 5th (although Beethoven had started the 5th before this one.)
I particularly love the second movement, where the unusual rhythm reminds me of the slow movement of Opus 59 No. 2 - another beautiful piece.

[Peter]

Thanks Peter. Haydn seems to have done everything first! You made me go to a concert guide I have, only to discover how little familiarization I have with that slow movement. There the author says: "However, the second movement changes the picture: the tonality of A flat will be Beethoven's favorite one for many a slow and deeply felt movements. The melody expresses that unction of the soul so often found interspersed in between the beethovian tempests" [free translation] That is, he highlights the fact of the tonality being A flat.

Yes Haydn was quite the innovator and Beethoven learnt more from him than he cared to admit - Haydn's trick of slowing down a theme and then galloping off to the end at full speed which we see in the finale of Beethoven's 4th as well as plunging in to remote keys - the most startling example in Beethoven to me is in the finale of the 8th symphony, although he does it as early as the first piano concerto.

[Enrique]

[...] the unusual rhythm reminds me of the slow movement of Opus 59 No. 2 - another beautiful piece.

Thank you Michael for that (and to youtube too). I do not know about the 2nd movement, which was the thing I right now began listening to, trying to find a similarity. Then I got bored and put the cursor right at the begining of the work. And, alas, it's enormous!

[Enrique]

Yes Haydn was quite the innovator and Beethoven learnt more from him than he cared to admit - Haydn's trick of slowing down a theme and then galloping off to the end at full speed which we see in the finale of Beethoven's 4th as well as plunging in to remote keys - the most startling example in Beethoven to me is in the finale of the 8th symphony, although he does it as early as the first piano concerto.

Would you mind, Peter, pointing out, the place in the 8th's finale where "your most startling example" begins?

[Peter]

Go from bar 380 into bar 392 where he plunges a semitone down with no modulation from F#minor to F major.

[Chris]

If anyone asks me what my favorite piece of music is, it's always a difficult question and of course may change from day to day, but my default answer is always Beethoven's Symphony No. 4!

[Enrique]

Go from bar 380 into bar 392 where he plunges a semitone down with no modulation from F#minor to F major.

The last movement has only 355 measures, in the Eulenburg ~1935 edition I have in front of my eyes right now. Maybe you made a mistake, Peter?

[Enrique]

My apologies, Peter. I downloaded the 4th instead of the 8th. Yes, there it is clearly seen, and clearly heard of course. No preparation for the modulation. From which, one could say Beethoven anticipated Stravinsky, given that someone said that Stravinsky's modulations are precisely of the type that happens between bar 391 and 392. That is, not really a modulation.

I wouldn't go as far as Chris, and prefer to restrict myself to the nine symphonies. Of all of them, I think my dearest one is this, the symphony no.8 in F major. And I do not think it is a gallant thing. Really, it is powerful and almost more savage (energetic if you prefer) than the 7th.

[Peter]

My apologies, Peter. I downloaded the 4th instead of the 8th. Yes, there it is clearly seen, and clearly heard of course. No preparation for the modulation. From which, one could say Beethoven anticipated Stravinsky, given that someone said that Stravinsky's modulations are precisely of the type that happens between bar 391 and 392. That is, not really a modulation.

I wouldn't go as far as Chris, and prefer to restrict myself to the nine symphonies. Of all of them, I think my dearest one is this, the symphony no.8 in F major. And I do not think it is a gallant thing. Really, it is powerful and almost more savage (energetic if you prefer) than the 7th.

I agree with you - if I really was forced to choose, it would be the 8th.

[Enrique]

Peter, from among all the nine ones?

[Michael]

If anyone asks me what my favorite piece of music is, it's always a difficult question and of course may change from day to day, but my default answer is always Beethoven's Symphony No. 4!

It was the last Beethoven symphony I encountered - back around 1969 or so ) and for years it was my least favourite.

Now I no longer have a least-favourite Beethoven symphony.

I'll just have to deal with it!

(I'm just after reading a sleeve-note to a recording of the Fourth, in which the writer states that "even today the Fourth Symphony has failed to achieve true popularity". This was written in 1991 and I wonder if that holds true over 20 years later?)



.

[Peter]

Peter, from among all the nine ones?

Yes - I've known the 9 symphonies since I was 12 and love them all, but the 8th is the only one that constantly seems fresh to me no matter how many times I hear it.