Most beautiful Beethoven melody?

[AeolianHarp]

As an almost unforgiveable aside (), for those familiar with British comedian Ricky Gervais's hit show "The Office", there is one episode, where - trying to impress a new, classical music-loving date - he tells her that Beethoven "wrote all the best tunes" and further that "Imagine how good his music would have sounded if he could have heard what he was playing."

He DID hear it..with his inner ears!

[AeolianHarp]

Add The Quartet in A minor, Op. 132: Movement V (Allegro appassionato; Presto) to this...oh there are no adequate words....

[PDG]

Add The Quartet in A minor, Op. 132: Movement V (Allegro appassionato; Presto) to this...oh there are no adequate words....

I stated the case for this a few posts back!

Pretty much any two consecutive notes written by Beethoven represent a great melody, in my view.

[Michael]

Pretty much any two consecutive notes written by Beethoven represent a great melody, in my view.

Yes. Just listen to some of the "backing tracks" on those glorious folksongs!

[Harvey]

I stated the case for this a few posts back!

Pretty much any two consecutive notes written by Beethoven represent a great melody, in my view.

I love the opening two notes of the Eroica! --see my avitar

[hal9000]

I love the opening two notes of the Eroica! --see my avitar

It is quite amazing how one only needs to hear two Eb major chords and one instantly thinks of the Eroica first movement. Beethoven had a knack for doing this, I feel. I hear a loud sustained root C minor chord on the piano and I immediately think of Op. 13. I only need to hear the opening A minor chord of the Allegretto of the 7th for my mind to start playing out that movement in my head.

[Peter]

It is quite amazing how one only needs to hear two Eb major chords and one instantly thinks of the Eroica first movement. Beethoven had a knack for doing this, I feel. I hear a loud sustained root C minor chord on the piano and I immediately think of Op. 13. I only need to hear the opening A minor chord of the Allegretto of the 7th for my mind to start playing out that movement in my head.

Yet we know those two opening chords caused Beethoven some difficulty - the sketchbook reveal several different openings to the famous theme, including those two chords as dominants instead of the tonic. Likewise the opening of the Adagio in Op.106 - the first bar opening wasn't originally there!

[Enrique]

The melody I like the most is/are those famous opening notes in the Fifth: ta - ta - ta - tam. Seriously, Beethoven and his contemporaneous did not use to write beautiful melodies. Plenty of his themes are simple stuff, generally built from the notes of the tonic chord, which are the ones that offer more opportunities for development. The first theme in the Eroica's first movement is a perfect example. We must wait for the successors of the master to find melody as a central component of a musical work. But this precisely is what makes Beethoven so attractive. It is not the bricks, but the building. Not this or that melodic element, but the way they are interconnected. In short, development and more generally, architecture. Beethoven is logic translated into music. But so is Mozart, and Haydn. What makes Beethoven unique is that he was born in a time when form and content were about to unite in a perfect equation. And of course, that his name happened to be Beethoven.

[Michael]

Yet we know those two opening chords caused Beethoven some difficulty - the sketchbook reveal several different openings to the famous theme, including those two chords as dominants instead of the tonic. Likewise the opening of the Adagio in Op.106 - the first bar opening wasn't originally there!

The first movement of the second Razumovsky (Opus 59 No. 2) was also originally designed to begin with the main theme. The opening two chords were added later.







.

[Harvey]

Beethoven is logic translated to music.

This strikes me in a wonderful way!

[Enrique]

Glad it does. As another example of succinctness, just consider such trivial stuff as the main theme in the Ninth finale. But this simple melody is presented in ever renovating forms, including the exultant counterpoint with the Said umschlugen theme. Even the passage with the solo tenor is another way of putting the theme (sing the first few notes of the famous melody and then do the same with the tenor part: you'll see they precisely the same). So Beethoven paints this magnificent fresco out of a few colors. It is this economy of means that makes Beethoven so appealing, a thing taken to extremes in the first movement of the fifth symphony, which seems to be written with a single stroke of the pen.

PDG put it more plainly: "Pretty much any two consecutive notes written by Beethoven represent a great melody, in my view".

[hal9000]

Regarding the "Ode to Joy" theme, we know that it gave Beethoven some trouble, but there seems to be some foreshadowing to it in the preceding three movements. Can anyone shed light on this compositional chicken or egg timeline?

[dahc]

At this moment Bagatelle #5 op126 second theme. Embodies the Masters optimism and hope. short simple and sweet.

[AeolianHarp]

At this moment Bagatelle #5 op126 second theme. Embodies the Masters optimism and hope. short simple and sweet.

I love the Bagatelles.

[Hollywood]

My choice would be the second movement of his Sym. #7. For me this piece is both sad and beautiful at the same time.