1816 Arrangement of Beethoven's 7th

[Michael]

Unusual arrangement of the symphony for "viola" quintet. (I don't know why the first movement isn't included and why the instruments aren't all violas!)
And no viola jokes, please!


http://slippedisc.com/2017/11/watch-...y-five-violas/








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[Peter]

Interesting and quite effective, more so I think than the wind nonet arrangement (+ Timpani) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R5CCxs4uBg

[Quijote]

Unusual arrangement of the symphony for "viola" quintet. (I don't know why the first movement isn't included and why the instruments aren't all violas!)
And no viola jokes, please!
http://slippedisc.com/2017/11/watch-...y-five-violas/.

Dear Michael, I didn't give it a complete listening, but interesting indeed!
Who made the arrangement, do you happen to know?
A quick viola joke: What's the difference between a pizza and a professional viola player? A pizza can feed a family of four.
Ba-boom !!

[Michael]

Dear Michael, I didn't give it a complete listening, but interesting indeed!
Who made the arrangement, do you happen to know?

Sorry, Quijote - I don't know - I just picked it up from a news item. There must be a ton of ancient arrangements out there.

[Enrique]

We are already in January, I know, but precisely yesterday night, being tired of listening to piano concertos, decided to go for some symphonies. So I said: Beethoven's seventh. That 1st movement always (we mortals can also have opinions, I think) seems to me one of the wonders of the world. And the second came in.

It has the form A-B-A-B-A or perhaps one more of each letter. But though I read somewhere it had to be repeated upon the first audition (public concert), and those people are known to have been music connoisers, I was thinking, while listening to the music, if I had the sufficient authority (imagine a tyrany or a tyranical music critic most revered), I would gladly cut out one A and one B. What do you think? Are they not too many repetitions?

That sequence of letters cannot in reality represent the movement. I do not remember well, but the theme coming after the first (realy too I believe), which is a complete change of atmosphere, that is the section continuously repeating itself, not realy quite sure. Anyways, I say that movement is in need of some cuts. I say it because I could not wait till the final chord and had to turn off the music.

In a somewhat more serious vein, I don't think in Viena and in those times people had such a good taste as the fame runs. To have put the second before the first movement does not seem to me to have been a thing Beethoven liked much. The former can unite all the beauties of the world, but there is a hierarchy in music.

Oh! And then comes the 3rd which, being in a form consecrated by time has many, many repetitions. If Beethoven had only lived ten more years, he, I am sure, would have begin to avoid so mucn repetition in music. I give the honorable moderators permission to erase this.

[Michael]

Don't you dare mess with this movement, Enrique!
Everything about it is right; the repeats of each section are perfectly judged and I have never found it one second too long (allowing for bad conductors, of course! )
Not only was this second movement repeated at its premiere, but in the 19th century it became so popular that it was often substituted for the existing slow movements of some of Beethoven's own symphonies, notable the 2nd!
(I don't condone this, I hasten to add!)

On the vexed question of repeats, I would agree that the exposition repeats in some of Beethoven's early music could be jettisoned without doing too much damage. The early piano trios, for example, contain so many themes in their expositions (a young composer's most common failing) that their repetition can sometimes outstay their welcome.
However, in Beethoven's time this reiteration was necessary to help the listener digest this new material. If there were CD players around in 1800, Beethoven might not have insisted on so many repeats.





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[Peter]

I have to agree with Michael Enrique - by the time Beethoven wrote the 7th he was a complete master of form and new exactly what he was doing. I used to find the repeats in the Scherzo too much, but this was due to the ponderous tempi taken with the trio.

[Michael]

I agree with you about the scherzo, Peter. But I am now going to contradict myself (partially) and suggest that the repeat of the exposition section of the last movement could be easily done without. The development section, unusually for a Beethoven symphony, merely repeats the main tune of the exposition for bars on end - the only variety being the change of key.

I know it build up ferocious momentum but there is perhaps a little too much of the "Nora Creina" theme. It all depends on the performance, I suppose.

But leave the second movement alone!