Program Notes
Beethoven
Symphony No. 8
Beethoven conceived his symphonies No. 7 and 8 during a period of deep
unhappiness. In 1811, the 41-year-old composer was facing old age without ever
having been married. Increasingly withdrawn and antisocial because of his
worsening deafness and ill health, Beethoven worked on the symphonies into 1812,
the year he suffered intensely from parting with the "immortal Beloved" of
unknown identity, with whom he had had a brief and passionate affair. In the
same year, Beethoven's high-handed and futile attempt to prevent his brother
Johann's marriage to a housemaid resulted in the brother's estrangement. Despite
these emotional upheavals, he completed Symphony No. 7 in the spring of 1812,
and No. 8 in October of the same year.
The two symphonies seem a pair of mismatched brothers, the former Dionysian,
the latter compact and concentrated--a "tour de force of tight packing," as
musicologist Michael Steinberg writes. Where the seventh is the last of the
expansive style Beethoven had been developing during the previous decade, the
eighth has often been seen, by modern listeners as well as Beethoven's
contemporaries, as a throwback to the styles of an earlier period.
The eighth also suffered in comparison to the seventh at its premiere. The
seventh's first performance had been held in December 1813, along with
Beethoven's Wellington's Victory, a patriotic potboiler. Both were met
with great praise. Beethoven then premiered Symphony No. 8 two months later, on
February 27, 1814, unfortunately placing it between the two earlier works. The
size and exuberance of the other two overwhelmed the smaller eighth, and critics
sniffed at it. In addition, although the symphony does present a nostalgic look
back at the departing era of Classicism, it also contains a great deal of
Beethoven's peculiar brand of irony and tongue-in-cheek humor. Audiences could
not decide whether this work was meant to be taken seriously or not. When
Beethoven's student Carl Czerny noted that the eighth wasn't as popular as the
seventh, Beethoven is said to have replied, "Because the eighth is so much
better."
The eighth can puzzle musicians for a different reason. Beethoven was
unusually meticulous in his specifications of articulation, dynamics and
phrasing in his scores. However, some of Beethoven's metronome indications in
No. 8 (dotted half note = 69 for the first movement, quarter note = 126 for the
third movement trio) sound rushed and unmusical even when played by the best of
orchestras. Many theories have been advanced for why the composer demanded these
tempi, none of them wholly satisfactory. Slowing the tempi, but keeping them on
the brisk side, seems the best solution.
The first movement, Allegro vivace e con brio, is brisk and fiery,
with several brief melodies following fast and furiously upon each other.
Indeed, it is hard to believe that such a wealth of ideas and exuberance can be
contained within such a concise framework. Beethoven's peculiar humor appears
when, after starting in the symphony's home key of F major, the movement
suddenly swings into D major instead of the expected dominant key of C for its
secondary theme--then just as abruptly changes to the "correct" key of C. The
development section grows in a long crescendo straight into the recapitulation,
nearly drowning out the return of the first theme. (This bothered Gustav Mahler
so much that he reorchestrated the passage for his orchestra's performances of
the work, giving the theme to the timpani). Beethoven tweaks the movement into
the "wrong" key once more, then the opening theme gets the final word.
The Allegretto scherzando is a reworking of music Beethoven had
written in tribute to Johan Nepomuk Maelzel. Maelzel was an inventor who
designed some of the ear trumpets Beethoven used, as well as a contraption he
called the panharmonicon, which included automatic flutes, clarinets, trumpets,
violins, cellos, drums, cymbals and triangle. At Maelzel's urging, Beethoven had
composed Wellington's Victory for the panharmonicon, but eventually
decided it sounded better with a real orchestra. He wrote the eighth symphony's
Allegretto to imitate Maelzel's most recent invention, the metronome. (It
should be noted that another inventor, Dietrik Nikolaus Winkel, created the
first practical metronome in 1812, and Maelzel just refined it--but was first to
patent, manufacture and promote it.) The winds open the section, playing an even
and insistent ostinato of 16th notes that continues throughout most of the
movement. A motif of rapid 64th notes in the second subject, which ends the
movement, has been seen as a joking suggestion that the metronome has broken
down. No one can stand such an infuriating device for long, the ending seems to
say.
The third movement, Tempo di Menuetto, is most likely to blame for the
symphony being associated with older styles. Although minuets were common in the
symphonies of Haydn and Mozart, Beethoven had always used the much faster
scherzo form in his previous symphonies. Though he employs the slower minuet
form here, Beethoven's minuet does not quite remind us of a reserved, stately
dance. Instead, this dance is more energetic, the accents heavier and the
crescendos more insistent, although the melodies still move gracefully. The
central section features a lovely duet for horn and clarinet.
In the final movement, Allegro vivace, Beethoven once again plays with
the "expected" keys of the symphony, going much further than he did in the first
movement. The last movement takes off at a brilliant speed but quite softly at
first, dropping down to a pianissimo marking, until a surprising forte
C-sharp in octaves. That C-sharp, so far from the opening key of F major, seems
dropped in at random, and it disappears equally quickly. We will not be allowed
to forget about it, however. Meanwhile, we are led through a dense thicket of
key changes, moving from A-flat major to A major, then herded back into F major
by the bassoon and timpani. (The timpani is in fact tuned to an octave F, rather
than the usual tonic and dominant. This tuning, unprecedented in 1812, pleased
Beethoven so much that he used the device again ten years later in the
scherzo of Symphony No. 9.) We bump into the brusque C-sharp again and
swerve into D-flat (aka C-sharp) major, visit F, nearly slip into D major, and
are confronted in the coda by the insistent C-sharp, which pushes the music into
F-sharp minor. But the timpani again save the day, pounding away at E-sharp/F,
until they "rechannel the music into the paths of righteousness," as Michael
Steinberg writes. The coda is itself an extravagant joke; at 236 bars it
literally doubles the length of the movement. But having steered us circuitously
back into F major, Beethoven has a last bit of fun by banging the tonic F major
chord over and over, 45 times--rather as if waving a big flag, "Look, we're
almost finished!"--and the work ends in an enthusiastic burst.
February, 2006
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