Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph

by Swafford, Jan

  17. Nottebohm, Two Beethoven Sketchbooks, 52.

  18. Dahlhaus, Ludwig van Beethoven: “The thematic configuration of the first movement of the Eroica is not ‘given’ anywhere, in the sense of a text set out for commentary; instead, it is entirely absorbed into the process for which it provides the substance” (175). He also notes that even at the end of the first movement, “the theme never appears in a ‘real’ or ‘definitive’ Gestalt.” As I put it, the Hero is protean, always evolving. The new theme in the development is integrative but still not final.

  19. I call the exposition development-like in its restlessness and in the fragmentary quality of its themes; at the same time it is like an exposition in being relatively stable harmonically: once it modulates to B-flat at the (veiled) second theme in m. 57, it essentially stays there.

  20. Some might say that Beethoven’s technique in regard to the varied handling of formal models might be true of him but not of Haydn and Mozart, who were more or less filling up assumed forms with material. I believe Haydn and Mozart were working in each piece (at least in their mature and more ambitious ones) with ideas particular to the piece, just as Beethoven was. Haydn’s handling of sonata form in particular can be remarkably free (see the Sonata No. 62 in E-flat and the Quinten Quartet first movements). But in this too Beethoven pursued that idea more than his predecessors. He wanted to make works that were more strongly marked and individual than those of Haydn and Mozart, ones that generated and justified their forms from within—even when his form was closer to convention than some of Haydn’s.

  21. Marek, Beethoven, 188, notes that in 1795 Franz Wegeler turned Beethoven’s line “Who is a free man?” with his friend’s permission, into “What is the goal of a Mason?” with Wegeler’s own text. The tone of the music and the sentiments of the original text were suitable for that.

  22. In “The Compositional Act” (38–39) Barry Cooper notes that in Beethoven’s mature sketches a given series of continuity drafts tend to get closer and closer to the final version, though there is some backtracking. Meanwhile it is usually not possible to trace the full development of a piece or movement because there are sketches missing. The sketches and drafts for the Eroica are unusually complete, but some are still missing—for example, most of the ones, if there were any, where Beethoven derived the opening Hero theme from the englische bass of the finale. There was also a great deal of work done at the keyboard and in his head, and never written down.

  23. Nottebohm, Two Beethoven Sketchbooks, 62. As Nottebohm details (63–67), Beethoven struggled to base the closing section of the exposition mainly on the Hero theme but finally decided that would weaken its presence in the development (which by that point he was already working on). Finally he settled on a new chromatic motif (echoing the chromatic part of the Hero theme) and a brief touch of the triadic motif just before the development. Most of the ideas in this chapter regarding structure and logic are mine, but they form an ongoing dialogue with the Eroica chapter in Nottebohm’s classic essay “A Sketchbook of 1803.” Nottebohm’s study is pioneering and irreplaceable, but it has a well-known bias: from the welter of sketches for a work Nottebohm picks examples to fit his conception that the completion of a work had a steady evolution from rough to middling to finished. Lockwood and others have shown that Beethoven’s process was not nearly so methodical and straight line. Some final manuscripts were still involved in floundering and sketching, and some of the most striking ideas in works came at the last minute. Behind the whole of this chapter is the reality that creating a work from the inside is a murkier and more fraught process than contemplating the finished work from the outside. Even for a supreme craftsman like Beethoven, much of the process of composing a work is a congeries of vague, unpolished, unfocused elements constantly threatening to fall apart.

  24. As I say in the text, I think in the exposition Beethoven deliberately obscures the arrival of the second theme proper. The “real” second theme of the Eroica first movement has been a matter of long debate, not surprising given that Beethoven preceded it with twelve bars of transition (from m. 45) over a dominant (of B-flat) pedal, a moment that sounds less like a transition than like a theme, and a notably dancelike one. I call it theme 1B. It transitions into what I call the second theme proper at m. 57. In the exposition I call m. 57 the “proper” second theme partly because it is in the right key (B-flat, dominant) and in the right place in the exposition. As further evidence, the first continuity draft of the exposition (cited in the text, from Nottebohm) shows more clearly than the final version that this B-flat theme is intended as the beginning of the second-theme section (as Nottebohm calls it). What some scholars call the second theme, at m. 83, does not appear in that first long draft at all. But as I say, the clear arrival of the second-theme section is not the point; its obscure arrival is the point. Beethoven is looking for something different from the usual relatively lucid Classical exposition. He wants a constant dynamic flux with no clear signposts or points of arrival—that is, an effect more like a development. In general I’d say that the proliferation of themes and the ambiguity of the second theme’s arrival are the main elements that make this exposition harder to follow than most. Still, despite how variegated the exposition is, when the key of B-flat arrives, it largely stays. In other words, the key layout of the exposition is conventional, but the way it is articulated and filled out with a plethora of themes and blurred boundaries is unusual and development-like. This is particularly true of the treatment of das Thema, which is handled developmentally from the beginning. The antiphonal theme 1B at m. 45, incidentally, is based on, and prophetic of, the englische theme of the finale—it has its lilting dotted rhythm and general outline, a series of descending three-note figures. (In the first movement, that theme displaces the sense of downbeat to the second beat of the measure.) Also incidentally, the end of the Prometheus bass, the cadential hook figures F–D–E-flat and E-flat–A–B-flat, is echoed a number of times in the first movement, starting with what I call theme 2B at m. 65. For another example, as said in the text, the trochaic figure of the Hero theme is like a 3/4 version of the englische rhythm. As often in Beethoven, these connections are more a matter of shape and/or rhythm than of intervals—but in all cases it is a figure he emphasizes. To summarize, the first movement is rich in motivic derivations from both the Prometheus bass and the englische tune, both melodically and rhythmically.

  25. Nottebohm, Two Beethoven Sketchbooks, 71–72.

  26. The superimposition of the recapitulation is the horn’s Hero theme on the tonic triad against A-flat–B-flat in tremolo strings, representing a dominant seventh. Grove Music Online points out that the resulting dissonance of G and A-flat can be seen as another avatar of the primal melodic G–A-flat motif from the first page—in other words, a case of Beethoven’s making a melodic figure into a harmonic one.

  27. The apt adjective evil for the climactic harmony (an A-minor chord with added ♭6, scored to emphasize the E–F dissonance) is from Adolph Marx. My description aspires to convey the drama and intensity of these pages in the development, but as always there is a formal process going on too: those screaming tutti harmonies from m. 276 are a long windup to the “new” theme in E minor, a systematic preparation for that distant key. The bass line from m. 248 makes a long descent from D to B, the dominant of E minor. Meanwhile the “sore” C-sharp/D-flat is part of the new E-minor theme, as part of the three-note chromatic slide on its original pitches D-sharp/E-flat–D–C-sharp. The hair-raising climactic chord in the development, as should be expected in Beethoven, is foreshadowed earlier: in the lacerating A7–over–B-flat chord at the end of the exposition, m. 147. (The first long sketch for the development [Nottebohm, Two Beethoven Sketchbooks, 74–76] had a different bass descent, and the climactic harmony was on a diminished-seventh chord—dissonant, but far less shocking than the final version.)

  28. See Nottebohm, Two Beethoven Sketchbooks, 81. Another detail of the development’s new theme helps c
ement the connection of its descending three-note chromatic slide to the ones in the Hero theme. As was said in the previous note, in E minor, the development theme has in m. 286 the same enharmonic pitches as the Hero theme’s chromatic slide on the first page: D-sharp–D–C-sharp. Meanwhile there is an intriguing divide between what I suspect most listeners hear as the essential new theme and the way Beethoven seems to have thought of it. All his sketches have only the lower line, the one derived from the Hero theme, standing in for the whole. Most listeners, however, naturally tend to hear the upper line (a foreshadowing of the second-movement dirge) as the “real” new theme. I think both lines contribute to the effect of what I call an integrative theme, at once looking backward to the Hero theme and forward to the Funeral March.

  29. The new, double theme is heard four times in the development: in E minor, A minor, E-flat minor, and G-flat major (the last truncated). In the scoring Beethoven alternates emphasizing the lower and upper lines; the G-flat version is only the upper line.

  30. The most common way for a coda to anticipate and/or prepare the next movement is tonally, an example being the way the final G-sharp of the middle movement of the Third Piano Concerto prepares the G–A-flat that opens the rondo theme. The idea of a coda foreshadowing themes of the next movement I have not found in the literature, but that happens sometimes in Beethoven, for example, in the first movement of the Eroica and, as we will see, in the first-movement recapitulation and coda of the Fifth Symphony.

  31. Nottebohm, Two Beethoven Sketchbooks, 80.

  32. My sense of the ending began with Brinkmann in “Time of the Eroica.”

  33. Burnham, in Beethoven Hero: “The final melodic utterance of the opening theme has thematic stability but no thematic closure . . . the unstable and volatile theme of the opening bars is now heard as a stable, indeed, potentially unending iteration” (19). Burnham presents the progress of the first movement in structural terms as a series of upbeats and downbeats at various levels: the first presentations of the Hero theme, for example, form an upbeat to its tutti fortissimo eruption on the third page, but that presentation is also unfinished, forming an upbeat at a higher level.

  34. Kramer, “Notes to Beethoven’s Education,” 99. There are sketches for Eroica horn passages on the same pages of Beethoven’s notes from the horn article.

  35. I see the Eroica as a narrative on the idea of the Hero in general, as embodied particularly in Bonaparte, but not as a “program” piece in the terms of the later nineteenth century. Neither here nor in most of Beethoven’s other named pieces—especially the Pastoral Symphony and the Lebewohl Sonata—do I see a point-by-point narrative of events or ideas (though there is the all-too-blatant narrative of Wellington’s Victory). His programs in symphonies and sonatas seem to me general, not specific. True, if it were discovered that, as a private device, Beethoven had modeled his first movement on, say, a particular battle or campaign of Napoleon’s, I would not be particularly surprised. But in the absence of evidence I’m not inclined to speculate, and I don’t hear that overtly suggested in the music. Perhaps my sense of the overall narrative will seem a stretch to some. But Beethoven conceived his works as wholes, and he would not give a piece a title and then drop the program after the first two movements. While I don’t doubt that his “characteristic” conception covered the whole piece, then, there’s no question that the narrative implications of the last two movements are more obscure than for the first two. I should mention that my programmatic narrative of the first two movements generally agrees with writers going back to Adolph Marx, who are the main subject of Burnham’s Beethoven Hero.

  36. Broyles, Beethoven, 123.

  37. See Nottebohm, Two Beethoven Sketchbooks, 81–84.

  38. Palisca, “French Revolutionary Models,” 202. Even though Beethoven’s phrase may well be based on Gossec, consciously or not, there is a significant difference in effect between the two marches. Only a close comparison of the notes reveals the similarities; the sound hardly does. Palisca cites possible connections to other pieces, especially by Cherubini. Czerny cites a model in a funeral march by Paer.

  39. A summary of the form of the Funeral March:

  Part 1. A (dirge, C min.) B (E♭ maj.) A1 (F min.) B1 (E♭ maj.) A2 (F min.) Closing (C min.)

  Part 2. C (Trio, C & F maj.) // A (C min.) Double Fugue (F & C min., E♭ maj.) Interlude (briefly A♭ maj.)

  Part 3. A3 (C min.) B (E♭ maj.) A4 (F min., C min.) Closing (C min.)

  CODA (D♭ maj.–C min.)

  The second movement, like the others, has richly interwoven motivic and tonal relationships. The dirge Thema, besides its derivation from the end of the Prometheus bass, is built on an ascending triad (C minor), recalling the Hero theme. The middle theme begins with a simple ascending triad. The dirge melody meanwhile ascends first from G through C to G, sharing the tonic-dominant emphasis of the Prometheus bass opening and its main compass from dominant to dominant. The three-note chromatic motif is a feature of the B theme (first at mm. 21–22). Within the movement, the A-flat to E-flat descent in mm. 6–7 is augmented to make the beginning of the B theme from m. 17. That motif is inverted to make the imitative bass/viola accompaniment in the C section (from m. 69), which becomes the main fugue subject from m. 114. The symphony’s home key of E-flat major turns up in the B theme and the fugue. Based on the first page of the symphony, the A-flat–G motif is featured throughout, likewise the primal C-sharp/D-flat sore note. One idea derived from the A-flat–G figure is the wailing appoggiaturas on those notes (also on F-sharp–G). One feature that unites the kaleidoscopic world of the second movement is the rhythmic motif quarter–eighth–eighth, which is implied in the dirge and overt in the B theme. The scoring is likewise kaleidoscopic, starting with the dark texture of the opening and then the rich B theme, with cellos and basses divided, all the strings in their lowest registers. The horns are brilliantly handled thoughout, with only a few stopped notes, carefully placed—above all, the piercing low B in m. 231, another of the small but powerful scoring details in the movement (which includes the oboe in its most poignant mode). On modern valved horns the piercing effect of the stopped horn near the end is lost—but I suggest that the low B should still be stopped.

  40. For me and I suspect for many musicians the horn peroration at the climax of the fugue in the Funeral March is one of those moments that represent one of the highest, most heart-filling, most intensely humanistic summits that music is capable of. That moment is one of the reasons some of us are musicians in the first place. And yet, as I always say, it’s all made of scales going up and down: just scales.

  41. The surging bass line at the end of the Funeral March will be echoed in the bass line at the end of the Ninth Symphony first movement—likewise a funeral march.

  42. Nottebohm, Two Beethoven Sketchbooks, 87–88.

  43. Ibid., 88. Note bars 5–8 in the scherzo; they are derived from the “hook” motif in bars 7–8 of the Prometheus bass.

  44. Ibid., 90.

  45. The folkish theme of the scherzo is another one built on the scaffolding of the Prometheus bass. Its structural notes are the basso’s E-flat and B-flat, its main compass an octave—though from tonic to tonic rather than the bass’s dominant to dominant.

  46. My feeling is that Beethoven looked at the Eroica as an end-directed work, whose meaning and material are paid off in the finale. But in practice I think the finale lacks the weight and impact of the first movement, partly because much of it is in the light and rather conventional style of ballet music. Many people, and I am inclined to that camp, feel the finale does not work ideally for this symphony, because however beautifully conceived in both musical and symbolic terms, for all its gathering glories, the finale doesn’t quite have the impact and scale to fulfill its function as the symphony’s goal and apotheosis. The coda of the finale, however, is surely as glorious as it needs to be and forms a perfect conclusion to the symphony.

  47. Schiller, Aesthetic Education, 300.
I’m not suggesting that Beethoven knew this passage, from a letter of Schiller’s to his friend C. G. Körner, but rather that this passage reflects the widespread reputation of the englische (see Aldrich, “Social Dancing”).

  48. It was Thomas Sipe’s Beethoven: Eroica Symphony that pointed out for me the presence of the englische in the finale; its meaning was amplified by Aldrich’s article on social dancing in Vienna and by Schiller’s letter about the englische. Sipe relates the implied image of society in the finale to the Aesthetic State envisioned in Schiller’s Aesthetic Education and provides a quite specific program relating to that social and philosophical work. Meanwhile, as Sipe notes, Constantin Floros has derived the whole of the Eroica from the story of the Prometheus ballet. Since, as I’ve said, it’s likely that the ballet’s story had some influence from the Aesthetic Education, Floros and Sipe are on firm ground concerning influences on the finale, and certainly the scenario and ideas from the ballet contributed to the creation of the Eroica. But in regard to the finale I depart from Sipe’s and Floros’s interpretation, mainly for two reasons. First, as I said earlier, I don’t think Beethoven wrote programs that specific or that abstractly philosophical. Second, their interpretations have little to do with Napoleon as the ideal of a benevolent despot, which I insist is the essential subject of the symphony from beginning to end. Beethoven would not switch programs in the middle of a program piece, or drop the program either. I think the main foundation of the Eroica was that image of Napoleon and ideals founded on Beethoven’s Bildung in Bonn. In any case, generations of scholars and musicians have rarely if ever considered that this symphony was written from first note to last as a “characteristic” piece called, and in large part about, Bonaparte. As is clear, I’m proposing to put that fact back into the equation, without denying that the symphony is also about the heroic principle in a larger perspective—and no less is a triumph in “abstract” terms. Which is to say that Beethoven’s later title Eroica was appropriate to the conception. Still, my interpretation is not entirely antithetical to that of Sipe and Floros. Sipe writes, “After the hero’s military accomplishment and funeral solemnity, after the return of the troops to domestic concerns, Beethoven envisioned a new, peaceful political order. Schiller’s idealism shaped that vision” (113). To that point we are in agreement and I have echoed his words—though I think the Schiller connection has more to do with “An die Freude,” which Beethoven did read, than Aesthetic Education, which likely he did not (though ideas from it were present in the zeitgeist). But the road to Elysium in “An die Freude” is not the doing of a hero but rather something humanity achieves for itself. Beethoven will return to that question with the Ninth Symphony.