SSO May 10, 2014 Concert Program Notes
Symphony No.2 in D, Op.36
Measured against the hot-wired First Symphony, the heroic Third, and the heaven-storming
Fifth—all of them written between 1799 and 1808—Beethoven's Second is a relaxed work in
greater part, akin to the Fourth and Sixth symphonies. This has prompted music listeners
ever since to wonder how he could have created a work as buoyant as No. 2 at a time when
his worsening deafness had been diagnosed as incurable and irreversible.
The work came to term in 1802 from sketches organized the previous year. Likelier than
not, it reflects several happy months in the rural retreat of Heiligenstadt, on the
recommendation of an otologist. From one window in his isolated cottage he could see
eastward to the Danube, and beyond. Outside, he roamed the fields and surrounding woods
freely, yet his mood was "morose" according to Ferdinand Ries, the devoted pupil who
visited him there.
Beethoven introduced the new symphony at Vienna on April 5, 1803, at a mammoth
Akademie in the Theater an der Wien, along with the Third Piano Concerto (completed in
1800), a new oratorio, Christ on the Mount of Olives, and a repeat performance of the First
Symphony from 1800. In the third movement of No. 2, the word scherzo appeared
symphonically for the first time, although it retained a song and trio form, and was built on
the sudden juxtapositions of loud and soft, with changes in their patterns just when he'd
seemed to settle on one. The scoring, however, continued to employ traditional pairs of
winds and brass, timpani, and strings.
An Adagio molto introduction anticipates the soft-loud contrasts that explode like Chinese
firecrackers two movements later, although the sound and shape of it recall Haydn. The
exposition begins in measure 35, with a main subject of Mozartian levitation, but thereafter
Beethoven asserts his own less courtly and more confrontational personality.
As in the First Symphony, he wrote the first, second, and fourth movements in sonata form.
The longest of them is this A major Larghetto in triple meter, if all the repeats are observed.
Finding an accommodating tempo can pose problems: largo, after all, means "broad," the
slowest tempo in music. Larghetto is a diminutive form—i.e., not as slow—but how slow (or
not slow) remains the conductor's call.
After Beethoven's surprises in (as well as of) the scherzo, he chortles throughout a finale
marked Allegro molto, mostly at his own syncopated jokes. They begin in the first measure
and don't let up till the double-bar. Many of his contemporaries were shocked, and several
reviled him in print. One Viennese critic, after a repeat performance in 1804, called
Symphony No. 2 "a crass monster, a hideously writhing, wounded dragon that refuses to die
and, though bleeding in the finale, furiously thrashes about with its stiffened tail." One
should always keep posterity in mind whenever a spiky new piece tempts us to dismiss it
without a trial (whereas easy-listening pieces tend to spoil as quickly as unrefrigerated
seafood, and most should).
Piano Concerto No.4 in G, Op.58
Beethoven's famously copious notebooks confirm that he only composed after an
indeterminate period of inspiration, followed by a period of experimentation, followed by a
period of gestation: in other words, an evolutionary process. While we know in most cases
when works were premiered and published, we don't know when exactly he conceived them,
or what chain of change preceded their first public performance. We remain in the dark, for
example, on what days of which months—or for that matter in what year—he concentrated
on the Fourth Piano Concerto to the exclusion of all else.
Not that we need to know. It suffices to recognize its revolutionary (as well as evolutionary)
nature, beginning with the very first chord. No concerto before, by Beethoven or anyone
else, began as the G major does, with the solo instrument playing unaccompanied—not only
that but playing both dolce and softly! The miracle, however, is that Beethoven introduces
the main theme and rhythm of the entire first movement within five sweet, soft, solo
measures ending on a D major (dominant) chord, which the orchestra answers in B major
before modulating to the tonic G. There is none of Beethoven's characteristic vehemence,
not even at a crescendo to forte with sforzando punctuation in measures 20-22, although he
composed the Fourth Concerto and Appassionata Sonata concurrently, all the while the Fifth
Symphony was incubating in his other-consciousness.
Fascinatingly, principal themes in the opening movements of the Fourth Concerto and Fifth
Symphony share a rhythmic motto: three short notes of equal value followed by a longer
fourth note. (In the concerto, all of these are the same note; in the symphony, the last one
is a third lower.) Noteworthy, too, was the premiere of both works on the same Vienna
program—that storied four-hour marathon of December 22, 1808, in the unheated Theater
an der Wien, which also introduced the Pastoral Symphony and "Chorale" Fantasie with an
orchestra that refused to rehearse with the composer present. Apropos of the G major
Concerto: while a traditional double-exposition follows its trailblazing start, Beethoven's
instrumental textures, tonal weight, subtleties of harmony, and especially the illusion he
creates of improvisation were seven-league strides.
The slow movement is even more revolutionary, despite the brevity of only 72 measures
and its indebtedness to the middle, Romanza movement of Mozart's D minor Concerto (K.
466), which Beethoven played publicly with outstanding success. However, in his own
concerto, the juxtaposition of implacable strings playing both forte and staccato, and the
piano's conciliatory legato response with the "soft" pedal down throughout, was
unprecedented. Such palpable confrontation was not the norm in concertos. Neither was the
orchestra's eventual capitulation, followed without pause by a rondo-finale marked vivace,
whose presto coda is as scintillant as any music Beethoven ever wrote.
Even so, solo pianists and their audiences were slower to take up the Fourth than
Beethoven's other concertos. But Mendelssohn—a general who savored caviar—loved it
best, and played it at his last London concert, in 1846: a program that also featured his own
music for A Midsummer Night's Dream and the Scottish Symphony.
Egmont Overture, Opus 84
When a commission to provide a music score for Goethe's Egmont was offered, Beethoven
eagerly snatched up the opportunity. The subject matter of Egmont appealed to him: the
struggle for freedom. This general theme had already been explored, albeit in a quite
different story and venue, in the opera Fidelio.
Goethe's play depicts the Spanish persecution of the people of the Netherlands in 15671568 via an inquisition. Count Egmont, a Catholic loyal to the Spanish, pleads for tolerance
from the Spanish King, who instead dispatches the malevolent Duke of Alva to command
the forces to maintain order. Egmont is eventually arrested by Alva and sentenced to death.
His love, Clara (a fictional character—the real Egmont was married and the father of 11
children), plots his escape but fails. She poisons herself, and Egmont is executed, but with
the knowledge that the rebellion is in progress and that the people will be free.
Egmont opens with its justly famous overture, for years a staple in the concert hall. It
begins in a somber, serious mood, marked Sostenuto ma non troppo. The music seems to
portray oppression and darkness, the opening motif revealed to represent the tyrant, but
when the tempo picks up with a vigorous Allegro, the mood shifts to one of heroic defiance
with a theme which seems descending into the depths to do battle. The tyrant's motif
evolves throughout the overture and near the end becomes rhythmic and dark and brings
on Egmont's execution. The mood of the piece then turns triumphant and celebratory,
providing a glorious close.
Notes taken from www.classicalarchives.com