The SSO’s Principal Horn Carol Marie Cottin

Accustomed as we are to the central importance attached to the later Symphonies of Mozart and Haydn, their earlier works often seem to be uncomfortably light in weight for two such masters to have created. The music may be as inventive, as beautifully crafted as the more famous later works, but that magical sense of emotional depth is much less apparent.

There are those who maintain that the two composers were merely feeling their way towards a greater musical expression in their earlier works, but a single hearing of one of Mozart’s Operas or of Haydn’s Masses from the same period quickly puts paid to that argument. The truth is, however, very simple. Symphonies, at least until the middle of the 1780’s, were not designed to be the most important part of a concert. They developed from, and at first were largely interchangeable with, Italian Overtures, and as such were intended merely to gather the audience’s attention towards the solo and the concertante works which were to follow. Over the decades, the Classical Symphony evolved in the direction of greater logic and structural efficiency, and almost by the way, grew more important in the scheme of things. Mozart and Haydn both started to express greater emotional depth in their Symphonies as more and more of their listeners began to pay attention, and as time went on, the Classical Symphony achieved the form and the style which we value so highly today.

Mozart’s Symphony no. 29 in A Major could well be regarded as being the finest of all of his early Symphonies. One of the seven Symphonies which Mozart composed was for the new Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg Hieronymous von Colloredo in the years 1773-4. The work was, according to the still extant manuscript, completed on April 6th, 1774. There is no record of the first performance in the Archbishop’s court. It is unlikely that the premiere of a new Symphony would be considered worthy of comment or even notice but Mozart apparently felt that the Symphony held a special significance, for he carried the work around with him for the rest of his life, scheduling it for performance whenever the opportunity would arise.

The Symphony no. 29 represents Mozart’s early maturity at its best. His personal synthesis of the three disparate Symphonic styles of the Mannheim School, of J.C. Bach and of Joseph Haydn would have been remarkable as a pastiche. Instead Mozart was able to develop a manner of Symphonic composition which partook of all three schools and yet was wholly his own. The Symphony is in the proper four movements.

The first movement, an Allegro moderato, begins quietly without the usual fanfare, but quickly establishes itself with an ingratiating charm, delightfully backed up by contrasting subjects. A short Development section rapidly leads to a direct Recapitulation.

The second movement, a serene Andante, is both civilized and somewhat pastoral in character, and is remarkably well written, even for Mozart.

The third movement opens in a brisk, business-like way in the opening Menuet section, only to become suddenly introverted, almost watchful, in the Trio.

The Finale, marked Allegro con spirito, is a dashing movement characterized by the use of hunting idioms, both rhythmic and melodic. The music swings along with real gaiety and even a certain amount of drama to bring the Symphony no. 29 to a satisfying close.

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Credit – Ronald Comber

Although it provided an early boost to his popularity at a time he most needed it, Beethoven grew to resent the success that his Septet generated following its public premiere in Vienna, April 2, 1800. He had worked hard for the concert, his first benefit concert – organizing, promoting, conducting, and playing piano in a typically huge program, with the Septet as its centerpiece. It paid off, and Beethoven is estimated to have been able to live off the proceeds for two years. A piano duo version of the Septet quickly appeared. Then Beethoven encouraged his publisher to issue arrangements for strings alone, for flute quintet, and he even made a transcription himself (his op. 38) for the very marketable, and comfortably domestic, combination of piano trio. The benefit concert at the Burgtheater presented the young Beethoven (Septet, First Symphony, a piano concerto, and piano improvisations) alongside the venerated Mozart (a symphony) and Haydn (excerpts from the newly written oratorio, The Creation). Here was Beethoven standing tall, out of the shadow of his mentors and, by implication, every bit their equal. But the very success of the genial Septet would soon raise expectations that Beethoven was unwilling to meet as his composition evolved. Conservative critics would use it as a barometer against which they would measure the challenges that his more progressive, more demanding later music would pose. Beethoven grew to despise the Septet, whose popularity has never waned. “That damned thing!” the composer told an English visitor a dozen or so years later: “I wish it were burned!”

The Septet is highly original in its one-to-a-part combination of a trio of winds and quartet of strings. Its six movements are rooted in the serenade/divertimento tradition where the winds customarily play in pairs. Here, however, there is just one clarinet, oboe, and bassoon playing individual lines with violin, viola, cello, and bass. Beethoven’s palette is similarly far from traditional, with both bassoon and cello climbing well beyond their habitual bass line support, while the bass itself has more of an orchestral rather than a doubling role. The winds generally either support the strings or work as a group and occasionally as soloists, providing contrast to the sonority of the strings. The stately introduction immediately gives notice of the importance of the violin. Its earliest performer was Ignaz Schuppanzigh, then the foremost violinist in Vienna, chosen to give the premieres of many more of Beethoven’s works in the years to come. Beethoven probably had Schuppanzigh in mind when he turned the second variation (fourth movement) into a miniature concerto, wrote some virtuoso arpeggios in the scherzo movement, and even included a brilliant cadenza for the violin in the finale. The clarinet, too, has time in the limelight, notably in the first two movements. Beethoven draws the theme of the third movement from an earlier G Major Piano Sonata (later published as op. 49, no. 2), crisping up its rhythm and adding flamboyant little displays for horn and clarinet in its central trio section.

To this point, Beethoven follows the pattern of movements of a traditional classical chamber work, and a brisk finale would normally follow. Instead, in the spirit of the serenade, he introduces a fourth movement containing a sequence of five variations on what is believed to be a German folk song, choosing a different texture for each variation. The horn sets the mood of the jaunty Scherzo, which is then introduced to balance the earlier minuet, while the cello commands its lyrical trio section. The finale opens with an imposing, slow march in the minor key. It is a moment of tongue-in-cheek humour and the solemnity is short-lived since the Presto that follows positively exudes joie de vivre. The Septet, where shared enjoyment is a hallmark of the musical language, inspired many 19th century large-scale chamber works by Spohr, Kreutzer, Moscheles, Hummel, Onslow, Berwald, and others – none more celebrated than (with the addition of a second violin) Schubert’s great Octet of 1824.

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Credit – Keith Horner

We tend to think of Beethoven as a very serious, determined, God-like figure: Johann Anton Stieler’s famous portrait of the composer furiously at work on the Missa solemnis; grey mane tousled; a stern, focused expression on his face, encapsulates this widely-held view of the man.

Yet there’s another side to him: one that’s impish, playful, and earthy. You hear this personality in some otherwise long-hair music: the “Alla danza tedesca” movement of the op. 130 string quartet, for instance. And there are whole pieces that revel in this mood, like the early Septet and the later Eighth Symphony.

A lesser-known score in this vein is the Serenade for flute, violin, and viola, written in 1801. It features Beethoven in his most relaxed, charming, and stylistically Classical – a remarkable combination, considering that the piece was composed around the same time the crisis with his hearing reached its climax.

You’d never guess that from this music. The Serenade opens with a lively, tripping “Entrata” that’s filled with fanfare-like figures played by (mainly) the flute and viola. An elegant “Minuet” follows; note the trio, with its florid writing for strings. After this comes a good-natured, scampering “Allegro molto” in D minor and then a broadly lyrical set of variations. A short, driving scherzo movement sets up the big finale, which opens with a stately introduction. But the mood quickly brightens once the “Allegro vivace disinvolto” kicks off with its rustic “Scotch snaps” and buoyant spirits.

Credit – Jonathan Blumhofer

Even by nineteenth-century standards, the historic concert on December 22, 1808, was something of an endurance test. That night, Beethoven conducted the premieres of both his Fifth and Pastoral symphonies, played his Fourth Piano Concerto (conducting from the keyboard); and rounded out the program with the Gloria and the Sanctus from the Mass in C; the concert aria Ah! perfido; improvisations at the keyboard, and the Choral Fantasy, written in great haste at the last moment as a grand finale.

If concertgoers that evening read their printed program — the luxury of program notes still many decades in the future—  they would have found the following brief guide to the Sixth Symphony, in Beethoven’s own words:

Pastoral Symphony, more an expression of feeling than painting. 1st piece: pleasant feelings which awaken in men on arriving in the countryside. 2nd piece: scene by the brook. 3rd piece: merry gathering of country people, interrupted by 4th piece: thunder and storm, into which breaks 5th piece: salutary feelings combined with thanks to the Deity.

Although Beethoven wasn’t by nature a man of words (spelling and punctuation led a perilous existence in his hands), he normally said what he meant. We must then take him at his word, believing that he had good reason (for the only time in his career) to preface his music with a few well-chosen words and that curious disclaimer “more an expression of feeling than painting.” Perhaps Beethoven was anticipating the controversy to follow, for in 1808, symphonies weren’t supposed to depict postcard scenes or bad weather.

Beethoven’s idea itself was neither novel nor his own. In 1784 (Beethoven was only fourteen), an obscure composer named Justin Heinrich Knecht advertised his newest symphonic creation: Le portrait musical de la nature (A musical portrait of nature) in five movements, including a depiction of the peaceful countryside, the approach of a storm, and a general thanksgiving to the creator once the clouds had passed. It would take hearing no more than a measure or two of music to explain why Knecht has remained obscure while Beethoven turned the music world upside down. The descriptive writing and pastoral subject matter of Beethoven’s symphony are a throwback to the baroque era—think of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons or the Pastoral Symphony in the Messiah—or at least to Haydn’s two oratorios, The Creation and The Seasons, the latter written only half a dozen years earlier.

History books are right, of course, to point out the work’s novelties: the “extra” movement, the descriptive titles, the programmatic element, and pictorial details like the bird calls in the slow movement and the village band in the scherzo. But Beethoven was also right in trusting that “he who has ever had a notion of country life can imagine without too many descriptive words what the composer has intended.”

Our familiar picture of Beethoven, cross and deaf, slumped in total absorption over his sketches, doesn’t easily allow for Beethoven the nature-lover. But he liked nothing more than a walk in the woods, where he could wander undisturbed, stopping from time to time to scribble a new idea on the folded sheets of music paper he always carried in his pocket. “No one,” he wrote to Therese Malfati two years after the premiere of the Pastoral Symphony, “can love the country as much as I do. For surely woods, trees, and rocks produce the echo which man desires to hear.”

They’re all here in his Sixth Symphony. The most surprising thing about the opening Allegro is how quiet it is: seldom in five hundred measures of music (well over ten minutes) does Beethoven raise his voice. Surely no composer—including the so-called minimalists—has so clearly understood the impact of repeating a simple idea unaltered, or slowing the rate of harmonic change to a standstill. When, near the beginning of the development section, Beethoven changes the harmony only once in the course of fifty measures, the effect of that shift from B-flat to D is breathtaking. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this spacious, relaxed, blissfully untroubled movement is that it comes from the same pen that gave us— at the same time, no less—that firecracker of a symphony, his Fifth, in C minor.

Not even Donald Tovey, with his precise use of language, could find a better word to describe Beethoven’s slow movement than “lazy.” We can be sure that the laziness is intentional, and it’s amazing how much this least restful of composers seems to enjoy the drowsy pace, the endless dawdling over details, the self-indulgent repetitions of favorite sections, and the unchecked meandering through the byways of sonata form. Beethoven begins with a gentle babbling brook (one of those undulating accompaniment figures that Schubert would later do to perfection) and ends with notorious bird calls. The only problem with the birds is that Beethoven calls so much attention to them, bringing the music—and the brook—to a halt, and then specifying first the nightingale (flute), then the quail (oboe), and finally the cuckoo (clarinet). But as many a writer has pointed out, the birds are no more out of place here than a cadenza in a concerto—the nightingale even provides the final obligatory trill.

The third movement is dance music, with a plain, homely, rustic peasant dance for a midsection trio. But the fun is cut short by dark clouds and the prospect of rain. There’s probably no more impressive storm in all music—the whole orchestra surges and shakes, trombones appear (for the first time) to emphasize the downpour, and the timpani shows up just to add the thunder. This is, of course, no extra “movement” at all, but merely a lengthy, rapid introduction to the finale. The clouds finally roll away, the oboe promises better things to come in a wonderfully heartfelt phrase, and the flute, with its staccato scale, raises the curtain on Elysium. And so, to the yodeling of the clarinet and horn, we willingly believe F major to be the most beautiful key on earth. The moment is parallel to the great triumphant sunburst that marks the arrival of the finale of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, and, although the means could hardly be less similar, the effect is just as wondrous.