symphonies-by-ludwig-van-beethoven

"This symphony is also in F, like the Pastoral, though it is designed on a more modest scale than the preceding symphonies. Yet though it hardly exceeds the first symphony (in C major) in the breadth of its forms, it is at least far superior to it in three respects – instrumental writing, rhythm and melodic style."

"The first rehearsal of the symphony was terrible, but the hornist did, in fact, come in on cue. I was standing next to Beethoven and, believing that he had made a wrong entrance, I said, "That damned hornist! Can't he count? It sounds frightfully wrong." I believe I was in danger of getting my ears boxed. Beethoven did not forgive me for a long time."

"In writing this symphony, Beethoven had been thinking of Buonaparte, but Buonaparte while he was First Consul. At that time Beethoven had the highest esteem for him, and compared him to the greatest consuls of Ancient Rome. Not only I, but many of Beethoven's closer friends, saw this symphony on his table, beautifully copied in manuscript, with the word "Buonaparte" inscribed at the very top of the title-page and "Ludwig van Beethoven" at the very bottom ... I was the first to tell him the news that Buonaparte had declared himself Emperor, whereupon he broke into a rage and exclaimed, "So he is no more than a common mortal! Now, too, he will tread under foot all the rights of Man, indulge only his ambition; now he will think himself superior to all men, become a tyrant!" Beethoven went to the table, seized the top of the title-page, tore it in half and threw it on the floor. The page had to be recopied, and it was only now that the symphony received the title Sinfonia eroica."

"There is an “oracle” at the beginning of the Fifth Symphony–in those four notes lies one of Beethoven’s greatest messages. We would place its translation above the relentlessness of fate knocking at the door, above the greater human-message of destiny, and strive to bring it towards the spiritual message of Emerson’s revelations–even to the “common heart” of Concord–the Soul of humanity knocking at the door of the Divine mysteries, radiant in the faith that it will be opened–and the human become the Divine!"

"...orgy of vulgar noises."

"{\clef treble \key c \minor \time 2/4 {r8 g'8[ g'8 g'8] | ees'2\fermata | r8 f'8[ f'8 f'8] | d'2~ | d'2\fermata | } }"

"DA-DA-DA DAAAAAA! This is not London. It is our orchestra rehearsing the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, all of which I had written from memory. That DA-DA-DA DAAAAAA had given me enormous pleasure."

"So in Beethoven’s mind there was presumably some dramatic scenario behind the Fifth Symphony, but he decided that, like most of his works, this one did not need to be nailed to a stated narrative. For those equipped to understand it, the gist would be clear enough in the notes. That story would be as direct as the rest of the symphony: a movement from darkness to light, from C minor to C major, from the battering of fate to joyous triumph. The compaction of material flows from the first gesture, that unforgettable explosion of three Gs and an E-flat. Once again, for Beethoven the opening idea, das Thema, is the embryo of a work. Here he boils down das Thema to just four notes that still function like a Thema: they are the symphony in essence. In the symphony’s first moment, in that percussive da-da-da-dum, we hear the primal rhythmic figure that will dominate the first movement and persist as motif and rhythmic scaffolding to the end. We sense the force-of-nature energy of the movement. We hear the bluntness of effect, the simplest harmonies proclaimed as if discovered for the first time. We hear the muscular quality that will mark the orchestral sound. We are misled by the key; it seems to be E-flat major but is actually C minor; that ambiguity creates tension. The propulsive effect of the primal “&-2-& 1” rhythmic tattoo comes from its beginning on a void, a charged rest on the beginning of the 2/4 measure, then three eighth notes driving into the next measure, in which a new start of the figure is usually overlapped to drive forward again. Call the effect of this tattoo dominating the movement a monorhythm."

"So, there's this man, he has a time machine. Up and down history he goes — zip, zip, zip, zip, zip — getting into scrapes. Another thing he has is a passion for the works of Ludwig van Beethoven. Then, one day, he thinks, "What's the point in having a time machine if you don't get to meet your heroes?" So, off he goes to 18th Century Germany, but he can't find Beethoven anywhere. No one's heard of him. Not even his family have any idea who the time traveler is talking about. Beethoven literally doesn't exist. This didn't happen, by the way. I've met Beethoven. Nice chap. Very intense. Loved an arm wrestle. No, this is called the bootstrap paradox. Google it. The time traveler panics. He can't bear the thought of a world without the music of Beethoven. Luckily, he'd brought all of his Beethoven sheet music for Ludwig to sign. So, he copies out all the concertos and the symphonies, and he gets them published. He becomes Beethoven. And history continues with barely a feather ruffled. (the Doctor turns on an amplifier and plugs in his electric guitar) My question is this: who put those notes and phrases together? Who really composed Beethoven's Fifth? (the Doctor plays the opening notes to Beethoven's Fifth on his guitar)"

"It will be generally admitted that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man."

"Of all the works in the mainstream repertory of Western music, the Ninth Symphony seems the most like a construction of mirrors, reflecting and refracting the values, hopes, and fears of those who seek to understand and explain it … From its first performance [in Vienna in 1824] up to the present day, the Ninth Symphony has inspired diametrically opposed interpretations."

"O Freunde, nicht diese Töne! Sondern lasst uns angenehmere anstimmen, und freudenvollere. Freude!"

"I forswore my model, Beethoven; his last Symphony I deemed the keystone of a whole great epoch of art, beyond whose limits no man could hope to press, and within which no man could attain to independence."

"The last five quartets did not mean so much to the Romantics, and it remained for the twentieth century to make them its own. But to the Romantics, the Ninth Symphony was the beacon. It represented everything the Romantics thought to be the essence of Beethoven―a defiance of form, a call for brotherhood, a titanic explosion, a spiritual experience. The Ninth Symphony was the Beethoven work that most influenced Berlioz and Wagner. It was the Ninth Symphony that remained the unapproachable unachievable ideal of Brahms, Bruckner, and Mahler. To the Romantics, and to many today, the Ninth Symphony is something more than music. It is an ethos, and Debussy was not entirely wrong when he said that the great score had become a "universal nightmare." It pressed too heavily on the music of the century. Only with the last generation have there been those who dare criticize the last movement, but not even those critics have anything but awe for the other three movements. And, indeed, the coda of the first movement, with its slippery, chromatic bass and the awesome moans above it, remains a paralyzing experience. That is the way the world ends. It is absolute music, but it clearly represents struggle, and it is hard to hear so monumentally anguished a cry without reading something into it. the trouble is that faced with such music, all of us tend to become sentimentalists, reading into it the wrong message."