DAILY DOSE of BEETHOVEN (May 9, 2020)
In our discussion of the first movement of the Ninth Symphony, we mentioned that certain characterizations of it as “emerging from the dawn of history” is not totally inaccurate.
There’s a sort of progression in the introduction portion of the fourth movement where Beethoven reviews the first three movements. The first movement have the quality of a titanic struggle. The second movement is much happier, and Beethoven's sketches referred to it as "sport". The third movement is exceptionally beautiful, and the sketches call it "tender, tender". There is a definite progress being made towards "joy" in these three movements, though the breakthrough, the leap into that joy, is still anything but linear. Beethoven is putting each movement forward as an hypothesis, each hypothesis higher than the previous one.
Plato called it "hypothesizing the higher hypothesis." The fourth movement is the higher hypothesis, but you cannot just state it. In order for it to mean something, it has to emerge from a process of progress.
As we have said before, the second movement starts out with the same descending four notes of the main theme of the first movement, D A F D. If you go back to yesterday's episode on the first movement, it emerges at 0:47. Just compare that to the opening of this movement. (Today we provide the recording of Ninth by Georg Szell, and the Cleveland Symphony).
As stated before, that 4-note introduction leads to a short fugal section, which may remind you of the first fugue subject in the instrumental double fugue in the fourth movement discussed. If you listen to the audio provided on May 1st, it starts out with the fugal section of this movement. (We post it again here). At 3:50 you will hear that first fugue subject. Compare, if you like.
A Scherzo is a kind of musical joke. many people think that Beethoven created the form, by making a revolution in Minuet form. As is so often the case, it origins lie with that great genius, Josef Haydn.
A Scherzo has what is known as a "Trio" in the middle. In the original French Minuets, it was, guess what, three instruments! The name stuck, and a lighter instrumentation is customary.
The Trio section in this recording starts at 4:50, and ends at 7:46. The overall movement is in D minor, the Trio is in D major. You will hear premonitions of the “Ode to Joy” theme, throughout the Trio section.
It returns to the main theme, but before ending, teases us with a quick reference to the Trio!