 Beethoven's Ninth
Peter Bay, conductor
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Mary Dunleavy, soprano
Dana Beth Miller, mezzo-soprano
Karl Dent, tenor
Donnie Ray Albert, baritone
Chorus Austin
"Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes." - Ludwig van Beethoven
Date, Time & Location
May 16 & 17, 2008
8:00 p.m.
Long Center for the Performing Arts
Directions to Venue
Program
| Beethoven |
 |
Symphony No. 8 in F Major, Op. 93 |
| Beethoven |
|
Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125 "Choral" |
Program Notes
Ludvig van Beethoven
b. 16 December 1770 in Bonn, Germany; d. 26 March 1827 in Vienna, Austria.
Symphony No. 8 in F Major, Op. 93 Premiered 27 February 1814 in Vienna, age 43
Johann Nepomuk Mälzel (1772-1838) for a time played an important role in both the personal and professional phases of Beethoven's life. He was trained as a musician but was a creative thinker and a clever mechanic. Before long he was noted as an inventor of mechanical musical devices. One of these, the panharmonicon, was a box holding various instruments common in military bands controlled by a roll somewhat in the manner of a player piano. At Mälzel's suggestion, Beethoven composed for this contraption the first version of "Wellington's Victory." Another of Mälzel's devices, and his most enduring, was announced in its first form in 1813 as a "chronometer," which had a lever controlled by a flywheel that struck a little anvil and divided a measure of music into equally spaced beats. A little later, in 1817, the design was altered so that the beat was controlled by a pendulum with an adjustable weight attached. In this form and rechristened the "metronome," Mälzel's invention has ever since been valued by some musicians and hated by others.
There is a well-known story in Anton Schindler's biography of Beethoven (not published until 1840) of a relaxed evening in 1812 at a Viennese tavern with Beethoven, Mälzel, and others in which part of the entertainment was a chronometer. Beethoven is supposed to have composed an amusing little canon on the spot in honor of Mälzel and his device that would be the musical seed from which the second movement of Beethoven's Symphony no. 8 grew.
A. W. Thayer, studying the deaf Beethoven's conversation books as part of the research for his meticulous biography, found two references to the scene in the tavern in Schindler's hand, one dated 1820 and one dated 1824. In the later conversation, Schindler recalls being present in the tavern and also recalls the year as 1817, not 1812. Thayer supports 1817, since there is documentary evidence that other attendees that evening--particularly Mälzel--were actually in Vienna. Almost certainly, then, the symphony preceded the canon. It is quite possible--and fully in character for Beethoven in a playful mood--that the second movement of the Eighth Symphony was inspired by Mälzel's chronometer, but that is not actually documented.
The primary work of composing the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies--composed almost simultaneously--occurred during the summers of 1811 and 1812. The Seventh was first performed on 8 and 12 December 1813 on a program that also included the first performances of the version for orchestra of "Wellington's Victory." On 27 February, the Seventh and "Wellington's Victory"--which had been a big hit with the public--were played again, along with the new Symphony no. 8.
The Eighth is one of Beethoven's happiest compositions. The composer's gruff sense of musical humor is frequently evident. There are numerous surprises: sudden louds and softs, accents on weak beats; strange pitches and harmonies, even entire sections of the music, seem to drop out of the air, then melt away. There is really no slow movement in this symphony. The second movement is definitely a kind of scherzo, though it doesn't have the ABA shape of a typical scherzo. This is the "metronome" movement, with steady ticking easily heard in the woodwinds. Only the third movement, a minuet, is elegant instead of playful; it is actually the only movement in Beethoven's symphonies that invokes the graceful late-18th-century dance.
Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125. Premiered 7 May 1824 in Vienna, age 53
The years 1800 to 1809 were the most fertile in Beethoven's career. They comprise his brilliant middle period, during which both the quantity and the quality of his output are mind-boggling. His first six symphonies were completed and first performed during these years. After the premieres on 22 December 1808 of the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, Vienna had to wait until early 1814 to hear the Seventh and Eighth. It was another ten years until the premiere of the Ninth.
There were external events in those years, some of them crises, that interrupted Beethoven's composing routine, but it is surely not surprising that his rarified "late manner" might demand more careful work or extensive reworking. The Missa solemnis, basically finished in 1823 and published as Opus 123, required five years of hard work. It is an extraordinary achievement by itself; the Mass and the Ninth together make a pair of titanic siblings. Both works are in D, with B-flat having an important role as the primary contrasting key. A more obvious point is the moods that they share: the Benedictus has an exalted serenity similar to that of the third movement of the symphony, and the Gloria and the fourth movement of the symphony both generate a whirlwind of ecstatic energy at their conclusions.
Beethoven's intense work on the Ninth Symphony occurred during 1822-1824, but there are sketches for it that are thought to date from 1817. As early as 1811, in a sketchbook devoted to a large extent to the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies, there are notes on two separate pages that mention "Freude, schöne Götterfunken," one of which reads, "Detached fragments from Schiller's Freude brought together in a whole." Then the Choral Fantasy (the finale of the concert of 22 December 1808) might not be a masterpiece, but numerous elements of it uncannily anticipate the fourth movement of the Ninth Symphony. And we'll never know for how long the scheme or musical material of the Ninth fermented in Beethoven's brain before he wrote any of it down.
Enough people present at the Ninth's first performance left written accounts that we can be sure, based on Schindler and others, that the story of the alto soloist turning the deaf composer around to see the ovation of the audience is basically true despite disagreements about details. The public responded the most enthusiastically to the second movement with its solo for the timpani, so it is possible that Beethoven's special bow occurred after the second movement instead of at the end.
The Ninth Symphony is the summation of this composer's quest as a symphonist to bind the movements of a symphony together in ways that are organic, sometimes esoteric, yet always musically logical. The work is "about" the key of D, but the key of B-flat is only slightly less important, playing the role of adversary or alter ego throughout. In the first movement, a sonata form, B-flat is the second key that opposes the main key, D. This migration from D to B-flat can be heard in the famous opening: the great opening paragraph, starting very soft with a crescendo to full orchestra and back to very soft, clearly defines D; Beethoven starts a second paragraph almost the same way, but in the second crescendo the harmony suddenly shifts into B-flat, and now there is an opposition to be resolved. The main section of the second movement is also a sonata form, also with B-flat as the second key. The third movement, free variations on two themes, turns the relationship around: the first theme and the movement as a whole are in B-flat, and the second theme is in D.
The fourth movement is in two unequal halves, the first for orchestra alone, the second with voices. Each begins with the orchestral equivalent of a roar or a growl. The cellos and double basses have a lengthy solo, marked to be played in the manner of a recitative. Much of this was sketched in 1822 as a sung recitative, and based on the texts here we know that in the opening Beethoven portrays himself struggling to find the appropriate conclusion for the symphony. We hear him considering again the first three movements, each of which he rejects. A fragment of a melody emerges in the woodwinds that anticipates a new theme. We can almost hear Beethoven cry, "Ah-HA!" and, with a quick cadence, the orchestra falls silent.
This new theme is stated in full by the cellos and double basses without harmony. It is a simple, happy melody and not hard to sing (the famous difficulty of the vocal parts has more to do with what Beethoven does with this theme, not the theme itself). The rhythm is simple too, except that the last phrase starts a beat earlier than expected. Three variations follow in quick succession, culminating in a thrilling statement by the full orchestra. If we listen to the music from this point as though we don't know what's coming, we might notice a change of key to A. At the precise moment when another theme might be starting, the growling composer breaks in again, this time using words: "O friends, not these tones!" The pitches the soloist sings start with the beginning of the cello-bass recitative and conclude with the their last phrase before the variations started: in effect, the movement starts a second time, now using lines from Friedrich Schiller's Ode to Joy.
This is still a symphony, and the vocal portion of the fourth movement might be a rondo form. The key of B-flat makes a final appearance in the tenor solo and the busy orchestral passage that follows it. After the main theme and home key return, a completely new theme is introduced by the trombone and chorus ("Seid umschlungen, Millionen!") that is later brilliantly combined contrapuntally with the first theme. After a last ethereal statement by the solo quartet, the conclusion gets progressively wilder (certainly Dionysian, as many have noted). The music does not so much end as perhaps pass out of the range of our hearing into the upper levels of heaven.
©2008, David Mead
MAESTRO'S CHOICE RECORDINGS
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Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 4 & 8
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 [Hybrid SACD]
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