Beethoven’s First Symphony was brought out at a concert which he gave in
Vienna on April 2, 1800. It was immediately successful and within a few
months carried its composer’s fame all over Germany. In the musical city
of Leipzig it was described as “intellectual, powerful, original, and
difficult.” That was in 1802. Today it is no longer difficult for our
accomplished orchestras, but, as in the case of other works that have
come to seem simple through the passage of time and changes in fashions,
it is no easy matter now for a conductor to catch and express the frank
joyousness of its youthful speech.
The symphony is in the customary four sections or movements. The key is
C major. Yet it does not begin in that key, but with a discord in F
major which shocked some pedants at the time. The slow introduction of
twelve measures leads to the first movement proper (“Allegro con brio”).
Its pages have spirit, gaiety, elegance, for this symphony has well been
termed a symphony of comedy, though here and there a cloud may for the
moment obscure its sunny brightness. The eighteenth century was not over
when Beethoven composed it, and he was still looking at music through
the eyes of Haydn and Mozart, in spite of the fact that the student may
readily discover Beethovenish characteristics that are not derived from
either Haydn or Mozart and distinct intimations of the moods and manners
of the nineteenth century to come. However, comedy itself is not all
compact of sunshine and, as the German proverb has it, laughter and
weeping dwell in the same bag.
This brisk Allegro is followed in the then-prevailing order by the slow
movement (“Andante cantabile con moto,” in F major and consequently not
too slow). It is mainly built up on a tricksy tune that no less an
authority than Professor Tovey described as “kittenish.”
[Illustration: play music]
The attentive listener should observe in this movement the recurrent
passage of dotted notes for drums on G and then on C, the drums being
tuned not in the tonic, but in the dominant. Yet bold though this device
might have seemed, it was not wholly original. Mozart had anticipated
Beethoven in his “Linz” Symphony.
The third movement in name is the minuet usual in symphonies of the
eighteenth century (“Menuetto: Allegro molto e vivace,” in C major), but
in reality Beethoven was already looking forward to the scherzo
(Italian, joke) with which he was presently to replace the minuet. This
movement, then, is much less the stately dance in triple rhythm than a
scherzo of generous proportions, rich in modulations and glowing color.
The scherzo, like the minuet, always includes a trio section. Listen in
this trio to the delicious dialogue between wind instruments and strings
and to the rousing crescendo that ends it just before the repetition of
the minuet.
The Finale, in C major, opens with seven measures of Adagio devoted to
the gradual release of a scale passage. So much accomplished, the music
plunges into an “Allegro molto e vivace,” beginning with this sprightly
theme which races along to the conclusion in a whirl of merriment and
humorous sallies.
[Illustration: play music]
[Illustration: Beethoven as a young man.
_From a painting by W. J. Mahler, 1808._]
[Illustration: Beethoven’s birthplace in Bonn from the garden and from
the street.]