I. Adagio molto; allegro con brio
II. Andante cantabile con moto
III. Menuetto: allegro molto e vivace; trio
IV. Finale: adagio; allegro molto e vivace
Why debate whether the music of this First symphony is wholly Mozartian;
whether there are traces of the “greater” Beethoven? Let the music be
taken for what it is, music of the end of the eighteenth century. At the
same time let us recall the fact that when this symphony was played in
Paris a hundred years ago, two or three critics protested against the
“astonishing success” of Beethoven’s works as “a danger to musical art.”
“It is believed,” said one, “that a prodigal use of the most barbaric
dissonances and a noisy use of all the orchestral instruments will make
an effect. Alas, the ear is only stabbed; there is no appeal to the
heart.”
In spite of pages of mere routine, the music still has a certain
freshness and a quaint beauty. The symphony will always remain a
charming work with trivial passages, not to be compared as a whole with
the three great symphonies of Mozart or the latter symphonies of Haydn.
* * *
The symphony in C major, No. 1, probably originated in 1800, was
sketched at an earlier period, and elaborated in 1799.
The first performance was at a concert given by Beethoven at the
National Court Theater, “next the Burg,” Vienna, April 2, 1800.
The concert began at 6:30 P.M. The prices of admission were not raised.
It was the first concert given in Vienna by Beethoven for his own
benefit. A correspondent of the _Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung_
(October 15, 1800) gave curious information concerning the performance.
“At the end a symphony composed by him was performed. It contains much
art, and the ideas are abundant and original, but the wind instruments
are used far too much, so that the music is more for a band of wind
instruments than an orchestra.” The performance suffered on account of
the conductor, Paul Wranitzky. The orchestra men disliked him and took
no pains under his direction. Furthermore, they thought Beethoven’s
music too difficult. “In the second movement of the symphony they took
the matter so easily that there was no spirit, in spite of the
conductor, especially in the performance of the wind instruments....
What marked effect, then, can even the most excellent compositions
make?” The parts were published in 1801 and dedicated to Baron von
Swieten.
Berlioz[3] wrote concerning it as follows: “This work is wholly
different in form, melodic style, harmonic sobriety, and instrumentation
from the compositions of Beethoven that follow it. When the composer
wrote it, he was evidently under the sway of Mozartian ideas. These he
sometimes enlarged, but he has imitated them ingeniously everywhere.
Especially in the first two movements do we find springing up
occasionally certain rhythms used by the composer of _Don Giovanni_, but
these occasions are rare and far less striking. The first _allegro_ has
for a theme a phrase of six measures, which is not distinguished in
itself but becomes interesting through the artistic treatment. An
episodic melody follows, but it has little distinction of style. By
means of a half cadence, repeated three or four times, we come to a
figure in imitation for wind instruments; and we are the more surprised
to find it here, because it had been so often employed in several
overtures to French operas. The _andante_ contains an accompaniment of
drums, _piano_, which appears today rather ordinary, yet we recognize in
it a hint at striking effects produced later by Beethoven with the aid
of this instrument, which is seldom or badly employed as a rule by his
predecessors. This movement is full of charm; the theme is graceful and
lends itself easily to fugued development, by means of which the
composer has succeeded in being ingenious and piquant. The _scherzo_ is
the first-born of the family of charming _badinages_ or _scherzi_, of
which Beethoven invented the form and determined the pace; which he
substituted in nearly all of his instrumental works for the minuet of
Mozart and Haydn with a pace doubly less rapid and with a wholly
different character. This _scherzo_ is of exquisite freshness, lightness
and grace. It is the one truly original thing in this symphony in which
the poetic idea, so great and rich in the majority of his succeeding
works, is wholly wanting. It is music admirably made, clear, alert, but
slightly accentuated, cold, and sometimes mean and shabby, as in the
final _rondo_, which is musically childish. In a word, this is not
Beethoven.”
This judgment of Berlioz has been vigorously combated by all fetishists
that believe in the plenary inspiration of a great composer. Thus Michel
Brenet[4] (1882), usually discriminative, found that the introduction
begins in a highly original manner. Marx took the trouble to refute the
statement of Ulibichev,[5] that the first movement was an imitation of
the beginning of Mozart’s “_Jupiter_” symphony—a futile task. We find
Dr. Prof. H. Reimann[6] in 1899 stoutly maintaining the originality of
many pages of this symphony. Thus in the introduction the first chord
with its resolution is a “genuine innovation by Beethoven.” He admits
that the chief theme of the _allegro con brio_ with its subsidiary theme
and jubilant sequel recalls irresistibly Mozart’s “_Jupiter_”; “but the
passage _pianissimo_ by the close in G major, in which the basses use
the subsidiary theme, and in which the oboe introduces a song, is new
and surprising, and the manner in which by a crescendo the closing
section of the first chapter is developed is wholly Beethovenish”! He is
also lost in admiration at the thought of the development itself. He
finds the true Beethoven in more than one page of the _andante_. The
trio of the _scherzo_ is an example of Beethoven’s “tone-painting.” The
introduction of the _finale_ is “wholly original, although one may often
find echoes of Haydn and Mozart in what follows.”
Colombani combated the idea that the symphony is a weak imitation of
symphonies by Haydn and Mozart. Ulibichev wrote that Beethoven, in order
to reveal himself, waited for the minuet. “The rhythmic movement is
changed into that of a _scherzo_, after the manner instituted by the
composer in his first sonatas.” When the symphony was first performed at
Leipsic, a critic described it as a “confused explosion of the
outrageous effrontery of a young man.” At Vienna in 1810, the work was
described as “more amiable” than the second symphony.