I. Adagio; Allegro vivace
II. Adagio
III. Allegro vivace. Trio. Un poco meno allegro
IV. Finale: Allegro, ma non troppo
Of the nine symphonies of Beethoven the Fourth and Sixth are the least
impressive. The First is historically interesting, and its _finale_ is
delightfully gay. The Second is also interesting as showing the
development of Beethoven’s musical mind. After the _Eroica_, the Fourth
seems a droop in the flight of imagination. Yet there are noble and
strange things in this symphony, things that only Beethoven could have
written: the introduction, the mysterious measures with the _crescendo_
that majestically reëstablishes the chief tonality in the first
movement; the superb _adagio_.
The old theory that the Fourth was inspired by Beethoven’s love for
Therese Brunswick; that he was betrothed to her, which made happiness
the keynote to the music, has been disproved, if ever it was accepted by
students of Beethoven’s life. As a matter of fact, nothing is known
about the “origin” of the music. A German commentator has recently
spoken of “indecisiveness of mood” as “part of the imaginative scheme of
the whole work”; he even sees in the _adagio_ “the stimulus of some
tense emotion” such as inspired the love letter, whether aroused by the
“Immortal” or some other beloved. Is it not enough to hear the serene,
nobly emotional _adagio_ without vain speculation as to why Beethoven
was so deeply moved? Nor is it necessary to see Berlioz’s Archangel
Michael, who, by the way, was the warlike leader of the angelic hosts,
sighing and overcome by melancholy, as “he contemplated the worlds from
the threshold of the empyrean.” One might ask why should Michael grow
melancholy at the glorious sight? Nor can Beethoven’s _adagio_ be justly
characterized as melancholy.
* * *
The composition of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor was interrupted
by work on the Symphony in B flat major, No. 4, a symphony of a very
different character. The symphony was probably planned and composed in
the summer of 1806. “Having been played in March, 1807, at one of the
two subscription concerts at Lobkowitz’s,” Thayer is justified in adding
solemnly that “it must have been finished at that time.”
After the performance of the _Eroica_, Beethoven also worked on his
opera, _Fidelio_. The French army entered Vienna November 13, 1805; on
the 15th, Napoleon sent to the Viennese a proclamation dated at
Schönbrunn, and on November 20, 1805, _Fidelio_ was performed for the
first time, before an audience largely composed of French officers.
There were three performances, and the opera was withdrawn until March
29, 1806, when it was reduced from three acts to two. The opera was
again coldly received; there were two performances; and there was no
revival in Vienna until 1814.
Beethoven, disturbed by the disaster which attended the first
performances of his _Fidelio_ in Vienna, during the French invasion,
went in 1806 to Hungary to visit his friend, Count Brunswick. He visited
the Prince Lichnowsky at Castle Grätz, which was near Troppau in
Silesia. It has been said that at Martonvásár, visiting the Brunswicks,
he found that he loved Therese and that his love was returned. Some,
therefore, account for the postponement of the Fifth symphony, begun
before the Fourth, “by the fact that in May, 1806, Beethoven became
engaged to the Countess Therese.... The B flat symphony has been
mentioned as ‘the most tenderly classical’ of all works of its kind; its
keynote is ‘happiness’—a contentment which could have come to the master
only through such an incident as the one above set forth—his betrothal.”
We do not see the force of this reasoning.
It is better to say with Thayer that nothing is known about the origin
of the Fourth beyond the inscription put by the composer on the
manuscript which belongs to the Mendelssohn family: “_Sinfonia 4^ta
1806. L. v. Bthvn._”
This we do know: that, while Beethoven was visiting Prince Lichnowsky at
the latter’s Castle Grätz, the two called on Franz, Count Oppersdorff,
who had a castle near Grossglogau. This count, born in 1778, rich and
high-born, was fond of music; he had at this castle a well-drilled
orchestra, which then played Beethoven’s Symphony in D major in the
presence of the composer. In June, 1807, he commissioned Beethoven to
compose a symphony, paid him two hundred florins in advance and one
hundred and fifty florins more in 1808. Beethoven accepted the offer,
and purposed to give the Symphony in C minor to the Count; but he
changed his mind, and in November, 1808, the Count received, not the
symphony, but a letter of apology, in which Beethoven said that he had
been obliged to sell the symphony which he had composed for him, and
also another—these were probably the Fifth and the Sixth—but that the
Count would receive soon the one intended for him. The Fifth and Sixth
were dedicated to Prince Lobkowitz and Count Rasoumowsky. Oppersdorff at
last received the Fourth symphony, dedicated to him, a symphony that was
begun before he gave the commission; he received it after it had been
performed. He was naturally offended, especially as the Fourth symphony
at first met with little favor. He did not give Beethoven another
commission, nor did he meet him again, although Beethoven visited again
the Castle Grätz in 1811. The Count died January 21, 1818.
The Fourth symphony was performed for the first time at one of two
concerts given in Vienna about the 15th of March, 1807, at Prince
Lobkowitz’s. The concert was for the benefit of the composer. The
_Journal des Luxus und der Moden_ published this review early in April
of that year:
“Beethoven gave in the dwelling house of Prince L. two concerts in which
only his own compositions were performed: the first four symphonies, an
overture to the tragedy _Coriolanus_, a pianoforte concerto, and some
arias from _Fidelio_. Wealth of ideas, bold originality, and fullness of
strength, the peculiar characteristics of Beethoven’s Muse, were here
plainly in evidence. Yet many took exception to the neglect of noble
simplicity, to the excessive amassing thoughts, which on account of
their number are not always sufficiently blended and elaborated, and
therefore often produce the effect of uncut diamonds.”
Was this “Prince L.” Lobkowitz or Lichnowsky? Thayer decided in favor of
the former.
Berlioz writes of this symphony:
“Here Beethoven abandons wholly the ode and the elegy—a reference to the
_Eroica_ symphony—to return to the less lofty and somber but perhaps no
less difficult style of the Second symphony. The character of this score
is generally lively, nimble, joyous, or of a heavenly sweetness. If we
except the meditative _adagio_, which serves as an introduction, the
first movement is almost entirely given up to joyfulness. The motive in
detached notes, with which the _allegro_ begins, is only a canvas, on
which the composer spreads other and more substantial melodies, which
thus render the apparently chief idea of the beginning an accessory.
This artifice, although it is fertile in curious and interesting
results, has already been employed by Mozart and Haydn with equal
success. But we find in the second section of this same _allegro_ an
idea that is truly new, the first measures of which captivate the
attention; this idea, after leading the hearer’s mind through mysterious
developments, astonishes it by its unexpected ending.... This
astonishing _crescendo_ is one of the most skillfully contrived things
we know of in music: you will hardly find its equal except in that which
ends the famous _scherzo_ of the Symphony in C minor. And this latter,
in spite of its immense effectiveness, is conceived on a less vast
scale, for it sets out from _piano_ to arrive at the final explosion
without departing from the principal key, while the one whose march we
have just described starts from _mezzo-forte_, is lost for a moment in a
_pianissimo_ beneath which are harmonies with vague and undecided
coloring, then reappears with chords of a more determined tonality, and
bursts out only at the moment when the cloud that veiled this modulation
is completely dissipated. You might compare it to a river whose calm
waters suddenly disappear and only leave the subterranean bed to plunge
with a roar in a foaming waterfall.
“As for the _adagio_—it escapes analysis. It is so pure in form, the
melodic expression is so angelic and of such irresistible tenderness,
that the prodigious art of the workmanship disappears completely. You
are seized, from the first measure, by an emotion which at the end
becomes overwhelming in its intensity; and it is only in the works of
one of these giants of poetry that we can find a point of comparison
with this sublime page of the giant of music. Nothing, indeed, more
resembles the impression produced by this _adagio_ than that which we
experience when we read the touching episode of Francesca da Rimini in
the _Divina Commedia_, the recital of which Virgil cannot hear ‘without
weeping in sobs,’ and which, at the last verse, makes Dante ‘fall, as
falls a dead body.’ This movement seems to have been sighed by the
archangel Michael, one day when, overcome by melancholy, he contemplated
the worlds from the threshold of the empyrean.
“The _scherzo_ consists almost wholly of phrases in binary rhythm forced
to enter into combinations of 3-4 time.... The melody of the trio, given
to wind instruments, is of a delicious freshness; the pace is a little
slower than that of the rest of the _scherzo_, and its simplicity stands
out in still greater elegance from the opposition of the little phrases
which the violins throw across the wind instruments, like so many
teasing but charming allurements.
“The _finale_, gay and lively, returns to ordinary rhythmic forms; it
consists of a jingling of sparkling notes, interrupted, however, by some
hoarse and savage chords, in which are shown the angry outbursts which
we have already had occasion to notice in the composer.”