I. Poco sostenuto; vivace
II. Allegretto
III. Presto; assai meno presto; tempo primo
IV. Allegro con brio
The rhapsodists have had their say; the commentators have pried and
conjectured; the later symphonies are still sublime in their grandeur.
They well-nigh express the inexpressible.
Nor have the legends, fondly believed for years, done injury to the
music. It matters not whether the Seventh symphony be a description of
Germany exulting in its deliverance from the French yoke, or the
apotheosis of the dance; whether the allegretto picture a procession in
the catacombs or be the love dream of an odalisque. Whenever the music
is played, whenever it comes into the mind, it awakens new thoughts and
each one dreams his own dreams.
Each writer in turn publishes in print or by word of mouth his little
explanation, but Beethoven broods, mysterious, gigantic, above
commentators, above even conductors when they misunderstand him, or
plume themselves upon a new and striking interpretation, or in their
endeavor to grasp and convey to others the essential greatness of the
composer put their trust in din and speed.
* * *
The first sketches of this symphony were probably made before 1811 or
even 1810. The score of the symphony was dedicated to the Count Moritz
von Fries and published in 1816. The edition for the pianoforte was
dedicated to the Tsarina Elizabeth Alexievna of All the Russias.
The Seventh and Eighth symphonies were probably played over for the
first time at the Archduke Rudolph’s in Vienna on April 20, 1813.
Beethoven in the same month vainly endeavored to produce them at a
concert. The first performance of the Seventh was at Vienna in the large
hall of the university, on December 8, 1813.
Mälzel, the famous maker of automata, exhibited in Vienna during the
winter of 1812-13 his automatic trumpeter and panharmonicon. The former
played a French cavalry march with calls and tunes; the latter was
composed of the instruments used in the ordinary military band of the
period—trumpets, drums, flutes, clarinets, oboes, cymbals, triangle,
etc. The keys were moved by a cylinder. Overtures by Handel and
Cherubini and Haydn’s Military symphony were played with ease and
precision. Beethoven planned his _Wellington’s Victory_, or _Battle of
Vittoria_, for this machine. Mälzel made arrangements for a concert—a
concert “for the benefit of Austrian and Bavarian soldiers disabled at
the battle of Hanau.”
This Johann Nepomuk Mälzel (Mälzl) was born at Regensburg, August 15,
1772. He was the son of an organ builder. In 1792 he settled at Vienna
as a teacher of music, but he soon made a name for himself by inventing
mechanical music works. In 1816 he constructed a metronome, though
Winkel, of Amsterdam, claimed the idea as his. Mälzel also made ear
trumpets, and Beethoven tried them, as he did others. His life was a
singular one, and the accounts of it are contradictory. Two leading
French biographical dictionaries insist that Mälzel’s “brother Leonhard”
invented the mechanical toys attributed to Johann, but they are wholly
wrong. Fétis and one or two others state that he took the panharmonicon
with him to the United States in 1826 and sold it at Boston to a society
for four hundred thousand dollars—an incredible statement. No wonder
that the Count de Pontécoulant, in his _Organographie_, repeating the
statement, adds, “I think there is an extra cipher.” But Mälzel did
visit America, and he spent several years here. He landed at New York,
February 3, 1826, and the _Ship News_ announced the arrival of “Mr.
Maelzel, Professor of Music and Mechanics, inventor of the Panharmonicon
and the Musical Time Keeper.” He brought with him the famous
automata—the Chess Player, the Austrian Trumpeter, and the Rope
Dancers—and opened an exhibition of them at the National Hotel, 112
Broadway, April 13, 1826. The Chess Player was invented by Wolfgang von
Kempelen. Mälzel bought it at the sale of von Kempelen’s effects after
the death of the latter, at Vienna, and made unimportant improvements.
The Chess Player had strange adventures. It was owned for a time by
Eugène Beauharnais, when he was viceroy of the kingdom of Italy, and
Mälzel had much trouble in getting it away from him. Mälzel gave an
exhibition in Boston at Julien Hall, on a corner of Milk and Congress
streets. The exhibition opened September 13, 1826, and closed October 28
of that year. He visited Boston again in 1828 and 1833. On his second
visit he added _The Conflagration of Moscow_, a panorama, which he sold
to three Bostonians for six thousand dollars. Hence, probably, the
origin of the panharmonicon legend. He also exhibited an automatic
violoncellist. Mälzel died on the brig _Otis_ on his way from Havana to
Philadelphia on July 21, 1838, and was buried at sea, off Charleston.
The _United States Gazette_ published his eulogy and said, with due
caution: “He has gone, we hope, where the music of his harmonicons will
be exceeded.” The Chess Player was destroyed by fire in the burning of
the Chinese Museum at Philadelphia, July 5, 1854. An interesting and
minute account of Mälzel’s life in America, written by George Allen, is
published in the _Book of the First American Chess Congress_, pp. 420-84
(New York, 1859); see also _Métronome de Maelzel_ (Paris, 1833); the
_History of the Automatic Chess Player_, published by George S.
Hilliard, Boston, 1826; Mendel’s _Musikalisches Conversations-Lexicon_;
and an article, _Beethoven and Chess_, by Charles Willing, published in
_The Good Companion Chess Problem Club_ of May 11, 1917 (Philadelphia),
which contains facsimiles of Mälzel’s programmes in Philadelphia (1845)
and Montreal (1847). In Poe’s fantastical “Von Kempelen and His
Discovery” the description of his Kempelen, of Utica, N. Y., is said by
some to fit Mälzel, but Poe’s story was probably not written before
1848. His article, “Maelzel’s Chess Player,” a remarkable analysis, was
first published in the _Southern Literary Messenger_ of April, 1836.
Portions of this article other than those pertaining to the analysis
were taken by Poe from Sir David Brewster’s _Lectures on Natural Magic_.
The programme of the Vienna concert was announced: “A brand-new
symphony,” the Seventh, in A major, by Beethoven; and also _Wellington’s
Sieg, oder die Schlacht bei Vittoria_. _Wellington’s Sieg_ was completed
in October, 1813, to celebrate the victory of Wellington over the French
troops in Spain on June 21 of that year. Mälzel had persuaded Beethoven
to compose the piece for his panharmonicon. He furnished material for it
and gave him the idea of using “God Save the King” as the subject of a
lively fugue. He purposed to produce the work at concerts, so as to
raise money enough for him and Beethoven to visit London. A shrewd
fellow, he said that if the “_Battle_” symphony were scored for
orchestra and played in Vienna with success, an arrangement for his
panharmonicon would then be of more value to him. Beethoven dedicated
the work to the Prince Regent, afterwards George IV, and forwarded a
copy to him, but the “First Gentleman in Europe” never acknowledged the
compliment. _Wellington’s Sieg_ was not performed in London until
February 10, 1815, when it had a great run. The news of this success
pleased Beethoven very much. He made a memorandum of it in the notebook
which he carried with him to taverns.
The benefit concert was brilliantly successful, and there was a
repetition of it December 12 with the same prices of admission, ten and
five florins. The net profit of the two performances was four thousand
six gulden. Spohr tells us that the new pieces gave “extraordinary
pleasure, especially the symphony; the wondrous second movement was
repeated at each concert; it made a deep, enduring impression on me. The
performance was a masterly one, in spite of the uncertain and often
ridiculous conducting by Beethoven.” Glöggl was present at a rehearsal
when violinists refused to play a passage in the symphony and declared
that it could not be played. “Beethoven told them to take their parts
home and practise them; then the passage would surely go.” It was at
these rehearsals that Spohr saw the deaf composer crouch lower and lower
to indicate a long _diminuendo_, and rise again and spring into the air
when he demanded a climax. And he tells of a pathetic yet ludicrous
blunder of Beethoven, who could not hear the soft passages.
Beethoven was delighted with his success, so much so that he wrote a
public letter of thanks to all that took part in the two performances.
“It is Mälzel especially who merits all our thanks. He was the first to
conceive the idea of the concert, and it was he who busied himself
actively with the organization and the ensemble in all the details. I
owe him special thanks for having given me the opportunity of offering
my compositions to the public use and thus fulfilling the ardent vow
made by me long ago of putting the fruits of my labor on the altar of
the country.”
The first movement opens with an introduction, _poco sostenuto_, A
major, 4-4. The main body is _vivace_, 6-8. The _allegretto_ is in A
minor, 2-4; the third movement, _presto_, F major, 3-4. The _finale_,
_allegro con brio_, A major, 2-4, is a wild rondo on two themes. Here,
according to Mr. Prod’homme and others, as Beethoven achieved in the
_scherzo_ the highest and fullest expression of exuberant
joy—“unbuttoned joy,” as the composer himself would have said—so in the
_finale_ the joy becomes orgiastic. The furious bacchantic first theme
is repeated after the exposition, and there is a sort of coda to it, “as
a chorus might follow upon the stanzas of a song.”[10]