Skip to main content

Beethoven: Symphony #7

We had dinner with some good friends last night and one of them commented on how he's trying to learn more about classical music, but he just didn't really like Beethoven. Too heavy and too serious.

At first I thought to myself: Is this possible? Somebody who doesn't like Beethoven? How can this be?

**********************
George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra
Beethoven (1770-1827)
Symphony #4
Symphony #7

Sony Classical, 1992
**********************
We talked for a bit about how some of Beethoven's music, particularly his Fifth Symphony, has become so familiar to listeners and used in so many formats that the symphony--or at least the introductory "dut dut dut daaaaahhh" part--borders on self-parody. Remember "A Fifth of Beethoven" from the Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack?

I can see how mighty works like his Ninth and Fifth symphonies might be seen as ponderous and even a bit over the top, and I can also see how, compared to Mozart or Bach, Beethoven seems to be taking himself way too seriously.

On the other hand, in many of his symphonic works, Beethoven was tackling themes of life, death and fate that had immense gravitas. This is serious stuff, and his works therefore had psychological and emotional content that, until this point in history, no one had really been able to incorporate into symphonic music.

If there's anything I'm annoyed with about Beethoven, it's that the collective weight of his body of work screwed up everything for guys like Brahms and Bruckner, who were too intimidated to try their hand at composing their own symphonies. They felt that Beethoven had already said all there was to say, and that it would be pure hubris to attempt to add to it.

Maybe the Seventh, then, is the best Beethoven symphony for our friend to start with. It still contains the essential character and sound of a Beethoven symphony (you can't expect a Beethoven symphony not to have at least some self-importance), but this particular symphony just doesn't take itself quite so seriously.

Even the ending of the Seventh highlights this: listen to the final sixty seconds of the Seventh Symphony and compare it to the final sixty seconds of the Fifth. The Fifth Symphony wraps up with about 40 seconds of overly dramatic and overly triumphant major chords. The Seventh? Well, it just ends--actually kind of abruptly--with no fanfare at all.

Have a listen and see what you think!



Comments

Anonymous said…
The sixth symphony, "Pastoral", offers a lighter Beethoven as well.

Popular posts from this blog

Does Bach Suck?

It's not often that you see a classical music-related comment that makes you spit out your coffee : "Bach sucks because he was not a true composer. A true composer hears the music before he writes it. Bach composed using a mathematical system of numbers which he tought[sic] his students. After his death one of his students published a book “How to write a menuet[sic] with little or no musical knowledge”. Frankly, the result of his work is not musical, the opening bars always sound musical because he copied someone else’s melody, broke it down into numbers and wrote counterpoint from it. Handel did not even like Bach, because Handel wrote music. Anyone who does like Bach does so because they are told to. For a comparison, listen to music by Frescobaldi, Rameau, or Couperin, then listen to Bach. The difference? Something that is musical throughout the entire piece, and something that is musical for 10 seconds and quickly loses interest." Once I'd finished mopping the co

Why Classical Music Writing is So Difficult to Read

Have you ever read the liner notes of a classical music CD and scratched your head wondering what the heck the writer was trying to say? Or attempted to read a classical music concert review in your newspaper and felt totally illiterate? One of the things that frustrates many people about classical music is its perceived elitism. It's unfortunate, but most of what gets written about classical music only worsens that perception. Most of the classical music writing I see out there--either in symphony concert program books, in concert reviews in major papers like the New York Times, or worst of all in the little essays in the booklets accompanying most classical music CDs--is quite simply terrible. Often, it is pretentiously written, it is full of industry jargon (yes, even the classical music industry has its own jargon), and it reads like an intellectually insecure liberal arts student's PhD thesis. There are a few reasons for this. First, there's the fundamental difficulty

How to Start Your Own Classical Music Collection

I'm often asked by people who are new to classical music for a list of CDs or key symphonies that I think are the best choices to start off a new classical music collection. What are ideal symphonies or works that can help you get started getting to know classical music? Today I'm going to attempt to answer this question, and I'll provide you with a brief list of works that can form the foundation of a great collection of important classical music. Keep in mind that whenever one reviews any type of list like this, invariably one can complain that a given work was left off the list ("where's Chopin? or Mahler?"), or even that some work was left on the list ("ugh, Beethoven's 5th again?"). This list is in no way meant to be exhaustive. It is merely a starting point for the novice listener. If you purchase recordings of these works and listen to each and every one of them, you'll have a great head start on your journey towards getting to know c