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rapidly, and the result was that the opening pas-
sage sounded rather slapdash; but later on, when
I had an opportunity to indicate the tempo, he
played as he alone and no one else can …
“Finally, as he handed me the score, he said,
‘Hold to your course. Let me tell you, you have
the talent for it, and—don’t get scared o !’
is
last is of in nite importance to me. It is almost
like what I will call a sacred mandate. Time and
again when disappointments and bitterness come
I shall think of his words, and the memory of this
hour will have a wonderful power to sustain me
in days of adversity; that is my con dent hope.”
Comparisons between Grieg’s concerto and
that of Robert Schumann have persisted over
the years. Grieg knew the earlier work from an
performance by Schumann’s widow, Clara.
Both works share the key of A minor, and each
dispenses with an orchestral exposition in the
rst movement. However, there is little com-
mon ground beyond these super cial attributes.
Grieg launches his work with one of the most
dynamic entrances in the entirety of the piano
concerto literature.
e rst theme is rather
majestic and cheerful, despite its minor key.
A supple contrasting theme moves freely be-
tween major and minor modes. Development
continues the lyrical vein. Grieg’s long and in-
volved solo cadenza melts away into the coda.
e
Adagio
molds two una ected melodies
into a simple three-part design. Norwegian folk
music—not actual tunes, but their basic lyrical
and modal characteristics—inspires the rondo
nale. At one famous “divine episode,” Liszt ex-
claimed (forgiving the ethnic
faux pas
): “G, G,
not G-sharp! Fantastic!
at’s the real Swedish
article!”
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827)
Symphony No. in C minor, op.
Scored for two utes and piccolo, two oboes, two
clarinets, two bassoons and contrabassoon, two
horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani,
and strings
“Beethoven’s instrumental music opens up to us
the realm of the monstrous and the immeasur-
able. Burning ashes of light shoot through the
deep night of this realm, and we become aware
of giant shadows that surge back and forth, driv-
ing us. … [His] music sets in motion the lever of
fear, of awe, of horror, of su ering, and wakens
just that in nite longing which is the essence of
Romanticism. He is accordingly a completely
Romantic composer, and is not this perhaps the
reason why he has less success with vocal mu-
sic, which excludes the character of inde nite
longing, merely representing emotions de ned
by words as emotions experienced in the realm
of the in nite?”
us wrote E.T.A. Ho mann in
about Bee-
thoven’s dramatic Symphony No. in C minor.
In this work, Beethoven achieves a precarious
balance between Classical form and order, and
the bizarre other-worldliness of Romanticism.
At the same time, the most essential elements of
music—melody and rhythm—are reduced to an
unprecedented level of simplicity in the opening
theme, what the composer described as “Fate
knocking at the door.” ese kernels, cultivated
in the fertile realms of Beethoven’s imagination,
blossom into a musical work that has both capti-
vated and confounded listeners to this day.
Like many of Beethoven’s compositions, the
Symphony No. was slow in developing. He
made plans for a symphony in C minor even be-
fore completing the Symphony No. in C mjaor
in
. Sketches for the eventual Symphony
No. began in
and continued sporadically
for the next four years. Beethoven nished his
Symphony No. in
, during his so-called
Heroic Period, a time when his style assumed
enormous proportions under the in uence of
French music. However, his infatuation with
things French was quickly (and permanent-
ly) tempered when Napoleon declared himself
emperor and marched his troops throughout
Europe, twice laying siege to Vienna. Ever the
political idealist, Beethoven felt betrayed by his
hero Napoleon and in anger reportedly tore the
title page bearing a dedication to Napoleon from
his Symphony No. , the “Eroica.” Instead, he of-
fered the work “to the memory of a great man.”
ere is good reason to believe that the Sym-
phony No. re ected a new German patriotism
in Beethoven. e heroic, military sentiments in
the symphony seem to be directed against the
French.
e published score contained a rath-
er unusual dedication to two wealthy patrons
of music: Prince Franz Joseph Lobkowitz, who
already was one of three aristocrats to grant
Beethoven an annual salary, and Count Andreas
Razumovsky, the Russian ambassador to Vien-
na who earlier had commissioned a set of string
quartets from the composer. Both of these men
had strong anti-French sentiments.
Being an astute (if sometimes unscrupulous)
businessman, Beethoven o ered the Symphony
No. to a German nobleman, collected a large
portion of his fee, then sold the symphony to
his publisher, Breitkopf & Härtel. Its premiere
on December ,
, was a highly unusual
event, a program containing the Symphonies
Nos. and , the Piano Concerto No. (with
the composer as soloist), excerpts from the Mass
in C major, a
scena
for soprano and orchestra
entitled
Ah, per do!
, and the Choral Fantasy (a
forerunner to the nal movement of the Sym-
phony No. ).
By all accounts, the concert was less than suc-
cessful. Unfortunately, Beethoven overestimat-
ed the audience’s patience.
e total running
time of this concert was four hours. e length
seemed all the more interminable since Beetho-
ven insisted on conducting the program himself,
despite the fact that he was almost completely
deaf. Furthermore, there was considerable resis-
tance to the new music on the part of the musi-
cians. e audience response was highly critical.
Even Beethoven’s friends could not completely
overlook the shortcomings in the program.
e second performance in Leipzig enjoyed bet-
ter reviews. Friedrich Rochlitz, the local music
critic, found particular interest in the opening of
the symphony: “ e rst movement is a very se-
rious, somewhat gloomy yet ery allegro, noble
both in feeling and in the working-out of idea,
which is handled rmly and evenly, simply with
a lot of originality, strength, and consistency—a
worthy movement which o ers rich pleasure
even to those who cling to the old way of com-
posing a big symphony.”
Beethoven had not invented a new form, but
had worked within well-established structural
con nes. In fact, throughout his career he de-
veloped no new types of composition, with the
possible exception of the song cycle.
e true
innovation of this symphony rests in the nature
of its basic thematic material.
e convention-
al view that themes are equivalent to melodies
is boldly de ed. Rather, themes are reduced to
simple intervallic and rhythmic patterns. From
very basic musical material, Beethoven is able to
sustain a complete movement. It is a miraculous
display of producing more from less.
A simple motive heard at the beginning is the
building block. It consists of an interval (a de-
scending third) and a rhythm (three repeated
eighth notes followed by a long rhythmic value).
Beethoven’s secretary and early biographer An-
ton Felix Schindler recalled how the master ex-
plained this opening motive: “ us Fate knocks
at the door.” Beethoven continues to derive mu-
sical material from the initial motive.
e sec-
ond theme is in E- at major, the relative major,
which is a third higher than the key of the rst
theme, C minor. An expansion of the motive,
by a
h rather than a third, produces the basic
material of the introduction. e actual second
theme has a lyrical expression, but even it is not
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