大象传媒

Penny Gore continues Radio 3's month of programmes complementing the 大象传媒4 series "Symphony" - including every note of every Symphony featured in the television series.

Today Afternoon on 3 and In Tune join forces to recreate Beethoven's notorious concert in Vienna in 1808 featuring the premieres of his 5th and 6th Symphonies.

The 大象传媒 National Orchestra of Wales perform Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in C Minor live from Cardiff, conducted by Michael Francis.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770鈥�1827)

Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67 (1807鈥�8)

1 Allegro con brio
2 Andante con moto
3 Allegro 鈥�
4 Allegro

鈥淚t鈥檚 hard to imagine our musical culture without it.鈥�

For nearly two centuries Beethoven鈥檚 Fifth has held such a central place in the repertoire that it鈥檚 hard to imagine our musical culture without it. The darkness-to-light idea provided a model for any number of later symphonists, though few got anywhere near Beethoven鈥檚 formal rigour and intensity. Brought up in the atmosphere of the 18th century Enlightenment and then experiencing the excitement and turbulence of the ideas that emerged from the French Revolution, Beethoven showed enormous persistence in exploring new areas of musical expression, and in the Fifth Symphony he was clearly aiming to communicate something of his conviction of music鈥檚 moral and spiritual potential. His Romantic vision of universal brotherhood (which would find even more confident expression in the Ninth Symphony) may have been hopelessly compromised and tarnished by subsequent history, but the inner processes of the music remain as valid as ever.

The Fifth is in every sense a big, public work, containing striking, bold effects designed for large forces playing in large halls to large audiences 鈥� large, that is, by the standards of the early 19th century. Beethoven鈥檚 first audiences would have been startled by the sheer volume of sound. This is achieved only partly by augmenting the orchestra with a piccolo, contra-bassoon and three trombones in the finale; it comes more from Beethoven鈥檚 ability to concentrate and intensify the effects that could be produced by an otherwise standard Classical orchestra. The symphony contains any number of subtleties that repeated hearings reveal, but there is never anything in the least obscure or mystifying, for everything is designed to communicate in the most direct manner.

The famous four-note opening motif (co-opted as the wartime 鈥榁ictory V鈥� signal) is a classic example of Beethoven devising a theme that is defined simply by its rhythmic outline, independent of any melodic shape. It can be varied and presented in a number of different contexts and still be immediately recognisable. This rhythmic concentration is balanced by an expansive phrasing that carries the music forwards in great paragraphs of sound. Every detail plays a vital part in a large dramatic plan, with meticulously calculated accumulations and releases of tension at key structural points. Beethoven was particularly keen to give the symphony an overall sense of continuity, and he achieves this by a number of unusual devices. One is the persistence of the four-note figure throughout the work; another is the presence of an emphatic, martial style of music alternating with the slow movement鈥檚 songlike episodes; the most thrilling is perhaps the transition that links the sinister scherzo to the finale without any break. This gives such a sense of suddenly released pent-up energy that it fully justifies the populist, march-like elements of this movement and the massive repetitions of the C major chord that bring it to a close.

For many listeners the Fifth Symphony represents the very essence of Beethoven, summed up in his pupil Czerny鈥檚 report that the opening motif was a musical image of 鈥楩ate knocking at the door鈥�. It鈥檚 worth remembering, though, that Beethoven often composed works in pairs, and was working on the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies at roughly the same time, during 1807 and 1808. The public gestures of the Fifth found their private complement in the Sixth, an individual鈥檚 response to the natural world, by turns relaxed, humorous, contemplative and exalted. The two symphonies had their first performances at a 鈥榤onster鈥� concert which Beethoven gave on 22 December 1808, and which also included the premieres of the Fourth Piano Concerto and Choral Fantasy, as well as parts of the Mass in C major. The concert was ill-prepared, the theatre where it took place was bitterly cold and the performance lasted over four hours: no wonder Beethoven鈥檚 contemporaries sometimes complained that his music was so difficult to understand.

Programme note 漏 Andrew Huth

Show less