Programme note
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Symphony No 7 in A major, Op 92 (1813)
Listen to an excerpt
Poco sostenuto - Vivace
Allegretto
Presto
Allegro con brio
Wagner, in tribute to the relentless rhythmic vitality of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, hailed it as the "apotheosis of the dance." The same, with more justification, could be said of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, since it was intentionally written as dance music. Separated from each other by exactly a hundred years, each work could be called the rhythmic ne plus ultra of its time. The Rite caused a riot in Paris in 1913. The premiere of the Seventh Symphony in Vienna in 1813 convinced some listeners that Beethoven had gone mad, though its unstoppable verve, exhilarating yet awesome, prompted others to assume that it was inspired (like the Battle Symphony, included in the same programme) by the retreat of Napoleon and the promise of European peace. The concert in which it was first performed, indeed, was for the benefit of Austrian and Bavarian soldiers wounded at the battle of Hanau.
In itself, the music is never peaceful. There is scarcely a moment when the work is at rest. Even the slow movement proceeds with an inexorable tread, based on a repeated rhythm that shifts from section to section of the orchestra and is never absent. Each of the four movements, in fact, has its own dominating pulse. Unlike the Fifth Symphony, which moves steadily towards final triumph, the Seventh is a study in circling motion.
The big opening chords, followed by repeatedly rising scales for the strings that will ferociously return at top speed towards the end of the finale, create an impression of size and grandeur. Thereafter the swinging rhythm of the vivace section of the first movement acts like a dynamo that is never switched off. It even seethes softly throughout a famously extended passage for cellos and basses, before erupting with renewed force and whooping horns in the closing bars.
After the major-key brilliance of the first movement, the minor-key melancholy of its successor - audible in its very opening note - sounds funereal. Yet the pace is too fast for a funeral march, even if the structure is similar to that of the marcia funebre in the 'Eroica' symphony. There is solemnity here, rather than grief. The middle section, with its clarinet melody, is wistful, but the pulse is what matters and it underpins every change of mood and colour.
In the scherzo, the fast circling motion resumes. Since this is one of Beethoven’s extended scherzos with two separate trio sections - and, at the very end, an attempt to launch a third one - repetition is strongly emphasised. The rhythms continue to heave until five whiplash chords sever the continuity. But in the finale, described by Edinburgh's distinguished musical authority Donald Francis Tovey as a "triumph of Bacchic fury," it immediately resumes. Here, in the ceaseless interplay of short motifs and grinding repetitions, we are made more than ever aware of Beethoven’s obsessiveness, until the music finally hurtles into the abyss.
© Conrad Wilson
