Symphony 2 Flashcards
Anonymous 1855 review of Esser symphony:
‘The creation of a symphony nowadays, is a rock on which, with only a few exceptions, most composers suffer a complete shipwreck’
Herman Dieters’ 1871 review of Dietrich symphony
‘Even the decision to write a symphony, and the fortunate outcome of this decision, must be considered a noteworthy event. As is well known, our era is not rich in pieces of instrumental music in the forms inherited from the classical period’
Brahms on Beethoven’s influence
‘you have no idea how it feels when one hears such a giant marching behind one’ (probably early 1870s)
E. Kirby
Publication of Austro-German symphonies published declined dramatically in 19thC: o 1st decade: 50 o 3rd decade: 20 o 4th decade: 23 F. o 6th decade: 19 (lowest) o 7th decade: 33 o 8th decade: 43 o 9th decade: 52 (highest) o 10th decade: 30
Dahlhaus: influence of Beethoven
19th C symphony’s development was not teleological, but ‘circumpolar’, cast under the ‘shadow’ of Beethoven
- All ‘significant works’ used Beethoven’s symphonies as models, rather than symphonies immediately preceding their own
- Therefore, 19th C symphonies should be viewed in relation to Beethoven, rather than works in-between, with which they have only ‘fleeting connections’ to works in-between
- [Evaluation: reductive/simplistic but true to an extent]
Bonds: ‘After Beethoven’ (1997)
- Sense of musical teleology through macrostructural coherence: small-scale thematic processes cohere with large-scale thematic unity and development
Introductory material finds true expression at the end: e.g. Beethoven’s valedictory C maj - Beethoven’s symphony symbolised values of post-Revolution society: freedom, egalitarianism, brotherhood
E.g. Schiller’s Ode to Joy in Beethoven 9 - Early 19thC predisposed to create hero figures both in art and in the world
E.g. Goethe/Herder
Beethoven viewed as musical hero
• Each symphony was individual – 19thC favoured individualism
• His music viewed as response to society/tradition/past music
• Beethoven emblematic of quintessential Romantic artist: solitary figure pitted against tradition who nevertheless composed symphonies for the masses in accordance with early-19thC ideals
Beethoven was posthumously deified and his symphonies were placed at the centre of the newly constructed musical canon
Brodbeck: influence of Beethoven
‘With their will towards monumentality (characterised by easily grasped thematic ideas that are intimately bound to the orchestral medium and are easy to follow in their subsequent development) and dramatic teleological form – the exoteric and esoteric sides of the ‘symphonic style’ – Beethoven’s symphonies seemed to encompass both sides of the humanity idea’
Double-meaning of humanity (menschheit):
Totality of humankind (egalitarian accessibility)
Humanity of individual (erudite bourgeois preoccupation
Schubert 9
Schubert 9 (C maj, D944, published 1828)
Manuscript date 1828, but was likely completed by 1826
Neglected for 10 years until rediscovered by Schumann 1839 and conducted by Mendelssohn
Schubert’s style:
- Lyrical alternative to Beethoven’s symphonic paradigm
• Incorporated melodious, full-fledged themes into expansiveness of sonata form
• Adorno: Schubert’s themes represent ‘character-truths’, thus a Beethovenian thematic deconstruction would be futile - Schubert’s themes are objects not constituting the landscape but passing freely through it, akin to Berlioz’s ‘scenic’ model
• Monumentality achieved by placing intact themes in various tonal/structural contexts, evoking novelty/expanse
Influence of Schubertian symphonic model
- Schumann 1: similar tonal planning and musical rhetoric, and parallel opening melodic horn call
- Mendelssohn’s Scottish and Gade 1: song-like lyrical melodies
- Also influenced Schumann 2 and 3, and Gade 2 and 3
Schumann Neue Zeitschrift review (1840)
Review of Schubert 9
- ‘heavenly length’
- ‘matched Beethoven’s symphonies in length, drive, weight and freshness of form but…with Schubert’s special brand of expansiveness, leisureliness, lyricism, instrumental colour and harmonic finesse’
• Beethoven’s pervasiveness evident in comparison
o [Beethoven’s symphonies defined/embodied the genre, thus emulation was key, yet originality was necessary for this not to be viewed as epigonism
Dahlhaus on Schubert/Schumann/Mendelssohn
Dahlhaus views symphony through Beethovenian lens, thus criticising their apparent lack of thematic deconstruction and teleology
- Dahlhaus’ historiography categorises Schubert/Schumann/Mendelssohn at the end of the symphony’s first era, dominated by Beethoven
Inevitably, he sees them through a Beethoven-lens - Dahlhaus: successful symphonic movement must employ the ‘double function of the main theme, which Beethoven elevated to the status of a rule’
Oechsle’s alternative historiography
Schubert 9 as initiating new era of Romantic symphony
- Social context around 1839 (D944’s rediscovery): liberalisation and equalisation placed higher value on independence of the individual
- Reflected musically by ‘epic-lyrical monumentality’: radical attempt to fill grand symphonic form with initially unthematic material
• Dramatic focus is on integration of ‘an originally extraterritorial, individual, “capricious”’ idea
• Schubert/Schumann/Mendelssohn/Gade all feature lyrical melody from introduction which eventually recurs in main body and even determines form - Schubert 9 was as ‘new norm’ of symphonic writing
• Brodbeck’s alternative to Dahlhaus ‘shadow’ metaphor: river of composition stopped by Beethoven’s symphonies’ reception, but the discovery of Schubert’s model opened a dike ‘through which a stream of new symphonies now might flow freely’
Dahlhaus (1980 tr 1989):
Narrative of 19thC symphony’s ‘slow decline, death and resurrection’ (Brodbeck summation)
• Writes of symphonic composition having a crisis-ridden ‘dead era’ from 1850 (Schumann 3) to 1870
o Dahlhaus: ‘devoid of a work of distinction that represented absolute rather than program music’
o Coincides with Franz Brendel’s editorship of influential Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (1845-68)
Brodbeck counter-argument to Dalhaus 1980/1989
- 500 new orchestral compositions from 1850-75, most of which categorised as traditional multi-movement symphonies
• [Frisch: 1850-75 symphonies were ‘epigonic and of lower quality’)
• [Growing conservatoire culture explains sheer volume]
• [Neglects to contextualise this with other stats] - Half were unknown, some were living classics
• Cites Gade 4 (1850), Rubenstein ‘Ocean’ (1851) and Raff
o [Ocean was dedicated to Liszt; Raff used detailed pictorial programmes]
o [All other than Raff were pre-1855!]
• [Frisch: 1850-75 symphonies are epigonic/lower quality] - 1860s symphonies struggled: competing with vogue for programmatic works as well as increasingly canonic Romantic/Classical works
• Raff was popular, but used pictorial programmes - Suggests post-1850 symphony’s aesthetic demands were greatly reduced, and that ‘originality was not essential’ (p73)
• [Brodbeck seems to conflate reviewers’ reluctant acceptance with their expectations/aspirations]
Bloomian anxiety of influence
[Historiographical idea: Bloomian anxiety of influence]
- Brahms 1 as apophrades (return of the dead)
- Brahms 4 as tessera (completion and antithesis): undermines 9
- Mahler 3 as tessera
The symphony as German
o A.B. Marx 1824: the serious, Eroica-like symphony was ‘virtually the exclusive property of the Germans’
o Schumann: ‘just as the Italian has Naples, the Frenchman has the Revolution, the Englishman his merchant marine, so the German has his Beethoven symphonies’
Viewed Beethoven’s symphonies as integral to German-speaking identity
Resultantly, German-speaking composers naturally felt cultural burden of symphony
