Beethoven called his Seventh Symphony “one of my most excellent works” in a letter to Johann Peter Solomon in London (the same Solomon who, some 20 years prior, had brought Haydn to the English capital and who, like Beethoven, was a native of Bonn). The composer may well be forgiven for this lavish self-praise: Even after the revolutionary accomplishments of the Fifth and Sixth symphonies, he had clearly found a new approach to symphonic composition—one in which he had no need of a spoken or unspoken program such as the “fate” or “nature” associations in the earlier works in order to project a high level of dramatic energy. In many ways, the Seventh marks the culminating moment of Beethoven's “heroic period,” but it manages to be “heroic” without evoking any hero in particular.

One way in which Beethoven achieved this was by having each of the four movements dominated by a single recurrent rhythmic figure, while creating an endless diversity of melodic and harmonic events against a backdrop of those continually repeated dance rhythms. There is a strong drive propelling the music forward creating constant excitement; at the same time, harmony, melody, dynamics, and orchestration are all full of the most delightful surprises, making for interesting turns in the musical “plot.”

In the fourth-movement Allegro con brio, the exuberant feelings reach their peak as one glorious theme follows another over an almost entirely unchanging rhythmic pulsation as the dance reaches an unprecedented level of intensity. It is a movement of which even Sir Donald Francis Tovey, the most celebrated British musical essayist of the first half of the 20th century, had to admit: “I can attempt nothing here by way of description.” Fortunately, the music speaks for itself.  

—Peter Laki

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