LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

Born December 16, 1770, in Bonn
Died March 26, 1827, in Vienna

Symphony No. 4 in B-flat Major, Op. 60 (36’)

1. Adagio; Allegro vivace
2. Adagio
3. Allegro vivace. Trio. Un poco meno allegro
4. Finale: Allegro ma non troppo

Last performed by the Wichita Symphony on March 3 and 4, 2002, Andrew Sewell, conducting.

It is well established that Beethoven’s nine symphonies are iconic touchstones that exist on a pedestal and cast a long shadow over the generations of composers that followed in the 19th century. Beethoven’s successors, no composers were unaffected, established the mythology of Beethoven as a god-like figure. This perspective reached the United States as early as the 1840s and continues even today.

Among classical music enthusiasts, most Top 10 lists include at least four Beethoven symphonies, usually the Ninth at the top, followed in various orders by the Third (Eroica), Fifth, and Seventh. These odd-numbered works all concern the subject of Beethoven as “heroic” and overcoming of obstacles, principally his deafness. Their messages continue with relevance for our times. A survey of Beethoven symphonies performed by the Wichita Symphony over the past forty years shows a preponderance of performances of the odd-numbered symphonies over the even-numbered ones by a ratio over two to one. The Fourth hasn’t been heard in twenty years.

The even-numbered symphonies by Beethoven are not lesser works but masterpieces of a different kind. That there was something different about them was recognized in the 19th century. Writers described them as warm, jovial, and even comic, compared to the even-numbered symphonies that conveyed drama, boldness, and tragedy. Robert Schumann, in particular, set the tone when he described the Fourth Symphony as “a slender Greek maiden between two Norse giants.” The Fourth may be on a smaller scale than the preceding Eroica or the fate-driven Fifth, but anyone listening to the almost rough-hewn, muscular humor of the work would hardly call it “slight.”

1806 was a consequential year in world history. In Europe, the Napoleanic wars remained a struggle and threat to peace. In America, Lewis and Clark, having reached the Pacific, began their journey home. For Beethoven, 1806 was a productive year in which he completed his three Razumovsky String Quartets and his revised opera Leonora (not yet titled Fidelio). Beethoven also finished the Fourth Piano Concerto, the Violin Concerto, the Piano Sonata in F minor known as the “Appassionata,” and the Fourth Symphony.

The summer of 1806 found Beethoven relaxing at the summer estate of Count Franz Brunswick in present-day Hungary. The Brunswick family had become friends and patrons of Beethoven shortly after Beethoven’s arrival in Vienna. Two of the sisters, Therese and Josephine, had studied piano with Beethoven as early as 1799, and speculation exists that one of the sisters may have been the so-called “Immortal Beloved” of Beethoven’s biography. Following his visit with the Brunswicks, Beethoven visited his patron Prince Lichnowsky at the prince’s castle in Silesia. During these relaxing sojourns, Beethoven composed his Fourth Symphony.

The immensity of Beethoven’s genius allowed him to work on multiple works simultaneously. The sketchbooks that he kept throughout his life bear witness. For example, early sketches of material that ended up in the 5th and 6th Symphonies exist even before Beethoven began work on the Fourth. Scholars ascertain that a missing or lost sketchbook denies us insight into the gestational development of the Fourth Symphony. Assumptions conclude that it was written relatively quickly during the summer and fall of 1806.

The new Symphony premiered in March 1807 along with the Fourth Piano Concerto in a private concert at the Viennese residence of Prince Lobkowitz, another of Beethoven’s patrons and sponsors.

At first glance, several factors contribute to the belief that the Fourth marks a “regression” after the Third Symphony. It is markedly shorter, over ten minutes less than the Eroica by most performances, and more on the scale of a late-Haydn symphony, although still longer. Beethoven orchestrates for a slightly smaller orchestra than he used for the Third, choosing to use only one flute instead of two and two horns instead of three. The reduced orchestration affects the sonority in the upper winds and the depth of the brass sound. The trumpets play a minor role providing accents of color during loud moments. Again, this orchestra resembles Haydn’s London Symphonies, and the tone color expansion with the larger orchestra of the Fifth was yet to come. And lastly, Beethoven returns to a slow introduction, which were standard structural elements in Haydn’s late symphonies, and which Beethoven used in his first two symphonies.

Anyone expecting a big, bold opening like the Eroica Symphony is in for a surprise. The Fourth Symphony’s first movement begins stealthily with a slow introduction. We hear a unison B-flat, the tonic of the home key plucked in the strings and held by the winds. The dynamics are marked pianissimo (very soft), and the tempo is adagio (slow). The strings play a descending passage elongated by half-note rhythms. The harmonic implications immediately veer away from B-flat major into a nether world of ambiguity. One writer equates this descending passage to Leonora’s descent on the stairs of the prison in Beethoven’s opera. Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas describes the music as “groping” that reflects the disorientation of Beethoven’s worsening deafness.

Interestingly, Beethoven uses these descending intervals in the opening of the subsequent Fifth Symphony but in a different rhythmic context. Think of the beginning of the famous Fifth: ta-ta-ta-DUM. In the Fourth, Beethoven leads us through the shadows for nearly three minutes, occasionally punctuating the music with a loud pitch or chord, but leaving matters unresolved. He ruminates over the meaning of the intervals shedding light on his compositional process. Beethoven is not a composer who spins out endless melodies for our entertainment. Instead, he focuses on small components, what we call motives, and considers them for all of the possibilities they offer. Thus, the descending intervals of the Fourth’s opening mean something entirely different from the Fifth Symphony, and we know that he considered these possibilities from the sketchbooks.

Finally, Beethoven arrives on a mysterious unison A. For those with some basic harmony knowledge, we recognize the A as the leading tone of B-flat major. It is also the third of an F major dominant seventh chord, which Beethoven exposes with a crescendo to fortissimo (very loud) and with thunderous and repetitive F major chords in the entire orchestra. The tempo changes to Allegro vivace (fast and lively). After eight of these loud F major chords (again for harmony students, the dominant of B-flat major), Beethoven arrives at his first theme firmly in B-flat major. The theme, derived from the introduction, is a belly laugh, and we realize that the seriousness of the opening was really a joke after all.

The Allegro vivace is a study in dynamic contrasts. Listen to how frequently the music abruptly changes from very soft to very loud and then back. These changes are almost comic in their frequency. The elongated chords of the introduction are a continuing feature but accompanied now by busy quarter-note and eighth-note patter. In particular, listen for the bassoon that will play a featured role throughout the work.

Beethoven uses rhythm as a tool to drive his music forward with tension and release. Syncopation and chords held across the barline work to defeat the regularity of the meter.

In the development of the first movement, Beethoven puts his themes under a microscope playing with them in a way that shortens, fragments, and tosses them about the orchestra’s instruments. It’s a terrific example of what we call “motivic play.” At one point, he even introduces a new theme. The juxtaposition of very loud and very soft dynamics is striking.

There’s one more clever surprise in this opening movement. The development section winds down in a kind of rhythmic vamp, coming to a halt on a solitary timpani roll. The pitch is our B-flat tonic that would mark an expected recapitulation, but the scales and harmonies around it treat it as an enharmonic A-sharp. Beethoven denies us our home base. Gradually the ascending scale fragments gather momentum until they seemingly tumble all over the place. Finally, the recapitulation bursts forth over the B-flat timpani roll that anticipated the arrival all along.

The second movement is one of Beethoven’s most beautiful slow movements. He marks it cantabile, meaning that it needs to sing. Beneath this melody, we hear a soft, repeated rhythmic pattern (ta-Dum, ta-Dum, ta-Dum). This repeating pattern is called an ostinato. It will be prominent throughout the movement, mainly in the background but sometimes emerging in a pounding fortissimo in the entire orchestra. It’s like a heartbeat, and at least one writer has speculated that the movement is an amorous declaration to Therese Brunswick. Still, the music is not all light. A contrasting section surges forward, and the harmonies cast shadows. One also thinks of Beethoven’s operatic heroine, Leonora, and the love she has for her father, as well as the fear as she descends the prison steps to his rescue.

As you listen to the movement, enjoy the exquisite writing and interplay between the wind instruments.

The third movement is one of Beethoven’s rambunctious scherzos. There are elements of dance here, but not the gentile minuets that graced Mozart’s and Haydn’s symphonies. Elements of rhythmic syncopation and striking dynamic contrasts heard earlier return here. The contrasting Trio slows the tempo (un poco meno Allegro = a little less fast). Beethoven pares down the instrumentation to focus on the woodwinds as a choir set against fragmented and murmuring string accompaniment. The Scherzo and the Trio alternate to create an A-B-A-B-A structure with the final Scherzo in an abbreviated form.

The fourth movement is a perpetual motion, or nearly so. It’s marked allegro ma non troppo (fast but not too much), but there’s no denying that the sixteenth-notes move the music along at a good clip. Many of the elements of the first three movements reoccur here, and close examination of the notes reveals that much derives from earlier motives. The internal unity contributes to what Leonard Bernstein described as “the inevitability” of Beethoven’s music, where every note is the right note, and no other option is possible.

Rhythm, tempo, and dynamics are what this movement is all about. Melodic elements fly by in fragmented shape. The development section is brief, with strings tossing around the sixteenth-note figures and the winds delivering heavy, chordal blows. Listen carefully for the short and quick bassoon solo that signals the recapitulation. It has become a standard bassoon “lick” requiring rapid tonguing and articulation requested in orchestral auditions . Beethoven develops his ideas further in a brief coda that suddenly comes to a complete stop. A few more melodic fragments separated by pauses cast a backward look, but a short burst of energy renews the joke and brings the music to a brilliant conclusion.

© Don Reinhold, 2022