• Second movement:
– Minuet and trio
• Third movement
– Sonata form
– Fast, driving
– Completely opposite mood of first

• “Moonlight”
• Sonata quasi una fantasia
• Unusual:
– Slow
– Dance
– Fast
• First movement:
– Contemplative, meditative, spiritual quality

• Early – 1792-1802
– Classical “imitation”
• Middle – 1802-1815
– “Heroic”
• Late – 1815-1827
– “Reflection”

• Similarities to Mozart
– Father a court musician – at Bonn
– Displayed early talent on piano
• Differences:
– Father a drunkard
– Abusive childhood
– Had no chance to travel as Mozart did

• Study with Haydn and others
• Reputation as pianist
• Cultivated aristocracy
– Refused to act part as servant

• French Revolution
• No longer private orchestras – more freelance situation
• Publishing more important – many dilettante performers

st
• Focus on piano
• Avoided big genres until 1800
• Used classical models
• Differences
– Heavier, more powerful
– More dynamic
– Strong contrasts

nd
• Events
– Beethoven’s growing awareness of his deafness
– French Revolution and aftermath

• Symphonies 2-8
• 10 Piano Sonatas Op. 31 – Op. 90
– “Tempest”
– “Waldstein”
– Appassionata
• Five of his seven concerti written during this time
• Five String quartets, Op. 59, 74, 95
• Opera – Fidelio

• Expansiveness
• Greater intensity and instability throughout movement
– Expanded coda
– Climax moved to coda
• Blurring of seams of the form
• Bolder harmonies
• Unity of work as a whole
• Greater emotional power

• Groundbreaking work
• Beethoven moved beyond classicism
• Huge, expansive
• Originally connection to Napoleon
• Beethoven changed his mind

• Vienna occupied,
1809
• “If I as a general knew as much about strategy that I as a composer know about counterpoint, I’d show you a thing or two.”
– Beethoven to a French officer.

• Large sonata form
• Unusual features
– First theme – does not complete
– Many themes in exposition – no clear break between first and second group
– New theme in development
– Recapitulation obscured
– Very large coda, contains climax

st

• Funeral march, mood important.
• Apparent ABA, but with interruptions.

• A – alternates between two themes, two keys and two timbres.
• B section highly contrasting, in key and in motion.
Binary in itself – each section closing with a fanfare .

• Return deflected – music veers off in another direction.
Violence of interruption significant. Goes into elaborate fugue.
• Greater motion at return.
• This sets you up for the coda. Begins with viola intoning
C-Ab.. Tries to build up momentum, but never does.

• Unusual proportions

EROICA FOURTH MOVEMENT
After Introduction, theme and 12 variations plus coda.
INTRO EXPOSITION DEVELOPMENT RECAPITULATION CODA
THEME
AND
VARIAT
ION?
Fourth movement:
Fanfare
Theme -- bass
Variation 1 – E b
Variation 2 – E b
Variation 3 – melody
Fugato – Cm
Further variation – melody D (via Bm)
March section –
Songlike varation – C Cm
Second fugal passage E b
Huge cadence – V
Theme – E b – oboe – slow flowing
Theme Horn – powerful – climax
Coda
SONAT
A
FORM?

• Main theme of i and iv related
– Themes different but outline same notes and harmonies in scale
– Not true of middle movements
• What is it about?
Napoleon?
Abstract concept of hero
Prometheus?
Beethoven?
Victory over death

• “For in both these composers (Bach and
Beethoven) the idea of law and order – of obedience to the formative intellect and regulative reason – greatly prevailed. They relied supremely on the masculine powers of formulation; . . . Theirs was essentially the
Germanic genius for the organization and control of ideas. Hence the superiority of
Germany in the matter of symphonic structure and classic form.”
– Colin McAlpin

• “Beethoven, despite all the sublime flights in the works of his latest period, was grounded throughout in classicism. He never shook the formal foundations and principles of classical music, or broke them down. . . [They derided]
“superfluous attempts . . . to prove that
Beethoven’s last period belongs wholly to romanticism.”
– Guido Adler and Theodore Baker

• Music became non-referential
• [Music is] “a unified, closed, totality”
Milton Babbitt

• “We must not for a moment think that the symphony is about these narratives, for it is precisely the other way around; these narratives are about the symphony.”
– Scott Burnham, Beethoven Hero , p. 25

• “Some say the Eroica is about Napoleon.
Some say Prometheus. I say it is about
Allegro con brio.