# Beethoven's 10th symphony and Haydn Variations



## Beet Lover (Jan 11, 2018)

Listen to these Haydn variations and compare it to one of the themes in the opening of Barry Cooper's reconstruction of Beethoven's 10th symphony. This can't be coincidental right? I realize that Barry Cooper was working from sketch material. Any thoughts? I was listening to the variations and I thought to myself "that sounds familiar"!. Any student of Beethoven's bio knows how much he, despite their run-ins, revered the old master Haydn. Or, was it more Barry Cooper's doing?

Beethoven's 10th symphony recon: (in particular starting at 14 second in)






Haydn's variations:


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Beet Lover said:


> Listen to these Haydn variations and compare it to one of the themes in the opening of Barry Cooper's reconstruction of Beethoven's 10th symphony. This can't be coincidental right? I realize that Barry Cooper was working from sketch material. Any thoughts? I was listening to the variations and I thought to myself "that sounds familiar"!. Any student of Beethoven's bio knows how much he, despite their run-ins, revered the old master Haydn. Or, was it more Barry Cooper's doing?
> 
> Beethoven's 10th symphony recon: (in particular starting at 14 second in)
> 
> ...


Cant see the last link,


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Beet Lover said:


> ...I was listening to the variations and I thought to myself "that sounds familiar"!. Any student of Beethoven's bio knows how much he, despite their run-ins, revered the old master Haydn.


Well, it seems the theme is not by Haydn, and Beethoven almost certainly wouldn't have known the theme as Haydn's if he knew it at all.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Beethoven borrowed a theme from the 12 year old Mozart in the Ode To Joy, so why couldn’t he have filched from Haydn as well?


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## Beet Lover (Jan 11, 2018)

Pugg search this on youtube: 12 Variations in E-Flat Major, Hob. XVII:3


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## Beet Lover (Jan 11, 2018)

I'm not saying he can't. I am interested in the musicology aspect of it though. Knowing and having heard the 10th symphony recon for years now, it was somewhat of a revelation hearing those Haydn variations. I have not read anywhere about this apparent similarity like I have about Ode to Joy or the opening of the scherzo to the 5th symphony compared to Mozart's 40th. I'm sure there are others. Does anyone know more history on these Haydn variations, as in what/whose original theme is it based on?


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Are we sure the theme is by Haydn? After all, the famous Brahms Haydn Variations theme turned out to be misattributed.
I don't consider it very relevant that Haydn or any other Composer may have composed the theme. The interest lies in what Beethoven does with the theme.
Do we know that Beethoven was aware that the Ode To Joy was written in what I am assuming was a long forgotten (even at that time) Opera by the 12 year old Mozart? My conjecture is that he may of heard the theme during someone (perhaps Mozart) improvisation, and that it lodged in his subconscious, perhaps preserved on one of his notebooks, and that years later for whatever reason the muse moved him to use it. Composers are always using themes that were borrowings from each other or from folk tunes of the day, etc


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

Oh, yeah. Wait until Beethoven has his back turned and then call him a tune thief!


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## Guest (Feb 28, 2018)

Yesterday I watched the film "The Man Who Knew Infinity" which is all about a WW1 mathematics wizard from UK, of Indian origin who died in his early 30s of TB. The end of the film's graphics read "in the 1950s his notebooks were found and that was equivalent to finding Beethoven's 10th symphony". Yes, that was a buzz but it should have said "fragments".


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## Beet Lover (Jan 11, 2018)

T.S. Eliot: “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.”

I would consider Beethoven's music to be one of the most unique monuments in the history of humankind and still, to this day and after years of listening, blows my mind. Beethoven borrowing a theme, in full or in part, consciously or subconsciously, doesn't detract from their beauties and how the composer develops the idea makes it all the more impressive as stated by Triplets. Did anyone see the BBC documentary on Exploring Beethoven 5th Symphony? I had not realized before that there is a borrowing of a certain French "freedom" song for a theme in the middle in the development of the 4th movement. This does not change my opinion of the work, for it is how Beethoven used it to such great effect that makes the hair on my skin stand up.
Another example is between Beethoven's first few seconds of the Op. 59 no1 string quartet and the first few seconds of the Op. 97 'Archduke' piano trio: very similar, yet totally different!
It's just that a google search doesn't come up with anything about this similar theme between the above mentioned works. From an amateur musicological perspective, it is interesting to me. Anything about Beethoven's composition process interests me, as a life-long listener and reader about the subject.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Given how Beethoven worked, I can't imagine Barry Cooper's Tenth, however good his intentions, can tell us one iota about a potential Beethoven symphony. A theme in a Beethoven notebook could easily resemble an existing theme with or without intention, but its final shape is completely unknowable. (It might even tell us more about Barry Cooper than Beethoven.)


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

In a similar vein, anyone ever notice how Beethoven, in the first theme of his Diabelli Variations, borrows a waltz by Anton Diabelli?


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## Beet Lover (Jan 11, 2018)

Not a similar vein at all. One is well known.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

There are at least four occasions where Beethoven wrote variations on themes of Mozart. But I can find none where he used themes of Haydn. Can anybody think of any?


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## Beet Lover (Jan 11, 2018)

I don't think he did write any formal variations on Haydn at all. The variations by Haydn in this thread were written in 1788-89 and published in the very early 1790s. (Was it even an original theme?) Beethoven would have been in his late teens or early twenties. Maybe he and Haydn discussed this when he was getting 'lessons' from Haydn. Maybe he had this theme sketched out in his room and it wasn't even for a symphony at all. Maybe it was just Beethoven trying to remember a motif/phrase he heard recently, or in years past...


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