# Is Beethoven's 7th Symphony incoherent!



## Guest (Sep 1, 2013)

Of all Ludwig's symphonies, this one _seems _to me be the least coherent, in that the sombre tone of the second movement is quite different than the dance nature of the other three.

This _seeming _may just be a problem with my hearing (and understanding), so can someone help me out? Are there, in fact, clear thematic/motivic connections that unite the movements, including the second, better than I know?

Thanks

(PS - responses welcome from all and any either side of the generation gap!  )


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

I heard the Mengelberg recording yesterday (http://www.talkclassical.com/27679-ss8-31-08-13-a.html) and was struck by the way he was drawing out the slow sections of the 3rd movement to a quite unusual degree, thus creating an atmosphere of the "missing" slow movement at times and corresponding a bit to the sombre, if somewhat fast, tone of the 2nd movement.

EDIT: Reading the liner notes to the Casals LP recording (CBS 1976 61671, Otto Riemer, in German), the writer says something similar about those slower episodes in the 3rd Movement (very roughly & quickly translated: "if it is true, what abbé Stadler says, that Beethoven in this part of the movement quotes an Austrian pilgrimage song that was popular back in those days, then this picture of a procession comes closer to the sorrowness in the Allegretto movement music".

(He calls the second movement an allegretto, though some prefer andante).


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

This symphony has always seemed to make sense to me because of the huge emphasis on the raw, repetitive, even dance-like rhythms that permeate the entire work. 

When it comes to the 5th I do have a problem with each movement feeling disconnected though. Could someone help me with this one?


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

MacLeod said:


> *Is Beethoven's 7th Symphony incoherent!*


The flippant way to answer this is to say that it's incoherent the way Goethe's _Prometheus_ (in the original German) would be incoherent to a non-German speaker. But in all earnestness, thank you so much for the topic- which gives me a chance to talk about my very favorite symphony.


MacLeod said:


> Of all Ludwig's symphonies, this one _seems _to me be the least coherent, in that the sombre tone of the second movement is quite different than the dance nature of the other three.


The difficulty here might be one of an outlook of too-narrow categorization. To lean on a different metaphor, the 'World' of this symphony contains its four major 'Nations,' and each 'Nation' has its 'Regions.' Looking at the second movement _only_, there is, of course, the well-known 'somber' opening theme- but then the trio, though scarcely less serious-sounding, has a more bucolic feeling, and is dance-like in its evocation of a slow _Reie_. [C.f.: that most famous _Reie_ of the 20th Century, the instrumental-opening of section 9 of Orff's _Carmina Burana_.] Then, think to how that second movement ends, with that dismissive-seeming five-note phrase. This rapid pivot prepares the ground for an entirely new direction in the 3rd movement.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> When it comes to the 5th I do have a problem with each movement feeling disconnected though. Could someone help me with this one?


Well the 4 note motif is obviously meant to link them.

The biggest disconnect that I can remember in his symphonies is between the funeral march and the scherzo in the 3rd.


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## Guest (Sep 1, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> Of all Ludwig's symphonies, this one _seems _to me be the least coherent, *in that the sombre tone of the second movement is quite different than the dance nature of the other three* [...]


Depends, I suppose, on how you dance. Personally, I can quite envisage a sombre, slow-paced graceful dance for the second movement.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Sorry, but I've never noticed any incoherence. I'll listen to it again sometime with that in mind. The second movement is for me one of the wonders of music, but it needs divided strings, as Klemperer and Kleiber - and stereo - to best make its effect.


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## Guest (Sep 2, 2013)

DavidA said:


> The second movement is for me one of the wonders of music, but it needs divided strings, as Klemperer and Kleiber - and stereo - to best make its effect.


"Divided strings"? What do you mean? What is it that Klemperer and Kleiber do that other conductors don't/didn't?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

TalkingHead said:


> Depends, I suppose, on how you dance. Personally, I can quite envisage a sombre, slow-paced graceful dance for the second movement.


I've seen the 2nd movement described, in some ancient text, as a "dance of the odalisques." I have no idea what an odalisque was or is and I'm not going to look it up! But yeah, it sounds like that. Really, it's an ideal counterbalance to the last movement.

You'll find a very similar strategy in the string quartet Op. 59 #3, where the slow and exotic 2nd movement counterbalances the barnstorming quasi-fugal finale.


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## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> "Divided strings"? What do you mean? What is it that Klemperer and Kleiber do that other conductors don't/didn't?


In the older division, the first violins were on one side and the second on the other; this changed around the beginning of the 20th century. It was likely Stokowski who started the trend of putting the whole string section together. Anyhow, many older composers wrote interactions between the string sections that one doesn't hear properly if the strings aren't divided - a little like in the third Brandenburg concerto. Very few conductors still used divided strings when the stereo era broke in, though Walter and Klemperer are among those who did. By now it is quite common again due to HIP recordings.


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## Guest (Sep 2, 2013)

Thanks Cheyenne. I listened again to the WPO/Kleiber/DG recording on headphones this morning and could certainly hear some interactions between strings in the left ear and strings in the right, although the left ear seemed to take the lead and play the higher notes, maing them more audible. I swapped the headphones over part way through just to make sure that it wasn't my hearing!

I'm beginning to wonder if the "incoherence" is actually more to do with the extra-musical baggage I bring to it. I was familiar with both of the 2nd and 3rd movements before I knew where they had come from and before I'd listened to the symphony in its entirety. The 2nd, because of its general use in movies; the 3rd, because of its use in a drama production I was involved in as a student!

Oddly enough, given COAGs' point about the 5th, I don't have any difficulty having heard bits of the Fifth - 1st and 4th mvmts especially - separate from the rest. This symphony seems to be one of the most coherent. I couldn't possibly give any kind of technical explanation why, though.


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## Wicked_one (Aug 18, 2010)

Cheyenne said:


> In the older division, the first violins were on one side and the second on the other; this changed around the beginning of the 20th century. It was likely Stokowski who started the trend of putting the whole string section together.


Isn't the old division of strings the today division of strings - both on same side? Wasn't Mahler who wanted 1st strings on left and 2nd on right?


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## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

Could be - all my information is basically hearsay.


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

Wicked_one said:


> Isn't the old division of strings the today division of strings - both on same side? Wasn't Mahler who wanted 1st strings on left and 2nd on right?


I think it was pretty much the standard in Vienna in the 19th century. Look at Brahms' orchestral works: when you see the 1st and 2nd violin lines it's quite evident they're not supposed to be sitting next to each other. Same goes for Bruckner, Dvorak. The lumping together of all the violins is indeed generally attributed to Stokowski. I think a lot was lost when it happened.

If you're standing on the podium as conductor, the semi-circle around you should be (l to r) 1sts, cellos & basses, violas, 2nds.
It's true that the 2nds instruments are tilted away from the audience, but the offset gain comes from the extra projection you get from the cellos. And the 2nds need to be adjacent to the violas, as they often play together.

cheers,
GG


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## Forte (Jul 26, 2013)

Isn't a funeral march almost kind of a dance? Maybe it's a somber and morbid dance.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> "Divided strings"? What do you mean? What is it that Klemperer and Kleiber do that other conductors don't/didn't?


Maybe not the answer, but the orchestra's seating configuration of the classical era had the first violins on the left, second on the right. of the conductor... maybe that is what is being referenced.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

It would be a misconception, and a sort of red herring, to think of or expect that most classical era symphonies are unified by use of one theme or motif.

Most are not unified throughout their four movements by any device.

The Mozart G minor, KV. 550, _is_ "held together" by the constant use of the minor second throughout all its movements, Some Beethoven symphonies are also unified by one device. (An example from a later era, Mahler's 9th, has a consistent use of the arabesque, or turn.)

The symphonies using one device or motif as a binding element throughout are more the exception than the rule.


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