# The first movement of Beethoven's Seventh symphony



## Beet Lover (Jan 11, 2018)

I have listened to this hundreds of times over the course of the last 20 years. Yes, Wagner famously described the work as the apotheosis of the dance. Also, Manyard Soloman is his book " Late Beethoven" has a chapter devoted to its analysis entitled "The Rhythms of Antiquity." In the chapter he uses comparisons to various meter in the poetry of the ancients, and also stated the omnipresent aura of a sense of exalting some thing or idea. Here is how I envision this movement, if it is possible to do so humbly. Imagine the stairway leading up to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This stairway has upward steps intermittent with flat levels, and in essence raises the patrons from the commonplace to the elevated. Well, there are quotes by Beethoven describing art in this manner, that of raising humanity to the level of the gods. Every time I listen, I can hear Beethoven depicting this sentiment. From the first chord which teleports the listener to the spiritual world, to the many many many upward climbing passages in both the introduction and indeed throughout the course of the movement, up until the very end. It is as if Beethoven is taking us along with him as his spirit, and his music, ascends to a higher plane. It was around this time he kept updating his Taugebook, a collection of wisdom and meaningful passages from the world. Higher and higher...






I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this particular piece fellow Beethoven lovers!


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## Guest (Aug 14, 2018)

Well, I don't know the Museum of Art in Philadelphia, but I can grasp the image you wish to convey. The only problem, since the stesp keep coming back to the beginning, is that it puts me in mind of the Escher staircase instead,






Anyway, thanks for the idea. It's prompted me to listen to this symphony again - I've not heard it for ages (probably since I blubbed at it in _The KIngs Speech_).


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

The first movement has always had an 'equestrian' feel to it, for me. The opening tune gently presented by the flute before bursting out of the stalls like a colt. The whole movement bristles with energy and joy (under the right conductor). One thing I always feel is that it can't be played too slow or it loses its pulse and its pulse is what makes the whole movement so effective. Conductors and orchestras who can keep a good line through it and keep that pulse pull it off (Karajan always had the feel of it, for example). It's my favourite Beethoven symphony and my most loved movement from that symphony.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

The whole symphony is absolute genius. I particularly like Beecham's comment on the last movement: "What can you do with it? It's like a bunch of yaks jumping about."


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Nicely said. There's something spiritually elevating as he seems to be elevating humanity to the level of the gods, certainly as a potential whether humanity continues to fail or not. He was, of course, optimistic about the Brotherhood of Man in his 9th. I find something vital in Beethoven that is inspiring despite the terrible losses and turbulence in his life and his catastrophic deafness. His spirit always seemed to remain intact, no matter what, and I find the first movement joyous and buoyant. He almost seems to be shouting about it with great enthusiasm. The 4th and 7th are my favorites. To me, they are perfect realizations of his seed ideas and irrepressible in nature. My favorite is the Bruno Walter with the CSO with its balance between the exuberant and the joyous. I do not care for bombastic Beethoven! I can easily imagine the 2nd movement Allegretto as a great inspiration to Mahler because it is so perfectly realized and effective. Here's the dance to me, intimate, earnest and lovingly soulful. It even has something of a brief tango in it before it was even inventive, and later Brahms put a tango in his 4th Symphony. So in 7th as a whole, I believe Wagner was right that it was “the apotheosis of the dance.”


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## chill782002 (Jan 12, 2017)

Always gets the blood pumping. Furtwangler's 1943 recording with the Berliner Philharmoniker at deafening volume on a sunlit summer's day. What could be better?


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

The scherzo is the most joyous movement with a carnival, celebratory, laughing, dancing main theme. Interesting that I've heard it used in almost farce-like situations on TV before, too.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

For all that this symphony is known for its rhythmic character, my favorite moment of the first movement is a harmonic one. It's the brief series of chord changes where Beethoven modulates by 3rds, roughly the 12:01 mark of the recording below: G minor (melody played by oboe) moving to B-flat major (flute) moving to D minor (clarinet).


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

To me this movement seems like a trip downwards and inwards, rather than outwards and upwards. A journey to the instincs, to the intuition, to natural creativity. There's something sensual and physical about it. Oh, Dionysian, as they say, all right, this I believe. It's liberating, like being drunk. Yet there's a complexity to complement this liberty that I cannot easily pin down... a freedom to whirl, to make great leaps? When free of restraints, the creative mind makes bold gestures, shocking assumptions, illuminating leaps of faith. Electrifying energy complements each free association, each musical idea born out of this cornucopia. Thus it seems that this symphony is an organic outgrowth of the 6th, with its celebratory and even nostalgic feeling of nature. The 7th is nature untamed, a deeper level of nature, naturally satisfied desires leaping out to new ideas.

Oh, now it seems I've gone from downwards and inwards, to outwards and upwards, haven't I? I guess what happened to my writing here is what happened to the symphony. Still, these new ideas that take you outside of the self, to me, remain... instinctive, intuitive; so, not conceptual, not deliberate or self-aware... nothing very chaste. There's no self-denial in these new discoveries outside of the self, but sublimation of the primal. Schiller, rather than Kant. 

It's the laughter of creation. Not laughing after having seen what you created, and not even liberating laughter that leads to creation, but laughter and creation happening simultaneously and being both the reason and consequence of each other.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

MacLeod said:


> Well, I don't know the Museum of Art in Philadelphia, but I can grasp the image you wish to convey. The only problem, since the stesp keep coming back to the beginning, is that it puts me in mind of the Escher staircase instead,
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Completely off topic, the third movement of Prokofiev's fifth symphony has passages that have always inspired in me visions of Escher's monks going endlessly both up _and _down the stairway.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

It may have been mentioned, but Beethoven gives us "something completely different" at the end of the first movement, in the coda -- a grinding chromatic ostinato in the bass, repeating several times and supporting a big crescendo as the orchestra plays that dactylic figure from the main theme repeatedly. It ends in a pretty big bang! This was the passage that caused Weber to pronounce Beethoven "ripe for the madhouse."

Beethoven liked this well enough to do something very similar at the end of the fourth movement, and to repeat it as well. Both times the music crescendos to triple forte, one of only two times Beethoven called for that volume of sound in his symphonies.


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## Beet Lover (Jan 11, 2018)

Xaltotun said:


> To me this movement seems like a trip downwards and inwards, rather than outwards and upwards. A journey to the instincs, to the intuition, to natural creativity. There's something sensual and physical about it. Oh, Dionysian, as they say, all right, this I believe. It's liberating, like being drunk. Yet there's a complexity to complement this liberty that I cannot easily pin down... a freedom to whirl, to make great leaps? When free of restraints, the creative mind makes bold gestures, shocking assumptions, illuminating leaps of faith. Electrifying energy complements each free association, each musical idea born out of this cornucopia. Thus it seems that this symphony is an organic outgrowth of the 6th, with its celebratory and even nostalgic feeling of nature. The 7th is nature untamed, a deeper level of nature, naturally satisfied desires leaping out to new ideas.
> 
> Oh, now it seems I've gone from downwards and inwards, to outwards and upwards, haven't I? I guess what happened to my writing here is what happened to the symphony. Still, these new ideas that take you outside of the self, to me, remain... instinctive, intuitive; so, not conceptual, not deliberate or self-aware... nothing very chaste. There's no self-denial in these new discoveries outside of the self, but sublimation of the primal. Schiller, rather than Kant.
> 
> It's the laughter of creation. Not laughing after having seen what you created, and not even liberating laughter that leads to creation, but laughter and creation happening simultaneously and being both the reason and consequence of each other.


This was an absolutely amazing read for me and I'll tell you why. I too hear the motions of the atoms and molecules, the unrelenting laws of the universe of motion (as you said, a deeper more intuitive celebration of nature, even human nature). The motion per say does not have to be physical, rather more spiritual and out of the seemingly bottomless pit of the human creative potential. I need to find Soloman's book I referred to above, but I can paraphrase him in a statement, and that is that the music here has a kind of gravitational pull towards the inevitable. And I'd also have to say that the vision of the climbing stairs doesn't have to be a literal vision, more of a deep "inner" feel. A climb ing upward and inward, taken from the cornucopia of what was downward and bringing it to the fore. Fascinating stuff. I think of Beethoven's quote about him pressing out this glorious wine for humanity.


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## Beet Lover (Jan 11, 2018)

One of my favorite segments in all of Beethoven is this grinding ostinato leading to the finale, which is like a phoenix rising from the ashes. Specifically, when the strings give way to the brass and woodwinds. Something so noble sounding about this. I am talking about exactly at time 12:25 in this clip:


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

KenOC said:


> The whole symphony is absolute genius. I particularly like Beecham's comment on the last movement: "*What can you do with it? It's like a bunch of yaks jumping about.*"


Wasn't Beecham refering to the 1st movement?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

jdec said:


> Wasn't Beecham refering to the 1st movement?


The only movement-specific reference I can easily find is from an old set of program notes:

'…especially the fourth movement, about which Conductor Thomas Beecham commented, "What can you do with it? It's like a lot of yaks jumping about." '

https://www.elginsymphony.org/concert/beethoven-7/


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

KenOC said:


> The only movement-specific reference I can easily find is from an old set of program notes:
> 
> '…especially the fourth movement, about which Conductor Thomas Beecham commented, "What can you do with it? It's like a lot of yaks jumping about." '
> 
> https://www.elginsymphony.org/concert/beethoven-7/


Looks like there are different takes/sources on that quote as to what movement it was referring to. These 2 for example actually point to the 3rd movement:

https://www.nytimes.com/1979/07/22/archives/music-view-the-centenary-of-sir-thomas.html

https://books.google.com/books?id=5...s like a bunch of yaks jumping about.&f=false


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

jdec said:


> Looks like there are different takes/sources on that quote as to what movement it was referring to. These 2 for example actually point to the 3rd movement:
> 
> https://www.nytimes.com/1979/07/22/archives/music-view-the-centenary-of-sir-thomas.html
> 
> https://books.google.com/books?id=5...s like a bunch of yaks jumping about.&f=false


"When recording the third movement of the Beethoven Seventh Symphony *he said to me*, 'what can you do with it - it's like a lot of Yaks jumping about'."

- David Bicknell - Manager of EMI's International Artists Department retired in 1971

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/focus/sir-thomas-beecham-april-29-1879-march-8-1961


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

jdec said:


> "When recording the third movement of the Beethoven Seventh Symphony *he said to me*, 'what can you do with it - it's like a lot of Yaks jumping about'."
> 
> - David Bicknell - Manager of EMI's International Artists Department retired in 1971
> 
> https://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/focus/sir-thomas-beecham-april-29-1879-march-8-1961


We ought not to take what Beecham said seriously. He said these things purely in order to get a response.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

When I listen to Beecham's Beethoven I dont hear a reluctant Beethovian, but one who didn't care much for Beethoven's more 'turbulent' and noisy moments (that's just the way i hear it). His interpretations are graceful and warmly lyrical but he doesn't imbue them with the fire of Furtwangler or the rollicking humour of Scherchen. He's much more at ease in the even numbers than the odds. I dont like his Eroica, 7th and 9th at all (but his 2nd and 8th are impressive).


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## Kiki (Aug 15, 2018)

Beecham's yaks (RPO, 1959) are not quite what I perceived from his words. It seems to me that they were synchronized swimmers in yak costumes doing a rather elegant number. Not saying this is bad. In fact I enjoy it very much.


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