# What would Beethoven's 11 be like?



## Serge (Mar 25, 2010)

I am listening to his 9'th and it's mind-blowiing. So, any suggestions?


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Tristan und Isoldish


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## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

Schumann's symphony No.3 or Brahms symphony No.4.
Tchaikovsky, Bruckner and Dvorak are different enough not to consider.


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## Serge (Mar 25, 2010)

Schumann was mad, I hear - in his music. And it doesn't look like you admire Tchaikovsky.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Yes. Be happy with what we were given / have left from Beethoven and do not expect "Beethoven" from anyone else.


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

There's no way of knowing. Beethoven was notoriously experimental, one work to the next, and to even pretend to know what he might have done next is foolish. (Just compare successive late quartets.)


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## jani (Jun 15, 2012)

We never know if more symphonies existed in his head before he died.


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## Rachmanijohn (Jan 2, 2014)

We would need a 10th first, yes? In any case, GGluek is right, we would have no way of knowing. He was constantly pushing boundaries and trying new things.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Musical, I'd imagine.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Doesn't necessarily mean Beethoven would have composed an 11th on a new level. Look at his gigantic no.3, after which he wrote a good no.4 but not on a scale as no.3, or no.8 wasn't on a scale as no.6 nor no.7.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I will go out on a limb and proclaim it a masterpiece that could have been.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

hpowders said:


> I will go out on a limb and proclaim it a masterpiece that could have been.


Of course it could have been a total dog. "A finale with variations on Wellington's Victory, with real muskets."


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## Katie (Dec 13, 2013)

Definitely trending toward the inconoclastic, perhaps detectable tones of pre-punk a la The Velvet Underground or The Stooges.../K


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

If anybody here finds out for sure, please let me know because I haven't the slightest idea.
Also please let me know if Mozart would have used a Basset Clarinet in A for his 42nd symphony.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Serge said:


> I am listening to his 9'th and it's mind-blowiing. So, any suggestions?


I don't know, we've got Dr. Barry Cooper's completion/realisation of Symphony #10 (more the latter than the former, since Cooper stiched together several sketches and filled in gaps as scholars usually do, to 'complete' it). The piece is on youtube. I recently heard it again and it sounds to my ears quite mellow, in parts much like a Mendelssohn slow movement, in other parts quite forceful and vigorous as we are used to with LvB.

But I think its too hard to predict. You look at Schubert, we've got his first 6 symphonies then a blank (no 'No. 7,' again I think sketches do exist and they have been elaborated or realised), then you get Symphony #8 (the famous "Unfinished") which is completely different to No. 6. While No. 8 has more emotional depth than in any of the other symphonies before (probably more than all of them put together?) and would have been longer than any of the preceding ones if completed, No. 6 is a symphony continuing the traditions laid down by Mozart, Haydn, and early Beethoven and adding a bit of Rossini's influence, since he was so huge in Vienna when Schubert composed it. Of course it displays Schubert's style as does any of his other symphonies, but it gives absolutely no clue as to what is to follow (either No. 8 or No. 9, "The Great C major").

So Beethoven is similar. Without a proper No. 10 we can't predict No. 11. The late quartets and sonatas came after his Symphony #9, so maybe they give more of a clue than Cooper's completion of Symphony #10 does anyway?


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

For me, he peaked with the sixth, with a clear downward trend afterwards (8 less than 7, 9 less than 8). I doubt I would be very interested in his 10th or 11th. On the other hand, he might have surprised me.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Art Rock said:


> For me, he peaked with the sixth, with a clear downward trend afterwards (8 less than 7, 9 less than 8). I doubt I would be very interested in his 10th or 11th. On the other hand, he might have surprised me.


Curious what you think of his late sonatas, or quartets -- ?


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

In his late period, B. went to places no one has done before or since. Who knows what his 11th symphony might have been like!


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