# What Do You Think The Most Important Symphony Ever Written Was?



## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Simple thread: 

What do you think the most important symphony ever written was and why? 

I'll begin: 

Beethoven's 5th Symphony because of the vast influence it had on future music. At the time it would have busted things wide open. Beethoven showed the world how to do it!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I think the 5th should be considered, but I'll take the Eroica. It was an announcement of a new world, and it blew the doors off the 19th century. Its opening cannon-shots echo today.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

*Mahler; Symphony 8.*
Crossing between a oratorio and a symphony, give me goosebumps every time :tiphat:


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Provably Beethoven's Eroica. Wasn't it Haydn who said, "From now on music changes!"


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

DavidA said:


> Provably Beethoven's Eroica. Wasn't it Haydn who said, "From now on music changes!"


A line from a movie. There's no evidence that Haydn ever heard the Eroica. But if he had said it, he would have been right.


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## Guest (Feb 27, 2016)

A somewhat tired question, but it prompted me to look up the alleged quote by Haydn and from there, to see what else I could find about what others think the answer is, so thanks, Klassic, for asking.

My answer is to point to this article in _Gramophone _from 2014, about Chailly's Beethoven cycle and an interview with the conductor.

http://www.gramophone.co.uk/feature/how-beethoven’s-symphonies-changed-the-world

His view, it could be argued, is that the Complete Nine were the most important


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## Guest (Feb 27, 2016)

I would also have to say the Eroica because it marked a turning point in music, a revolution almost, much as Stravinsky's Rite did around the start of the 20th century.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

One more vote for the Eroica.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

If we step back and look at the bigger picture, we have our old friend Napoleon to thank for thus transforming music through the agency of Beethoven and the Eroica. It is clear that the advent of Napoleon, with his seeming promise of sweeping change, getting rid of the accumulated clutter of the past was a huge influence on many creative, hopeful artists and thinkers of the time. Only later came the realization of the megalomania, and the change in dedication. But, to me, the Eroica was the result and Napoleon was the trigger for the dramatic overturn in the symphony. What can be shown as a comparable trigger for the 5th that could make it outrival the 3rd?


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## Delicious Manager (Jul 16, 2008)

I'd have a lot of trouble arguing against the _Eroica_. Some others might come close, however:

Beethoven - Symphonies 5, 7 and 9
Berlioz - Symphonie fantastique
Haydn - surely one of these must figure. Can't decide which one, however.
Mozart - No 41 in C major, K 551
Schubert - Symphony in C major D 944 (usually called 'No 9')


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## Guest (Feb 27, 2016)

Without hesitation,the 5th of Beethoven.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I vote that Beethoven's 5th is the most important symphony ever written. "During his lifetime, the Third, the "Eroica," was performed more often ... [but] over the course of the 19th century, the Fifth gradually came to epitomize Beethoven's life and musical style" (ref).


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

One of Haydn's earlier symphonies, let's say the _Farewell_, which seems to have been popular in Paris (extrapolating from the wink-wink quotation in the _Queen_ symphony). They made the symphony both a popular attraction and a prestige genre.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Florestan said:


> I vote that Beethoven's 5th is the most important symphony ever written. "During his lifetime, the Third, the "Eroica," was performed more often ... [but] over the course of the 19th century, the Fifth gradually came to epitomize Beethoven's life and musical style" (ref).


I think the difference between the impact of the 3rd and that of the 5th, is this: the Eroica changed the idea of what the symphony could be, certainly in Beethoven's own mind, and probably in the minds of all his contemporaries. The Fifth changed the minds of his contemporaries about Beethoven, but his own mind, and the minds of the rest, had already been changed by the Eroica. The Fifth was the confirmation; the Third was the revolution.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

I think there's a case to be made for 5 as the more revolutionary work. 3 is long, but Mozart had already done long (Beethoven didn't write an exposition as long as the one that begins the C major quintet, K. 515, until symphony 9). 5 pioneers the journey "from darkness to light" plan (it would maybe be more correct to say, darkness to triumph) that forever after haunted the form.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

I can't argue with many of the posts so far but just to be a contrarian, I want to make a case for Berlioz' _Symphonie Fantastique_ as I think that it caused a subtle shift in what a symphony could be, starting the path that led to Mahler. It is especially significant that it came relatively soon after Beethoven.

Now if I wanted to be really argumentative, I might also suggest Sibelius' 7th! Not only was the composer unable to move forward after it, but in it's density showed that a symphony didn't have to be a massive canvas in order to contain a wealth of symphonic thought and structure.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Pugg said:


> *Mahler; Symphony 8.*
> Crossing between a oratorio and a symphony, give me goosebumps every time :tiphat:


No, it's just a symphony.



Becca said:


> Now if I wanted to be really argumentative, I might also suggest Sibelius' 7th! Not only was the composer unable to move forward after it, but in it's density showed that a symphony didn't have to be a massive canvas in order to contain a wealth of symphonic thought and structure.


A fine work, but this had already been accomplished by Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony, which is denser still.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Harold in Columbia said:


> I think there's a case to be made for 5 as the more revolutionary work. 3 is long, but Mozart had already done long (Beethoven didn't write an exposition as long as the one that begins the C major quintet, K. 515, until symphony 9). 5 pioneers the journey "from darkness to light" plan (it would maybe be more correct to say, darkness to triumph) that forever after haunted the form.


(continuing) Let's say, Haydn established the symphony as a kind of secular bourgeois sacrament, but Beethoven 5 made it didactic; that is, both a sacrament and a sermon. With the sermon being, pretty much invariably, something vaguely liberal, but not specific enough to offend anybody politically. (Mozart setting censored Beaumarchais and sanctifying a thinly disguised version of the Freemasons seems the epitome of chutzpah by comparison.)


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I think it was Paul Henry Lange who said something to the effect that the Eroica represented the greatest single leap in the expressive power of music in history. I agree.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Harold in Columbia said:


> I think there's a case to be made for 5 as the more revolutionary work. 3 is long, but Mozart had already done long (Beethoven didn't write an exposition as long as the one that begins the C major quintet, K. 515, until symphony 9). 5 pioneers the journey "from darkness to light" plan (it would maybe be more correct to say, darkness to triumph) that forever after haunted the form.


"Long" was never the point of the Eroica.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

MarkW said:


> "Long" was never the point of the Eroica.


Yeah, but it's what was new about it. I mean, come on, _Eroica_ is supposed to be "the greatest single leap in the expressive power of music in history," when it's "leap[ing]" from such works as _Don Giovanni_ and Gossec's "Marche lugubre"? Who are we kidding?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

MarkW said:


> "Long" was never the point of the Eroica.


Not the point, but a concern. Beethoven dithered through several days of rehearsals as to whether to repeat the first movement exposition -- his musical intuition versus his listeners' rear ends. He finally decided to do it.

And the length was certainly noted. From an otherwise laudatory contemporary review (by a critic who seemingly owned a bad watch):

"Two years ago, Beethoven composed a third great Symphony, in approximately the same style as this Second Symphony but richer in ideas and artful execution. It is also broader, deeper, and longer, so that it plays for an hour. This is certainly overdone; after all, everything must have a limit. While the true, great genius may demand that critics not set limits according to their whims or tradition, it must nevertheless respect those that are recommended by human capability for comprehension and enjoyment-not just of this or that audience, but of humans in general."


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Operas have the lead anyway.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

I tried to answer this a few years ago. See: http://www.talkclassical.com/22451-why-do-people-consider.html#post384763

I have seen nothing since then to change my mind.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Yeah, but it's what was new about it. I mean, come on, _Eroica_ is supposed to be "the greatest single leap in the expressive power of music in history," when it's "leap[ing]" from such works as _Don Giovanni_ and Gossec's "Marche lugubre"? Who are we kidding?


Well, we disagree. Yes it was longer, but it was also more harmonically adventurous and more emotionally expressive than any piece of instrumental music yet written, and he did it confidently and without misstep. It's quite simply astonishing. And comparatively, there is still no other funeral march in music worthy of the name.


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## AndorFoldes (Aug 25, 2012)

Beethoven's third, Eroica.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Important? The most revolutionary symphony was the third by Beethoven, the Eroica. Completely broke the mold of short, compact Haydn-Mozart-like symphonies and gave the world its first strong dose of Romanticism.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

This is amazing, there is _almost_ no dissent from Beethoven.


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

Klassic said:


> This is amazing, there is _almost_ no dissent from Beethoven.


And you will get no dissent from me
Another vote for Beethoven Eroica


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I guess for fans of "Judge Judy" on American television, the Beethoven Fifth Symphony would be the most important, since an excerpt from the first movement is used as the theme music.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

I'll step outside my own rules here and say the three most important symphonies in the history of the human race are Beethoven 3, 5 and 9. We can all pack up and go home now.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Klassic said:


> This is amazing, there is _almost_ no dissent from Beethoven.


Beethoven has told me that he wishes to remain strictly neutral.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Dunno about "important", but Beethoven had his preferences: Kueffner began: `Tell me frankly which is your favorite among your symphonies?' B. (in good humor) 'Eh! Eh! The Eroica.' K. 'I should have guessed the C minor.' B. 'No; the Eroica.' (from Thayer's notebook)


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

One by Beethoven probably the Eroica.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Klassic said:


> This is amazing, there is _almost_ no dissent from Beethoven.


Not really. I have seen this discussed many times here and in other forums. And every time a Beethoven symphony wins out. Sometimes the _Ninth_, sometimes the _Third_.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

It's hard to argue for anything but the _Eroica_.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Not much to add, except a few years ago I would probably have said the 9th (Beethoven's of course) due to its being a kind of benchmark for symphonies to follow. But today I agree with the 3rd as the most revolutionary. And I agree length has little to do with it. It's all about thoroughly exploring the motifs and challenging the limits of form.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

It may be "about thoroughly exploring the motifs," but it can't have been revolutionary in that respect, because Haydn already happened.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

arpeggio said:


> I tried to answer this a few years ago. See: http://www.talkclassical.com/22451-why-do-people-consider.html#post384763
> 
> I have seen nothing since then to change my mind.


Yes. I've been noticing many threads here on TC happen to be "cyclic".


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Haydn man said:


> And you will get no dissent from me
> Another vote for Beethoven Eroica


Yes. This symphony was like NOTHING else that came before. The Viennese audience must have been in complete shock when they heard it at its premiere, and I'm certain the orchestra had an extremely hard time dealing with those revolutionary notes.

The premiere of the Eroica was simply the most revolutionary moment in all music, in my humble opinion.

Absolutely astonishing that the Eroica Symphony seemed to come from nowhere, with respect to previous musical influences.

True, the opening of the Fifth Symphony is the most well-known music ever. However, the opening of the Eroica is still greater-absolutely jolting! Imagine the reaction in 1805 Vienna to hearing the symphony's beginning- those two shocking E Flat Major chords! Like two cannon blasts! Magnificent! A call to attention! There is a new boss in town! AND HOW!!!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Weston said:


> Not much to add, except a few years ago I would probably have said the 9th (Beethoven's of course) due to its being a kind of benchmark for symphonies to follow. But today I agree with the 3rd as the most revolutionary. And I agree length has little to do with it. * It's all about thoroughly exploring the motifs and challenging the limits of form.*


I don't agree that it's all about form. Motifs can be explored and form can be elaborated without precipitating a revolution. The "Eroica"'s revolution lies in the way Classical form is enlisted to embody and communicate specific emotions and extramusical ideas. What had been done in dramatic music for the stage is now done in a work of "absolute" music, and in a compelling and unmistakable manner, not expanding sonata form for its own sake but exploiting its potential for depicting a narrative of conflict, struggle, and pathos. This music had to sound new because its composer had a new concept of what symphonic music, and music in general, could and ought to do (which is not to imply that he started with an extramusical concept and simply "used" music to express it).

Beethoven went on to demonstrate music's connotative, and even denotative, power in work after work, pushing the envelope among the symphonies in the 5th, 6th and 9th. The "Pastoral" is explicitly programmatic, the 5th seems implicitly so, and in the 9th he went so far as to use words to guide us in grasping his meaning. That in itself had enormous impact - Wagner spoke of his experience of the 9th as a life-changing revelation of how music sought at last to become articulate (and as a justification of the addition of stage action to realize music's expressive destiny in the _Gesamtkunstwerk_). But if any work can be said to have cracked open the door to the Romantic idea of music as an articulate language, capable of evoking a world of extramusical phenomena and meaning, it was the "Eroica."


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

I am so damn impressed and pleased that Beethoven wins the day: he deserves to win the day!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Woodduck, an excellent post and well expressed. Even at the time: "...all connoisseurs' voices that the reviewer has heard agree...that this symphony is one of the most original, sublime, and profound products that music has to show for itself."


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

hpowders said:


> Y
> . . . the opening of the Eroica is still greater-absolutely jolting! Imagine the reaction in 1805 Vienna to hearing the symphony's beginning- those two shocking E Flat Major chords! Like two cannon blasts! Magnificent!


Not to mention that crazy C# as the tenth note of the main theme. It doesn't sound too out of place today, but I think even our modern ears can recognize it as bizarre so early in the game. Lengthy or not, Beethoven wastes no time.

(This is partially what I was referring to as stretching the limits of form. Maybe "convention" would have been a better choice of words.)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Woodduck, an excellent post and well expressed. Even at the time: "...all connoisseurs' voices that the reviewer has heard agree...that this symphony is one of the most original, sublime, and profound products that music has to show for itself."


Thanks, Ken. And some still say that great innovators were not recognized in their time...


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Klassic said:


> I am so damn impressed and pleased that Beethoven wins the day: he deserves to win the day!


Yes He does. What a magnificent revolutionary! A good thing his dear old drunken dad forced him to his music lessons. Imagine if He became a shoemaker instead!


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Weston said:


> Not to mention that crazy C# as the tenth note of the main theme. It doesn't sound too out of place today, but I think even our modern ears can recognize it as bizarre so early in the game. Lengthy or not, Beethoven wastes no time.
> 
> (This is partially what I was referring to as stretching the limits of form. Maybe "convention" would have been a better choice of words.)


Absolutely! That little C# chromatic adventure must have been absolutely shocking to the musicians in the audience.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> The "Eroica"'s revolution lies in the way Classical form is enlisted to embody and communicate specific emotions and extramusical ideas. What had been done in dramatic music for the stage is now done in a work of "absolute" music, and in a compelling and unmistakable manner, not expanding sonata form for its own sake but exploiting its potential for depicting a narrative of conflict, struggle, and pathos.


None of this, of course, is remotely original to the _Eroica_. (Nobody ever "expand[ed] sonata form for its own sake.") (Narrative isn't even present in the _Eroica_.)



Weston said:


> Not to mention that crazy C# as the tenth note of the main theme. It doesn't sound too out of place today, but I think even our modern ears can recognize it as bizarre so early in the game.


Vies with the "Tristan chord" as the most oversold moment in classical music.

I'll agree there's a case to be made for the _Eroica_: it's the first important symphony that's an endurance test to sit through, which, combined with the noble character of the music, also makes it the first important symphony where merely listening to it feels sort of like a moral achievement.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Of course Beethoven was the finest composer of his day.

But he was not the only excellent composer of his day.

Some of the fine contemporaries of Beethoven that are overlooked include Anton Reicha, Franz Danzi, Louis Spohr, Ferdinand Ries, Johann Hummel and many others. For example some of the finest wind music of this era was composed by Reicha and Danzi. Reicha created the woodwind quintet. Hummel composed one of the finest trumpet concertos.

Maybe they were not quite as good as Beethoven but they still composed some excellent music.

Reicha composed a fine symphony for band:


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

arpeggio said:


> Some of the fine contemporaries of Beethoven that are overlooked include Anton Reicha, Franz Danzi, Louis Spohr, Ferdinand Ries, Johann Hummel and many others.


They are all fine, I suppose, though I'll have to take your word for it on Ries.

But there's no good reason to spend more than 10 minutes listening to any of them until you've spent a few weeks listening to Beethoven's greatest and least overlooked contemporary, Rossini.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Harold in Columbia said:


> They are all fine, I suppose, though I'll have to take your word for it on Ries.
> 
> But there's no good reason to spend more than 10 minutes listening to any of them until you've spent a few weeks listening to Beethoven's greatest and least overlooked contemporary, Rossini.


Edited initial response:

I am an amateur musician. I have performed Beethoven's _Fifth_ a half dozen times, the _Sixth, the Seventh and the Ninth_ twice in my life. As I stated earlier I think the _Ninth_ is the best piece of music I have ever performed.

I have also performed music by many of the above composers including a piano concerto by Ries. Now there maybe something wrong with my ears because I sit in front of the trumpets in my orchestra but these other guys music sound OK to me.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Questioning Rossini's status as Beethoven's contemporary? If so, fair enough, he didn't arrive until 1813.

Or allowing Rossini as Beethoven's contemporary and questioning his status as the greatest? Because that's just a fact. (Unless we also count Schubert, which I guess we should. Okay, so Rossini's the second greatest contemporary.)


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Don't you all think we can say it now, finally!, the very thing that so many people on this forum say we can never say? *Beethoven was the most important Symphonist that ever lived!* We are so close to proving that there is such a thing as "the greatest."


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Rossini? "No one has a mind any more for what is good, what is vigorous -- in short, for real music! Yes, yes, that's how it is, you Viennese! Rossini and his pals, they're your heroes. You want nothing more from me! Sometimes Schuppanzigh gets a quartet out of me, but you've no time for the symphonies, and you don't want Fidelio. It's Rossini, Rossini above everything. Perhaps your soulless strumming and singing, your own shoddy stuff that you take for real art -- that's your taste. Oh, you Viennese!" -- Beethoven, 1824


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Harold in Columbia said:


> None of this, of course, is remotely original to the _Eroica_. (Nobody ever "expand[ed] sonata form for its own sake.") (Narrative isn't even present in the _Eroica_.)
> 
> I'll agree there's a case to be made for the _Eroica_: it's the first important symphony that's an endurance test to sit through, which, combined with the noble character of the music, also makes it the first important symphony where merely listening to it feels sort of like a moral achievement.


No one has suggested that anyone has expanded sonata form for its own sake. Read what I said again.

"Narrative," with reference to musical form, is a sequence of events, analogous to the narrative of a story. A musical "narrative of conflict, struggle, and pathos" shouldn't be an idea difficult to understand.

Listening to the "Eroica" may feel like a moral achievement to you. I feel, to this day, the excitement of a new musical world being born. It appears that I'm not alone in feeling that. I wonder who else feels as you do?

Keep listening. The piece isn't going away (though some people may go away before they understand how revolutionary it is).


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Well, if you weren't saying that composers before the _Eroica_ only expanded sonata form for its own sake, then you were saying composers before the _Eroica_ didn't expand sonata form, which is also wrong.

There's a grim comedy to the word "revolutionary" being invoked by somebody who's still mad at Schönberg.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Well, if you weren't saying that composers before the _Eroica_ only expanded sonata form for its own sake, then you were saying composers before the _Eroica_ didn't expand sonata form, which is also wrong.


This kind of reminds me of something Niles or Frasier would say.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

KenOC said:


> ...and you don't want Fidelio...


Let's face it, The Barber of Seville is better than Fidelio.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Klassic said:


> This kind of reminds me of something Niles or Frasier would say.


Why?

[.........]


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Someone should start a poll that asks, Was Beethoven the Greatest Symphonist that Ever Lived?

options: 

1) Yes

2) No

3) There is no such thing as the greatest. 

I'll bet Beethoven wins title of the greatest!


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Klassic said:


> Don't you all think we can say it now, finally!, the very thing that so many people on this forum say we can never say? *Beethoven was the most important Symphonist that ever lived!* We are so close to proving that there is such a thing as "the greatest."


We have been through this so many times.

The issue here is not if Beethoven was the greatest symphonist of all times. Most of us, including myself, would agree with the statement.

The issue is what are the consequences of Beethoven being the greatest symphonist.

I have mentioned this many times in other threads. I am an amateur musician who has fifty plus years performing with various community ensembles. I have discussed the many disputes that I have had with board members concerning programming. Some examples:

http://www.talkclassical.com/31317-rant-horrible-music-composers-9.html#post639571

http://www.talkclassical.com/41532-pierre-boulez-great-composer-5.html?highlight=hindemith#post999000

Where I draw the line is that I do not believe that we should never program the music of the contemporaries of Beethoven because they were not as good as he was.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Let's face it, The Barber of Seville is better than Fidelio.


Surely you're joking? I have the Barber of Seville on CD and DVD. If it were not for Teresa Berganza being on both, I would get rid of them.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Well, if you weren't saying that composers before the _Eroica_ only expanded sonata form for its own sake, then you were saying composers before the _Eroica_ didn't expand sonata form, which is also wrong.
> 
> There's a grim comedy to the word "revolutionary" being invoked by somebody who's still mad at Schönberg.


I wasn't saying that either. Those are not the only options.

Mad at Schoenberg? Goodness no! He brought new flavors to our musical cuisine. We owe him a delicious recipe, "Omelette Schoenberg." It's made with twelve equally important eggs.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Okay, so when you wrote


> What had been done in dramatic music for the stage is now done in a work of "absolute" music, and in a compelling and unmistakable manner, *not expanding sonata form for its own sake but *exploiting its potential for depicting a narrative of conflict, struggle, and pathos.


what _were_ you saying in the bold-faced part?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Okay, so when you wrote
> what _were_ you saying in the bold-faced part?


It was in response to Weston's (quoted) post: _"I agree with the 3rd as the most revolutionary. And I agree length has little to do with it. It's all about thoroughly exploring the motifs and challenging the limits of form."_ There's the suggestion there that Beethoven's main motivation was to "challenge the limits of form" - that that's what the "Eroica" is "about." I'm sure Beethoven took pleasure in constructing a gigantic symphony, but I wanted to say that he wasn't doing that merely as a compositional tour de force.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Eroica was primarily written to dedicate to Napolean. He didn't write it just to do a gigantic symphony.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

It is well known that Beethoven wrote the Eroica on the advice of his PR team, who assured him it would be a monster hit. And so it was! The merchandising alone (little Napoleon action figures, etc.) put him in fat city.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Least important in the regular repertoire is probably Dvořák's or some random interchangeable Haydn.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

ArtMusic said:


> Eroica was primarily written to dedicate to Napolean. He didn't write it just to do a gigantic symphony.


Good point. All the more reason to me that Beethoven's 5th is the most important symphony since it is free of the Napolean baggage. Besides, that funeral march, as good as it is, just casts a pall over the whole thing. The 3rd is the death of a great man, but the 5th is greatness personified, rising above the limitations of earthly existence.


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## Guest (Feb 28, 2016)

ArtMusic said:


> Eroica was primarily written to dedicate to Napolean. He didn't write it just to do a gigantic symphony.


The fact that the symphony was dedicated to Napoleon does not mean that was his purpose in writing it. In fact, the first edition carried the composer's warning that "this symphony having been written to be longer than is usual, it should be performed closer to the beginning than the end of a concert , because , if it is heard too late, after an overture, an aria, and a concerto it may lose for audiences something of its own proper effect."

p.206 Lockwood, _Beethoven: The Music and the Life_, New York 2005


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> Least important in the regular repertoire is probably Dvořák's or some random interchangeable Haydn.


Who is this 'interchangeable Haydn' of whom you speak?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Heh-heh. Some years back there was a late-night classical DJ who would regularly mix and match Haydn symphony movements to make "Farnkensymphonies." This went on for years and nobody noticed.


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## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Dunno about "important", but Beethoven had his preferences: Kueffner began: `Tell me frankly which is your favorite among your symphonies?' B. (in good humor) 'Eh! Eh! The Eroica.' K. 'I should have guessed the C minor.' B. 'No; the Eroica.' (from Thayer's notebook)


To be fair Beethoven said this a few years before the 9th symphony was written. I only bring this up because it's my vote for most important symphony. I love the Eroica and better than the vastly over used 5th but the 9th is the culmination of Beethoven's work as a symphonist and I believe his best.


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## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

Beethoven's Eroica.
and 
Dvorak's New World.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Further arguments for Beet 5:

- Compare the relatively conventional scherzo of 3 and the monster in 5 with its double time trio, long pizzicato fading away, and pivot to the last movement over primal timpani.

- 5, not 3, was the subject of the single most important early (pre-Berlioz) appreciation of Beethoven by E.T.A. Hoffman in 1810.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I believe the trio in#5 is in triple time. Think that's right. You may be thinking of #9.


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## Avey (Mar 5, 2013)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> Least important in the regular repertoire is probably Dvořák's or some random interchangeable Haydn.


RW - Never necessarily wrong, but _always_ curt and unfeeling. You would without doubt lead this forum in "unlikes," should we institute such a practice.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

KenOC said:


> I believe the trio in#5 is in triple time. Think that's right. You may be thinking of #9.


It's in triple meter, as of course is the entire movement. I mean it's twice as fast as the scherzo proper.


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## Stirling (Nov 18, 2015)

Haydn #94 "Surprise"


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Avey said:


> RW - Never necessarily wrong, but _always_ curt and unfeeling. You would without doubt lead this forum in "unlikes," should we institute such a practice.


I'd probably get 50/50 likes unlikes. Even cold metal comes from a warm foundry.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Fugue Meister said:


> To be fair Beethoven said this a few years before the 9th symphony was written. I only bring this up because it's my vote for most important symphony. I love the Eroica and better than the vastly over used 5th but the 9th is the culmination of Beethoven's work as a symphonist and I believe his best.


I distilled 5 clear points from your post: 1) You love the Eroica; 2) Beethoven said it was his favorite; 3) Beethoven, after writing the 9th, might have liked it best, but we'll never know; 4) The 9th is the culmination of Beethoven's symphonic work, and 5) You like the 9th best. But the question was what was the most important symphony, in the history of the development of the genre, not which one was Beethoven's or your or my favorite, or even which one is the "best" symphony, but which one changed what was in people's heads about symphonies for all time after they first heard it--changed even what was in Beethoven's head. I'm happy to have people believe that some of Beethoven's subsequent symphonies may surpass the Eroica, but the Eroica opened the door, showed the way; the rest followed.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

I've been incommunicado for a few days so I am coming late to the discussion. Beethoven's Eroica and Fifth Symphony both seem like plausible choices to me. If the primary criterion is influence on later composers and trends with respect to specific formal features, I would have to go with the Fifth, because of its importance in providing a template for unity at the cyclic level. Beginning with a motto that returns later in the cycle, in its original or modified form, especially at a crucial juncture in the finale, and/or which is the motivic basis of several later themes, was an idea taken up by most major composers after him. And, as Harold has pointed out, the dark to light progression, beginning in the minor mode and ending in the major, was overwhelmingly influential; probably half or more of the large-scale instrumental works composed since (sonatas, symphonies, concertos, quartets) have followed the pattern! Both of these features have precedents, of course, but the Fifth was probably the first time their aesthetic potential was fully realized and demonstrated.

The Eroica had an enormous influence on thinking about the potential of so-called absolute music to embody ideas of deep human significance. The overwhelming reaction to it in the critical literature was to speculate about its content or program, as one can learn from the beginning chapters of Scott Burnham’s Beethoven Hero. The significance of this, in my view, is not whether or not the work embodied extramusical content and was intended to do so by the composer (it is clear to me that it did), but that there was a new structural principle at work, one presaged by his statement around 1800: "I am far from satisfied with my past works: from today on I shall take a new way." This new way, I believe, was a dramatic approach to thematic processes that only scans when one takes a narrative approach (in one of several modern theoretical senses) to analysis. The influence of the Eroica on later composers is probably more diffuse and less easy to confirm with specific technical and formal features than is that of the Fifth.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

I think Shostakovich Leningrad symphony is quite significant, historically in itself and as a musical work. It is hard not to think of the circumstances during which he wrote it.


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## Brahmsian Colors (Sep 16, 2016)

Though I have never been a big fan of Beethoven, I must say unequivocally his Symphony No.9


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## ST4 (Oct 27, 2016)

Havargal Brian's Gothic Symphony, fact


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## Francis Poulenc (Nov 6, 2016)

The most impactful symphony has of course been Beethoven's 9th.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

OP: For me it had to be Beethoven's Eroica.

Twice as long as any symphony ever heard at that time. Incredibly difficult to perform for contemporary players.

This incredible, overwhelming work came without warning; without precedent.

The most important symphony ever written.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Ektually... The Eroica is only 37% longer than Beethoven's 2nd, using Walter's timings. Chailly, a more modern cycle, has it at 39%.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Ektually... The Eroica is only 37% longer than Beethoven's 2nd, using Walter's timings. Chailly, a more modern cycle, has it at 39%.


Well one could play this game simply by taking both exposition repeats for the first two movements of Beethoven 2nd Symphony. That would really stretch it out and then compare the total timing to the Eroica without repeats. I've heard Toscanini do the latter in around 43 minutes. Play the first two movements of the Eroica with exposition repeats and it extends to maybe 52 minutes.

The comparison should be Second Symphony vs. Eroica Symphony with no repeats for either symphony. 
Then the length of the Eroica becomes truly revolutionary, given the length of the symphonies (without repeats) of Mozart, Haydn and early Beethoven that came before.


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

The music timeline or epoch should be split into "B.E." and "A.E." ('Before Eroica' and 'After Eroica').


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## Richard8655 (Feb 19, 2016)

Beethoven 9th. His 5th is definitely monumental. But the 9th speaks beautifully to idealism and humanity blended with gorgeous music. No other symphony combined both so well, in my opinion.


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## jailhouse (Sep 2, 2016)

the "most important" is obviously Beethoven's 3rd, not close.


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## Nevum (Nov 28, 2013)

Symphony #3 Beethoven. Eroica.


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## pcnog11 (Nov 14, 2016)

I think Beethoven's no.9 has an edge over no. 5. Both are great masterworks, but given no. 9 is the last of the series and the theme of the last movement that lead the audience to think about the complexity of humanity.


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