# Beethoven's 9th, first movement



## Aurelian (Sep 9, 2011)

How do you like this movement?

I have had the feeling for a long time that there is a program or symbolism to this movement. What do you think?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

It's rather bland to me, I've never felt like there is some programme or symbolic references in the music. It's very mechanical in a way, but that's not to say it's bad music! Just to me it's unemotional but I do like it. I also like it rather fast and on period instruments.


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

I really like the movement, and I've never felt there was any programme either. I've always felt it to be the best movement of the symphony (which I would consider his greatest if not for that bloody fourth movement!).


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## DaDirkNL (Aug 26, 2013)

I think it's a grand opening to such a grand Symphony! I really like it.


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## Guest (Sep 9, 2013)

How [much?] do I like it? Oh, I should say...this much...(holds out hands wide apart).

Is there a program to this movement, or a symbolism? Well, some commentators tell us there is. I think I can see what Simon Russell-Beale meant when he said, introducing the coverage of the symphony at the Proms this year, that it carries some of Beethoven's traditional juxtapositions of darkness and light - like the 5th. I might go so far as to say that I can see how it can be argued that the 1st movement poses questions about mankind that are explored and answered by successive movements.

But, and it's a big but, it depends on someone having put the idea in my head in the first place, and my agreeing that certain features of the music can be associated with abstract concepts and that we'd all see them.

Otherwise, it's just a great set of big and little, loud and soft, quick and slow sounds!


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## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

I like the 1st movement. Especially the opening. I think the 2nd movement in Beethoven's 9th is my favorite from that particular symphony though.

I don't know about a program for it though. I think it sets the stage for what is to come very well. I never thought about it as a juxtaposition of darkness and light but I could see that going from this strong almost dark sounding opening and ending with this feeling of hope or closure at the end of the symphony.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I've noticed some general misconceptions about classical era music.

Some seem to think to 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.)

They also tend to think most classical era music has a general or specific story or meaning.

I suppose, with the happenstance choral movement of the ninth, the Schiller Ode to Joy, one could think there is a meaning to the whole work, but... while in the middle of composing this symphony, Beethoven received a request from a choral society in London for a choral work. (I do not know of any specific drafts or plans of an alternate finale movement.) It seems Beethoven received the request / commission while still busy composing the earlier movements..

Certainly, he was first writing a symphony to write a symphony, but also to have a large orchestral work to be played at subscription concerts, very much a matter of the composer making a living. Ever the pragmatist, and with a good sum of money in the offering, Beethoven then made the finale of the ninth a choral movement.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

The opening, that sustained bald open fifth, is daring, brilliant, and a perfect way to start a piece all about harmony in the common area practice.

I bet the four minutes plus sustained E-flat chord of Wagner's Das Rheingold would not have occurred to Wagner, or been as it is, without the precedent of those few opening measures of Beethoven's Ninth.

The movement is one of those classical pieces said to be "made up of nothing." The themes are not that strong or prominent, they are very brief, made up of one or two intervals only; the movement all about harmony, with a few dynamic scales and those short motive-like configurations. I think it works very well


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## Guest (Sep 9, 2013)

PetrB said:


> I've noticed some general misconceptions about classical era music.
> 
> Some seem to think to expect that most classical era symphonies are unified by use of one theme or motif.


Perhaps 'some' do have such misconceptions. Perhaps _I _do. However, the fact is that whatever Beethoven was commissioned to write on this occasion, what he actually produced merits a more substantial response than just, "Oh, another symphony, how nice." Even if there were nothing recorded about what he meant by it, we might still ask why he wrote the music he did, and in the way he did, to match the words of Schiller's poem. Furthermore, we might notice that there are certain features of his symphonies which mark his out from Mozart's and Haydn's, and we should then ask whether this is mere technical choice, or more a creative urge to 'say something' - as all artists do, whether explicitly or implicitly so.

In fact, over time, Beethoven was quite explicit about what motivated him to write the music he did, and its these motivations that we might reasonably suppose can be found represented in his works and which permeate his style.


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

I really like this movement - very fierce. The first two movements are my favourites from this symphony.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> ...the fact is that whatever Beethoven was commissioned to write on this occasion, what he actually produced merits a more substantial response than just, "Oh, another symphony, how nice."


Who said that? It IS Beethoven's symphony, and the ninth being talked about.



MacLeod said:


> Even if there were nothing recorded about what he meant by it, we might still ask why he wrote the music he did, and in the way he did, to match the words of Schiller's poem.


Ask away, but it would all be conjecture unless we have documented evidence to the contrary.

The OP was about that first movement, though. I mentioned the finale only because I was guessing that may have colored that particular listener's idea that there may be a programme (hidden, nonetheless) to the first movement. For all we know, the first movement is a symphonic sonata allegro, with a development, drafted and completed before Beethoven ever received that commission from the Choral society based in London. Many find it, and the remainder of the symphony, extraordinarily brilliant.

What he thought / was thinking by the time he got around to the finale, choral commission received and text chosen, is very likely something else from his original point of departure when conceiving of the work, or writing the first movement.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

This may sound odd (well, more odd than usual) but the 1st movement of the 9th reminds me of the 1st movement of the 7th. Both are intensely, almost obsessively, rhythmic, and both use impressive episodes involving chromatic pedalpoints in their codas.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> This may sound odd (well, more odd than usual) but the 1st movement of the 9th reminds me of the 1st movement of the 7th. Both are intensely, almost obsessively, rhythmic, and both use impressive episodes involving chromatic pedalpoints in their codas.


That nearly creepy ostinato figure in the basses near the end of the movement (your pedal point) is tremendous, slightly obsessive in feeling, certainly insistent. Beethoven being one of the ultimate musical strategists of what works where and when, it is wildly effective.

And no, it is not odd for any composer to use similar gestures in more than one work -- they worked, are part of the composer's thinking (language if you will) and do come up in other works, used in a slightly different context.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> And no, it is not odd for any composer to use similar gestures in more than one work -- they worked, are part of the composer's thinking (language if you will) and do come up in other works, used in a slightly different context.


In the case of Beethoven, I know of no parallel passage in any other work. It's certainly striking enough to be noticeable!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> In the case of Beethoven, I know of no parallel passage in any other work. It's certainly striking enough to be noticeable!


You may have me on more specifics there, I do not repeatedly listen to all of Beethoven, though am more than familiar with scads of it, my interest (back then, as now) leaning elsewhere -- and one has, as anyone should know, only so much time.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

After listening to the complete works of Mahler, Schoenberg, Berg, as well as countless contemporary composers, I still find the dissonant juxtapositions and craggy outlines of this movement evoke a very strong response. The power of that long F# pedal at the beginning of its recapitulation needs no program, and I feel that any specific description (like McClary's) cheapens it by narrowing its emotional scope. The movement as a whole is stunning, tightly focused music, growing, as PetrB says, out of nothing, and eventually returning to the "nothing" of a bare octave D.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> .... I feel that any specific description (like McClary's) cheapens it by narrowing its emotional scope.


Thank you so much, for the whole post, but especially this, the words I had never found in the argument against naming the program, especially where there was none to begin with. Doing so limits, in the extreme, all the possibilities of where the music could "take" the listener... which is tantamount to robbing people of something rare and precious in the extreme.


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## Guest (Sep 10, 2013)

PetrB said:


> Who said that? It IS Beethoven's symphony, and the ninth being talked about.
> 
> No one. I was characterising the distinction between the artist who writes for something to say and the artist who explores the potential of symphonic form for its own sake.
> 
> ...


_Very _likely? Not just 'possibly'?  .


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

One of the greatest movements ever written imho.


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## Guest (Sep 10, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> I feel that any specific description (like McClary's) cheapens it by narrowing its emotional scope.





PetrB said:


> Thank you so much, for the whole post, but especially this, the words I had never found in the argument against naming the program, especially where there was none to begin with. Doing so limits, in the extreme, all the possibilities of where the music could "take" the listener... which is tantamount to robbing people of something rare and precious in the extreme.


I'm certainly not advocating a narrow approach such as McClary's.



PetrB said:


> I suppose, with the happenstance choral movement of the ninth, the Schiller Ode to Joy, one could think there is a meaning to the whole work, but... while in the middle of composing this symphony, Beethoven received a request from a choral society in London for a choral work. (I do not know of any specific drafts or plans of an alternate finale movement.) It seems Beethoven received the request / commission while still busy composing the earlier movements..
> 
> Certainly, he was first writing a symphony to write a symphony, but also to have a large orchestral work to be played at subscription concerts, very much a matter of the composer making a living. Ever the pragmatist, and with a good sum of money in the offering, Beethoven then made the finale of the ninth a choral movement.


This 'pragmatism' is unfair, according to Lockwood*. Beethoven is reported as wanting to set Schiller to music long before he began work on the 9th - in 1793, apparently, with a jotting on the idea by Beethoven himself in 1798. There is plenty of evidence that although, like any artist, pieces of work are cut and paste together, part of a search for a complete whole, that LvB was looking for a complete symphony with an overarching theme or themes.

That need not imply that there is an explicit story or program, nor any attempt at an explicit political agenda.

_*Beethoven: The Music and the Life_


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

I think, it is Beethovens best movement.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Personally, I think the first movement is fascinating, as has been said, created out of practically nothing: at the beginning, the interval of a fifth suspends tonality as the violins play a current of rhythm over melodic scraps which grow.


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## Andrei (Sep 11, 2013)

I love it. I had never considered there to be any symbolism in it. I'm not a Beethoven specialist but have almost all of his music and read a couple of biographies. It is possible I suppose but now that you suggest it I cannot think of anything programmatic in it. Given that Beethoven's symphonies are organic wholes then I would say that if it did have a program it would be consistent with the ideals of the music in the 4th movement and Schiller's poem. However, I feel sure there is no program and that it is pure music.


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## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

A movement in all ways befitting the ninth symphony. Near the end, Beethoven has thrown so many twists and angry bombs at you, that you are breathless and not ready for more. Then immediately he gives you the fresh scherzo. On some days, the first movement is my favourite of the symphony.


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## ScipioAfricanus (Jan 7, 2010)

that first movement is brilliant and totally new when you compare the symphonies that went before it. That movement was about 50 years ahead of its time.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I remember an old Window 3.1 software disc that gave play by play annotations on screen while the symphony played - old hat now, but really cool back then. Though it did not propose a program for the 1st movement, it did call that long ambiguous opening 5th, neither major nor minor "Void Music" It is, as others have said, music arising out of nothing. As such I have ascribed my own program interpretation of creation to it. One could even say there is a big bang or "Let there be light" moment when Beethoven's fist pounding gets going in earnest. If the symphony begins with creation and ends with all men are brothers, it seems to be a symphony about everything.


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## lostid (Aug 13, 2012)

I normally skip the first two movements and go straight to the 3rd movement.


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## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

One of the greatest movements ever written IMHO.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

shangoyal said:


> On some days, the first movement is my favourite of the symphony.


It's been my favourite every day since the 1980s.



KenOC said:


> This may sound odd (well, more odd than usual) but the 1st movement of the 9th reminds me of the 1st movement of the 7th. Both are intensely, almost obsessively, rhythmic, and both use impressive episodes involving chromatic pedalpoints in their codas.


It's reminded me of the first movement of the 3rd in the scale of it. And Beethoven's favourite symphony prior to the 9th was the 3rd I think.

I agree with those who like the first two movements more than the other half. Somehow the balance worked better in the Eroica.


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## Lord Lance (Nov 4, 2013)

I certainly don't think there is much of a program to the symphony. [The idea wasn't popular until 19th century] However, it is my most favorite movement to date. Bar none. Its stupendous in length, forces and the melody is superb.


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## MrCello (Nov 25, 2011)

I would have to say that this symphony, especially the first movement, truly does evolve out of nothing. A beautiful display by Beethoven. It's hard for me to say I have a single favorite symphony, let alone movement, but this has to be one of the greats for me at least.

It definitely makes me feel something and reflect on things, but I don't know if I'd deem that programmatic otherwise most music would be programmatic to me!


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## Crassus (Nov 4, 2013)

I can't think in a single piece of music that can be compared to this movement when properly performed, not even the other three.

Perphaps Verdi was right, this movement is the greatest piece of music ever written.


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