# The Problem of the Finale



## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I remember someone pointing this "problem" out on these forums, (if I recall correctly it was member Edward Bast), and I started to think more about this. Recently I was listening to Haydn's Piano Sonata 60, (which I thoroughly enjoyed) however I was underwhelmed by the final movement. The first two movements are very strong I wondered why this fast little movement was tacked onto the end - it doesn't seem to me on par with the rest of the work. I notice this problem is particularly prevalent in concertos, I started thinking about how many concertos I know of where the last movement is the strongest and aside from ~maybe~ Bach's Brandenburg No. 3 I can't think of any. Usually the middle movement is the standout. Another famous example of the controversial ending is Beethoven's 9th. I notice in many of Brahms chamber works I enjoy the last movement the least.

Here are a few works I can think of where the final movement is arguably the strongest:

Mahler - _Das Lied von der Erde_
Bach - _St. Matthew Passion_
Mozart - _Symphony 41_

Certain forms seem less problematic for this...What are your thoughts on this members of TC? What composer(s) do you think was/is the best for the finale? Can you list many works where the final movement is the strongest? (Or at least equally satisfying as any other part of the work?)


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I don't think this was a "problem" for composers like Haydn and Mozart. They generally used lighter forms, especially rondos, rather than sonata forms in their final movements. There didn't seem to be a strong feeling that the finale should be the culmination of all that had come before.

Beethoven felt somewhat differently, at least during his middle period and later. His efforts at climactic finales worked -- sometimes (and especially in Symphonies 5-8). It seems that he tried for this more often, and was generally more successful, in his later works, such as the piano sonatas and the quartets.

After Beethoven, the "finale problem" remained for other composers, who sometimes may have been more inspired on starting a work than during the final pages. Brahms's 1st Piano Concerto, for instance, is often criticized for its lightweight finale.

My views anyway.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Well, one important thing to remember about finales is that they didn't always hold the same weight in the eyes of the public as they do now. The idea that the finale should be a big, powerful, "summing up" kind of conclusion is one born of the 19th century and continued (more or less) until now. However, in Haydn's day it was the first movement that was expected to get the bulk of the weight, and the finale was supposed to be something lighter to send the audience off with. This kind of approach can be a little bit antithetical to our perception of symphonic weight distribution today.

Before composers perfected the "Romantic Era" symphonic form, a number of methods were used to try and shift the weight towards the back of the piece. One method, tried early on by Beethoven was to lighten up the first movement and put the minuet second so that almost all the weight was focused on the last half of the piece. A good example would be his 5th string quartet. Compare the first movement, with its very melodic, almost Italian-like expression (atypical for a Beethoven first movement), to the last movement, which is also quick and vivacious in character, but has the contrapuntal density that clearly indicates Beethoven thought of this movement as being the weight-bearer of the two.

First movement: 



Last movement: 




There were a few other methods tried (many also pioneered by Beethoven and continued by various other composers) to experiment with the weight distribution of the piece and make the finale heavier.

But anyway, as to the issue of the finale not being as strong as the rest of the piece, I'm not sure why that is but I have experienced it as well. Perhaps composers have a tendency to start the finale last in the composition process and therefore run out of steam or mentally move on from that particular piece before they are finished?

You mentioned Concertos though. The concerto form seems to be the one multi-movement form that didn't get an upgrade in the 19th century in terms of the weight. In both the 18th and the 19th century the first movement tended to be the more rigorously worked out movement in terms of soloist/tutti interplay and the last movement always seemed more of a lighter vehicle for the soloist to show off. In fact, I would say that, rather than changing in the 19th century, this aspect of concertos was exacerbated (surly, the last movements of Mozart's piano concertos are more thoughtful than a good majority of 19th century concerto finales). I think this has to do with the fact that the Romantic Era was the era where composers really started exploring the virtuosic capabilities of their instruments (Paganini with the violin, Liszt with the piano) and that led to the "showing off" aspect of the concertos in that era to get a little bit out of hand, replacing it for substance in many cases.

It could also be that in the Romantic Era, some composers started to distribute the weight of the piece evenly throughout, as in evenly heavy throughout. For example,if you consider Bruckner's music style, where even the scherzos are very heavy in comparison to their 18th century/early 19th century counterparts, then perhaps it tends to have a diluting effect on the power of the finale.

But all in all I don't have a definitive answer yet, only guesses.


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## Matsps (Jan 13, 2014)

It would be boring if every single piece of music built up to an inevitable 3rd (or 4th) movement finale.


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

I don't know, I don't necessarily think the finale needs to be the strongest. I like the concerto form where the first movement is the strongest (containing the cadenza, that is). It doesn't mean that the finale is weak, but it is certainly going to be overshadowed by the first movement (and I don't necessarily consider that a problem).

Rachmaninov's piano concerti, for example--I think the 2nd and 3rd have excellent finales, but the strongest parts of those concerti are the first movements, hands down. I think it wouldn't work as well if the finales overshadowed the first movements. 

I'd say Mahler's 2nd symphony is a good example of where the final movement is the strongest and it feels almost as if the whole symphony leads up to it, rather than getting the "best out of the way". I feel the same way about Saint-Saens' 3rd and Brahms' 1st. But of course I also feel that way about Beethoven's 9th (in the same vein as Mahler's 2nd that is), though of course I know that is a very controversial stance to take.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Beethoven felt somewhat differently, at least during his middle period and later. His efforts at climactic finales worked -- sometimes (and especially in Symphonies 5-8). It seems that he tried for this more often, and was generally more successful, in his later works, such as the piano sonatas and the quartets.
> 
> After Beethoven, the "finale problem" remained for other composers, who sometimes may have been more inspired on starting a work than during the final pages. Brahms's 1st Piano Concerto, for instance, is often criticized for its lightweight finale.


With respect to Beethoven, his increasing interest in grand finales seems to be a result of looking both backward (to the baroque) and forwards (to who knows?). There can be something satisfying about ending a movement or even a work with a complex fugue--even if one doesn't play entirely by the old rules. There are many modern composers who take a similar approach: two of my personal favorites being Roy Harris and William Walton (though both of them seem more resolutely backward-looking than Beethoven).

*p.s.* Charles Rosen speaks very interestingly and positively about the "problem of the finale" in the Romantic Period in "The Romantic Generation," where he discusses what he calls "the Romantic fragment."


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

For me personally finales in symphonic music are very important. It's where the music reaches its destination. Some of my absolute favorite moments in music are finales, such as those of Mozart 41, Mahler 2 and Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy. These are defining moments where the composers truly transcend themselves and their genius comes to full potential. The execution of the finale during a performance of such pieces can make or break the entire performance for me. 
As for Beethoven I find his symphonic finales generally somewhat disappointing, while on the other hand the finales of some other (non final) movements are sublime, such as the first movements of both the 3rd and 5th.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

After studying William Schuman's symphonies and Vincent Persichetti's piano sonatas, there is no doubt, in my opinion, that the finales are many times the weakest links in these compositions. They just seem to be stuck on with little connection to the music that preceded it.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

There was no ''finale problem" in the Classical era because multi-movement works were still conceived essentially as suites of separate, contrasting pieces which followed each other in a pleasing sequence, rather than organic or dramatic progressions based on an underlying program. This older conception derives from the Baroque suite, which consisted of a group of pieces in various dance rhythms and no fixed order, except that it was typical to begin with a more or less elaborate overture with contrasting sections and end with something brisk and invigorating. Such suites were called by various names including "partita," "ouverture," and "sinfonia" (whence "symphony"). Baroque concertos had fewer movements than suites and featured virtuoso writing for the soloists, but the same principle of variety and contrast pertained, again with a snappy finale. In this concept of a multi-movement work all movements generally had roughly equal weight and there is seldom any sense of lighter weight or inferior inspiration in final movements.

In the Classical era the "sonata-allegro" principle of formal construction ("sonata form") began to take shape, resulting in the classic symphony as we know it, with its complex first-movement exposition-development-recapitulation of (usually) contrasting themes. This form - the essential innovation of Classical style and probably the most important structural development in the history of Western music - also determined the new concerto style, in which the dramatic potential of thematic contrast and development found in the interplay of soloist and orchestra an exciting vehicle. Sonata form at first affected only first movements, and even as these assumed increasing expressive weight and importance, the aesthetic issue of what to do with succeeding movements did not immediately arise. Presumably listeners were still generally happy to be pleasantly entertained as before - perhaps even glad to be able to relax with something simple and tuneful after their faculties had been taxed by the foregoing complexities. But composers must have begun to sense the potential imbalance between the movements, both for purely aesthetic reasons and because the growing Romantic movement in the late 18th century was changing concepts of the purposes and expressive potential of the arts.

The Romantic concept of a multi-movement work having an underlying idea or a feeling of unity crept into, for example, the late works of Mozart; the sense of drama and unified tone of the Symphony #40 in g-minor, and the triumphal fugal display of compositional virtuosity that crowns the Jupiter Symphony are obvious examples. But it was Beethoven who first accomplished the feat of subordinating all parts of a work to a single all-embracing concept, finding ways to remedy the top-heaviness of sonata-based forms by giving succeeding movements an overall context in which they had of necessity to assume greater importance. That context was sometimes overtly programmatic, as in the Pastoral Symphony, but didn't need to be; Beethoven was the first composer in whom the Romantic conception of music as a vehicle for literary, personal, and otherwise "extramusical" meanings determined to a major extent his aesthetic choices, and once such a conception led him to create the epic eulogy to a hero's life which is the Eroica Symphony there was no going back, for him, to tossing off merely "entertaining" minuets and finales.

Beethoven, of course, could not solve the "finale problem" for other composers and later eras, even though he was an inspiration (as well as a hard act to follow!) for many. For many later composers, even a great one such as Brahms, the disparity of significance between movements remained a challenge not always fully met; complex and potentially conflicting aesthetic factors - the Romantic drive toward maximal expressivity and "significance," the complexification of harmony and orchestration, the inherited Classical forms whose relevance to the sensibilities and artistic goals of a new, progress-minded era was increasingly questionable - made musical form a perpetual problem to be solved by every composer in his or her own way. I think Romanticism brought with it both an extraordinary blossoming of artistic originality, but also, as a result of the same factors, an unprecedented quotient of artistic failure - and not only in final movements! It just got harder to produce music with the precise craftsmanship characteristic of 18th-century Classicism. And the symphony and concerto, as forms of very specific character inherited from that century, had to struggle to adapt. (As far as Brahms is concerned, I think he adapted successfully in his symphonies, finding a satisfying balance between movements, but not in his piano and violin concertos, in which the first two movements are immense and emotionally weighty but the finales are merely pleasantly entertaining - at a high level of craft, it goes without saying!)


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Matsps said:


> It would be boring if every single piece of music built up to an inevitable 3rd (or 4th) movement finale.


Yes I agree, but this is not what was suggested in the OP.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

It occurs to me that maybe the most mind-boggling example of finale imbalance in all music is the Barber Violin Concerto. I was totally dumbfounded when I first heard this frantic little scamper after the gloriously emotional preceding movements. I believe it was his second attempt at a finale after the person who commissioned the piece rejected the first try. Guess Sam had lost interest by then. Anyone else know something about this?


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Same deal with the Barber Piano Concerto. Another case of Samuel gone mad.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

violadude said:


> Well, one important thing to remember about finales is that they didn't always hold the same weight in the eyes of the public as they do now. The idea that the finale should be a big, powerful, "summing up" kind of conclusion is one born of the 19th century and continued (more or less) until now. However, in Haydn's day it was the first movement that was expected to get the bulk of the weight, and the finale was supposed to be something lighter to send the audience off with. This kind of approach can be a little bit antithetical to our perception of symphonic weight distribution today.
> 
> Before composers perfected the "Romantic Era" symphonic form, a number of methods were used to try and shift the weight towards the back of the piece. One method, tried early on by Beethoven was to lighten up the first movement and put the minuet second so that almost all the weight was focused on the last half of the piece. A good example would be his 5th string quartet. Compare the first movement, with its very melodic, almost Italian-like expression (atypical for a Beethoven first movement), to the last movement, which is also quick and vivacious in character, but has the contrapuntal density that clearly indicates Beethoven thought of this movement as being the weight-bearer of the two.
> 
> ...


_*Give that man a cigar!*_

Violadude, that was superb! (clap clap :tiphat


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Ah, yes......... (They tell me I have to use at least 15 characters. Just when I was trying to outpithify you, Exemplar of Pith).


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

Yeah - IIRC it was written for a wealthy amateur who made it clear he was underwhelmed by the lack of a virtuosity in the sketches of the first two mvmts so got a snazzy finale that proved beyond him (someone else premiered it I think). I like it - blows the cobwebs away after all that lyricism. Something to look forward to when you know it's coming and a neat surprise if you don't - a crisp segue into it works well in the concert hall


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Funny... Absurd as that finale is, I have to agree with you that something brisk and fizzy is psychically relieving at that point. It really would be unbearable to sink into another emotional epic. I do still think it's aesthetically incongruous, but avoiding that would have meant rewriting the whole work, or writing a different work. I wonder what the original finale was like.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

tdc said:


> I remember someone pointing this "problem" out on these forums, (if I recall correctly it was member Edward Bast)


Yes, it was me - in reference to another member's disappointment with the finale of Schubert's late Piano Sonata in B-flat. I cited the great British critic, Donald Francis Tovey, for whom the "finale problem" was a recurring theme (_Essays in Musical Analysis_), as well as William S. Newman, who discusses it in his _The Sonata in the Romantic Era_.

As Ken and "The Dude" observed, this wasn't an issue for classical composers and audiences. This is probably because the aesthetic theories of that era didn't stress, or even recognize, a significant connection between music and human emotion or inner life, thus leaving music outside the pantheon of the high arts. As counterintuitive as this may seem, the era of Haydn and Mozart was the very nadir of music's status among the arts, and so symphonies and concertos were regarded as little more than pleasant, ear-tickling diversions. Finales were only required to leave the audience in a light and upbeat mood without unduly straining their faculties.

This situation turned completely around when expressive aesthetic theories came into vogue, first in literature and later, around the turn of the 19thc, in music. When Beethoven began to embody dramatic expressive oppositions in his sonata-allegro movements, lightweight finales (and minuets) became untenable because they so obviously failed to balance or adequately respond to the opening movements. And the more such oppositions and their elaboration became the true subjects of these opening movements, the more essential it became for the other movements to participate in and resolve their conflicts. It is no coincidence, therefore, that works with the most violent contrasts and fragmentary themes (the Appassionata, Symphonies 5 and 9, and a number of the late sonatas and quartets) are the most likely to be unified thematically and to have dramatic thematic quotations, returns, and allusions in their finales.

I could write an essay about how and why Romantic composers, by and large, fail to measure up to Beethoven's example in creating satisfying cycles with truly climactic finales, but I'll just say the fault isn't just with the finales - it is at least as much with the failure of the opening movements to establish sufficient dramatic tension to fuel a multimovement drama.

Edit: It seems I've covered some of the same ground as Woodduck in a similar way. The reason is that I started this post hours ago, when the thread was only up to #7, went out to climb a mountain, and then returned to finish it without refreshing. Sorry for any redundancy.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

dgee said:


> Yeah - IIRC it was written for a wealthy amateur who made it clear he was underwhelmed by the lack of a virtuosity in the sketches of the first two mvmts so got a snazzy finale that proved beyond him (someone else premiered it I think). I like it - blows the cobwebs away after all that lyricism. Something to look forward to when you know it's coming and a neat surprise if you don't - a crisp segue into it works well in the concert hall


It is all rather catty / petty. The work was commissioned by someone of means "for their young protégé." The sketches, or the completed last movement, that detail not in my memory, were rejected for not having material enough of a virutosic nature for that young protégé to show off their technique. Barber then supplied the 3rd movement we now know, certainly written to a technical level of which that young protégé was either uncomfortable or plainly out of his league -- i.e. the third movement was written out of a sort of 'here ya, go, precious patron and arrogant young protégé' spitefulness, and I'm sure was done also with some relish as to the reaction it got from that patron and the young protégé. Basically, with that re-write, the composer had summarily dismissed both patron and protégé 

That then rejected, I think the money not refunded / refundable at that stage of the game (good on Sam, I say!) the work was then given to another to première.

There is a lesson in there, of course, which Barber made quite a point of (again, good on Sam


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## Whistler Fred (Feb 6, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> It occurs to me that maybe the most mind-boggling example of finale imbalance in all music is the Barber Violin Concerto. I was totally dumbfounded when I first heard this frantic little scamper after the gloriously emotional preceding movements. I believe it was his second attempt at a finale after the person who commissioned the piece rejected the first try. Guess Sam had lost interest by then. Anyone else know something about this?





hpowders said:


> Same deal with the Barber Piano Concerto. Another case of Samuel gone mad.


Actually, I like the finale of Barber's Piano Concerto for it's torrent of energy, which I find makes a nice contrast to the intensity of the first movement and the haunting beauty of the second movement. His Violin Concerto, however...


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Whistler Fred said:


> Actually, I like the finale of Barber's Piano Concerto for it's torrent of energy, which I find makes a nice contrast to the intensity of the first movement and the haunting beauty of the second movement. His Violin Concerto, however...


I believe Barber used the Prokofiev third piano concerto finale as the model for his piano concerto's finale. The only problem is Barber was no Prokofiev.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

EdwardBast said:


> Yes, it was me - in reference to another member's disappointment with the finale of Schubert's late Piano Sonata in B-flat. I cited the great British critic, Donald Francis Tovey, for whom the "finale problem" was a recurring theme (_Essays in Musical Analysis_), as well as William S. Newman, who discusses it in his _The Sonata in the Romantic Era_.
> 
> As Ken and "The Dude" observed, this wasn't an issue for classical composers and audiences. This is probably because the aesthetic theories of that era didn't stress, or even recognize, a significant connection between music and human emotion or inner life, thus leaving music outside the pantheon of the high arts. As counterintuitive as this may seem, the era of Haydn and Mozart was the very nadir of music's status among the arts, and so symphonies and concertos were regarded as little more than pleasant, ear-tickling diversions. Finales were only required to leave the audience in a light and upbeat mood without unduly straining their faculties.
> 
> ...


We did cover some of the same ground, but your second-to-last paragraph really gets my attention. Now that you mention it, I do perceive a "relaxation" in Romantic composers' treatment of sonata-form opening movements, or a retreat from the sonata principle of "dialectic" dramatic tension, and this at first seems paradoxical given Romanticism's emphasis on intense emotional expression. Perhaps the key is that late Romantic expressiveness is more personal, tending more toward a rhapsodic tracing of a composer's feelings, one after another, whereas the dialectical sonata form is more like a play with a plot and characters engaged in conflict and recociliation, engendering a dramatic tension which a more discursive exploration of subjective emotions does not so often or necessarily require. Sonata-allegro drama didn't originate with Beethoven or die with him, but he seems to be the locus of that dramatic historical moment when Enlightenment universalism and Romantic subjectivism came together in the spirit of revolution, and that spirit produced the Appassionata, the Eroica, the 5th and 9th.

Am I getting at some of what you're touching on? You tempt us with that essay you could write!


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> We did cover some of the same ground, but your second-to-last paragraph really gets my attention. Now that you mention it, I do perceive a "relaxation" in Romantic composers' treatment of sonata-form opening movements, or a retreat from the sonata principle of "dialectic" dramatic tension, and this at first seems paradoxical given Romanticism's emphasis on intense emotional expression. Perhaps the key is that late Romantic expressiveness is more personal, tending more toward a rhapsodic tracing of a composer's feelings, one after another, whereas the dialectical sonata form is more like a play with a plot and characters engaged in conflict and recociliation, engendering a dramatic tension which a more discursive exploration of subjective emotions does not so often or necessarily require. Sonata-allegro drama didn't originate with Beethoven or die with him, but he seems to be the locus of that dramatic historical moment when Enlightenment universalism and Romantic subjectivism came together in the spirit of revolution, and that spirit produced the Appassionata, the Eroica, the 5th and 9th.
> 
> Am I getting at some of what you're touching on? You tempt us with that essay you could write!


Yes, exactly! I think of Schubert as a quintessential example. Even in opening movements where he foregrounds a motivic opposition, like the B-flat Sonata, D. 960, with its disturbing trill in the bass, the progression through the several themes and the multiple secondary key areas has more the effect of a journey, a very personal and subjective one, rather than a conflict or drama. Yes, I think you put it very well above.

Just to be clear, I in no way want to fault Schubert because he didn't share Beethoven's aesthetic means and ends. What a waste it would have been if he had! I just wonder if there wasn't a solution for stronger finales within the expressive parameters he set - and if perhaps the sequence of movements in the traditional sonata cycle just wasn't the best framework in which to find it?

Anyway, I won't have time this week to write such an essay - or any other kind, for that matter. No worries, you seem to have it covered.


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## Funny (Nov 30, 2013)

There's a general consensus here that the finale of the classical era is not concerned with summing up an overall, organic theme that runs throughout (e.g) a symphony, which may be true in a very wide sense, but those who peg Beethoven as the Supreme Innovator who introduced this are slighting Haydn. I admit I haven't studied Mozart as closely as I have Haydn, so it's possible he was doing some of this too, though I haven't picked it up. But I recommend everyone here give some close examination to Haydn's 49th and 80th symphonies. Both are written with an innovative progression of key centers from movement to movement so as to make the repeated motivic iterations and evolutions more accessible to the ear, both are very rigorously worked out from some basic musical material, and both have a real sense of narrative drama (not programmatic necessarily, though it's almost impossible to avoid assigning some theatrical overlay to the first movement of #80) that makes the finale especially bracing and satisfying. 

Let me be clear that I love Beethoven and don't discount the huge shift he engineered in the direction of Western music. But in this aspect I feel he gets more credit than he deserves. I had always been taught that the ironic way he brought back the theme from the third movement in the finale of the 5th was a singular leap forward in cross-movement integration. I was surprised to find that Haydn had done exactly that back in his 46th symphony some 30 years earlier. This is just one of the many ways Haydn moved music from the more static, interchangeable mosaic of the baroque to a more dramatic, narratively engaging style - one that Beethoven picked up and ran with.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

A very good post, and hardly to be disagreed with! But I don't think anybody is arguing that there are no exceptions, and quite purposeful ones. After all, the concept of the final pages of a work being a climactic summing-up existed well before the galante and early classical eras -- just listen to Sebastian Bach's organ fugues!

But it does seem that *for the most part* the finales of the Mozart/Haydn era tended to be merry send-em-home-happy romps, with the "weight" in the earlier movements. This was in accord with listener expectations. Overall, and increasingly through his career, Beethoven moved the weight more to the finale and this became more generally expected. Still, there are plenty of exceptions, even in comparatively late works -- e.g., the Emperor Concerto and the Archduke Trio. And then there's the Serioso Quartet, the most concentrated and even violent of all his works, where the ending dissolves into Rossinian fluff...


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Yes. FJ Haydn was far ahead of them all.

I'm sure in a poll between FJ and Michael Haydn, FJ would win.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

KenOC said:


> A very good post, and hardly to be disagreed with! But I don't think anybody is arguing that there are no exceptions, and quite purposeful ones. After all, the concept of the final pages of a work being a climactic summing-up existed well before the galante and early classical eras -- just listen to Sebastian Bach's organ fugues!
> 
> But it does seem that *for the most part* the finales of the Mozart/Haydn era tended to be merry send-em-home-happy romps, with the "weight" in the earlier movements. This was in accord with listener expectations. Overall, and increasingly through his career, Beethoven moved the weight more to the finale and this became more generally expected. Still, there are plenty of exceptions, even in comparatively late works -- e.g., the Emperor Concerto and the Archduke Trio. And then there's the Serioso Quartet, the most concentrated and even violent of all his works, where the ending dissolves into Rossinian fluff...


Good observation. Beethoven was still a classical composer at base (arguments anyone?), and if his "second period" was a time for discovering formal structures to express his Romantic-revolutionary impulses, in his "third period" he seems to move beyond those obsessions and take a new interest in form as such, which might be termed a "neo-classical" impulse. It certainly wasn't the Classicism of his youth, but he could allow himself to look backward as well as forward, freely utilizing old forms as well as inventing new ones. Beethoven is Protean; he could be as playful as Haydn, and an "unbuttoned" finale is a good vacation from storming the heavens.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Funny said:


> There's a general consensus here that the finale of the classical era is not concerned with summing up an overall, organic theme that runs throughout (e.g) a symphony, which may be true in a very wide sense, but those who peg Beethoven as the Supreme Innovator who introduced this are slighting Haydn. I admit I haven't studied Mozart as closely as I have Haydn, so it's possible he was doing some of this too, though I haven't picked it up. But I recommend everyone here give some close examination to Haydn's 49th and 80th symphonies. Both are written with an innovative progression of key centers from movement to movement so as to make the repeated motivic iterations and evolutions more accessible to the ear, both are very rigorously worked out from some basic musical material, and both have a real sense of narrative drama (not programmatic necessarily, though it's almost impossible to avoid assigning some theatrical overlay to the first movement of #80) that makes the finale especially bracing and satisfying.
> 
> Let me be clear that I love Beethoven and don't discount the huge shift he engineered in the direction of Western music. But in this aspect I feel he gets more credit than he deserves. I had always been taught that the ironic way he brought back the theme from the third movement in the finale of the 5th was a singular leap forward in cross-movement integration. I was surprised to find that Haydn had done exactly that back in his 46th symphony some 30 years earlier. This is just one of the many ways Haydn moved music from the more static, interchangeable mosaic of the baroque to a more dramatic, narratively engaging style - one that Beethoven picked up and ran with.


Haydn's Symphonies 44-47 are four of my favorites and I know the B major one well. But precedents for the cyclic procedure of Beethoven's Fifth go back further - to C.P.E. Bach. His Concerto in C minor, W. 43#4 recapitulates two of the earlier movements in the middle of the finale. And Beethoven's model both for cyclic construction and the kind of fragmentary principal themes one finds in works like the Appassionata and Tempest Sonatas goes back (at least) to Bach's Prussian Sonatas of 1742. The third Prussian, in E major, opens with just such a fragmentary theme, divided dramatically against itself, and when the theme is recapitulated, the opposition is intensified and reduced to two opposing fragments, one in the major mode, one in the minor. The work is unified at the cyclic level, the 2nd movement derived directly from the fragmentary theme of the first. This set of sonatas was rather widely known in the 18th century and it is not unlikely that Beethoven actually knew this piece.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

EdwardBast said:


> Haydn's Symphonies 44-47 are four of my favorites and I know the B major one well. But precedents for the cyclic procedure of Beethoven's Fifth go back further - to C.P.E. Bach. His Concerto in C minor, W. 43#4 recapitulates two of the earlier movements in the middle of the finale. And Beethoven's model both for cyclic construction and the kind of fragmentary principal themes one finds in works like the Appassionata and Tempest Sonatas goes back (at least) to Bach's Prussian Sonatas of 1742. The third Prussian, in E major, opens with just such a fragmentary theme, divided dramatically against itself, and when the theme is recapitulated, the opposition is intensified and reduced to two opposing fragments, one in the major mode, one in the minor. The work is unified at the cyclic level, the 2nd movement derived directly from the fragmentary theme of the first. This set of sonatas was rather widely known in the 18th century and it is not unlikely that Beethoven actually knew this piece.


I've read that Beethoven admired C.P.E. Bach. Don't remember now where I read it, but it makes sense and you have examples to back it up. Wow is this interesting! It appears I have both works in my CD collection. I will listen to them forthwith.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> I've read that Beethoven admired C.P.E. Bach. Don't remember now where I read it, but it makes sense and you have examples to back it up. Wow is this interesting! It appears I have both works in my CD collection. I will listen to them forthwith.


Beethoven: "Of Emanuel Bach's clavier works I have only a few, yet they must be not only a real delight to every true artist, but also serve him for study purposes; and it is for me a great pleasure to play works that I have never seen, or seldom see, for real art lovers." (July 26, 1809, to Gottfried Hartel, of Leipzig in ordering all the scores of Haydn, Mozart and the two Bachs.)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Thank you, KenOC.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> I've read that Beethoven admired C.P.E. Bach. Don't remember now where I read it, but it makes sense and you have examples to back it up. Wow is this interesting! It appears I have both works in my CD collection. I will listen to them forthwith.


Beethoven wrote several letters to publishers exhorting them to send scores of Bach, which he claimed were gathering dust on their shelves. Ken is quoting one of them - only in this one it sounds like he was actually willing to pay for them?


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## Skilmarilion (Apr 6, 2013)

I think this problem applies in the case of Tchaikovsky's symphonies, with the obvious exception of the 6th. Too often they come across as 'trying too hard', being overly loud and bombastic in an attempt to provide a spectacular climax. 

As a result, the balance is thrown off in these works (the 1st, 4th and 5th in particular come to mind), which have beautifully and masterfully crafted earlier movements.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Skilmarilion said:


> I think this problem applies in the case of Tchaikovsky's symphonies, with the obvious exception of the 6th. Too often they come across as 'trying too hard', being overly loud and bombastic in an attempt to provide a spectacular climax.
> 
> As a result, the balance is thrown off in these works (the 1st, 4th and 5th in particular come to mind), which have beautifully and masterfully crafted earlier movements.


Of the finale of Tchaikovsky's Fifth, Tovey wrote: "If the composer had intended to produce the nightmare sensation, or Alice-and-Red-Queen sensation, of running faster and faster while remaining rooted to the same spot, he might have been said to have achieved his aim here." (_Essays in Musical Analysis_)


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

I think one of the problems with finales in the Romantic Era is that some composers, I think, just felt so darn pressured to to model their minor key symphonies off of Beethoven's Symphony 5 and make the piece end in a triumphant major key. Sometimes this worked, but sometimes it just ended in a weird sounding tacked on coda, when they really should have just let a minor key work be a minor key work. Take for example Mendelssohn's 1st symphony, the whole thing is beautifully crafted in a way that is very Mendelssohn like. The finale keeps this awesomeness up, for the most part, but then that major key triumphant coda comes in and it just sounds so incredibly forced and awkward (to me at least, maybe I'm just crazy). It doesn't sound like it has anything to do with the rest of the piece, but just thrown on there because BEETHOVEN ENDED HIS C MINOR SYMPHONY IN C MAJOR SO I HAVE TO TOO, DAMMIT!




 Coda at 7:23

Maybe it's just me though? Someone listen to this and let me know if you think the ending sounds tacked on/out of nowhere/awkward.

Another weird thing Romantic Era composers tended to do, in a similar vein to the last example, is add on a random coda that has nothing to do with the rest of the piece. I don't know why this trend started but you can hear it in a lot of Romantic Era symphonies. Beethoven or Mozart certainly never did this...their codas always followed logically from the rest of the piece (Ok, except for one or two pieces by Beethoven, the 11th string quartet comes to mind).

Sorry, I'm going to pick on Mendelssohn again, I really do like his music but the finale of his a minor symphony ends in that Scottish country tune, which is nice enough by itself but it just doesn't sound like it has anything to do with the rest of the movement. It's quite strange.





 7:42


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## Funny (Nov 30, 2013)

Thanks, I'm not familiar with that C.P.E. Bach concerto. Will definitely check it out now!


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

After creating this thread I did think of a Concerto where there is a great buildup to the final (and in my opinion strongest movement) - Schnittke's _Concerto for Piano and Strings_.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

violadude said:


> I think one of the problems with finales in the Romantic Era is that some composers, I think, just felt so darn pressured to to model their minor key symphonies off of Beethoven's Symphony 5 and make the piece end in a triumphant major key. Sometimes this worked, but sometimes it just ended in a weird sounding tacked on coda, when they really should have just let a minor key work be a minor key work. Take for example Mendelssohn's 1st symphony, the whole thing is beautifully crafted in a way that is very Mendelssohn like. The finale keeps this awesomeness up, for the most part, but then that major key triumphant coda comes in and it just sounds so incredibly forced and awkward (to me at least, maybe I'm just crazy). It doesn't sound like it has anything to do with the rest of the piece, but just thrown on there because BEETHOVEN ENDED HIS C MINOR SYMPHONY IN C MAJOR SO I HAVE TO TOO, DAMMIT!
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I don't think you are crazy, about the Mendelssohn or about the general point, which is an excellent one. This phenomenon is responsible for many annoying finales, and it got particularly bad in the USSR, where, under the doctrine of socialist realism, optimism and triumph became more or less legal requirements for finales ;-). Shostakovich 5, anyone? That being said, I think there is more to this than merely imitating Beethoven's 5th.

I suspect it is all about groping toward unity, of which I would distinguish two kinds, that based on commonality (of thematic material) and that based on teleology (a sense of overall motion or progression). Teleology seems to be what is behind the "Beethoven 5 syndrome." After one has composed a dramatic and stormy opening movement in the minor mode, and gotten the listener tied up in it, an expectation arises that the later movements must respond to it. The overall progression to the major mode is just the cheapest and easiest way to imbue a symphony with a sense of teleology - an instant feeling of progress in expressive terms from beginning to end.

There are, as you suggest, countless pale imitations of Beethoven's triumph. But there are some success stories that find an intriguing way to break the Beethoven 5 mold. My favorite is Prokofiev's Violin Sonata no. 1 in F minor. It seems to be following the familiar patterns: The finale, in F major, begins with an ecstatic dance that transfigures the morbid theme of the opening movement. Then, in the development one gets, as in Beethoven's 5th, the return of a problematic element from earlier (in this case, the brutal theme of the second movement). But unlike in Beethoven's Fifth, the principal theme in major mode never recovers from the assault, and the sonata ends in despair. How refreshing! The last passage is truly remarkable. It recapitulates the finale's second theme in F major, but manages to make it thoroughly dark and depressing without using the minor mode.

Actually, the best Russian and Soviet composers found many imaginative solutions to the finale problem - long after the rest of the world had moved on to other problems.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

violadude said:


> Another weird thing Romantic Era composers tended to do, in a similar vein to the last example, is add on a random coda that has nothing to do with the rest of the piece. I don't know why this trend started but you can hear it in a lot of Romantic Era symphonies. Beethoven or Mozart certainly never did this...their codas always followed logically from the rest of the piece (Ok, except for one or two pieces by Beethoven, the 11th string quartet comes to mind).
> 
> Sorry, I'm going to pick on Mendelssohn again, I really do like his music but the finale of his a minor symphony ends in that Scottish country tune, which is nice enough by itself but it just doesn't sound like it has anything to do with the rest of the movement. It's quite strange.
> 
> ...


I'm with you on most of this, but I've never felt that way about the ending of the "Scottish." The ending is of course previously unheard material, but I don't think that disqualifies it. I think it depends largely on the performance; there has to be real mystery in the music leading up to that big tune, and when it does arise the tempo can't seem rushed and the dynamic growth of it has to communicate deep fervor. Some conductors don't prepare it well and the tune just charges brashly in like a Sousa march. This is the sort of thing that requires real Romantic musicality; in Romantic music, which so often has extramusical inspiration and connotations, performers need to have pictorial and dramatic imagination to get at what the composer intended. I got to know this symphony decades ago in a recording by Peter Maag with the LSO on Decca, which is still considered classic. He got this ending (and everything else) just right, and it never fails to thrill me. (Maag made two subsequent recordings of the piece, but most people prefer his first). It would be interesting to me to know what Furtwangler would have done with that ending; it's just the sort of transformation in which he could work uncanny magic.


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