THE MUSIC A semi-slow introduction, the largest ever heard in any symphony until then and still one of the largest, defines great harmonic spaces, first A major, then C major (the gently lyric oboe tune), then F major (the same tune on the flute).
#BEETHOVEN 7TH SYMPHONY WESTWORLD SERIES#
But the public liked the “companion piece” too, and the composer Louis Spohr, one of the violinists in the orchestra for the whole series of concerts, reports that the second movement was encored each time. To Beethoven’s annoyance, the critic of the Wiener Zeitung referred to the Seventh as having been composed “as a companion piece” to Wellington ’ s Victory. So great was the success that the entire program was repeated later in the month, again in January 1814, and once more in February. Between the Seventh Symphony and Wellington ’ s Victory, another gadget of Maelzel’s, a mechanical trumpeter, played marches written for the occasion by Dussek and Pleyel. The Panharmonicon was an invention of Johann Nepomuk Maelzel, whose most enduring contribution to music was the first dependable metronome. In the battle of Hanau, that October, Napoleon thrashed the mostly Bavarian army that attempted to block his retreat toward the southwest.) (At Vitoria, in northeast Spain, an army of English, Spanish, and Portuguese troops under the Duke of Wellington defeated the French on June 21, 1813. What caused the excitement was not, however, Opus 92, the new symphony, but Opus 91, Wellington ’ s Victory, or The Battle of Vitoria, originally written for a mechanical instrument called the Panharmonicon but presented even at this, its first performance, in the version for orchestra.
The concert at which the work had its premiere-it was a benefit for Austrian and Bavarian soldiers wounded at the recent Battle of Hanau-was probably the most wildly successful of his career. THE BACKSTORY The Seventh Symphony is Beethoven’s last word for quite a few years on the subject of the big style he had been cultivating since the early 1800s. INSTRUMENTATION: 2 each of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, and trumpets, with timpani and strings Ureli Corelli Hill conducted it at the Apollo Rooms, New York, at a concert of the Philharmonic Society WORLD PREMIERE: December 8, 1813, at the University of Vienna SL: What is it about the Allegretto? Melody, motion, and maybe a little mystery-all part of the genius of Beethoven.BORN: Probably on Decem(his baptismal certificate is dated December 17, 1770). SD: There is something subliminal that makes this rhythm we hear all the time. SD: Then, finally, when the theme arrives, it’s fabulous because it has this element of nostalgia. You have the feeling you have direct access to the heart of Beethoven. Stéphane Denève: It starts by the way within a minor chord, and then suddenly what you hear is not the theme, but the counter theme. SL: What is it about the second movement of Beethoven’s 7th symphony that draws us in? MUSIC: Jazz pianist Jacques Loussier, Variation 1 on Beethoven's Allegretto. Susan Lewis: The Allegretto has been performed on its own, used in The King’s Speech and other films, and inspired composers from Schubert to jazz pianist Jacques Loussier.
0 kommentar(er)
