Is this the best orchestral work by Beethoven? That is debatable. Is it his most significant work in historical terms? Undoubtedly. It is with this piece that most musical historians mark the beginning of the Romantic period, and one hearing of the Symphony is enough to tell you why.
This is very different from all that came before, Classical elements are almost absent, the Symphony is very long, the emotional content of it is unbridled. The first movement is explosive, the second both mournful and hopeful in turns, there is dissonance throughout.
It is hard to imagine what an audience listening to this at the time might have thought, but it was certainly a shock to the system. Unlike anything in scope or sound that came before, it shows a composer that has finally completely come onto his own. Beethoven creates his own distinct style here, moving away from his teachers and ancestors to something revolutionary and brilliant. Essential.
Final Grade
10/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
The second movement, a funeral march, is frequently performed on memorial occasions. Serge Koussevitzky performed it to commemorate the death of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Bruno Walter did the same for Arturo Toscanini. It was also performed at the funeral of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy in 1847.
The second movement was also used as a funeral dirge during the memorial service following the "Munich massacre" terrorist attacks during the 1972 Summer Olympics. It was played by the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.
Title: Beethoven Piano Concertos Nos. 3 & 4 Performers: Mitsuko Uchida, Royal Concertgebouw Director: Kurt Sanderling Year: 1994 Length: 37 minutes
Review
Beethoven produced a small amount of Piano Concertos, only 5 (or six if we consider the 0 concerto which has no orchestral part extant). But of those five three are amazing pieces of music, and they only get progressively better.
Concerto no. 3 is the first truly significant one, and therefore is the first one to make its appearance on this list. And it is something amazing, Beethoven is in full romantic swing here, from the martial tone of the first movement to the emotive nature of the second and the playfulness of the third movement, the exploitation of emotion is very successful indeed. Not Beethoven's best piano Concerto but a great one nonetheless.
Honestly there is nothing wrong with you just getting a good collection of all the concertos, and you could go worse than getting this. The Concertgebouw is always recommendable and Mitsuko Uchida is one of the most emotive pianists out there. If you want to get a full set, I would also recommend the Alfred Brendel, Simon Rattle, Wiener Philharmonic collection.
Final Grade
8/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
[It was] first performed on April 5, 1803 with the composer as soloist. The Second Symphony and the oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives also received their first performances during the concert. The composition was dedicated to Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia.
Not the most impressive of Beethoven's symphonies... probably the last one of his not overly impressive Symphonies, actually, here on out it is all pretty amazing. This is not to say that this isn't a thoroughly enjoyable Symphony, because it very much is.
Nitpicking Beethoven's symphonies is a pretty stupid endeavour, so the only way to properly judge them is comparatively to his other works. They are in a league of their own. This is a much more romantic symphony in feel than his first one, but is rightly overshadowed by his third, fifth, sixth and ninth symphonies.
Saying that this is Beethoven's "second worse" symphony is also a bit silly, because it is great in and of itself, it is just the superlative quality of his other compositions that cast a shadow over it. It's his own fault for being so good.
Final Grade
8/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
Beethoven's Second Symphony was mostly written during Beethoven's stay at Heiligenstadt in 1802, which was near the time that he began to realize he was becoming deaf. Beethoven wrote the Second Symphony without having a standard minuet; a scherzo took its place, which gave the composition even greater scope and energy. After the symphony's premiere, critics noted the absence of the traditional minuet, and claimed the composition had great strength, but was altogether too eccentric.
Title: Die Jhareszeiten Performers: Gundula Janowitz, Werner Hollweg, Walter Berry, Berliner Philharmonic Director: Herbert von Karajan Year: 1972 Length: 2 hours 20 minutes
Review If the Creation is Haydns most famous oratorio, The Seasons is the second most famous. It is not as uniformly amazing as the Creation, partially because the theme does not give itself to the spectacle of the creation of the world. Still it has its moments.
It is of these great moments that this oratorio lives, whether it is the storm in Summer, a hunt in Autumn or a song sung around the fire in Winter. This means however, that there is quite a lot of filler here, the recitatives are often not that interesting.
This is the last Haydn piece on the list and one of his last compositions, so we bid farewell to a truly great and innovative composer which is now unfairly in the shadow of Mozart, even if the two were completely different composers, with completely different styles and interests. Haydn's joy is contagious and when he wants to go dark the contrast is immense. This is a good oratorio, but it does not match some of Haydn's amazing instrumental work.
Final Grade
8/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
Among the more rousing choruses are a hunting song with horn calls, a wine celebration with dancing peasants (foreshadowing the third movement of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony), a loud thunderstorm (akin to Beethoven's fourth movement), and a stirring ode to toil (or to "industry" in some translations):
The huts that shelter us, The wool that covers us, The food that nourishes us, All is thy grant, thy gift, O noble toil.
Haydn remarked that while he had been industrious his whole life long, this was the first occasion he had ever been asked to write a chorus in praise of industry. Some especially lyrical passages are the choral prayer for a bountiful harvest, "Sei nun gnädig, milder Himmel" (Be thou gracious, O kind heaven), the gentle nightfall that follows the storm, and Hanne's cavatina on Winter.
The work is filled with the "tone-painting" that also characterized The Creation: a plowman whistles as he works (in fact, he whistles the well-known theme from Haydn's own Surprise Symphony), a bird shot by a hunter falls from the sky, there is a sunrise (evoking the one in The Creation), and so on.
Title: Klaviersonaten Performer: Stephen Kovacevich Year: 1999 Length: 16 minutes
Review
This is possibly the most famous piano sonata in the history of piano sonatas, and with good reason. We are now, according to the parameters of the list, in the Romantic period, listening to the first and last movements of this sonata it is hard to disagree with this definition.
Beethoven starts this sonata with one of the most famous portrayals of what is essentially sadness or longing or something equally heart-achingly painful. The second movement is a little ray of sunlight and then he goes into the amazingly frustrated last movement, there's anger and frustration here, portrayed in a much more violent way than anyone before.
The work has the problem that comes with it being so famous. You've heard it a thousand times, but listening to it in chronological context discloses just how brilliant it really it, and why it deserves its fame. An amazing piece. Final Grade
10/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
The work was completed in 1801 and rumored to be dedicated to his pupil, 17-year-old Countess Giulietta Guicciardi, with whom Beethoven was, or had been, in love. The name "Moonlight" Sonata derives from an 1832 description of the first movement by music critic Ludwig Rellstab, who compared it to moonlight shining upon Lake Lucerne.
Beethoven included the phrase "Quasi una fantasia" (Italian: Almost a fantasy) in the title partly because the sonata does not follow the traditional sonata pattern where the first movement is in regular sonata form, and where the three or four movements are arranged in a fast-slow-[fast]-fast sequence.
Title: The European Busch-Serkin Duo Recordings Volume 1 Performers: Adolf Busch (violin), Rudolf Serkin (piano) Year: 1933 Length: 20 minutes
Review
This is probably Beethoven's second most famous violin sonata, right after the Kreutzer sonata, and it is also the last composition in this list to be nominally a part of the Classical age. From here on out we will be in the Romantic age.
Although this sonata is clearly in the classical style, it is still an impressive piece, not only because of how positively catchy all the movements are, but also because of the perfect interplay of the instruments.
This great interplay of instruments is particularly apparent in this recording, that even if it is pretty old shows an almost telepathic communication between Busch and Serkin, brought about by a long collaboration between the two. So highly recommended, the sound might not be the best quality but it is perfectly acceptable.
Final Grade
10/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
Its dedicatee was Count Moritz von Fries, a patron to whom the fourth violin sonata, the string quintet of the same year, and the seventh symphony were also dedicated.
Of the nine Beethoven symphonies this one is probably the least impressive. This just goes to show, however, how great all of them are, because taken by itself it is a pretty amazing Symphony, it only pales in comparison.
Beethoven is one of those pivotal composers where the music world is measured in Before Beethoven and After Beethoven. Even if this is not one of his most innovative symphonies, it still sounds very much Classical, it is still very much a Beethoven composition, you can hardly mistake it for something else.
Beethoven just has an explosive sound which comes out here, even if the symphony owes much to Haydn, even the general mood of the music has a certain Haydn cheerfulness that is not as typical of Beethoven. So a minor Beethoven symphony, if such a thing exists, which means it is still excellent!
Final Grade
9/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
The twelve-bar introduction of the first movement is often considered a musical joke, but it may simply be a result of Beethoven's experimentation: it consists of a sequence of dominant-tonic chord sequences in the wrong key, so that the listener only gradually realizes the real key of the symphony. There is a shortened recapitulation before the coda which closes the first movement. The andante (in F Major, the subdominant) of the second movement is played considerably faster than the general concept of that tempo, at what could be thought of as moderato. The third movement is remarkable because, although it is marked Menuetto, it is so fast that it is ostensibly a scherzo. The finale opens with another possible joke, consisting of partial scales played slowly before the full C-major scale marks the real start of the allegro.
A bit of the first movement conducted by Zubin Metha:
