#THEME FROM BEETHOVEN 7TH SYMPHONY SERIES#
Muted both in tone and dynamics, this rather sombre series of variations upon a repetitive, walking theme has been compared to a funeral procession-and for good reason. Although it is not ‘slow’ in the traditional sense (Allegretto meaning ‘fairly brisk’), the Allegretto is the de facto slow movement in an otherwise spirited symphony, its effect more a result of context than of tempo. Spirited along by a galloping rhythmic undercurrent and coloured by its emphasis on the woodwind, this joyous opening movement has more than a hint of the ‘Pastoral’ about it.īut it is the solemn Allegretto that has become the symphony’s calling card. It takes Beethoven nearly four, suspense-laden minutes to reach the Vivace, by which time the last thing we are expecting is the ebullient romp that follows.
Instead, Beethoven diverts almost immediately from A major to touch, in turn, upon C major and F major, neither of which have any close relation to the key of the symphony. Nor does it stick to symphonic norms by setting up the tonic of A major and preparing for the first movement proper. The introduction to the opening Vivace is longer than any symphonic introduction ever composed before. At around 45 minutes in performance it is half as long again as the rather slim eighth, which Beethoven completed just a few months later, and many of its features are unprecedented in both scale and ambition. While the seventh glows with a kind of easy self-contentment, there are gloomy shadows to be found lurking beneath its bright façade and it is by no means a trivial work. Beethoven, for his part, referred to it as his ‘Grand Symphony in A’, adding in a letter to the impresario Johann Peter Salomon that he considered it ‘one of my best works’. At its Viennese premiere it proved an instant success, so much so that the second movement was reprised as an encore and the whole concert was repeated four days later. Where then, did Beethoven find the sunny demeanour that characterises his seventh symphony, a work he began sketching while convalescing at Teplitz in the autumn of 1811 and completed in Vienna in April 1812? Brisk, joyous and radiating warmth, it is one of Beethoven’s most carefree symphonic works, a symphony that Richard Wagner would later call ‘the apotheosis of the dance herself’. His diaries from this time convey his despondency and heartache, even admitting to thoughts of suicide. Beethoven soon sank into a deep depression and wrote very little else for another two years. In October, he visited his brother Johann in an attempt to try and break apart what he deemed to be an unsuitable relationship-but he failed, and the pair were soon married. And it was here, in the summer of 1812, that he wrote the famous letter to his ‘Immortal Beloved’, a passionate outpouring of love and regret to an unnamed woman, in which Beethoven laments the fact that ‘you are not entirely mine, and I am not entirely yours’. Over the course of six months between 18 he was twice ordered by doctors to spend time at a spa in the Bohemian town of Teplitz to help him recover from a spate of illness. In 1811 he was forced to pull out of a performance of his ‘Emperor’ Piano Concerto No 5, because he could not hear well enough to keep time with the orchestra.
Four years separate Beethoven’s sixth and seventh symphonies, four years in which Beethoven’s health went into steep decline.
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