Bum, bum, bum, bummmm!

The first "candidate" up for "election" at our October 25th You Be the Judge! concert is the first movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C minor. (The other choice, which we will discuss tomorrow, is the first movement of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony).

You would have to have been raised in a cave not to know the beginning four notes of Beethoven's classic work. The symphony begins with all of the string players (and clarinets) playing three short notes and a long note. They are then repeated, one note lower. The four note motif has been described as "fate knocking on the door". Of course, this idea came years after Beethoven's death and would not have even occurred to Beethoven when he wrote it.


The opening to Beethoven's Symphony No. 5




After twice stating the motif, Beethoven creates an entire symphony out of them. Not only is the first movement clearly based on them, but so is the second movement, the scherzo (or third) movement, and the finale.  Beethoven uses the motif to unify the symphony into a whole. Before that, composers really didn't do much to make a symphony a cohesive unit. In other words, each movement of the symphony could have largely stood on its own. It's sort of like a series of short stories versus a book. In the symphonies of Haydn, for example, the movements are like a series of shorts stories: great on their own, but usually not unified in any way. With Beethoven, the movements are like chapters of a book: each is part of a greater whole.

What is it about the first movement of Beethoven's symphony that makes it a perennial crowd favorite? I think it is the drama of the opening. It grips the attention. The energy of the incessant motif (three short notes and a long note), hammering away for over six minutes, propels the movement forward. It's sort of like being the passenger in a race car. Once it takes off, you better hold on for the ride!

There are hundreds of recordings of this great work. However, none surpass the logic or capture the essence of the symphony more than that of Carlos Kleiber and the Vienna Philharmonic. Listen here.

For a visual example of Kleiber's interpretation, watch this very old (and poor quality) video. Watch here.

Tomorrow: Schubert's Unfinished Symphony.