Symphony No. 8 (Beethoven)
Encyclopedia
Symphony No. 8 in F Major
, Op
. 93 is a symphony
in four movement
s composed by Ludwig van Beethoven
in 1812. Beethoven fondly referred to it as "my little Symphony in F," distinguishing it from his Sixth Symphony
, a longer work also in F.
The Eighth Symphony is generally light-hearted, though not lightweight, and in many places cheerfully loud, with many accented notes. Various passages in the symphony are heard by some listeners to be musical jokes. As with various other Beethoven works such as the Opus 27 piano sonatas, the symphony deviates from Classical tradition in making the last movement the weightiest of the four.
The work was begun in the summer of 1812, immediately after the completion of the Seventh Symphony
. At the time Beethoven was 41 years old. As Antony Hopkins
has noted, the cheerful mood of the work betrays nothing of the grossly unpleasant events that were taking place in Beethoven's life at the time, which involved his interference in his brother Johann's love life. The work took Beethoven only four months to complete, and was dedicated to the banker Count Moritz Fries, who, according to Karl Holz, paid Beethoven a regular subsidy for some years until his bankruptcy in 1825.
The premiere took place on 27 February 1814, at a concert at which the Seventh Symphony
(which had been premiered two months earlier) was also played. Beethoven was growing increasingly deaf at the time, but nevertheless led the premiere. Reportedly, "the orchestra largely ignored his ungainly gestures and followed the principal violinist instead."
When asked by his pupil Carl Czerny
why the Eighth was less popular than the Seventh, Beethoven is said to have replied, "because the Eighth is so much better." A critic wrote that "the applause it [the Eighth Symphony] received was not accompanied by that enthusiasm which distinguishes a work which gives universal delight; in short—as the Italians say—it did not create a furor." Beethoven was angered at this reception. George Bernard Shaw
, in his capacity as a music critic, agreed with Beethoven's assessment of the work, writing that indeed, "In all subtler respects the Eighth is better [than the Seventh]." But other critics have been divided in their judgement.
s, 2 oboe
s, 2 clarinet
s in B flat, 2 bassoon
s, 2 horns
in F and B flat(bass), 2 trumpets in F, timpani
and strings
.
It is approximately 26 minutes in duration.
, including a fairly substantial coda
. As Antony Hopkins
has noted, the movement is slightly unusual among Beethoven's works in that it reaches its dramatic climax not during the development
section, but at the onset of the recapitulation
. To this end, the concluding bars of the development form a huge crescendo, and the return of the opening bars is marked fff (fortississimo), which rarely appears in Beethoven's works, but has precedents in the 6th and 7th Symphonies. This extravagance is made up for however, in the quiet closing measures of the movement.
The opening theme is in three sections of four bars each, with the pattern forte-piano-forte. At the onset of the recapitulation, the theme is made more emphatic by omitting the middle four bars.
, which had only recently been invented (or more accurately, merely improved) by Beethoven's friend Johann Maelzel. Specifically the belief was that the movement was based on a canon called "Ta ta ta... Lieber Maelzel", WoO
162, said to have been improvised at a dinner party in Maelzel's honor in 1812. There is no evidence corroborating this story and it's likely that WoO 162 was not written by Beethoven but was constructed after-the-fact by Anton Schindler. A more likely inspiration was the similar rhythmic parody of Joseph Haydn
's "Clock" Symphony
.
The metronome-like parody starts at the very beginning of the movement with even staccato chords in 16th notes (semiquavers) played by the wind instruments, and a basic 16th-note rhythm continues fairly steadily through the piece. The tempo is unusually fast for a symphonic "slow movement".
The key is B flat major, the subdominant
of F, and the organization is what Charles Rosen
has called "slow movement sonata form"; that is, at the end of the exposition there is no development section, but only a simple modulation
back to B flat for the recapitulation
; this also may be described as sonatina
form.
The second subject includes a motif of very rapid 64th notes (hemidemisemiquavers), suggesting perhaps a rapidly unwinding spring in a not-quite-perfected metronome. This motif is played by the whole orchestra at the end of the coda
.
, obsolete by the time this symphony was composed. (A similar nostalgic minuet appears in the Piano Sonata Opus 31 no. 3
, from 1802). The style of Beethoven's minuet is not particularly close to its 18th century models, as it retains a rather coarse, thumping rhythm. Thus, for example, after the initial upbeat Beethoven places the dynamic indication sforzando
(sf) on each of the next five beats. This makes the minuet stylistically close to the other movements of the symphony, which likewise rely often on good-humored, thumping accents.
Like most minuets, this one is written in ternary form
, with a contrasting trio section containing prized solos for horn
s and clarinet
. The clarinet solo is of significant importance in that it was the first major example of a solo clarinet playing a written G6. Igor Stravinsky
praised the "incomparable instrumental thought" shown in Beethoven's orchestration of the trio section.
in which the opening material reappears in three places: the start of the development
section, the start of the recapitulation
, and about halfway through the coda
. This is the first symphonic movement in which the timpani
are tuned in octaves, foreshadowing the similar octave-F tuning in the scherzo of the Ninth Symphony
.
The fourth movement imitates the first in that the move to the second subject first adopts the "wrong" key, then moves to the normal key (exposition: dominant, recapitulation: tonic) after a few measures.
The coda is one of the most substantial and elaborate in all of Beethoven's works. The coda has two particularly striking events. The harmonically out-of-place loud C that interrupts the main theme in the exposition and recapitulation finally gets an "explanation": it turns out to be the root
of the dominant
chord
of the remote key of F minor, and the main theme is loudly played in this key. A few measures later, there is a stunning modulation in which this key is "hammered down" by a semitone, arriving instantaneously at the home key of F major.
The symphony ends in good humor on a very long passage of loud tonic harmony. Tchaikovsky called this movement, "One of the greatest symphonic masterpieces of Beethoven."
F major
F major is a musical major scale based on F, consisting of the pitches F, G, A, B, C, D, and E. Its key signature has one flat . It is by far the oldest key signature with an accidental, predating the others by hundreds of years...
, Op
Opus number
An Opus number , pl. opera and opuses, abbreviated, sing. Op. and pl. Opp. refers to a number generally assigned by composers to an individual composition or set of compositions on publication, to help identify their works...
. 93 is a symphony
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
in four movement
Movement (music)
A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...
s composed by Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
in 1812. Beethoven fondly referred to it as "my little Symphony in F," distinguishing it from his Sixth Symphony
Symphony No. 6 (Beethoven)
Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68, also known as the Pastoral Symphony , is a symphony composed by Ludwig van Beethoven, and was completed in 1808...
, a longer work also in F.
The Eighth Symphony is generally light-hearted, though not lightweight, and in many places cheerfully loud, with many accented notes. Various passages in the symphony are heard by some listeners to be musical jokes. As with various other Beethoven works such as the Opus 27 piano sonatas, the symphony deviates from Classical tradition in making the last movement the weightiest of the four.
Composition and premiere
Symphony No. 7 (Beethoven)
Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92, in 1811, was the seventh of his nine symphonies. He worked on it while staying in the Bohemian spa town of Teplice in the hope of improving his health. It was completed in 1812, and was dedicated to Count Moritz von Fries.At its debut,...
. At the time Beethoven was 41 years old. As Antony Hopkins
Antony Hopkins
Antony Hopkins CBE is an English composer, pianist, conductor, and radio broadcaster.Hopkins was born in London under the name Ernest William Antony Reynolds; his surname was changed during his childhood to Hopkins...
has noted, the cheerful mood of the work betrays nothing of the grossly unpleasant events that were taking place in Beethoven's life at the time, which involved his interference in his brother Johann's love life. The work took Beethoven only four months to complete, and was dedicated to the banker Count Moritz Fries, who, according to Karl Holz, paid Beethoven a regular subsidy for some years until his bankruptcy in 1825.
The premiere took place on 27 February 1814, at a concert at which the Seventh Symphony
Symphony No. 7 (Beethoven)
Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92, in 1811, was the seventh of his nine symphonies. He worked on it while staying in the Bohemian spa town of Teplice in the hope of improving his health. It was completed in 1812, and was dedicated to Count Moritz von Fries.At its debut,...
(which had been premiered two months earlier) was also played. Beethoven was growing increasingly deaf at the time, but nevertheless led the premiere. Reportedly, "the orchestra largely ignored his ungainly gestures and followed the principal violinist instead."
When asked by his pupil Carl Czerny
Carl Czerny
Carl Czerny was an Austrian pianist, composer and teacher. He is best remembered today for his books of études for the piano. Czerny's music was profoundly influenced by his teachers, Muzio Clementi, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Antonio Salieri and Ludwig van Beethoven.-Early life:Carl Czerny was born...
why the Eighth was less popular than the Seventh, Beethoven is said to have replied, "because the Eighth is so much better." A critic wrote that "the applause it [the Eighth Symphony] received was not accompanied by that enthusiasm which distinguishes a work which gives universal delight; in short—as the Italians say—it did not create a furor." Beethoven was angered at this reception. George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
, in his capacity as a music critic, agreed with Beethoven's assessment of the work, writing that indeed, "In all subtler respects the Eighth is better [than the Seventh]." But other critics have been divided in their judgement.
Instrumentation
The symphony is scored for 2 fluteFlute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
s, 2 oboe
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
s, 2 clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
s in B flat, 2 bassoon
Bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
s, 2 horns
Horn (instrument)
The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
in F and B flat(bass), 2 trumpets in F, timpani
Timpani
Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...
and strings
String instrument
A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...
.
Form
The Eighth Symphony consists of four movements:- Allegro vivace e con brio
- Allegretto scherzando
- Tempo di Menuetto
- Allegro vivace
It is approximately 26 minutes in duration.
First movement
This movement is in the home key of F major and is in fast 3/4 time. As with most of Beethoven's first movements of this period, it is written in sonata formSonata form
Sonata form is a large-scale musical structure used widely since the middle of the 18th century . While it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement...
, including a fairly substantial coda
Coda (music)
Coda is a term used in music in a number of different senses, primarily to designate a passage that brings a piece to an end. Technically, it is an expanded cadence...
. As Antony Hopkins
Antony Hopkins
Antony Hopkins CBE is an English composer, pianist, conductor, and radio broadcaster.Hopkins was born in London under the name Ernest William Antony Reynolds; his surname was changed during his childhood to Hopkins...
has noted, the movement is slightly unusual among Beethoven's works in that it reaches its dramatic climax not during the development
Musical development
In European classical music, musical development is a process by which a musical idea is communicated in the course of a composition. It refers to the transformation and restatement of initial material, and is often contrasted with musical variation, which is a slightly different means to the same...
section, but at the onset of the recapitulation
Recapitulation
Recapitulation may refer to:* Recapitulation , a section of musical sonata form where the exposition is repeated in an altered form and the development is concluded...
. To this end, the concluding bars of the development form a huge crescendo, and the return of the opening bars is marked fff (fortississimo), which rarely appears in Beethoven's works, but has precedents in the 6th and 7th Symphonies. This extravagance is made up for however, in the quiet closing measures of the movement.
The opening theme is in three sections of four bars each, with the pattern forte-piano-forte. At the onset of the recapitulation, the theme is made more emphatic by omitting the middle four bars.
Second movement
There is a widespread belief that this movement is an affectionate parody of the metronomeMetronome
A metronome is any device that produces regular, metrical ticks — settable in beats per minute. These ticks represent a fixed, regular aural pulse; some metronomes also include synchronized visual motion...
, which had only recently been invented (or more accurately, merely improved) by Beethoven's friend Johann Maelzel. Specifically the belief was that the movement was based on a canon called "Ta ta ta... Lieber Maelzel", WoO
WoO
WoO is an acronym/abbreviation, derived from the German musical catalog phrase . WoO is a catalogue prepared in 1955 by Hans Halm and Georg Kinsky, listing all of the compositions of Ludwig van Beethoven that were not originally published with an opus number, or survived only as fragments.The...
162, said to have been improvised at a dinner party in Maelzel's honor in 1812. There is no evidence corroborating this story and it's likely that WoO 162 was not written by Beethoven but was constructed after-the-fact by Anton Schindler. A more likely inspiration was the similar rhythmic parody of Joseph Haydn
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
's "Clock" Symphony
Symphony No. 101 (Haydn)
The Symphony No. 101 in D major is the ninth of the twelve so-called London Symphonies written by Joseph Haydn. It is popularly known as The Clock because of the "ticking" rhythm throughout the second movement....
.
The metronome-like parody starts at the very beginning of the movement with even staccato chords in 16th notes (semiquavers) played by the wind instruments, and a basic 16th-note rhythm continues fairly steadily through the piece. The tempo is unusually fast for a symphonic "slow movement".
The key is B flat major, the subdominant
Subdominant
In music, the subdominant is the technical name for the fourth tonal degree of the diatonic scale. It is so called because it is the same distance "below" the tonic as the dominant is above the tonic - in other words, the tonic is the dominant of the subdominant. It is also the note immediately...
of F, and the organization is what Charles Rosen
Charles Rosen
Charles Rosen is an American pianist and author on music.-Life and career:In his youth he studied piano with Moriz Rosenthal. Rosenthal, born in 1862, had been a student of Franz Liszt...
has called "slow movement sonata form"; that is, at the end of the exposition there is no development section, but only a simple modulation
Modulation (music)
In music, modulation is most commonly the act or process of changing from one key to another. This may or may not be accompanied by a change in key signature. Modulations articulate or create the structure or form of many pieces, as well as add interest...
back to B flat for the recapitulation
Recapitulation
Recapitulation may refer to:* Recapitulation , a section of musical sonata form where the exposition is repeated in an altered form and the development is concluded...
; this also may be described as sonatina
Sonatina
A sonatina is literally a small sonata. As a musical term, sonatina has no single strict definition; it is rather a title applied by the composer to a piece that is in basic sonata form, but is shorter, lighter in character, or more elementary technically than a typical sonata...
form.
The second subject includes a motif of very rapid 64th notes (hemidemisemiquavers), suggesting perhaps a rapidly unwinding spring in a not-quite-perfected metronome. This motif is played by the whole orchestra at the end of the coda
Coda (music)
Coda is a term used in music in a number of different senses, primarily to designate a passage that brings a piece to an end. Technically, it is an expanded cadence...
.
Third movement
A nostalgic invocation of the old minuetMinuet
A minuet, also spelled menuet, is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually in 3/4 time. The word was adapted from Italian minuetto and French menuet, and may have been from French menu meaning slender, small, referring to the very small steps, or from the early 17th-century popular...
, obsolete by the time this symphony was composed. (A similar nostalgic minuet appears in the Piano Sonata Opus 31 no. 3
Piano Sonata No. 18 (Beethoven)
The Piano Sonata No. 18 in E-flat major, Op. 31, No. 3, is a sonata for solo piano by Ludwig van Beethoven, the third and last of his Op. 31 piano sonatas. The work dates from 1802...
, from 1802). The style of Beethoven's minuet is not particularly close to its 18th century models, as it retains a rather coarse, thumping rhythm. Thus, for example, after the initial upbeat Beethoven places the dynamic indication sforzando
Sforzando
Sforzando may refer to:*Sforzando, used in musical notation as an instruction to play a note with sudden, strong emphasis *Sforzando , a "pirate orchestra" from Melbourne, Australia, named after the musical term...
(sf) on each of the next five beats. This makes the minuet stylistically close to the other movements of the symphony, which likewise rely often on good-humored, thumping accents.
Like most minuets, this one is written in ternary form
Ternary form
Ternary form, sometimes called song form, is a three-part musical form, usually schematicized as A-B-A. The first and third parts are musically identical, or very nearly so, while the second part in some way provides a contrast with them...
, with a contrasting trio section containing prized solos for horn
Horn (instrument)
The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
s and clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
. The clarinet solo is of significant importance in that it was the first major example of a solo clarinet playing a written G6. Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
praised the "incomparable instrumental thought" shown in Beethoven's orchestration of the trio section.
Fourth movement
This is the most substantial movement, in very fast tempo. It is written in a version of sonata rondo formSonata rondo form
Sonata rondo form was a form of musical organization often used during the Classical music era. As the name implies, it is a blend of sonata form and rondo form.- Structure :...
in which the opening material reappears in three places: the start of the development
Musical development
In European classical music, musical development is a process by which a musical idea is communicated in the course of a composition. It refers to the transformation and restatement of initial material, and is often contrasted with musical variation, which is a slightly different means to the same...
section, the start of the recapitulation
Recapitulation
Recapitulation may refer to:* Recapitulation , a section of musical sonata form where the exposition is repeated in an altered form and the development is concluded...
, and about halfway through the coda
Coda (music)
Coda is a term used in music in a number of different senses, primarily to designate a passage that brings a piece to an end. Technically, it is an expanded cadence...
. This is the first symphonic movement in which the timpani
Timpani
Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...
are tuned in octaves, foreshadowing the similar octave-F tuning in the scherzo of the Ninth Symphony
Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)
The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, is the final complete symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven. Completed in 1824, the symphony is one of the best known works of the Western classical repertoire, and has been adapted for use as the European Anthem...
.
The fourth movement imitates the first in that the move to the second subject first adopts the "wrong" key, then moves to the normal key (exposition: dominant, recapitulation: tonic) after a few measures.
The coda is one of the most substantial and elaborate in all of Beethoven's works. The coda has two particularly striking events. The harmonically out-of-place loud C that interrupts the main theme in the exposition and recapitulation finally gets an "explanation": it turns out to be the root
Root (chord)
In music theory, the root of a chord is the note or pitch upon which a triadic chord is built. For example, the root of the major triad C-E-G is C....
of the dominant
Dominant (music)
In music, the dominant is the fifth scale degree of the diatonic scale, called "dominant" because it is next in importance to the tonic,and a dominant chord is any chord built upon that pitch, using the notes of the same diatonic scale...
chord
Chord (music)
A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...
of the remote key of F minor, and the main theme is loudly played in this key. A few measures later, there is a stunning modulation in which this key is "hammered down" by a semitone, arriving instantaneously at the home key of F major.
The symphony ends in good humor on a very long passage of loud tonic harmony. Tchaikovsky called this movement, "One of the greatest symphonic masterpieces of Beethoven."
External links
- Program notes by Steven Ledbetter.
- The score of the Eighth Symphony has been posted by the William and Gayle Cook Music Library at Indiana University.
- The Music Acoustics Group at the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) has studied the differences between musical rhythm as created by musicians vs. metronome rhythm; for discussion and audio demonstrations consult their page on Rules for Music Performance.
- Analysis of the Beethoven Symphony No. 8 on the All About Ludwig van Beethoven page.