Nine images… in disorder (who wants to play!?)

Shimmering sea: Second, because you don't yet know what will happen next, like when you are offshore

Garden of light: First, because it is the...First

Hard rock: Third...because it is truly hard

Cozy home: Eighth, because after so much wandering it is an anchor of peace before the Ninth, which is:...

Stunning panorama: Fourth, because it is between two colossal symphonies and from there, we can imagine them both

Lively city: Seventh, because it is the Symphony of the most frenetic rhythm

Path in the woods: Pastoral. The reason why is obvious

Very fresh wind: Fifth, because when you listen to it you are "naked"

Glowing forge: That is, the Ninth, because it is a bomb in every sense.

What did I win? or...did I lose?

danielescarpetti wrote:

What did I win?

You didn't get a single one!!! :P :P :P :P

But I like your idea about the Octave, even if it's different from mine

But you've proven to be the usual joker ... and so you won this dedication from the Ode to Joy

Wem der große Wurf gelungen, Chi ebbe la gran fortuna,

Eines Freundes Freund zu sein di essere amico di un amico.........

(That lucky person is me!)

I won't tell you mine until Monday... what if someone else wants to join

bye Daniele

When it is said that music is an asemantic art and everyone sees what they want... clearly Daniele's list is what he sees. I see

1.Garden of light
2.Sparkling sea
3.Glowing forge
4.Cozy home
5.Very hard rock
6.Very fresh wind
7.Path in the woods
8.Lively city
9.Stunning panorama

OK. I take back what I said: I'll say what I had in mind without waiting for Monday.

For two reasons: because I'm having computer problems (it's a miracle it even starts), and also because I wanted to pay tribute to Azzurro who caught five of them!

Third, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth.

Here is what I had in mind

First, cozy home... precise, welcoming, secure boundaries, the Wiener Klassik, the starting point

Second, garden of light.... just outside the house, the tone already more playful, clear and bright vivacity, the charm of the themes

Third, glowing forge.... the struggle, the passion, the ideal of freedom

Fourth, path in the woods... composure and momentum, shadows and lights in the precious interplay of the woodwinds

Fifth, rock as hard as stone... The most colossal work that has ever been "sculpted."

Eight hammer blows at the beginning of the first movement. Eight hammer blows (in C major) at the close of the finale.

If 'fate' had known that someone like Beethoven was there to open the door, it would have thought twice before knocking

Sixth, very fresh wind... good air, open sky, breath of life, clean air... a beneficial breeze you feel on your face at the first notes

Seventh, sparkling sea... A wonder of nature, and the inexhaustible force that stirs it... rough sea.

(but a path in the woods also holds wonders... right Azzurro!?)

Eighth, lively city... Grit, vigorous spirit, irony... the haste of the finale

Ninth, stunning panorama... looking back, seeing from above the path traveled, the journey of a lifetime.

And... so let's talk about these nine symphonies once again.

Yes, and above all, let's try to ask ourselves once more why, despite everything: the passing of time, much more recent symphonic corpora – Mahler and Shostakovich above all – of immense value, these symphonies continue to provoke such intense feelings in the imagination and in listening.

Beethoven arrived at the symphony very late; while he was finalizing his first String Quartets at age 29, in 1800.

Both for the Quartets and for the Symphonies, he felt a strong fear of confronting the two great composers who stood behind him: Mozart and Haydn.

It was to them that the last masterpieces in terms of symphony were owed: Mozart's last ones dating from 1788 and Haydn's, dating from 1795.

Beethoven arrived in Vienna in 1792 and, until 1798, he was known more as the greatest pianist of the moment than as a full-fledged composer. On the other hand, it is true that, apart from the two cantatas for the two emperors and some Arias, all his compositions up to that point contemplated only the presence of the piano or, at best, its centrality.

With the trios for solo strings, the slow detachment from the principal instrument began, and then the quartets and, finally, his First Symphony crowned him as such.

Thinking about it now, I find that the most appropriate definition for the First Symphony is "Shimmering Sea," precisely because it is the departure of a composer who finally decides to set sail without having a clear destination in mind and without knowing where that adventure might lead him. He has finally decided to leave; he has taken the courage to confront the "greats" even in this genre and, albeit still very timidly, begins to do so in a different way.

Yes, because although still anchored to Haydnian stylings, we can say that even in the First, there is something different: that the music is no longer that of Haydn and Mozart.

The rhythm certainly has a function not analogous to his predecessors: not a way to solemnly affirm the tonality, but to amplify the entrance of the main theme and give it greater importance. To the point where one could say that the theme becomes a character that requires a proper introduction to enter the stage. And how does Beethoven do this? He conceives the introduction with entirely unusual harmonic motifs, wandering into other keys, in order to then affirm the C# of the theme.

The First Symphony is not a masterpiece, yet it finds its genius moment in its third movement, when Beethoven replaces the classic Minuet with a Scherzo. No longer melodic grace, elegance, or graceful rhythm, but a driving and overwhelming rhythm.

Thus, Beethoven sets out on this "Shimmering Sea," calm but then beginning to swell a little, and he does not yet know, not only, where he will arrive – the destination – but also, along the way, where he will land – the ports.

For the Second, I also make amends and change the definition – even if I hadn't written it before –: "Welcoming Home." Why? Because I consider this one more than the First – and more than any other Beethovenian symphony – to be the emblem of the encounter between the composer from Bonn and the Viennese tradition. Hector Berlioz said of this Symphony: "One can discern in it only the youthful ardor of a noble heart in which the most beautiful illusions of life are kept intact." Sacrosanct words. We are in 1802, and with this Symphony, Beethoven retreated not only from the First but also toward works like the Pathétique, returning to Eighteenth-century stylings: the Second is comparable to the Serenade – a musical form typical of the late 1700s – and finds its widest representation in its Larghetto.

Shortly thereafter, there will be the Testament of Heiligenstadt, and for Beethoven and his music, everything will truly change.

The Third is the first of the ports where the Beethovenian symphonic ship docked.

Thinking about it, Luca, I now think you are right to define it as a "blazing forge," a clash of the composer with the ideal of freedom. I do not know if Beethoven was fully aware of the revolutionary scope of this work, but today, we can certainly affirm that those two Eb major chords do not only open a Symphony but, much more: "a new way of feeling music that imposes itself on the listener with profound pathos and an enthralling charge." (Alfredo Casella)

Beethoven's Nine Symphonies have a somewhat unitary character and represent Beethoven's most conscious stance toward the Viennese public.

Therefore, if the First is the first incursion of revolutionary spirits into eighteenth-century patterns, the Second, the acceptance of a way of life anachronistically tied to an Arcadian past, the Third, the imposition of a will for subjective affirmation, the Fourth is the...

to find in the noble class, a lost paradise of frank and rustic patriarchal simplicity and for this reason, changing my first statement once again, I would say that it can be likened to the garden of light.

The Fourth does not pose problems of rupture with the outside world and responds to the desire of the one who commissioned it from Beethoven: Count Oppersdorf who, as it happens, was enthusiastic about the Second. To an admirer of Opus 36, one certainly could not deliver a Symphony like the Fifth – a symphony that Beethoven was working on at that moment – and the composer was fully aware of this. So much so that he interrupted its composition and composed Opus 60.

The struggle triggered by Beethoven with musical form and society thus subsided in this Symphony, and the composer managed to find a happy, albeit brief, formal and interior equilibrium.

"The new and the original generate themselves, without one even thinking about it," so said Beethoven and, indeed, the Fifth is evidence of how an elementary spark, in the hands of a genius, can almost unconsciously magnify itself, to the point of becoming the generating element of one of the most complex and – at least in its first movement – most famous Symphonies in the history of Western music. Hard rock, dear Luca, you define it and it suits me perfectly. I think of "poor Goethe" when listening to this first movement by the hands of the very young pianist Felix Mendelssohn; in 1830 he interrupted him shouting: "it is truly great but it seems as if the whole house is collapsing." And this phrase has already said everything about the absolutely revolutionary scope of this Symphony, which represents the second port where the ship that set sail in 1800 anchors.

Regarding the Sixth or Pastoral, I have already said at other times and I will not change my mind here: a path in the woods but only because forced by play. In reality, if I had to define it, I would say: an expression of spirituality, of inner peace. And this is another port where the Beethovenian Symphony anchors.

The Seventh is, indeed, as you assert, "A marvel of nature, and the inexhaustible force that agitates it... a rough sea." But if it is a rough sea, it cannot be a sparkling sea. Therefore, it could be a very fresh wind, where however the definition must be understood as a metaphor for strength, a overwhelming rhythm that in its great freshness, charges us and fills us with energy. Another port, then, where the ship anchors.

The Eighth, unjustly considered, also due to its dimensions, a minor symphony, today, as Beethoven wished, is one of the favorites. Seductive material, devoid of imbalances and naivety, behind an apparent simplicity and linearity, it hides a great complexity and a great diversity compared to all the other Beethovenian Symphonies: it is astonishing to note the presence of an entirely new world in forms almost identical to those of the eighteenth century; we can well define it as the true first neo-classical work within the history of music. Therefore, in this new port, I embrace your idea of a lively city, for "the grit, the vigorous spirit, the irony... the haste of the finale" but not only: for that capacity for renewal, within the old, of which it is a bearer.

The Ninth, my dear friend, I consider another port of the Beethovenian symphony and, by stating this, I know I am excluding the destination. The destination, that which Beethoven might have reached, perhaps would have been the Tenth. From there, we surely could have seen the truly stupendous panorama but, in the Ninth, this climb is interrupted in the Third movement – that is the highest peak – with the fourth one returns to earth and from there, we can turn our faces toward the celestial vault – as the composer exhorts us – but not admire panoramas.

But let us not despair! Beethoven then gifted us, before dying, another truly insurmountable peak, the Great Fugue Opus 133 and from there, as Massimo Mila stated, he in an "extraordinary intellectual adventure... having reached such heights" can afford to "be able to contemplate, like a god, past and future."

And what more wonderful, larger, and more absolute panorama can there be than this?

I am resuming the discussion because this morning, reflecting on what was written, I find it right to expand upon part of my reasoning.

Therefore, from my point of view, Beethoven in his symphonic corpus could not reach the destination for natural reasons—premature death—but rather, he touched and anchored the symphonic ship in a series of ports.

In reality, the Eighth could have been a destination and not a port if the composer had not decided to set sail again with the Ninth, and this is for the aforementioned reasons: the retrospective gaze of a giant who, after having raged through the seas for 12 years in the Symphony, completely overturned it compared to his predecessors and who, as a destination, re-proposes the same classical symphonic form but completely renewed.

Luca—and those who have read me in the past—you know that I consider the Ninth a restart that was later gathered up by Mahler. For this reason, the Ninth is not a port but the beginning of a new journey that the composer wanted to face again after 12 years of meditation. We know—Salomon has enlightened us well on all this—how Beethoven's creative periods were born from strong traumas of life and the psyche, but we also know well that these periods always began with the piano, his principal instrument. Therefore, after his shocking late Sonatas, Beethoven restarted his symphonic navigation, interrupted by the superlative Quartets but which should have then continued. And it is for this reason—returning to an old discussion—that I think the Ninth cannot be considered completely and fully attributable to the "third period"; the journey was not brought to completion, the ship remained on the high seas, and its full legacy was only gathered at the end of the 1800s. But in the meantime, there were the wonderful symphonies of Brahms—and also those of Bruckner, which I like much less—and the music had completely changed.

Thank you Daniele!

you and Azzurro have accepted the "limited freedom" that I left you. It is a game. It's true. But regarding poetic images, you surely would have had others, not mine. Or perhaps you rightly made less use of them. As Azzurro reminded us, music is asemantic, and it remains so for me as well, having started this thing.

You speak a lot about 'sea', 'ports' and 'navigations'. I used this image (sea) only for the Seventh. Now I will try to navigate a bit in the sea of your topics!

it is obvious that I won't go on talking about those associations that you liked (Eroica, Fifth, Eighth), and furthermore, I tell you that I like that you moved the "garden of light" and "very fresh wind" to the Fourth and the Seventh. I would like to try to bring my ideas about the Seventh to you a bit better, regarding the Pastoral and the Ninth. And I will do so in three posts.

I begin with the Seventh.

meanwhile, first one thing [Beethoven has nothing to do with it]... Because a rough sea cannot be sparkling!!??... Sometimes the wind agitates it and the sun shines. So it sparkles. Especially if you look at it not from the shore but from high up in the mountains. But even if physics were wrong (but I don't think so), a poetic image can force reality, sometimes. Even Pascoli pointed out that the young maiden cannot come from the countryside carrying a small bouquet of roses and violets in her hand, because they are flowers that bloom at different times... in any case...

'Sea'.... it is something great!

Great by antonomasia (the First symphony seems a bit too small for such an image). The sea is the force of Nature. And the Seventh, for me, is as much 'Nature' as the Sixth... But more seething: the pulsing of rhythm, of life... and 'sparkling' to name its great beauty, its majesty. The Energy that in the Eroica and the Fifth still expresses itself by "showing its muscles" (as someone wrote, quoted by Poggi-Vallora) becomes a gesture in the Seventh that is at once easy, solemn, and agile.

However, in agreement with what I have just written, even "very fresh wind" (meant precisely as a «metaphor for force, an overwhelming rhythm that in its great freshness charges us and fills us with energy») works perfectly well

«Regarding the Sixth or Pastoral, I have already said at other times and I will not change my mind here: a path in the woods but only because forced by the game. In reality, if I had to define it, I would say: an expression of spirituality, of inner peace». [Daniele]

And regarding the pastoral, I had said "very fresh wind... good air, open sky, breath of life, clean air... beneficial breeze".

However, even here dear Daniele, we are more in tune than it seemed to you. Already the idea of 'Nature', which is strong in the Seventh as much as in the Pastoral, for which I like that you shift the image of a 'fresh wind' onto the Seventh, should make you suspect where I am going with this.

By writing 'very fresh wind' - breath of life! - even if I wasn't saying it openly, deep down I was alluding to an 'expression of spirituality'.

In Hebrew, 'spirit' (Ruach) also means 'wind', 'breath'.

And I am well aware that you once told me that you perceive Beethoven's spirituality more in the Sixth Symphony than in the Missa Solemnis.

it's true!... that is why I thought of the image of a vital Wind.

danielescarpetti wrote:

The Ninth, my dear friend, I consider it another harbor of the Beethovenian symphony and, in stating this, I know I am excluding the destination. The destination, that which Beethoven might have reached, perhaps would have been the Tenth. From there, we surely could have truly seen the stupendous panorama but, in the Ninth, this climb is interrupted in the Third movement – that is the highest peak – with the fourth we return with our feet on the ground and from there, we can turn our faces toward the celestial vault – as the composer exhorts us – but not admire panoramas.

Luca ,- and who has read me in the past - you know that I consider the Ninth a restart that was later gathered up by Mahler.

I know Daniele: the Ninth as a restart. And I totally share this idea of yours.

But with 'stupendous panorama' I did not mean a high, elevated, ascetic vision. And thank goodness that, after the contemplative summit of the third movement, the Finale brings us back to earth, in the flow of life: which is precisely where we must be.

The “panorama” I meant is an entirely interior panorama, a looking within oneself, a turning back not so much to renounce previous movements (something you know I do not believe in), but to see how much ground has been covered and how many winding paths were taken to arrive at that Melody of joy «simple to the point of impudence» (Mila).

Rarely do I quote anything, but what I mean is expressed much better in the words of Mila, who also quotes Romain Rolland, in his Reading of the Ninth Symphony (indispensable!).

A page 16:

(…) each of the eight previous Symphonies could be concise and compact because it was circumscribed: each was the representation of a single aspect of Beethoven's personality, of a moment of his inner life. «Each is the Beethoven – a single Beethoven – of one day... The Ninth Symphony is a confluence» (p. 27). The Ninth Symphony is also a Rückblick, or, as they would say today, a flashback: «a look back that dominates from a summit over the entire past. The long time elapsed between the Eighth and the Ninth Symphony (ten to eleven years) has produced that distancing of perspective, that vol plané over an entire sum of life evoked» (p. 32). It is here, in this character of recapitulation, of the balance sheet of a life, that the monumental conception of the symphonic genre emerges, which will assert itself throughout the nineteenth century and culminate in Gustav Mahler's definition: a symphony must be a world."

Well Luca, rather, I would say very well!

I do not have poetic images of these symphonies and, even for this reason, I have fully embraced those you offered in this "game."

Certainly, I consider the Eroica, Pastoral, and Ninth also much through their extra-musical aspect, but the others, including the Fifth, I see and listen to them exclusively by relating them to the context—which is always essential for me—and to their musical value.

I therefore wanted to use the marine metaphor, not so much to indicate a Symphony—certainly the First has nothing that could make one think of a sea—but as an actual journey into the symphonic form that the composer from Bonn undertook at last, when after the Quartets, only that genre remained to be tackled.

In reality, as I never tire of saying, Beethoven's musical journey must be understood as that path which, over about thirty years, led him from the late galant and classical style to visionarily preannouncing the music of the early 1900s with about a century's notice: in short, a journey with ports and a destination that are truly surprising and exceptional. This makes Beethoven a unique figure in the long History of Western Music.

The works of great composers, rather than marine landscapes, actually make me think of mountain ranges and peaks that, as in the case of Beethoven or Bach, reach Himalayan heights. For this reason, I see the late sonatas and the late Quartets as fitting into this mountainous context, whereas I cannot fully see the Ninth in this chain. Or perhaps I only see it in part. However, continuing on what Mila wrote regarding this masterpiece, I think it is undoubtedly true that «(...) perhaps precisely because of these imperfections, the Ninth seems closer to modern man and to the condition of crisis that afflicts him. (...) Much less than the other Symphonies, the Ninth risks becoming cloying. Without being fused into the perfect profile of a Hellenic medal, its content succeeds in being closer, more fraternal to contemporary man than the orgiastic content of the Seventh or the heroic content of the Fifth.(...).»

It goes without saying that for the writer here, none of the Beethoven symphonies can and will ever result in being cloying.

danielescarpetti wrote:

I do not have poetic images of these symphonies and, even for this reason, I have fully embraced those you offered in this "game".

Certainly, I consider the Eroica, Pastoral, and Ninth also well below their extra-musical aspect, but the others, including the Fifth, I see and listen to them exclusively by relating them to the context—which is always essential for me—and to their musical value.

it is better not to have poetic images.

I also think of and feel Beethoven's symphonies as absolute music. And then I fall into these things... a bit cloying.

it is true that the Ninth is a massive entity rather isolated from the rest of the chain... and you have outlined the symphonic "journey" of a thirty-year period well.

thanks again!