8

THE SYMPHONIC IDEAL

Familiar as the ‘Eroica’ is (even over familiar), it is still easy to underestimate the symphony’s sheer intellectual achievement and the shock it caused. Beethoven was quite aware of its greatness. Later in his life he admitted it was his favourite of all his symphonies. Back in 1805, regardless of whether they liked it or not, most people who heard its early performances in Vienna had to concede that it opened up new musical terrain. From then on the Beethoven symphony became a genre of its own, different in kind (and not merely in length) from its Classical predecessors. Yet the shock of the new prevented many from seeing how firmly rooted the ‘Eroica’ still was in traditional forms; and for the next century people would argue about whether it still qualified as a greatly expanded Classical symphony or was, on the other hand, the first example of a Romantic symphony. Beethoven’s creative struggle from about 1800 onwards was increasingly concerned with form: specifically, with how to shape music—and especially a large-scale work such as a symphony—in a way that would retain its coherence while expressing something radically new and personal.

We now think of the high period of the Classical style that owed so much to sonata form as being that of Haydn, Mozart and the early Beethoven. Beethoven’s ‘early’ period covers roughly the fifteen years between 1785 (the year of his three piano quartets when he was still fourteen) and 1800 when he was a lionized pianist-composer. At that time the compositions that most helped him make a name and a living remained approachably within the late Classical style of Mozart and Haydn, such as his first and brilliant Op. 18 set of string quartets (1798–1800) and the tuneful if vapid 1799 Septet, Op. 20, a work Beethoven later came to loathe for its enduring popularity even though ironically it was probably his bestselling work in his own lifetime. By the same token his first two symphonies (1800–1802) and first three piano concertos (1795–1802) were well received. Still falling within the recognizable Classical confines in terms of their length and overall structure they nevertheless contained effects and ideas unconventional and daring enough to sound fresh and individual while not being too challenging for most listeners. Increasingly, though, Beethoven was dissatisfied with the limitations of the form he had inherited. It was obvious to him that Haydn and Mozart had reached independent pinnacles of perfection in their symphonies that effectively made their brands of orchestral sonata form something of a ne plus ultra, if not a dead end, even though dozens of lesser composers were still aspiring to that symphonic style. If Beethoven knew anything, he knew he was not a lesser composer.