![]() ![]() ![]() The Scherzo erupts with another unison D, and out of this explosion leap three-note salvos. Beethoven develops these lyric ideas at luxurious length-this is the longest movement in the symphony. The second movement, Larghetto, is not really a slow movement in the traditional sense, but a moderately paced sonata-form movement built on a profusion of themes. (Was this one of the places that bothered that early critic?) The movement drives to a wonderful climax, the sound of trumpets stinging through a splendid mass of orchestral sound, and the turn-figure propels the music to a close on the same unison D that opened the movement. Beethoven develops both these ideas, but the turn-figure dominates the movement, including a muttering, ominous modulation for strings at the end of the development. The second subject, innocent and good-natured, arrives in the wind band. Yet built into this simple figure is a vast amount of energy, and much of the development will grow out of the turn. At the Allegro con brio, Beethoven introduces as his main theme a figure that seems almost consciously athematic: There is nothing melodic about this figure for lower strings that rushes ahead, curving around a sixteenth-note turn as it goes. The slow introduction begins with a great explosion: The orchestra has a unison D, marked fortissimo, and then moves through an unexpected range of keys, its rhythms growing increasingly animated as it proceeds. The Second Symphony may take the form of an 18th-century symphony, but there are “new and surprising” elements throughout this buoyant score. These advances are evident in its span (some performances of the Second stretch to nearly 40 minutes), its bright sonority (Beethoven chooses D major, a particularly resonant key for the strings), and its atmosphere of non-stop energy. After the premiere in Vienna on April 5, 1803, a reviewer complained that “the first symphony is better than the because it is developed with a lightness and is less forced, while in the second the striving for the new and surprising is already more apparent.” That critic makes an acute point: While the Second Symphony remains very much in the mold of the symphonies of Mozart and Haydn, it represents clear progress beyond the limits of Beethoven’s well-behaved First Symphony. Historians have been unanimous in finding Beethoven’s first two symphonies conservative, but to contemporary listeners the Second Symphony sounded audacious enough. 2 in D Major, as sunny a piece of music as he ever wrote. Chief among the works he completed that despairing summer was the Symphony No. Yet from these depths, Beethoven wrote some of his most genial music, a fact that should warn us not to make easy connections between a creator’s life and his art. Evidence suggests that he considered suicide that summer. That summer the composer finally had to face the dark truth that his hearing was failing, that there was no hope, and that he would eventually go deaf. Beethoven remained there a long time, not returning to the city until October, but his lengthy stay had nothing to do with the beauty of the setting. Beethoven liked to get away from Vienna during the summer, and in April 1802 he rented rooms in the village of Heiligenstadt, which had fields and forests where he could take long walks. ![]()
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