Talk:Symphony No. 2 (Beethoven)

Additions
This article, along with Beethoven's First Symphony both need a lot of attending. We've got pages and pages on the 5th, but the 1st and 2nd are still very important in the compositional history. Letoofdune 05:05, 7 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Agreed. The Second represented a significant and (IMHO) underappreciated stride beyond the First, not only by introducing the scherzo but in the broad development and stirring coda of the first movement.  It was as great an advance over the First as the Eroica was over the Second.  DerbertBeak 05:25, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

additional information: " The first years of the new century were a time of torment and even despair for Beethoven.

In October 1802 he wrote the famous Heiligenstadt Testament, a lengthy letter to his brothers

which, though never actually sent, expressed most eloquently the trauma of increasing deafness which he had to endure.

In this moving and highly personal document Beethoven contemplates suicide, but rejects it

because his sense of mission prevails: "Only it, my art, held me back.

It seemed to me impossible to quit the world until I had produced all I felt it in me to produce;

and so I reprieved this wretched life."

Since the Symphony No 2 is contemporary with this crisis, it makes a particularly interesting

example of the relationship between a composer's life and his art.

If viewed in this way, the symphony confirms Beethoven as a classical rather than a romantic artist, for only

in the first movement's slow introduction is a sense of passionate intensity approaching personal grief to be found.

Instead the symphony, taken as a whole, is an exuberant and lively composition of not inconsiderable power:

if it proves anything, it proves that creativity can drive out despair.

A review of the premiere, which took place in the Theater an der Wien on 5th April 1803, makes interesting

reading: "The First Symphony is better than the later one because it is developed with lightness and is less forced,

while in the Second the striving for the new and unexpected is already more apparent.

However, it is obvious that both are not lacking in surprising and brilliant passages of beauty."

The Symphony opens with an extended introduction, at once eloquent and deeply felt, producing a mood of tension and mystery.

These tensions eventually release the movement proper, which abounds in vigorous activity,

and this characteristic pervades all the thematic material.

The long coda is especially dramatic, anticipating that of Beethoven's next symphony, the celebrated Eroica.

In the Larghetto the sonata principle is in evidence once again, but the mood is now far more leisurely,

and in fact the music's style recalls that of the eighteenth century serenade.

The melodic inspiration is admirable, and it is always treated with subtlety and carefully balanced textures,

emphasised by orchestral colouring.

Trumpets and drums are omitted altogether, while special attention is given to the clarinets and bassoons.

The Scherzo is lively, its drama stemming from sudden changes of rhythm, texture and dynamic,

with highly individual scoring based upon the contrasts between the different orchestral sections.

The central trio section has a more leisurely character, though in truth it is given relatively little

chance to impose its personality.

The finale abounds in liveliness and wit, its principal theme immediately setting the agenda,

until the second subject brings a more lyrical outlook in the form a quiet dialogue between woodwind and strings.

But the music's onward momentum remains paramount, and in the closing stages there is a genuinely

powerful exuberance, which in retrospect can be seen as a significant landmark in the evolution of the classical style.

" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.21.179.42 (talk) 01:36, 17 November 2008 (UTC)