The most perfect single movement in music

[NJ Joe]

After reading this, I put Symphony No. 1 on and listened to it three times. The whole symphony. While I enjoy the first movement of No. 1, what was a huge revelation to me was how perfect I find the first movement of No. 4 (I'm listening at my computer, which eventually hit No. 4). It has always been my favorite movement in Brahms. It is my perfect Brahms (whom I have struggled to like since 1987). How I wish everything he wrote were this exciting, this tuneful.

Thank you, NJ Joe.

Yes, a mighty achievement. Been listening to this symphony over and over again this year. And the fourth movement is pretty incredible also, if you overlook the slight corniness of the Ode to Joy-like theme. That theme doesn't dominate the movement the way its model does in the Beethoven Ninth final movement. Leaving nice spaces for the Swiss mountain horn theme, which listening to I nearly ran my car off the road the other day, it is so beautiful and moving, even after hearing it a thousand times. And the way this guy writes variations that unfold logicallv but at the same time with startling turns, and goes from dark to light and back again, and throws up a mountain of rhythms from a tiny scrap of a melodic idea. and quiets down again, and slows down, and all of a sudden we are in the saddle galloping again to the conclusion...yet it's all completely inevitable....in a way he's really utterly unique.

Just saw these posts now.  Thanks to both of you for acknowledging!

[NorthNYMark]

I don't have the musical knowledge to be able to make any claims about technical perfection, but among the single movements that have resonated most powerfully with me (and therefore at least feel somehow "perfect") are:

- The "Heiliger Dankgesang" from Beethoven's 15th string quartet (not a very original choice, I know, but this has to be one of the most breathtakingly beautiful works ever composed);

-the first movement of Brahms's 1st Piano Concerto (in which I can get so swept up that I often feel the need to stop the music when the movement is finished, as it feels like an entire symphony of sorts);

-the first movement of Schubert's 15th string quartet (almost a guilty pleasure in its over-the-top, lush lyricism);

-the second movement of Beethoven's 5th symphony (often overlooked in discussions of this warhorse, this is the beautifully-constructed movement that will often make or break an interpretation for me);

-the first and fourth movements of Brahms's 4th symphony (I'm rarely if ever not in the mood for either of these somewhat  brooding movements);

-the first movement of Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra (which is staggering is its color and inventiveness);

-the second movement of Shostakovich's 2nd string quartet (a deeply melancholic recitative, which reminds me in places of the rock group King Crimson's startling "Providence" improv--the third and fourth movements are pretty close to perfection for me as well--the version by the Mandelring Quartett brings out the most in its haunting qualities, I believe);

-the final movement of Shostakovich's 4th Symphony (I'm not really sure the entrie movement feels entirely "perfect" to me, but the mysterious finale is so extraordinary that it makes the movement unforgettable, IMHO).

I'm sure there are others that I'm either forgetting or have yet to hear, but these are the ones that would be in contention for me.  If I absolutely had to pick just one, though, it would probably be the "Heiliger Dankgesang."

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Alpine Symphony!

+1000! ...although tecnically alpine symphony consists of 22 movements, even though played without breaks.

[(poco) Sforzando]

+1000! ...although tecnically alpine symphony consists of 22 movements, even though played without breaks.

Shakes head in disbelief, as I don't think this bloated and diffuse work even very good for Richard Strauss. But pleased to see a lot of late Beethoven here, even though I can't think of a more dubious choice than the highly problematic Ninth Symphony. I will vote for the third movement from the Bb major quartet, op. 130.

(That said, I think the op. 130 as a whole works only if the substitute finale is used rather than the Grosse Fuge. For once Beethoven's critics were right: the GF is too large, independent, and self-contained to serve as a suitable finale for the quartet. The charming new finale both in dimensions and tone works far better, and I don't care for the current fad of returning to the GF in performance.)

Some years ago I wrote a little post on 130/3 that strikes me as a little pretentious now, a little effete. But I'll copy it in nonetheless.

I know nothing more perfect in music. It is worlds removed from the "heroic" or "heaven-storming" Beethoven of the middle period. If it has an ancestor at all in his music, it may be the second movement of the eighth symphony, but only vaguely. Instead, this exquisite piece is almost Mendelssohnian in its delicacy and fantasy. It is light as air, as fragile as a butterfly wing, as gossamer as a rainbow. "Poco scherzando," Beethoven marks it -- a little bit joking. But how little? It is Beethoven's Mona Lisa, smiling slightly at us, tempting us in vain to define its elusive mood.

It never rises above a mezzo forte in dynamics and has no sharp accents, but virtually every phrase is nuanced and individual. Puffs of scales, trills, grace notes, and little cantabile figures decorate its airy frame. Nowhere else has Beethoven written for the four voices of the quartet so independently and equally. A model of civilized conversation where all have something to say, and something to say in response to the others.

Some pieces of music reach such perfection that they seem to sum up all that mortal man can accomplish. So with this piece, beyond all human care and woe, the perfect image of grace and play.

[Ken B]

Sforzando, Speaking of the Cereal Symphony:

I don't think this bloated and diffuse work even very good for Richard Strauss.

Sing to me my angel of music!

I suppose it's too much to hope that you find La Mer a trifle dull?

[Karl Henning]

(That said, I think the op. 130 as a whole works only if the substitute finale is used rather than the Grosse Fuge. For once Beethoven's critics were right: the GF is too large, independent, and self-contained to serve as a suitable finale for the quartet. The charming new finale both in dimensions and tone works far better, and I don't care for the current fad of returning to the GF in performance.)

Agreed.

But, ye gods, is there truly a fad of swapping the GF back in as the finale of the quartet?  Mon dieu!

[Jo498]

I think it's more than a fad; it seems to have been the dominant practice since I started following classical music in the late 1980s. I think there are good arguments for both choices and I might even favor the fugue but the replacement finale tends to get "orphaned" which is a pity because it is a brilliant and funny piece.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I suppose it's too much to hope that you find La Mer a trifle dull?

Depends on what you mean by a trifle, but I'm afraid it's too much. The finale might fit that description, but the opening movement, especially from the midpoint where the divided cellos and horns take over, seems to me altogether miraculous.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

But, ye gods, is there truly a fad of swapping the GF back in as the finale of the quartet?  Mon dieu!

When I heard the Pacifica Quartet do it a couple years ago, they played the GF as the finale. And I was damn glad they did, since it's such a badass piece to hear live.

[Karl Henning]

. . . since it's such a badass piece to hear live.

Conceded.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Conceded.

Ditto. Problem is, you don't get to hear the substitute finale, which unlike the GF can't stand on its own. One group I heard tried the strategy of playing the GF as finale, then the new finale as an encore. And I remember one old LP set (Budapest?) where one side had the Cavatina + Fugue, another the Cavatina + New Finale.

In his excellent study of the quartets, Joseph Kerman (who is not entirely satisfied with either version) writes: "The Fugue runs the danger of trivializing the experience of the other movements, but the new Finale runs the danger of seeming trivial itself." Given the appearance of several bagatelle-like movements in this opus (the Bb minor scherzo and G major minuet), I think the second of these is the more satisfactory alternative.

One interesting feature of the new finale is how, like the Fugue, it transitions from the Cavatina via a unison G — which in the new finale becomes interpreted as V of II, while the furious opening bars of the fugue (as well as some later sections) come as close as Beethoven ever did to atonality. This difference nicely points up the distinction in procedure between the two finales.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Given the appearance of several bagatelle-like movements in this opus (the Bb minor scherzo and G major minuet), I think the second of these is the more satisfactory alternative.

I think one could make a nice classical quartet out of Op. 130 just by playing mvts. 1, 3, 5, and the substitute finale. Problem solved!

[Florestan]

Joseph Kerman (who is not entirely satisfied with either version)

Too bad he lived 200 years too late. I´m sure his advice would have helped Beethoven to write an entirely satisfactory version. 

[(poco) Sforzando]

Too bad he lived 200 years too late. I´m sure his advice would have helped Beethoven to write an entirely satisfactory version. 

Oh come now, Florestan. As a professional critic Kerman is doing nothing more than what any of us do (such as in this thread) when commenting on what we see as the strengths and weaknesses of various pieces. Only difference is, he's published and we are not.

[Florestan]

Oh come now, Florestan. As a professional critic Kerman is doing nothing more than what any of us do (such as in this thread) when commenting on what we see as the strengths and weaknesses of various pieces. Only difference is, he's published and we are not.

That´s all true and fine, but "not being entirely satisfied with either versions" boils down to "knowing better than Beethoven himself" --- and with all due respect to professional critics, I think that´s rubbish. 

[Jo498]

Actually, Kerman's remarks are a bit more subtle than "not satisfied" (which sforzando certainly knows) He is not completely convinced but he makes a pretty interesting case about the "dissociative" nature of the whole thing, bringing together so disparate movements that even an Uber-Finale like the Fugue cannot forge it into a plausible unity.
I do not remember if he explicitly mentions the option to take the piece with the replacement finale as an apotheosis of the divertimento following Mozart's great trio K 563. But the first movement is IMO to weird for that (or for Apollinian Torso's suggestion).

It is an extreme case but it is not all that different from some other things in late Beethoven. Movements like the second ones of either op.106 or op.110 could also be said to be "trivialized" by their surroundings, similarly the little alla marcia in op.132. A major point of such pieces, also the Diabellis and the 9th finale, seems to be the integration of seemingly trivial things that are immediately followed by things subtle and sublime.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Actually, Kerman's remarks are a bit more subtle than "not satisfied" (which sforzando certainly knows) He is not completely convinced but he makes a pretty interesting case about the "dissociative" nature of the whole thing, bringing together so disparate movements that even an Uber-Finale like the Fugue cannot forge it into a plausible unity.
I do not remember if he explicitly mentions the option to take the piece with the replacement finale as an apotheosis of the divertimento following Mozart's great trio K 563. But the first movement is IMO to weird for that (or for Apollinian Torso's suggestion).

It is an extreme case but it is not all that different from some other things in late Beethoven. Movements like the second ones of either op.106 or op.110 could also be said to be "trivialized" by their surroundings, similarly the little alla marcia in op.132. A major point of such pieces, also the Diabellis and the 9th finale, seems to be the integration of seemingly trivial things that are immediately followed by things subtle and sublime.

Yes, I know that, Jo, but I did not feel up to summarizing Kerman's arguments in detail. As for Florestan's comment, surely Jo's second paragraph is of a piece with the point I made earlier. It is not a matter of "knowing better than Beethoven," but rather of saying that there are times in the scholar's opinion when even he may not have altogether succeeded in realizing his aims. Why should that be so objectionable? Personally I do feel the rondo finale succeeds very well as an ending to 130, and in my younger days I believe it was generally heard that way. And I think the alla marcia in 132, coming right after the Heiliger Dankgesang, seems deliberately intended to jar the listener by a striking juxtaposition.

[Ken B]

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674366053

[(poco) Sforzando]

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674366053

This is a well-known book from 1927 that presents what we would today call bowdlerized versions of some Shakespeare's plays to suit 17- and 18th-century tastes. For example, Nahum Tate's version of King Lear creates a happy ending where the good are rewarded for their virtue, Lear and Cordelia survive, and she is married off to Edgar. It really has no relation to Kerman's work, which is a scholarly attempt to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of two different versions that came from the composer's own hand.

But while we don't see that kind of thing with Shakespeare these days, we still see all kinds of ways in which directors and actors try to twist Shakespeare to their own liking. Leaving out questions of interpretation, we rarely see the plays performed at anything like their printed length (in fact there is a serious scholarly theory that some of the so-called "bad" quartos represent actual performing texts running for about two hours, while the printed "good" quarto and folio texts are longer versions that Shakespeare intended for reading). We find scenes omitted, transposed, cut heavily, with often questionable results. I remember a Hamlet from a few years ago where all the theological references to the possible demonic nature of the ghost were removed (such as "The spirit that I have seen may be the devil"), and a Hamlet playing in NYC right now goes that better by leaving out the ghost completely. And then we get all the No-Fear Shakespeare intended to make Shakespeare comprehensible to modern audiences by stripping the plays of their original language:

Ah, I wish my dirty flesh could melt away into a vapor, or that God had not made a law against suicide. Oh God, God! How tired, stale, and pointless life is to me. Damn it! It's like a garden that no one's taking care of, and that's growing wild. Only nasty weeds grow in it now. I can't believe it's come to this. My father's only been dead for two months—no, not even two. Such an excellent king, as superior to my uncle as a god is to a beast, and so loving toward my mother that he kept the wind from blowing too hard on her face. Oh God, do I have to remember that? She would hang on to him, and the more she was with him the more she wanted to be with him; she couldn't get enough of him. Yet even so, within a month of my father's death (I don't even want to think about it. Oh women! You are so weak!), even before she had broken in the shoes she wore to his funeral, crying like crazy—even an animal would have mourned its mate longer than she did!—there she was marrying my uncle, my father's brother, who's about as much like my father as I'm like Hercules. Less than a month after my father's death, even before the tears on her cheeks had dried, she remarried. Oh, so quick to jump into a bed of incest! That's not good, and no good can come of it either. But my heart must break in silence, since I can't mention my feelings aloud.

Damn it! That's not good. I'd rather have Nahum Tate.

[Ken B]

This is a well-known book from 1927 that presents what we would today call bowdlerized versions of some Shakespeare's plays to suit 17- and 18th-century tastes. For example, Nahum Tate's version of King Lear creates a happy ending where the good are rewarded for their virtue, Lear and Cordelia survive, and she is married off to Edgar. It really has no relation to Kerman's work, which is a scholarly attempt to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of two different versions that came from the composer's own hand.

But while we don't see that kind of thing with Shakespeare these days, we still see all kinds of ways in which directors and actors try to twist Shakespeare to their own liking. Leaving out questions of interpretation, we rarely see the plays performed at anything like their printed length (in fact there is a serious scholarly theory that some of the so-called "bad" quartos represent actual performing texts running for about two hours, while the printed "good" quarto and folio texts are longer versions that Shakespeare intended for reading). We find scenes omitted, transposed, cut heavily, with often questionable results. I remember a Hamlet from a few years ago where all the theological references to the possible demonic nature of the ghost were removed (such as "The spirit that I have seen may be the devil"), and a Hamlet playing in NYC right now goes that better by leaving out the ghost completely. And then we get all the No-Fear Shakespeare intended to make Shakespeare comprehensible to modern audiences by stripping the plays of their original language:

Damn it! That's not good. I'd rather have Nahum Tate.

I remember reading some of Colley Cibber's bowdlerizations. I prefer that to No Fear too.
It's a form of cultural narcissism really. Conform the past to our prejudices.