Beethoven: Last great classicist ... or first great romantic?

[karlhenning]

Good idea. Without the lesser lights how can we appreciate Beethoven's greatness?

Do you really believe that?

[Brian]

Do you really believe that?

I guess by this logic we should be thankful for George Bush, because he made Lincoln a better president.

[jwinter]

Sorry, I can't vote on this one.  It's an unanswerable question.  It's like asking in a popular music context: Is Bob Dylan folk? pop? rocK? country? blues?  He's all those things, and none of them.

I think one of the earliest posts on the thread nailed it fairly well.  Beethoven was trained in, and composed in, the classical style.  As he developed, he assimilated into his work those aspects of his culture (in this case the emerging romantic movement) that suited his purposes, thereby infusing his take on the classical style with romantic elements to an increasing degree.

One could argue that by the time of the late quartets and sonatas he had crossed a line, so that what we have is early romantic music informed by touches of classicism (instead of the other way around), but that's just a matter of semantics.  To varying degrees throughout his life Beethoven is a fusion of the old and new, a revolutionary who lived in revolutionary times.  Like all great artists he builds on what has come before, and informs and inspires what will come later. 

I think that's one key to explaining his "greatness" -- some of us here like 20th & 21st century music and dislike Haydn or Mozart, some love Bach and hate Chopin, but nearly everybody agrees on Beethoven.  When people point to music that they don't understand or find dissonant and say that it's on the fringe or out of the mainstream, I think Beethoven often represents the unspoken center to which classical music is still compared and from which ideas and perceptions continue to flow.   

[Herman]

I think that's one key to explaining his "greatness" -- some of us here like 20th & 21st century music and dislike Haydn or Mozart, some love Bach and hate Chopin, but nearly everybody agrees on Beethoven.  When people point to music that they don't understand or find dissonant and say that it's on the fringe or out of the mainstream, I think Beethoven often represents the unspoken center to which classical music is still compared and from which ideas and perceptions continue to flow.   

I 100% disagree with this. I think Beethoven's just fine, I listen to his stuff every once in a while, but he's definitely not the "unspoken center". That would be Haydn, for be unspoken about largely. I think this whole idea of classical music being a sort of preparation for and elaboration of LvB is a very old-fashioned and damaging idea.

[Ten thumbs]

Good idea. Without the lesser lights how can we appreciate Beethoven's greatness?

I 100% disagree with this. I think Beethoven's just fine, I listen to his stuff every once in a while, but he's definitely not the "unspoken center". That would be Haydn, for be unspoken about largely. I think this whole idea of classical music being a sort of preparation for and elaboration of LvB is a very old-fashioned and damaging idea.

This is more or less what I meant. Without historical context, wildly inaccurate ideas develop concerning the works of major composers like Beethoven. These are exaggerated even further by the popular media as opposed to academic research. One has the impression that they were giants constantly shocking their contemporaries with daring new ideas. This was not the case. There were nearly always other composers trying out these same ideas. It's just that these other composers were not as good at it.

[Florestan]

All things considered, are we today able to fully appreciate the kind of shock and awe that Eroica provoked on its premiere? I think not. We take for granted things that during Beethoven's time were as revolutionary in music as Napoleon was in politics..

[Herman]

All things considered, are we today able to fully appreciate the kind of shock and awe that Eroica provoked on its premiere? I think not. We take for granted things that during Beethoven's time were as revolutionary in music as Napoleon was in politics..

So what?

It would be interesting to research when in the 20th Century this point about breakthrough works of art became so all-important. The same thing has been said about Stravinsky's Sacre so many times it's become the biggest cliche AFAIC in music commentary. Mozart's Dissonanzen quartet is not the most intriguing of his ten mature quartets, not by a long shot, and yet, because there's this quate about some contemporaries being puzzled about the chromaticism of the opening bars, this is the piece we all know the name of. One of the reasons Haydn has plenty of reputation but does not get performed as much is because of this silly meme that great art should stun people first.

It's largely a journalistic point, and I suspect it came into heave use after the sixties when classical music had to compete with pop music more and more, and so one strategy was turning CM composers into kind of pop musicians too, who had to play louder and faster than last year's band. When I listen to a LvB symphony (which doesn't happen very often) it's usually nr 4. Not nearly as revolutionary as nr 3, arguably. Why should that matter to me?

[Florestan]

So what?

So nothing. I just made a historical point. It has nothing to do with your liking or disliking Beethoven.

[Ten thumbs]

So nothing. I just made a historical point. It has nothing to do with your liking or disliking Beethoven.

Certainly not. Most of us love Beethoven but who exactly expressed that shock and awe? Was it the critics, or the audience or other composers? To take another case, the premiere of his 9th symphony was a great success. People no doubt wondered at this new major opus but that hardly amounts to shock and awe and neither is it evident in the reaction of young composers such as Mendelssohn. Even old-timers like Clementi took it in their stride.

[Brian]

Certainly not. Most of us love Beethoven but who exactly expressed that shock and awe? Was it the critics, or the audience or other composers? To take another case, the premiere of his 9th symphony was a great success. People no doubt wondered at this new major opus but that hardly amounts to shock and awe and neither is it evident in the reaction of young composers such as Mendelssohn. Even old-timers like Clementi took it in their stride.

The "shock and awe" of the 3rd Symphony's premiere, by contrast, is evident in the reaction of listeners like Haydn...

[Herman]

So nothing. I just made a historical point. It has nothing to do with your liking or disliking Beethoven.

As I was trying to indicate, I'm not really sure you are making a historical point. I suspect this notion of Beethoven's shock and awe is rather more a thing people like to say about him since some point in the mid-20th century.

It's not unlikely there were other musical productions in the classical - romantic era that shocked the audience, it was a time of experiments after all. We just don't know about these pieces because they didn't withstand the test of time, as music to please the ear the way the Eroica did. So what this could tell us is that the shock and awe part is not the critical part of LvB's Eroica.

[Florestan]

The "shock and awe" of the 3rd Symphony's premiere, by contrast, is evident in the reaction of listeners like Haydn...

Spot on. Thank you.

[jwinter]

I 100% disagree with this. I think Beethoven's just fine, I listen to his stuff every once in a while, but he's definitely not the "unspoken center". That would be Haydn, for be unspoken about largely. I think this whole idea of classical music being a sort of preparation for and elaboration of LvB is a very old-fashioned and damaging idea.

Beethoven is not the unspoken center for you, nor should he be.  Nor should any other single composer, for that matter -- your tastes and experiences as a listener are far broader than most (at least judging from your posts here over the years), so of course you don't see all music in relation to Beethoven or Chopin or anybody else.  Neither do I, nor do most posters here, I'd imagine. 

I think I may not have made myself clear -- I certainly don't think that all classical music is a "preparation for and elaboration of LvB."   What I meant to convey is that when many people say they don't understand modern music, what they really mean, to a large extent, is that it doesn't meet their preconceived notions of what classical music is supposed to sound like, and for many people, that's Beethoven.  For lots of casual listeners, "classical music" is shorthand for something that sounds like Beethoven, or in a broader sense, something that sounds like it fits into the Bach-Mozart-Beethoven-Brahms-Tchaikovsky continuum of "The Great Composers," with LvB dead center in the list.  You and I and most of the folks on this forum wouldn't agree with that, for lots of reasons, but there it is.  I was not suggesting that modern music should be evaluated in relation to Beethoven, merely that it often is.

I think it's inarguable that Beethoven drew heavily on Haydn and many of his other predecessors, and that LvB's influence in turn is strongly felt in Brahms and many other later composers -- but I don't consider that to be the great unifying theory of music or anything like that.  One can also hear the influence of Bach in Shostakovich, or Tchaikovsky in Prokofiev, or Chopin in Rachmaninoff.  There are any number of different chains one can move along, that interconnect and branch off in many different directions, rather like that old James Burke TV show Connections.  Objectively, there's no one gold standard that's better than all the rest and against which all music should be measured.   But you have to admit, Beethoven does serve that kind of purpose for many -- threads like this are clear evidence that throwing Beethoven's name into a discussion can get folks exceedingly worked up, rather like comparing another band to The Beatles or another writer to Shakespeare. 

And yes, I realize that none of the above is particularly new or insightful; but as I am probably already known around here as "that guy with all the Beethoven CDs," I just wanted to make sure that I don't get written off as a mild crank on the subject.   I have not written "Beethoven is God" on any restroom walls for at least a fortnight. 

[Herman]

 What I meant to convey is that when many people say they don't understand modern music, what they really mean, to a large extent, is that it doesn't meet their preconceived notions of what classical music is supposed to sound like, and for many people, that's Beethoven.  For lots of casual listeners, "classical music" is shorthand for something that sounds like Beethoven,

you may be right, thanks for the explanation.

[Ten thumbs]

The "shock and awe" of the 3rd Symphony's premiere, by contrast, is evident in the reaction of listeners like Haydn...

That does perhaps explain it. Haydn was 72 that year.

[c#minor]

He wrote in both styles but he wasn't a great "Classical" composer, good but not great. He was however a great Romantic Composer

[Kuhlau]

He wrote in both styles but he wasn't a great "Classical" composer, good but not great. He was however a great Romantic Composer

That's an interesting perspective ... one I shall ruminate on.

FK

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Both. His earliest period is tied with classicism but from Eroica onwards it is romantic. You could say that Eroica was the work that kickstarted the romantic movement.

[EigenUser]

I'm not well-versed in Beethoven's music at all, but from what I've heard it seems like he could be compared to Schoenberg. Just like Schoenberg's early work (i.e. "Verklarte Nacht" or even the more radical "Chamber Symphony No. 1") pushes the limits romanticism by pushing the limits of tonality, Beethoven's work pushes the limits of classicism by going beyond diatonic writing and writing more chromatically.

[mszczuj]

There could be no doubt, pure classicist, conscious and inspired, who has nothing to do with this naive and ridiculous (though nice and colourful) romantic decadency.