Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

SYMPHONY
Adagio, an Allegro of about the dimensions of
Haydn's earlier first movements, with double bar
in the middle ; then an Andante cmi sordini (the
latter a favourite device in central slow movements)
; then a Minuet and Trio, and, to end
with, a Rondo in 2-4 time, Allegro non troppo.
Others, in E(? and Bb, have much the same
distribution of movements, but without the introductory
Adagio. The style of them is rather
mild and complacent, and not approaching in
any way the interest or breadth of the works of
his gi-eat contemporaries ; but the subjects are
clear and vivacious, and the movements seem
fairly developed. Other symphony writers, who
had vogue and even celebrity about this time
and a little later, such as Kromnier (beloved by
Schubert), the Rombergs, and Eberl (at one time
preferred to ^eethoven), require no more than
passing mention. They certainly furthered
the branch of art very little, and were so
completely extinguished by the exceptionally
great writers who came close upon one another
at that time, that it is even difficult to find
traces of them.
The greatest of all masters of the Symphony
followed so close upon Haydn, that there is less
of a gap between the last of Haydn's Symphonies
and his first than there was later between some
of his own. Haydn's last was probably written
in 1795. "When Beethoven wrote his first
cannot be ascertained ;
sketches for the Finale
are found as early as the year last mentioned ;
but it was not actually produced in pixblic till
April 2, 1800. Like Schumann and Brahms
in later days, he did not turn his attention to
this branch of composition till comparatively
late.' The opus-number of his first symphony is
21. It is preceded by eleven pianoforte sonatas,
several works for pianoforte combined with
other instruments, the well-known Septuor in
Eif, and several chamber compositions for strings.
So that by the time he came to attacking
Symphony he had had considerable practice in
dealing with structural matters. The only
works in which he had tried his strength with
the orchestra were the two piano concertos—
the Bb, op. 19, which was written in or about
1795, and the major, op. 15, which was
written about 1796. He showed himself at
once a master of the orchestra but it is evident
;
that at first he stepped cautiously in expressing
himself with such resources. The first Symphony
is less free and rich in expression, and has more
elements of formality, than several works on a
smaller scale which preceded it. This is explicable
on the general ground that the orchestra
especially in those days, was not a fit exponent
of the same kind of things which could be
expressed by solo violins or the Fanoforte
The scale must necessarily be larger and broader
the intricate development and delicate or subtle
sentiment which is quite appropriate and intelligible
in the intimacy of a domestic circle, is
out of place in the more public conditions of
orchestral performance. This Beethoven must
have instinctively felt, and heappears nottohave
found the style for full expression of his personality
in either of the first symphonies. The
second is even more curious in that respect than
the first, as it comes after one of the richest and
most interesting, and another of the most perfectly
charming and original of the works of his
early period, namely the Sonatas in D minor
and Eb of op. 31. However, even in these two
symphonies there is a massiveness and breadth
and seriousness of purpose, which mark them as
products of a different and more powerfully
constituted nature than anything of the kind
produced before. At the time when the first
Symphony appeared, the opening with the chord
of the minor 7th of 0, when the key of the
piece was C major, was looked upon as extremely
daring ; and the narrow-minded pedants of the
day felt their sensitive delicacy so outraged that
some of them are said never to have forgiven it.
The case is very similar to the famous introduction
to Mozart's C major String Quartet, about
which the pedants were little less than insulting.
Beethoven had to fight for his right to express
what he felt to he true ; and he did it without
flinching ; sometimes with an appareijt relish.
But at the same time, in these early orchestral
works he seems to have experimented with
caution, and was content to follow his predecessors
in a great deal that he put down. There
are characteristic things in both symphonies ;
for instance, in the first the transitional passage
which begins at the 65th bar of the Allegro,
passing from G to G minor and then to Bb and
back again, and the corresponding passage in
the second half of the movement. The working
out of the Andante cantabile and the persistent
drum rhythm are also striking points. In the
second Symphony the dimensions of the Introduction
are unusual, and the character of all
the latter part and the freedom of the transitions
in it are decisive marks of his tendencies. The
Slow Movement has also a warmth and sense of
genuine sympathy which is new ;
the Scherzo,
though as yet short, has a totally new character
about it, and the abrupt sforzandos, and
short striking figures and still more the coda,
of the Finale, are quite his own. In the orchestra
it is worth noting that he adopted
clarinets from the first, apparently as a matter
of course ; in the first two symphonies he
continued to use only the one pair of horns, as
his predecessoi-s had done; in the third he
expanded the gi-oup to three. In the fourth
he went back to two, and did not use four till
the ninth. The disposition of his forces even
in the first two is more independent and varied
than his predecessors. The treatment of the
several groups of instruments tends to be more
distinct and appropriate, and at the same time
more perfectly assimilated in the total effect of
3d