Symphony No. 7 (Beethoven)

Instrumentation

The symphony is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets in A, two bassoons, two horns in A (E and D in the inner movements), two trumpets in D, timpani, and strings.

Although there is no contrabassoon part in the score, a memorandum from Beethoven himself shows that two contrabassoons were used at the 1814 concert to add strength to the bass parts.

Form

There are four movements:

1. Poco sostenuto – Vivace (A major)
2. Allegretto (A minor)
3. Presto – Assai meno presto (trio) (F major, Trio in D major)
4. Allegro con brio (A major)

A typical performance lasts approximately 33–45 minutes depending on the choice of tempo, and whether the repeats in the 1st, 3rd, and 4th movements are omitted.

The work as a whole is known for its use of rhythmic devices suggestive of a dance, such as dotted rhythm and repeated rhythmic figures. It is also tonally subtle, making use of the tensions between the key centres of A, C and F. For instance, the first movement is in A major but has repeated episodes in C major and F major. In addition, the second movement is in A minor with episodes in A major, and the third movement, a scherzo, is in F major.

I. Poco sostenuto – Vivace

The first movement starts with a long, expanded introduction marked Poco sostenuto (metronome mark: = 69) that is noted for its long ascending scales and a cascading series of applied dominants that facilitates modulations to C major and F major. From the last episode in F major, the movement transitions to Vivace through a series of no fewer than sixty-one repetitions of the note E.

The Vivace (. = 104) is in sonata form, and is dominated by lively dance-like dotted rhythms, sudden dynamic changes, and abrupt modulations. The first theme of the Vivace is shown below.

The development section opens in C major and contains extensive episodes in F major. The movement finishes with a long coda, which starts similarly as the development section. The coda contains a famous twenty-bar passage consisting of a two-bar motif repeated ten times to the background of a grinding four octave deep pedal point of an E.

A typical performance of this movement lasts approximately 10–16 minutes.

II. Allegretto

The second movement in A minor has a tempo marking of allegretto ("a little lively"), making it slow only in comparison to the other three movements. This movement was encored at the premiere and has remained popular since. Its reliance on the string section makes it a good example of Beethoven's advances in orchestral writing for strings, building on the experimental innovations of Haydn.

The movement is structured in ternary form. It begins with the main melody played by the violas and cellos, an ostinato (repeated rhythmic figure, or ground bass, or passacaglia of a quarter note, two eighth notes and two quarter notes).

This melody is then played by the second violins while the violas and cellos play a second melody, described by George Grove as, "like a string of beauties hand-in-hand, each afraid to lose her hold on her neighbours". The first violins then take the first melody while the second violins take the second. This progression culminates with the wind section playing the first melody while the first violin plays the second.

After this, the music changes from A minor to A major as the clarinets take a calmer melody to the background of light triplets played by the violins. This section ends thirty-seven bars later with a quick descent of the strings on an A minor scale, and the first melody is resumed and elaborated upon in a strict fugato.

A typical performance of this movement lasts approximately 7–10 minutes.

III. Presto – Assai meno presto - Trio

The beginning of the scherzo

The beginning of the trio

The third movement is a scherzo in F major and trio in D major. Here, the trio (based on an Austrian pilgrims' hymn) is played twice rather than once. This expansion of the usual A–B–A structure of ternary form into A–B–A–B–A was quite common in other works of Beethoven of this period, such as his Fourth Symphony, Pastoral Symphony, and String Quartet Op. 59 No. 2.

A typical performance of this movement lasts approximately 7–9 minutes.

IV. Allegro con brio

The last movement is in sonata form. According to music historian Glenn Stanley, Beethoven "exploited the possibility that a string section can realize both angularity and rhythmic contrast if used as an obbligato-like background", particularly in the coda, which contains an example, rare in Beethoven's music, of the dynamic marking fff.

In his book Beethoven and his Nine Symphonies, Sir George Grove wrote, "The force that reigns throughout this movement is literally prodigious, and reminds one of Carlyle's hero Ram Dass, who has 'fire enough in his belly to burn up the entire world.'" Donald Tovey, writing in his Essays in Musical Analysis, commented on this movement's "Bacchic fury" and many other writers have commented on its whirling dance-energy. The main theme is a precise duple time variant of the instrumental ritornello in Beethoven's own arrangement of the Irish folk-song "Save me from the grave and wise", No. 8 of his Twelve Irish Folk Songs, WoO 154.

A typical performance of this movement lasts approximately 6–9 minutes.

Reception

Critics and listeners have often felt stirred or inspired by the Seventh Symphony. For instance, one program-note author writes:

… the final movement zips along at an irrepressible pace that threatens to sweep the entire orchestra off its feet and around the theater, caught up in the sheer joy of performing one of the most perfect symphonies ever written.

Composer and music author Antony Hopkins says of the symphony:

The Seventh Symphony perhaps more than any of the others gives us a feeling of true spontaneity; the notes seem to fly off the page as we are borne along on a floodtide of inspired invention. Beethoven himself spoke of it fondly as "one of my best works". Who are we to dispute his judgment?

Another admirer, composer Richard Wagner, referring to the lively rhythms which permeate the work, called it the "apotheosis of the dance".

On the other hand, admiration for the work has not been universal. Friedrich Wieck, who was present during rehearsals, said that the consensus, among musicians and laymen alike, was that Beethoven must have composed the symphony in a drunken state; and the conductor Thomas Beecham commented on the third movement: "What can you do with it? It's like a lot of yaks jumping about."

The oft-repeated claim that Carl Maria von Weber considered the chromatic bass line in the coda of the first movement evidence that Beethoven was "ripe for the madhouse" seems to have been the invention of Beethoven's first biographer, Anton Schindler. His possessive adulation of Beethoven is well-known, and he was criticised by his contemporaries for his obsessive attacks on Weber. According to John Warrack, Weber's biographer, Schindler was characteristically evasive when defending Beethoven, and there is "no shred of concrete evidence" that Weber ever made the remark.