The Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92 was composed by Beethoven between 1811 and 1812, while improving his health in the Bohemian spa town of Teplice. At its première, Beethoven was noted as remarking that it was one of his best works.

I. Poco sostenuto – Vivace (0:00)
II. Allegretto (13:42)
III. Presto – Assai meno presto (21:52)
IV. Allegro con brio (31:16)

The work was premiered with Beethoven himself conducting in Vienna on 8 December 1813 at a charity concert for soldiers wounded in the Battle of Hanau. In Beethoven's address to the participants, the motives are openly named: "We are moved by nothing but pure patriotism and the joyful sacrifice of our powers for those who have sacrificed so much for us."

The program also included the patriotic work Wellington's Victory, exalting the victory of the British over Napoleon's France. The orchestra was led by Beethoven's friend Ignaz Schuppanzigh and included some of the finest musicians of the day: Louis Spohr, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Mauro Giuliani, & Antonio Salieri.

The piece was very well received, such that the audience demanded the Allegretto movement be encored immediately. Spohr made particular mention of Beethoven's antics on the rostrum ("as a sforzando occurred, he tore his arms with a great vehemence asunder ... at the entrance of a forte he jumped in the air"), and "the friends of Beethoven made arrangements for a repetition of the concert" by which "Beethoven was extricated from his pecuniary difficulties".

The first movement starts with a long, expanded introduction marked Poco sostenuto 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 is in sonata form, and is dominated by lively dance-like rhythms (such as dotted rhythms), sudden dynamic changes, and abrupt modulations. In particular, 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 a grinding four octave deep pedal point of an E.

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 a double variation form. This melody is then played by the second violins while the violas and cellos play a second melody, described by George Grove as "a string of beauties hand-in-hand". 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 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.

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.

hIn the last movement 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 fortississimo. Donald Tovey, commented on this movement's "Bacchic fury" and many other writers have commented on its whirling dance-energy.

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

******

If you like this video subscribe to my channel. There are many more videos like this one lovingly prepared and edited by myself for your enjoyment! Check out my extensive playlist collections as well.

свернуть