thumb|Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven is one of the most influential figures in the history of classical music. Since his lifetime, when he was "universally accepted as the greatest living composer", Beethoven's music has remained among the most performed, discussed and reviewed in the Western world. Scholarly journals are devoted to analysis of his life and work. He has been the subject of numerous biographies and monographs, and his music was the driving force behind the development of Schenkerian analysis. He is widely considered among the most important composers, and along with Bach and Mozart, his music is the most frequently recorded.
Beethoven expanded the formal and emotional scope – not to mention length – of nearly every genre in which he wrote. While he is most famous for his heightening of the symphonic form, Beethoven also had a crucial influence on the piano sonata, violin sonata, string quartet and piano concerto, among several others. Only in the realm of vocal composition – opera and the mass – was his effect on later generations muted.
Beethoven's stylistic innovations bridge the Classical and Romantic periods. The works of his early period brought the Classical form to its highest expressive level, expanding in formal, structural, and harmonic terms the musical idiom developed by predecessors such as Mozart and Haydn. The works of his middle period were more forward-looking, contributing to the musical language and thinking of the Romantic era, inspiring composers such as Franz Schubert, Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner, and Johannes Brahms. His late period works were characterized by formal, harmonic, and structural experimentation at the highest level, often pointing toward contrapuntal tendencies and microscopic textures, as well as an increasingly introverted compositional outlook. Though rightly credited as a major harbinger of the Romantic era in music that followed, Beethoven never abandoned fundamental aesthetical paradigms and a generally objective artistic philosophy characterizing musical Classicism to the same extent that later composers such as Berlioz or even Schubert did.
Overview
Beethoven's musical output has traditionally been divided into three periods, a classification that dates to the first years after the composer's death in 1827 and was formalised with the publication of Wilhelm von Lenz's influential work Beethoven et ses trois styles (Beethoven and his Three Styles). Lenz proposed that Beethoven's creative output be marked by three periods of distinct stylistic personality and he identified specific compositions as milestones for each period. Lenz considers that the first period opens with the Piano Trios, Op. 1, and culminates with the performances in 1800 of his first symphony and Septet. The second period spans the period from the publication of his Moonlight Sonata to the Piano Sonata in E minor, Op. 90 in 1814. The last period covers Beethoven's works after Op. 90 to his death in 1827.
Although later scholars have called into question such a simplistic categorisation, it is still widely used. Extensive subsequent analytical consideration of Lenz's thesis has resulted in a slight revision of his original dates and broad consensus regarding Beethoven's three periods is as follows:
- a formative period that extends to 1802
- a middle period from 1802 to 1814,
- a late period from 1814 to 1827
Generally, each period demonstrates characteristic stylistic evolutions in Beethoven's musical language and preoccupations as well as important developments in the composer's personal life. Some, however, were published with opus numbers later on such as several compositions in the Eight Songs, op. 52. Although these were compiled between 1803 and 1805 and published in the latter year, were written during his early years in Vienna and Bonn.
Second, a number of more substantial and original works were written after Beethoven moved to Vienna and commenced studies with the famed Austrian composer and leading musical figure of the period, Joseph Haydn. As the 1790s progressed, his mastery of the Viennese style became increasingly clear, and his works became more and more experimental, especially in genres like the piano sonata. By the period 1798–1802, his piano sonatas had become increasingly more experimental, but his Op. 18 string quartets and 1st symphony are more conservative than the sonatas, probably a symptom of his relative inexperience in composing in these genres in comparison to the piano sonata.]]
With the exception of a visit to Vienna in 1787, Beethoven lived in Bonn until 1792, where he worked in the court chapel of the Elector of Cologne. His stints in the court chapel exposed him to a wide variety of musical style, not just from Vienna, but also from Venice and Rome. In addition to this, he played the viola in the orchestra of the Bonn Court Theatre from 1789, which exposed him to operas like Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. Some forty compositions from this period are extant, including ten early works written by the young adolescent Beethoven when he was being promoted as a child prodigy performer and published as a result of the efforts of his teacher. It has been suggested that Beethoven largely abandoned composition between 1785 and 1790, possibly because his superiors in the palace chapel and court theatre did not compose music for the court, and thus not providing an example for the young Beethoven, and also because of negative critical reaction to his first published works. A 1784 review in Johann Nikolaus Forkel's influential Musikalischer Almanack compared Beethoven's efforts to those of rank beginners. Beethoven's childhood compositions had been published until 1784. This is significant because, at this point, he no longer needed to be taught by a tutor, who would have influenced his musical style.
In general, Beethoven's earliest compositions show his struggles to master the prevailing classical style, both in structural and idiomatic terms. Several works, including two he later published, show the incipient signs of his later individual style: twelve Lieder, several of which he published in 1805 as Opus 52, his Wind Octet, later published as Opus 103, and several sets of Variations, including one (WoO 40) for violin and piano on Mozart's aria "Se vuol ballare" (later reworked in Vienna). Although these works largely conform to the formal conventions of the classical style, including strict observance of form and, in the variations, the decorative filigree associated with the genre, they also show early signs of Beethoven's later tendency to the more substantive treatment of thematic material.
Beethoven also produced numerous fragments of larger-scale works, including a symphonic movement (also written in C minor), a violin concerto, an oboe concerto, an early draft of his B-flat Piano concerto (both now vanished), and a concertante for piano, flute and bassoon. Scholars generally regard these early efforts as bland and uninspired and have concluded that his first efforts at writing in the classical sonata style (with the exception of his Wind Octet) were poorly conceived. Téodor de Wyzewa considered his early "Kurfürsten Sonatas" written in 1783 (WoO 47) as merely "correct imitations of Haydn.".
The most ambitious work that Beethoven composed during his Bonn years was a funeral cantata to commemorate the death of Emperor Joseph II, commissioned by the literary society of Bonn. Though it was not performed, it was evidently impressive enough that Beethoven was commissioned to write a second cantata 'On the Accession of Leopold II to the Imperial Dignity', which was again not performed. These works already show skill in choral writing, as well as in writing arias, the latter also exhibited by three concert arias he composed around this time. However, by 1795–96, Beethoven had started developing a style which not only displayed an increasing mastery of the Viennese style but also contained a dramatic flair which became a quintessential feature of his music. It was the piano that often served as a catapult for Beethoven's innovations, in works such as his Op. 1 piano trios and Op. 2 piano sonatas. These works expand the three-movement sonata form found in the sonatas of Mozart and Haydn to four-movements, which is more often associated with orchestral symphonies rather than chamber works or piano sonatas. In particular, the first movement of his first piano sonata displays an intensity in musical construction that foreshadows the motivic development he would later exploit in his 3rd and 5th symphonies, while the Piano Trio in C minor (from the Op. 1 set) had such an intensity of expression that Haydn thought that they would not be understood by the public. In addition, these works also display virtuosity which would become another of Beethoven's characteristics, particularly in his piano sonatas and chamber works. Beethoven also incorporated textures typical of chamber music and orchestral and vocal music into his piano works, often employing elaborate figuration and a use of trills, features of his piano music which would be apparent even in his late period.
Beethoven also developed a penchant for the key of C minor which would last for the rest of his life. Most of his full-scale works in minor keys from this period are in the key, including the 'Pathétique' sonata (the 1st movement of which was novel in its integration of the slow introduction into the overall sonata form), and the key became associated with extreme drama in Beethoven's works. Beethoven also seemed to have an interest in all current musical genres, including three piano concertos (the 2nd, in B-flat major, being a revised version of a piano concerto from his Bonn years), some violin and cello sonatas, and the Op.18 string quartets. This expansion of the modulatory possibilities of sonata form would continue into the middle period, though the experiments in form would be sidelined in favour of the 'symphonic ideal', instead returning in his late period. The Second Symphony is more accomplished and bigger in scope; though still conservative in comparison to the piano sonatas composed at the same time; Its use of a unifying motive (a rise from F# to G) foreshadows the emergence of the 'germ motive' in the symphonic works of the middle period, while the increased scope of the symphony suggests Beethoven had finally grasped how he could use the orchestra in a way where he could start to incorporate the formal and expressive advances seen in his piano sonatas and chamber works of the time. This increased scope "create[s] the impression of a psychological journey or growth process [where] something seems to arrive or triumph or transcend." These structures often amount to a "projection of the underlying principles of the sonata style on the scale of the total four-movement work", instead of only the first movement in sonata form. The theme is even incorporated into the other movements, albeit modified,
In fact, another feature of Beethoven's middle-period is in the incorporation of these extra-musical ideas, whether it be the programmatic material of the Pastoral Symphony, or the heroic implications of the Eroica<nowiki/>' title of the 3rd Symphony. Chromatic mediant modulations also find long-range use in the 7th symphony; the keys of C major and F major that are introduced in the slow introduction of the first movement finding regular use in the symphony as a contrast to the tonic key of A major. Other remote key relations are found in the large-scale exploitation of Neopolitian sixths in the Appassionata sonata and in the String Quartet, op. 95, the latter of which foreshadows the style of the late quartets. However, in works such as the 3rd, 5th, and 6th symphonies, Beethoven does use larger orchestras. Beethoven moves the centre of the sound downwards in the orchestra, to the violas and the lower register of the violins and cellos, giving his music a heavier and darker feel than that of his two immediate predecessors. This may have been influenced by French post-revolutionary music, such as operas by Cherubini, as can be seen in the 'March Funebre' in the Eroica symphony. Midway through the 4th movement of the Pastoral symphony, the introduction of the piccolo and trombones, not previously heard in the work, help to depict the chaos of the raging storm. This particular use of the trombones may have been inspired by a similar 'storm' passage in Haydn's The Seasons, and the use of the contrabassoon and piccolo in the 5th and 6th symphonies also have precedent in that oratorio as well as Haydn's The Creation. Beethoven also started expanding the roles of certain instruments. In the Eroica symphony, he increases the number of horns to three, providing a rich timbre that is strikingly used in the trio of the 3rd movement. Beethoven also started to expand the role of the timpani in this period, giving the instrument solos in the first and second movements of the 4th symphony, and famously at the beginning of the Violin Concerto.
Late period
thumb|Sketches for String Quartet Op. 131
After 1814, Beethoven's output dropped considerably due to turmoil in his personal life, creative exhaustion after 10 years of near-constant musical activity, and the challenge of sustaining the Classical style while other composers like Rossini and Weber were moving towards the Romantic style. This resulted in a stylistic change in Beethoven's work, but his continued adherence to the Classical forms he loved meant that the influence of these late works only became apparent after the time of his own younger contemporaries.</blockquote>Beethoven became more concerned with lyricism in this period. Although his melodic skills have been criticised, Beethoven previously utilised immensely lyrical melodies, and during his middle period, developed a hymn-like melodic style in his slow movements. This was intensified in his late period and was combined with a newfound "intimacy and delicacy" which was already apparent in works like the Piano Sonata in A major, Op. 101. Another aspect of this is frequent use of recitative and arioso in instrumental works like the Piano Sonata in A-flat major, Op. 110, and the 'beklemmt' passage in the Cavatina of the String Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 130.
Criticism
Many of Beethoven's late works were not initially well received: Beethoven's student Carl Czerny, for instance, wrote in 1852 about ‘when Beethoven's deafness began to have a disturbing effect on his compositions’, which supposedly affected many of the late works. The Ninth Symphony attracted particular criticism: Richard Taruskin observed that the only musicians who defended Beethoven's Ninth Symphony were those for whom this work fit into their broader artistic project, chief among whom was Richard Wagner. Other composers, most notably Mendelssohn, Spohr, Brahms, and Schumann, were highly critical, particularly of the inclusion of the choir in the finale of the Ninth.
In his book The Joy of Music, Leonard Bernstein, who, in his television documentary Bernstein on Beethoven admitted that he considered Beethoven the greatest composer who ever lived, nevertheless criticized his orchestration as sometimes being "downright bad", with "unimportant" orchestral parts being given too much prominence. Bernstein attributed this to Beethoven's ever-increasing deafness, which presumably rendered him incapable of judging how much louder than another a given instrument might be playing at certain moments. He repeated some of this criticism in the 1982 miniseries Bernstein/Beethoven, a PBS miniseries containing performances of all nine symphonies, several overtures, one of the string quartets, and the Missa solemnis. But at the same time, Bernstein added that what makes Beethoven great is his perfect sense of form – his ability to realize what the next note always had to be.