Beethoven: Symphony No.2 in D major, Op.36 (1802)
Adagio – Allegro con brio
Larghetto
Scherzo:- Allegro
Allegro molto
It is difficult for us to imagine today the impact this symphony must have made when it was first heard, on 5 April 1803 at the Theater an der Wien (along with the first symphony, the third piano concerto, and the oratorio Christus am Oelberge). It is commonly accepted that each of Beethoven’s first three symphonies breaks new ground, and any sensitive listener cannot fail to be moved by the mind blowing originality of the third of them, every time s/he hears it. But having become familiar with this Sinfonia Eroica, together with over two hundred years’ worth of music which succeeds it, our perspectives become distorted, our perceptions blurred. This is the price we pay for our musical saturation, for hearing music of the past with ears tuned to the present – or, at least, to the late 19th century. The point is that in the first symphony Beethoven was still working with the tools of the eighteenth (and still in the final year of it!) – not only the musical vocabulary of the time but the musicians of that time as well, together with their deeply rooted conventions of performance practice. It is this which we have most lost sense of, and which would throw into startling relief the boldness with which he was challenging those very conventions: their regularity of phrase structure, hierarchy of the bar line, non-aggressive articulation and attack, controlled dynamic range, purity of sound, concept of tempo: we need to be aware of these and all other aspects of the status quo, in order fully to understand the energy and sheer arrogance with which he was openly confronting them, and burying them for ever as new instrumental techniques (and instruments as well!) had to be evolved to meet his demands. And so it is in the context of performance that we can most appreciate these iconic symphonies – just as the early piano sonatas should be approached in the light of their birth via the composer’s own questing fingers. So long as we are able to exhume those traditions (and instruments too, when practical) which Beethoven himself ultimately dismantled, there is much here to rediscover, much excitement to experience afresh.
It may be true that it was with the Eroica that the sheer scale and ambition of the symphony exploded (as also did that of the string quartet at about the same time, with the first Rasumovsky, Op.59/1). Yet not so much the actual musical style: rather, it was this second symphony which demonstrated that Beethoven had fully established an entirely personal voice, beyond classification in terms of “Classical” or “Romantic”. Of course the Eroica is one of the major landmarks in the history of Western music – and Beethoven himself was surely aware of its significance when he wrote about its unusual length, as well as later declaring it to be his favourite (of his eight symphonies completed at the time). Yet to suggest that this mighty edifice sprang suddenly from nowhere is to undervalue (or even ignore) the blazing originality of No.2 – probably still the least known of his nine symphonies, but at that time much the biggest ever written. The portends are right here! (and elsewhere too, for example, in the first movement of the F major quartet, Op.18/1 – particularly in its huge original version). It contains some of the most fiercely exuberant music he ever wrote, so we can perhaps forgive ourselves the shock of discovering his state of mind in that fateful year of 1802: having been despatched out of Vienna for the summer by his new physician Dr. Schmid, Beethoven probably worked on this symphony at No.6 Probusgasse – a narrow street leading off the main Pfarrplatz in the village of Heiligenstadt, to the north of the city (now absorbed within suburban sprawl to the west of the River Danube, yet retaining much of its old village character). It was in this house – accessed through the traditional arched gateway and a dark courtyard shaded by an enormous tree – that his friends Anton Schindler and Stephan von Breuning discovered a lengthy letter to his brothers Carl and Johann. Written on 6th October, with a harrowing postscript added on the 10th, this deeply affecting document – known now as the “Heiligenstadt Testament” – traces the decline of his hearing to the point of seemingly intended suicide, complete with instructions regarding the disposal of his modest estate (listeners are urged to read it if at all possible – a copy will be made available on this website). Yet about a third of the way through his indomitable defiance gains the upper hand as he concedes that “ – only art it was that withheld me, ah it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had produced all that I felt called upon me to produce, and so I endured this wretched existence….”. And it is this spirit which permeates the second symphony: music as profoundly joyful as the Testament is despairing.
© Alan George
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