Beethoven: Septet in E flat, Op.20 (1800)
Adagio– Allegro con brio
Adagio cantabile
Tempo di Menuetto
Andante con variazioni
Scherzo:- Allegro molto e vivace
Andante con moto alla Marcia – Presto
The last decade of the eighteenth century was in some ways the most successful of Beethoven’s whole life. He had arrived in Vienna from Bonn in 1792, and his rise to fame as a virtuoso pianist and extemporiser was little short of meteoric. He was in constant demand as a teacher, often for the children of rich or aristocratic parents, and this in turn led to an elevated social position, as well as to frequent (and always doomed) love affairs. There was the added bonus of a rare period of settled health, plus the gradual but inevitable emergence of his genius as a composer – initially obscured by so many other activities, but soon providing a handy income to supplement the 600 florins set aside for him to draw against by Prince Lichnowsky (so long as he was without an official position worthy of him}. The prince had actually taken the young lion into his own home, not as a servant (the usual status of a musician) but as an honoured guest. It so happens Beethoven was already earning a good income from his compositions, with many commissions to fulfil – no doubt well supplemented by having reached his zenith as a solo pianist. If his creative roots belonged very much in the century in which he was born, his intellectual and emotional capacity lay across the approaching threshold. Often the two came into conflict, arising in supremacy of one over the other. In the case of his most important body of music from that period – the six string quartets, Op.18 – deference to the traditional forms and techniques of Haydn and Mozart is for the most part plainly in evidence
These traditional forms were put to further use in a succession of diverse chamber works spread through the last decade of the century. One of the many advantages of re-locating to Vienna was the abundance of fine wind players – the Harmonie (ie wind) band had been a popular genre for some years (the Archduke himself had one at Court) – and indeed, two of the most ambitious of these works were an Octet (two each of oboes, clarinets, horns, bassoons) and a Sextet (minus the oboes). The series culminated in this Septet, which combined wind with strings and achieved a huge success for its increasingly famous young composer. Indeed, no work was ever as popular in Beethoven’s lifetime. Dedicated to the Empress Maria Theresa (as was also Haydn’s contemporary “Theresa” Mass), its first public performance took place on 2nd April 1800, at the Hofburgtheater in Vienna. One begins to realize the extent of the Viennese public’s musical appetite when one reads of the lengthy programme in which it appeared:
A grand symphony by the late Chapel-Master Mozart.
An aria from The Creation by the Princely Chapel-Master Haydn, sung by Mlle Saal.
A grand concerto for the pianoforte, played and composed by Herr Ludwig van Beethoven.
A septet, most humbly and obediently dedicated to Her Majesty the Empress, and composed by Herr Ludwig van Beethoven for four stringed and three wind instruments, played by Messrs Schuppanzigh, Schreiber, Schindlecker, Bär, Nickel, Matauschek, and Dietzel.
A duet from Haydn’s Creation sung by Mr and Mlle Saal.
A new grand symphony with complete orchestra, by Herr Ludwig van Beethoven.
It is interesting that the people of that era greedily demanded new music: in fact, if they were not frequently presented with the latest pieces they tended to be most indignant – a far cry from the situation today…. This brand new work takes the form of a classical divertimento, but with an unprecedented instrumental combination which was to be more or less a model for several works to come, not least Schubert’s great Octet. Whilst the complement of strings was fairly standard (give or take a second violin!) Beethoven added to this group single wind instruments – in classical divertimenti the wind were invariably presented in pairs. Partly because of the relative familiarity of the classical string serenade sound the wind instruments are often thrown into concertino-like relief, at times reminiscent of the baroque concerto grosso; and despite solo passages for violin, clarinet, and horn the piece as a whole is based on the contrast between string and wind families. The clarinet (a favourite instrument of Beethoven) plays a leading rôle throughout the work, and it is possible that this was a contributory factor to the immense popularity of the Septet – the instrument was at that time enjoying great favour generally, and its position in a piece of this nature was rather a novelty. This popularity was further enhanced by the straightforward simplicity of the work’s main themes, and by the electrifying effect of Beethoven’s dynamic, youthful idiom on an essentially lighter style of music.
© Alan George (with Lesley Schatzberger)
All Alan’s articles
