Musicon / Musical education / Inventing Bonds of Union in Symphonies
-Inventing Bonds of Union in Symphonies
The desire of composers to have their symphonies accepted as unities instead of compages of unrelated pieces has led to the adoption of various devices designed to force the bond of union upon the attention of the hearer. Thus Beethoven in his symphony in C minor not only connects the third and fourth movements but also introduces a reminiscence of the former into the midst of the latter; Berlioz in his “Symphonie Fantastique,” which is written to what may be called a dramatic scheme, makes use of a melody which he calls “l’idee fixe,” and has it recur in each of the four movements as an episode. This, however, is frankly a symphony with programme, and ought not to be treated as a modification of the pure form. Dvorak in his symphony entitled “From the New World,” in which he has striven to give expression to the American spirit, quotes the first period of his principal subject in all the subsequent movements, and then sententiously recapitulates the principal themes of the first, second, and third movements in the finale; and this without a sign of the dramatic purpose confessed by Berlioz.
In the last movement of his Ninth Symphony Beethoven calls voices to the aid of his instruments. It was a daring innovation, as it seemed to disrupt the form, and we know from the story of the work how long he hunted for the connecting link, which finally he found in the instrumental recitative. Having hit upon the device, he summons each of the preceding movements, which are purely instrumental, into the presence of his augmented forces and dismisses it as inadequate to the proclamation which the symphony was to make. The double-basses and solo barytone are the spokesmen for the tuneful host. He thus achieves the end of connecting the Allegro, Scherzo, and Adagio with each other, and all with the Finale, and at the same time points out what it is that he wishes us to recognize as the inspiration of the whole; but here, again, the means appear to be somewhat extraneous. Schumann’s example, however, in abolishing the pauses between the movements of the symphony in D minor, and having melodic material common to all the movements, is a plea for appreciation which cannot be misunderstood. Before Schumann Mendelssohn intended that his “Scotch” symphony should be performed without pauses between the movements, but his wishes have been ignored by the conductors, I fancy because he having neglected to knit the movements together by community of ideas, they can see no valid reason for the abolition of the conventional resting-places.
Beethoven’s augmentation of the symphonic forces by employing voices has been followed by Berlioz in his “Romeo and Juliet,” which, though called a “dramatic symphony,” is a mixture of symphony, cantata, and opera; Mendelssohn in his “Hymn of Praise” (which is also a composite work and has a composite title–”Symphony Cantata”), and Liszt in his “Faust” symphony, in the finale of which we meet a solo tenor and chorus of men’s voices who sing Goethe’s <i>Chorus mysticus</i>.
A number of other experiments have been made, the effectiveness of which has been conceded in individual instances, but which have failed permanently to affect the symphonic form. Schumann has two trios in his symphony in B-flat, and his E-flat, the so-called “Rhenish,” has five movements instead of four, there being two slow movements, one in moderate tempo (Nicht schnell), and the other in slow (Feierlich). In this symphony, also, Schumann exercises the license which has been recognized since Beethoven’s time, of changing the places in the scheme of the second and third movements, giving the second place to the jocose division instead of the slow. Beethoven’s “Pastoral” has also five movements, unless one chooses to take the storm which interrupts the “Merry-making of the Country Folk” as standing toward the last movement as an introduction, as, indeed, it does in the composer’s idyllic scheme. Certain it is, Sir George Grove to the contrary notwithstanding, that the sense of a disturbance of the symphonic plan is not so vivid at a performance of the “Pastoral” as at one of Schumann’s “Rhenish,” in which either the third movement or the so-called “Cathedral Scene” is most distinctly an interloper.
From: <a href=”http://www.ellopos.net/hermes/default.asp?h=http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1434608743?ie=UTF8&tag=e0bf-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1434608743″>H. Krehbiel’s, How to Listen to Music</a>; excerpts, edited by <a href=”http://musicon.byzantinewalls.org/” target=”_top”>Musicon</a>