CC 4T 11014
William Steinberg--The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
Numerous music historians have insisted that Ludwig van Beethoven could not possibly have been concerned with the practicalities of daily subsistence. Yet history proves that Beethoven was an extraordinarily practical human being. And given this fact it may become easier to understand why the history of his Symphony No. 7 in A Major is inextricably bound to that of one of his most discredited works, Wellington's Victory.
Though we have very little factual material regarding Beethoven's actual labors on his Seventh Symphony, we do know that it was written in 1812, a year in which the composer seems to have accepted the grim facts of his health (nothing was left of his hearing by this time). The composer's notebooks of 1812 indicate that he was at work almost simultaneously on the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies, devoting a bit of spare time to rough sketches for an additional symphony, the one which was to see the light of day a decade later as the "Choral" Symphony, his Ninth and last. During this period he attempted to arrange a concert at which the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies would be presented; but this project failed. It was no wonder therefore, that when, in the following year (1813) Johann Nepomuk Malzel presented Beethoven with the idea of creating a sensational programmatic symphony that would capture his Viennese audiences and provide him with a special showcase for his other music as well, the composer responded with great enthusiasm.
Malzel was a pianist of little note with a scientific bent, and an inventor and explorer of the inventions of others. Malzel was chiefly renowned as the inventor (or developer) of mechanical musical devices, among them several predecessors of the modern metronome. At the time of Beethoven's labors on the Seventh Symphony, Malzel was hard at work on a pair of contrivances which would automate the symphony orchestra: a "mechanical trumpeter" and the "panharmonicum," a brass band in a box.
Toward the end of 1813 Malzel began to make plans for a great concert to be held in Vienna's University Hall for the benefit of wounded Austrian and Bavarian survivors of the Battle of Hanau. The inventor prevailed upon Beethoven to write a work for the panharmonicum dealing in some fashion with the battle. The composer responded with Wellington's Victory, which was subsequently re-orchestrated for large instrumental ensemble minus panharmonicum. It is to be assumed that Beethoven did not mind writing this bit of clap-trap, particularly as it would give him occasion to sneak another composition, possibly a more "controversial" one, onto the same program. Thus the concert, given on December 8, 1813, included "A New Symphony" (the Seventh) by Beethoven, works by Dussek and Pleyel performed by Malzel's mechanical trumpeter, and Wellington's Victory.
Beethoven's friend and biographer, Anton Schindler, reports that the concert went superbly, with the audience demanding a repeat of the Seventh Symphony's Allegretto movement. A newspaper review stated that the Symphony brought forth "applause which rose to the point of ecstasy"; which Schindler further noted that the performance constituted "one of the most important moments in the life of the master, at which all the hitherto divergent voices, save those of the professional musicians, united in proclaiming him worthy of the laurel." Justifying the existence of the battle piece, Schindler continued: "(It) had to come in order that ... the mouths of all opponents be . . . stopped." In other words, Beethoven may have figured that the bulk of the audience would appreciate the-Seventh Symphony, while the professionals, perhaps displeased with it, would remember with pleasure the ceremonial pot-boiler with which the concert concluded.
Wellington's Victory thereafter quickly made the round of European concert halls, then disappeared. The Seventh crept somewhat more slowly into the repertoire (although it was never neglected) and remained. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the A Major Symphony had attained a position among the most popular of Beethoven's works.
The one common denominator in the famous verbal interpretations of the Symphony which sprang up in the nineteenth century was the commentators' preoccupation with its extraordinary rhythmicality. Berlioz considered the first movement's Vivace to be a "peasant dance"; to Schumann, the famous Allegretto was a "rustic wedding"; Wagner, in his fascinating analysis, referred to the entire Symphony as "the apotheosis of the dance." In reaction to all the dance-oriented interpretation of the mid-nineteenth century, Tovey and Grove claimed that we have no right to see anything beyond music in the Seventh, as Beethoven affixed no program to it.
Regardless of what any individual may or may not "see" in it, the Seventh has delighted and thrilled its hearers since its premiere.
HERBERT GLASS
ORIGINATED AND PRODUCED BY ENOCH LIGHT