Subtitled “Beethoven and the World in 1824″, the “World” referred to being the rather narrow one that bound Beethoven to fellow artists at the dawn of the Romantic era, this is an exploration of the genesis and impact of Beethoven’s last completed symphony. As with Beethoven’s other great late works, the Ninth Symphony was revolutionary in length, complexity, form and content, and its legacy was felt well into the early years of the 20th century, and perhaps beyond that (listen to Shostakovich’s own 9th symphony, for example).
It’s a great symphony, of that there’s obviously no possible doubt, perhaps the greatest symphony written. My own view is that the Ninth was finally surpassed only by Mahler, and the fact that many people would regard that as a sacrilege should tell you a lot about how revered the Ninth is.
I’ve always thought that Mahler’s own Ninth Symphony owes a great deal to Beethoven’s, especially the first movement. Those two first movements, composed almost 90 years apart, are perhaps the two most perfect expressions of the symphonic form. Even today, nearly two centuries after its premiere, the first movement of Beethoven’s symphony is challenging, dense, unforgiving, pitiless and full of rage. The fugato section in particular is one of the fiercest, labyrinthine, most thrillingly dark pieces of music I know, and perhaps most of all I love the opening. Beethoven starts with what any beginner would be told was an embarrassing faux pas, but one of the most fascinating chords in music: open fifths. (Another of my favourite pieces, Berg’s Violin Concerto also starts this way, surely in homage to Beethoven.)
I’ve never been as fond of the second movement, which is very often a disappointment in performance following that revelatory first, but there’s no denying its explosive power. The third movement is perhaps one of the most beautiful slow movements ever composed, and Beethoven’s decision to place it third was itself innovative; in the traditional symphonic scheme, the slow movement was placed second with the scherzo third. Its lyrical beauty is not its only merit; the frequent change of time signature from 4/4 to 3/4 and back again, but with the melody stretched over the barlines, makes it have an unsettling quality that prevents it ever being able to wallow. Its genius is evident in the fact that it will admit of almost any tempo, from Bernstein’s almost 18 minutes, Furtwängler’s nearly 20 (!) minutes, to Norrington’s mere 11, without it ever losing coherence (although of course it takes a genius like Bernstein or Furtwängler to make that tempo work).
And then, there’s the finale. First there is the extraordinary cacophony of the opening bars. Then the cello and double bass recitative, punctuated by argumentative winds. Then the restatement of themes from each of the preceding movements. Then there are the voices, a first in any symphony. Then the extraordinary honkey tonk march section where the tenor sings “Froh, froh wie seine Sonnen”, and the sheer exuberance of the victorious closing section. Astonishing innovation after astonishing innovation, all in the same 25 minutes of music.
Consider that Mozart had died only 30 years before the premiere of the Ninth. Classicism was entering its final crisis, and composers would have no choice but to react to Beethoven’s great late works. Beethoven, more than any other musician until Wagner, set the agenda for the next century. In their own way, these works were as puzzling and revolutionary in their time as Schoenberg’s first atonal works.
What is still more astonishing about Beethoven is that the Ninth Symphony is not even his most radical work. Listen to the Grosse Fuge – as challenging as Schoenberg even today – or the Hammerklavier sonata, or the Missa Solemnis, or the three last piano sonatas, or the five last string quartets, and one is simply stunned at the complexity, inventiveness, and the sheer wisdom of these works. These few works, all written within a few years of each other, are a singularity in the history of music, and no composer has ever produced anything to match them.
Sachs does a good job of drawing connections between Beethoven and other artists active at the same time, and is especially good at tracing the impact of the late works upon later composers. It’s regrettable that his self-imposed scheme prevents him showing how they affected Bruckner – as they surely did more than any other composer – or Mahler, or Schoenberg, which would be fascinating lines to draw. His analysis of Beethoven’s impact on Berlioz in particular is especially fine, and there are fascinating insights into the way that concerts were planned in Beethoven’s Vienna – only a few days in advance, it would seem – and into Beethoven’s living and financial arrangements (both chaotic).
There is the odd misstep, none more embarrassing than Sachs’s attempt to imagine Beethoven confiding his thoughts to his diary in the hours immediately preceding the premiere of the Ninth. But on the whole, he does a good job of disentangling Beethoven from the romantic claptrap that started to envelop him even during his lifetime, and which has only grown worse since. It’s a strange thought, but I suspect that there’s not a little of Beethoven in Gordon Brown, the scowl, the sense of being unappreciated, the semi-divine mission. Read the book and you’ll see what I mean.
Non-musicians will have little trouble keeping up with the description of the symphony itself; Sachs avoids technical terms, or at least explains those that he is forced to use and does not analyse the symphony in a technical sense. There are no musical examples, but for those who can read music it’s instructive to read the book with a copy of the score handy.
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony will be played and studied for as long as anyone is interested in music of any kind, and no book can ever capture its essence, just as no performance can. My own view is that it isn’t the greatest of Beethoven’s last works, but it is the most famous of them, and perhaps the most accessible to today’s audiences. Sachs has done a great job of illuminating it from his own angle; that innumerable other angles are possible is not a criticism of Sachs, but a tribute to the greatness of the music.
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