Spring Symphonies No 76 - Beethoven: Symphony No 2

Summer Symphonies No 76 - Beethoven: Symphony No 2

The symphony took several swerves before it's form settled down a bit and one of the works which easily demonstrates it's potential as a form of great potential was the Second Symphony written by the 32 year old Ludwig von Beethoven.  There's much to be said about Beethoven's unleashing of power in symphonic form but I think it's first significant outing was in this work.  

As a marker Mozart had died more than ten years before this work had its premiere but Haydn was alive and no doubt had glimpse of the elements in Beethoven's symphonic armoury.  Where these giants of the classical period had led the charge it was perhaps Haydn who had influenced Beethoven more - especially from our perspective.  But every time I listen to this work I find myself looking forward to the great symphonies to come and not backward - except with the regret that Haydn had marked a path but Mozart hadn't had the longevity to make his in the new world shortly to be rocked by Beethoven's Third Symphony.

The slow introduction of the Second Symphony  (Adagio motto) summons the attention of the audience with two shots (that may depending on your conductor sound like one) then introduces a sinuous almost decorative which perks the ear and on reflection goes to prefigure much of what happens in this movement. As Haydn liked there's a mixture of suspense in these slow openings but the explosive opening is less an invitation but an imperative.  And this is the way it will be for the rest of Beethoven's career.

Notice this discursive Adagio contains many instruments all not letting on the the big surprise but slowly - like a steam locomotion picking up speed to yet another explosive claims.  The cellos get punctuated too until the trills become the gateway to the Allegro con Brio.  The sheer pyrotechnics here are baffling at first.  We blink and miss the second subject and the accents and changes of timbre and incidental detail are a bit of overload and unlike Mozart doesn't preset his niceties. Even the final bars of the first exposition of these many buzzing parts is breathless and so too for the audience.

I doubt there's been so much material opened out, manipulated, foreshortened and repeated in a first movement before this and speed makes us wish we'd listened harder, or more often.  I've felt for a long time that this is the work of a clever and impatient many who wants to show how music can be and may burst if he doesn't.  As we move into the recapitulation of this movement there are more glories but be sure to note the build up in the trumpets as we move into the coda - again with the strident chords of the opening - they are the acidic brightness in this picture but as they ascend to the high point in the music I feel they usher in a new era in all music, swinging across that silvery high point the music - busy as ever comes to a close which is as perfunctory as to leave the new listener to ask what the actual f*** was that.

In Karajan's recording the trumpet seems to be even fiercer suggesting not just a new name in town but also a new era in music.  The effect is spine chilling - in this work (as in so many around this time from Beethoven's pen) we usher in a new way of exhilarating an audience (baffling them too for sure).  Haydn had innovated so often - but his order was not Beethoven's and Haydn had half a decade of illness to endure so could not catch up (his last symphony having been written late in the previous century).

The full orchestra is deployed in a series of repeated figures in the coda - until you get the fragmented nature of this movement the coda sounds kinda crazy. It is a sign of the Beethoven insistence - something we've all needed to become used to which I think in an orchestral sense started in music for the theatre - think of those overtures but were to become tolling bells in the late piano sonatas.

The Larghetto second movement is as serene and almost sweet