Symphony No.1 in C major, Op.21

Beethoven was uncharacteristically cautious in his approach to the symphony. He was in his 30th year when he applied himself to completing his long contemplated Symphony in C major and, having already extended the scope of the piano sonata well beyond its previous confines, he might have been expected to make an effort to break the mould in this case too. In fact, although much of what he did in the First is prophetic of what he was to do in his later symphonies, he took good care not to offend conventional taste.

The Adagio molto introduction would not have worried Beethoven’s contemporaries: they were used to similar, harmonically teasing openings in the symphonies of Haydn and others. The long-term result of the cleverly sustained harmonic uncertainty is prophetic however. When the harmonies light on C major two bars before the tempo changes to Allegro con brio the effect is to add impetus to the brisk little theme immediately presented in that key by first violins. Obviously, the situation is not as dynamic as that at the beginning of the Allegro con brio of the Fifth Symphony in C minor but it is similar to it at least in that the impulse works irresistibly through to the end of the movement. In this case a restless second subject, syncopated in rhythm and inclined to shade off into darker minor-key areas, helps to sustain the momentum.

Again as in the Fifth Symphony, after a dynamic first movement Beethoven avoids a really slow second movement. In both works he keeps his Andante on the move in a three-in-a-bar quaver beat. This one is as tenacious in its hold on thematic continuity as it is in its adherence to its rhythmic identity: the rising inflection heard in the upbeat at the beginning is rarely absent and, when it is, the dotted rhythm from the third bar of the main theme replaces it. The short but dramatic development section combines the two motifs.

Though labelled Menuetto, the third movement is a one-in-a-bar scherzo motivated by the same kind of vitality as the corresponding movements in his later symphonies. Knowing the pacey minuets of Mozart and Haydn, the turn-of-the century Viennese audience would have been easily reconciled to such a development. If not, the delightfully scored trio section, which excludes all lower strings and anything as noisy as drums and trumpets until its final bars, must have been a seductive compensation.

According to early sketches, the Allegro molto e vivace was originally intended as a first movement. But in four years of thinking about it Beethoven obviously realised that it would make a better finale. Indeed, with its process of winding up the spring at the beginning, it is a clear precursor of the last movement of the Fourth Symphony. The scalic figure which is so wittily assembled in the Adagio introduction sustains nearly every section of the construction, sets the music in motion again when (in a veiled allusion to the Adagio introduction) it is brought to a halt on a fermata at the end of the exposition, and adds not only brilliance but also thematic relevance to the fanfares in the coda.

Beethoven was uncharacteristically cautious in his approach to the symphony. He was in his 30th year when he applied himself to completing his long contemplated Symphony in C major and, having already extended the scope of the piano sonata well beyond its previous confines, he might have been expected to make an effort to break the mould in this case too. In fact, he took good care not to do.

There were dissident opinions when he conducted the first performance in the Burgtheater in Vienna in April 1800 - some of the audience, who had never heard scoring like it before, found the wind parts too noisy - but the reception was generally favourable. Valued for its “considerable art, novelty, and wealth of ideas,” within three years it had been heard in Leipzig, Berlin, Breslau, Frankfurt, Dresden, Brunswick, and Munich. Indeed, the Symphony in C major was so well calculated to sound attractively fresh without too seriously offending conventional taste that Beethoven’s critics later made use of it to belabour its more adventurous successors. In 1803 it was said to be “less forced” than the Second Symphony and in 1805, beside that “wild fantasy” the Eroica, it was all “order and light.” The truth is, of course, that many of the characteristics of those and even later works are already in place in the First Symphony.

The Adagio molto introduction would not have worried Beethoven’s contemporaries: they were used to similar, harmonically teasing openings in the symphonies of Haydn and others. The long-term result of the cleverly sustained withholding of the tonic is prophetic however. When the harmonies light on C major two bars before the tempo changes to Allegro con brio the effect is to add impetus to the brisk little theme immediately presented in that key by first violins. Obviously, the situation is not as dynamic as that at the beginning of the Allegro con brio of the Fifth Symphony in C minor but it is similar to it at least in that the impulse works irresistibly through to the end of the movement. In this case a restless second subject, syncopated in rhythm and inclined to shade off into darker minor-key areas, helps to sustain the momentum - not least in the passage following the peculiar jolt into A major at the beginning of the development section.

Again as in the Fifth Symphony, after a dynamic first movement Beethoven avoids a really slow second movement. In both works he keeps his Andante on the move in a three-in-a-bar quaver beat. This one is as tenacious in its hold on thematic continuity as it is in its adherence to its rhythmic identity: the rising inflection heard in the upbeat at the beginning is rarely absent and, when it is, the dotted rhythm from the third bar of the main theme replaces it. The short but dramatic development section combines the two motifs.

The third movement is another early example of a mature Beethoven feature. Though labelled Menuetto, it is a one-in-a-bar scherzo motivated by the same kind of vitality as the corresponding movements in his later symphonies. Knowing the pacey minuets of Mozart and Haydn, the turn-of-the century Viennese audience would have been easily reconciled to such a development. If not, the delightfully scored trio section, which excludes all lower strings and anything as noisy as drums and trumpets until its final bars, must have been a seductive compensation.

According to early sketches, the Allegro molto e vivace was originally intended as a first movement. But in four years of thinking about it Beethoven obviously realised that it would make a better finale. Indeed, with its process of winding up the spring at the beginning, it is a clear precursor of the last movement of the Fourth Symphony. The scalic figure which is so wittily assembled in the Adagio introduction sustains nearly every section of the construction, sets the music in motion again when (in a veiled allusion to the Adagio introduction)it is brought to a halt on a fermata at the end of the exposition, and adds not only brilliance but also thematic relevance to the fanfares in the coda.