An interesting question. Beethoven's 1st symphony has a somewhat different sensibility than Haydn's or Mozart's efforts simply because Beethoven was a different person. Of course it's "derivative," but to a very large extent *all* of Beethoven's works are derivative, if not from Haydn or Mozart then from Bach, Handel, or whomever. But Mozart could never have written a Beethoven Symphony, and Beethoven certainly couldn't write a Mozart symphony.

The Menuetto is normally considered the most "original" movement of the 1st, being almost a full-fledged example of a Beethoven Scherzo.

 

My ignorance of the mechanics of making music permits me to believe that Beethoven's 'difference' was in his attitude toward music and its potential. He started with the same tools, both physical and procedural, that H and M had been using. Either of them could have composed the first two symphonies, if they had wanted to.

J.S. Bach could have composed any of those fairly unlikely things that Biber did, if the notion of doing so had entered his head. That's a farther stretch.

 

My ignorance of the mechanics of making music permits me to believe that Beethoven's 'difference' was in his attitude toward music and its potential. He started with the same tools, both physical and procedural, that H and M had been using. Either of them could have composed the first two symphonies, if they had wanted to.

If Mozart had lived longer than he did maybe he might have wrote something more towards the style of the second symphony of Beethoven, who knows? Beethoven's own work could have been quite affected by Mozart or maybe he would have just reacted in a completely different style even more.

 

I have no good or definitive answer! But I agree that it is the individual's personality that sets the music apart on both a general and a specific sense.
Often those who the history deem as innovators are those who live their life with ears and nose in the farrows of music and whom thereby pick up trends early by making the trend in to something "better" of their own, Monteverdi, Bach, Händel, Haydn, Mozart and not least Beethoven where such deep ploughing composers! (And you really don't have to consider that all of them wrote some junky music getting good! )

/ptr

 

but is the symphony so obviously derivative that it could have been written by anyone?

No, it's a quality work that is consistently good I feel. Haydn must have been impressed by it.

Looking at it from the other side maybe Beethoven could have wrote Haydn's 97th at one point, it has a powerful style to it which some have seen as possibly influencing Beethoven.

Mozart of course was influenced by Haydn in some symphonies in the middle of his work in that genre, but before and after that had other influences or just went a different way.

Beethoven's 8th is sometimes considered a bit of a tribute to Haydn.

But Mozart could never have written a Beethoven Symphony, and Beethoven certainly couldn't write a Mozart symphony.

And yet Beethoven WAS influenced by Mozart in his earlier work, even if not so much in the symphony.

 

Re Haydn's influence on Beethoven's first symphony -- The main theme of Beethoven's finale is pretty obviously taken from the main theme of the finale of Haydn's #88.

For a bit more fun, listen to the first note -- just the first note -- of Haydn's #99. Remind you of anything? :lol:

 

It depends on how "close" you mean. Artistic personality is inextricably linked to the character of one's output. Trollope couldn't have written a Dickens novel, Arthur Miller a Eugene O'Neill play, or Prokofiev an early Stravinsky piece without any of them putting in tells that identified who they were. Haydn symphonies are certainly closer to early Beethoven than Mozart's were, but anything he wrote would have been distinctly recognizeable as Haydn, just as beethoven's early C major piano sonata, delightful as it is, couldn't have been by anyone but Beethoven.

 

The "Jena Symphony" by Friedrich Witt was once attributed to Beethoven, partly on the grounds that it resembled Haydn's Symphony no.97, which apparently Beethoven had used as a model for an attempted symphony before writing his 1st symphony. (Wikipedia).

So if a symphony can be attributed to early Beethoven on the grounds that it resembles late Haydn...

 

The "Jena Symphony" by Friedrich Witt was once attributed to Beethoven, partly on the grounds that it resembled Haydn's Symphony no.97, which apparently Beethoven had used as a model for an attempted symphony before writing his 1st symphony. (Wikipedia).

So if a symphony can be attributed to early Beethoven on the grounds that it resembles late Haydn...

Well, a Michael Haydn symphony was long attributed to Mozart (his 37th). When the error was discovered at B&H in the late 1800s, everybody said, "How could they have been so stupid! It sounds nothing like Mozart." Of course they said this after the mistake was discovered... :lol:

 

In the thread Dawn of Romanticism, ptr posed this:

This chimed with a thought I was having today while listening to Beethoven's 1st symphony: could it have been written by, say, Haydn, or Mozart (or any other composer of the period)?

I am, of course, not asking whether any other composer was competent, but is the symphony so obviously derivative that it could have been written by anyone? Or, does it contain anything that is new and unique to LvB (and if so, what?)

And, by extension, at which point in his symphony writing was his material so original, or such a departure from what had gone before that it could only have been written by him? (I'm not looking for the hypothetical, "Could H or M have written their own 'Eroica' or 'Choral' symphony if only they'd lived long enough to be influenced by B).

All the great composers began with models of other composers' work that existed before them. The real question is how much further they reached from such models. It didn't take too long for LvB to leap into the Erioca from his first symphony.

 

Haydn and Mozart weren't the only great composers then living. If you listen to Cherubini you hear a strong influence on Beethoven, very strong. The orchestration sounds similar too.

 

This is analogous to water, and from whence it is drawn:

It is all H2o, but depending upon from where it is drawn, the mineral content and taste are different.

Add the impossible to fully calculate 'personality' of a composer who is fluid enough to compose expressively, ergo - their personality is also at the helm, and...

The similarities can be attributed to the general style, direct influences of teachers (the early sonatas are 'Haydnesque') yet something individuated, different from the others, will show through.

Answer, then, 'NO.' Strong similarities might have be present, but they are not 'interchangeable.' The more you get to know each individual composer, the more likely the question in the OP would even occur to you.

 

It seems then that it's difficult to tell without reading what we now know about Beethoven and Haydn's personality back into LvB's first works.

GGluek referred to 'tells' that would give each composer away, but no-one has yet suggested that, for example, Beethoven's symphonies used 'something' (construction, instrumentation) that no-one had ever done before, and that's what made it Beethoven. HarpsichordConcerto suggests that the Eroica is the first symphony that is so distinctly Beethoven that it couldn't have been written by anyone else: is that a generally agreed view?

 

Don't know if it's "generally accepted" but it's not accepted where I am. Even LvB's Opp. 1 and 2 have a distinct sound and approach that could and would not have been found in the music of Haydn or Mozart. Not to say these pieces, fine as they are, are "better" than those of the older masters, but they're different.

We're distant from those times and our ears aren't particularly sharp. It's like renaissance music. It has a "sound" to us today, but different composers had radically different "sounds" to people of the time. In Bach's time, the differences among "Italian," "English," and "French" music were undoubtedly pretty plain to all. But today we might find it difficult to tell a French Suite from and English one!

Anyway, Mozart never sounded much like Haydn, and early Beethoven didn't sound much like either. It may seem so today, but I believe that's mainly due to our own lack of musical discrimination.