In "Lives of the Great Composers", the author, Harold Schoenberg, contends that every symphony by Bruckner and Mahler was an attempt at rewriting Beethoven's 9th. This is especially apparent in the soaring adagios that mark Bruckner and Mahler's symphonic output.
True descendants of Beethoven
I am curious as to who you believe to be the true descendants of Beethoven? Is it the camp of Berlioz, Liszt and Wagner or Schumann and Brahms?
I definitely can hear a lot of Beethoven's later symphonic works in Symphonie Fantastique. Particularly in the interesting textures and the programmatic elements. Berlioz was then was a major influence of Wagner and Strauss. I must admit these elements feel to me a bit contrived and detrimental to the overall form in Berlioz. However he did greatly influence new german music through featuring a recurring symphonic theme which evolved into the Wagnerian lietmotif.
At the same time I can hear Beethoven's larger coherent forms and logical progression of key areas present in Schumann and Brahms. These two do feature a lyricism not found in Beethoven. Their counterpoint is also more akin to Bach or Palestrina. However there is certainly Beethoven's stamp of the heavy orchestra particularly in Brahms symphony no 1. I also find Brahms and Schumann very good in terms of the type of logical coherency that is masterful in Beethoven.
I know that is a lot but this is a big topic. Who do you hear as Beethoven's continuation and through what elements of the music? Feel free to bring in other influences and names as well.
I definitely can hear a lot of Beethoven's later symphonic works in Symphonie Fantastique. Particularly in the interesting textures and the programmatic elements. Berlioz was then was a major influence of Wagner and Strauss. I must admit these elements feel to me a bit contrived and detrimental to the overall form in Berlioz. However he did greatly influence new german music through featuring a recurring symphonic theme which evolved into the Wagnerian lietmotif.
At the same time I can hear Beethoven's larger coherent forms and logical progression of key areas present in Schumann and Brahms. These two do feature a lyricism not found in Beethoven. Their counterpoint is also more akin to Bach or Palestrina. However there is certainly Beethoven's stamp of the heavy orchestra particularly in Brahms symphony no 1. I also find Brahms and Schumann very good in terms of the type of logical coherency that is masterful in Beethoven.
I know that is a lot but this is a big topic. Who do you hear as Beethoven's continuation and through what elements of the music? Feel free to bring in other influences and names as well.
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For me, the trait that is most Beethoven-like is one of rigorous, logical development - no wasted notes, no "note spinning", no triviality. That rules out most composers who were Romantic in nature, leaving not too many. Brahms certainly was more Romantic than Beethoven yet at heart was a classicist. His symphonies are decendents of Beethoven. Bruckner, while clearly taking on many Wagnerian traits, still proceeded in a Beethoven-like manner, if a lot more long-winded. The Austro-German line seemed to end with Franz Schmidt and his four symphonies. Sibelius followed in Ludwig's steps, but then that line ran dry. Lesser know are the symphonies of Wilhelm Furtwangler who was a clear descendent of Bruckner - and a lot less successful. Of the more modern composers, the Russian Miaskovsky followed Beethoven's model of clear design, rigorous logic in the music.
I never thought Wagner was the logical musical descendent of Beethoven, the man just wouldn't cadence.:lol: But seriously, Beethoven is to Brahms what Wagner is to Schoenberg.
Schumann's solo piano music. A lot of Beethoven's influence there: Fantasie in C; Symphonic Etudes; Kreisleriana and Humoreske.
I doubt if Schumann's piano music could have happened without the Hammerklavier Sonata coming first: the "heroic" and the "poetic" both found in spades in the Hammerklavier and which became Schumann's calling card-playing each, one against the other.
I doubt if Schumann's piano music could have happened without the Hammerklavier Sonata coming first: the "heroic" and the "poetic" both found in spades in the Hammerklavier and which became Schumann's calling card-playing each, one against the other.
For me it is Shostakovich I have always thought of him as a son of Ludwig.
Both the Wagner and the Brahms camp loudly claimed that they were the true descendants of Beethoven. They were both right. The man was rather influential; that's sort of one reason why he's considered a great composer even by people who don't actually like his music.
But those final string quartets and piano works? I'm not sure anything like that existed either before or after him. It's his second period that left all the descendants.
But those final string quartets and piano works? I'm not sure anything like that existed either before or after him. It's his second period that left all the descendants.
I tried to hide my bias in the original post. I very much prefer the music of Brahms and Schumann. I do really enjoy some textures from the so called new german school. Although it seems that their obsession with their programmatic elements completely destroys any coherence in their music. Can someone point me to a work by Berlioz or Wagner that agrees with itself throughout? I genuinely want to know because my search has left me with nothing.
I am pretty inexperienced with Shostakovich but I am intrigued now. What elements of it do you see similar to Beethoven? Is it his motivic treatment? What's your favorite by him?
Brahms musical temperament to me just seems very far removed from Beethoven's. Towards the end of his life it seems like Brahms became more interested in J.S. Bach, and his music has more of that kind of feel to it to me.
I think Schubert and Schumann were much closer to Beethoven stylistically than Brahms or Wagner. Wagner really knew how to use harmony to create effect in ways I just don't hear in Beethoven, who more favored the use of contrasting formal devices and dynamics. I think Liszt and Berlioz certainly had some impact on Wagner's sound, perhaps Weber and Chopin as well.
I do consider Mahler a descendant of Beethoven due to the eccentric mood swings in his music and his sprawling use of form.
I think Schubert and Schumann were much closer to Beethoven stylistically than Brahms or Wagner. Wagner really knew how to use harmony to create effect in ways I just don't hear in Beethoven, who more favored the use of contrasting formal devices and dynamics. I think Liszt and Berlioz certainly had some impact on Wagner's sound, perhaps Weber and Chopin as well.
I do consider Mahler a descendant of Beethoven due to the eccentric mood swings in his music and his sprawling use of form.
I also consider Shostakovich as being closer to Beethoven than any of the Romantic era composers. But it has nothing to do with compositional techniques.I am pretty inexperienced with Shostakovich but I am intrigued now. What elements of it do you see similar to Beethoven? Is it his motivic treatment? What's your favorite by him?
Can someone point me to a work by Berlioz or Wagner that agrees with itself throughout?
I don't know what you mean by that first quote. Do you mean a work wholly integrated by common threads? Or music which is organic, that is, it grows from some basic materials? In this, Wagner is an absolute master. The early operas don't exhibit this character, but the later ones sure do - in a remarkable, unmatched way. A comprehensive, detailed study of the entire Ring cycle will expose his methods and technique; but it takes a LONG time to study it that way. There are some pretty good books that try to bring it all together and explain it. Careful listening, preferably with a score, will reveal the extraordinary genius behind it all. The operas are not just a bunch of boring dialogues separated by some great orchestral numbers.I am pretty inexperienced with Shostakovich but I am intrigued now. What elements of it do you see similar to Beethoven? Is it his motivic treatment? What's your favorite by him?
Shostakovich I love, but I've never heard the Beethoven in him. His goals were something else, and symphonic development isn't his goal. The Soviet authorities considered Beethoven to be "healthy" music that a good Soviet composer who wanted to stay alive should stive to emulate - and so it's no surprise that the 5th symphony is quite traditional and closer to the Beethoven model than any of the others. Study of that score is quite rewarding. Trace the repeated use of themes and ideas. The interval of a 4th is used in melodic material repeatedly for example.
Yes I was somewhat vague. What I meant is primarily pacing. Much of the output of the new german school seems to me appallingly terrible in its pacing. I admit I am not very experience with opera but I find there are some monstrosities in the genre of programmatic instrumental music. I find that many programmatic composers mistaking linguistic narrative pacing with musical pacing as well as passages that serve a narrative role but are musically very out of place. Let me give you an example. The Dies Irae in Symphonie Fantastique makes absolutely no sense in the music except for its narrative benefit with its historical association. I also find in some tone poems of Strauss, passages that seem very out of place musically but serve a narrative role via lietmotif. This isn't to say that programmatic elements can't make sense. For example, Beethoven's bird calls in his pastoral symphony feel so natural to the music, since by way of proper pacing the music has led to that exposed open section. I find this culminating in much of Wagner's music. He might introduce an intense passage with a leitmotif that the narrative demanded but musically it feels out of place. Yes, I recognize that he is a master of his handling of motivic material. However it seems that the logic of the music takes a backseat to the narrative.
The idea of musical form as generated by an extramusical idea or expressive narrative is essentially Romantic (though not without precedent), and Beethoven bears much of the responsibility for its ascendance. You can bet that the opening movement of the "Eroica" was not readily grasped as a form by its early hearers, and they were right in sensing a difference between its dramatic narrativity, which would have sounded to them like an excess of fancy, and the tight, balanced, easily perceptible Classical structures of Haydn. Wagner reasonably (from his Romantic perspective) saw this radical aspect of Beethoven - his sense of musical drama and the theoretically limitless expansion of form it suggested - as pointing toward actual drama on the stage, to be conveyed through music of symphonic scope.Yes I was somewhat vague. What I meant is primarily pacing. Much of the output of the new german school seems to me appallingly terrible in its pacing. I admit I am not very experience with opera but I find there are some monstrosities in the genre of programmatic instrumental music. I find that many programmatic composers mistaking linguistic narrative pacing with musical pacing as well as passages that serve a narrative role but are musically very out of place. Let me give you an example. The Dies Irae in Symphonie Fantastique makes absolutely no sense in the music except for its narrative benefit with its historical association. I also find in some tone poems of Strauss, passages that seem very out of place musically but serve a narrative role via lietmotif. This isn't to say that programmatic elements can't make sense. For example, Beethoven's bird calls in his pastoral symphony feel so natural to the music, since by way of proper pacing the music has led to that exposed open section. I find this culminating in much of Wagner's music. He might introduce an intense passage with a leitmotif that the narrative demanded but musically it feels out of place. Yes, I recognize that he is a master of his handling of motivic material. However it seems that the logic of the music takes a backseat to the narrative.
It isn't quite right to say that the logic of Wagner's operatic music takes a backseat to narrative, since dramatic narrative, in many instances, provides the logic: dramatic expression is what the music is, and it makes no sense to look for "purely musical" justification for what is an essentially a dramatic idea. Wagner, however, had an uncanny skill at developing his motivic material and integrating it with carefully plotted key relationships to create a psychological progression, an arc of feeling, a structure with direction and coherence meant to be felt rather than grasped intellectually. It's been remarked that his music, by subjugating form to expression, breaks down the aesthetic distance, the mental "proscenium," which mediated between the composer's art and the listener's perception, and which had characterized the experience of music up until then. And yet, closer examination reveals a surprising quantity of traditionally balanced musical forms embedded in his huge structures, forms which are simply prevented from imposing themselves on our intellects by means of clever interlockings and harmonic deceptions.
I'll also remark that Berlioz's idee fixe barely encroaches on the musical and dramatic elaboration of the Wagnerian leitmotiv. Wagner disliked the term "leitmotiv," preferring the term grundthema (roughly and clumsily, "theme which is the basis") which better describes the musical function of his motifs. His practice of thematic transformation, his ability to get seemingly limitless mileage out of simple materials, has no more potent ancestor than Beethoven's fifth symphony.
Wagner was aware of the dangers posed by the attempt to apply some of his dramatic effects to abstract instrumental music, noting that "for the symphony one proceeds very differently," and he mused in a letter to Liszt about a concept of symphonic writing based on thematic metamorphosis. That sounds a bit like Sibelius, but we can see the principle at work in some of his orchestral passages. Too bad he didn't live long enough to get around to those symphonies.
Beethoven was sui generis. A lot of composers tried to use him as a starting off point -- each in a different way -- but none successful in doing anything that wasn't intrinsic to himself. Brahms was certainly more of a strict classicist than most of his contemporaries. Berlioz and Wagner both worshipped Beethoven but took their music in wildly contrary directions (Liszt too); Schumann was incapable of strict Beethovenian motivic development; Mahler could do nothiing but develop albeit in a more free-form way; Schubert's late works approached Beethoven's late spirituality most closely; Bruckner was good at carving movements out of blocks of granite, like the first movement of B's Ninth . . . basically, almost every mid-nineteenth century composer thought he was taking up where Beethoven left off -- but none was.
I absolutely agree with the Schubert. Most of his early stuff I hear as more an extension of Mozart stylistically. However his unfinished and great C major absolutely have Beethoven's stamp.
I would have said that Schubert is the first obvious descendent of Beethoven - he was a pall bearer at the great man's funeral and you can see the late symphonies and quartets owe something to Lud. Of course, Beethoven was such a colossus that he influenced just about everyone after him. Even Verdi thought Beethoven was the greatest and you can hear echoes of Beethoven in some of Verdi's symphonic writing - for example the Forces of Destiny prelude has the same feeling as some of Beethoven's overtures.
If you had asked every 19th-century composer whether he was taking up where Beethoven had left off, I'm sure that few would have answered in the affirmative. Wagner would have, but only in the particular respect relevant to his own work.Basically, almost every mid-nineteenth century composer thought he was taking up where Beethoven left off -- but none was.
Where did Beethoven leave off, anyway?
In my view, it's the emotional tension that links Beethoven to so many including Shostakovich. While Haydn and Mozart seem to work on a purely musical level that strives for balance, Beethoven is more often at war with himself. This type of struggle or secret war that the composer has with himself, seems to also be apparent in the music of Brahms, Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler, Shostakovich (very much Shostakovich). Even Tchaikovsky, who professed to aspire to Mozart and not Beethoven, seems to place a very strong sense of personal struggle into his final three canonical symphonies. Along this line, it seems that Beethoven's presence is everywhere. Nobody dominates like Beethoven, not the New York Yankees, New England Patriots, Muhammad Ali, Bobby Fisher, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Michael Jackson...I am pretty inexperienced with Shostakovich but I am intrigued now. What elements of it do you see similar to Beethoven? Is it his motivic treatment? What's your favorite by him?
...no one leaves their mark on a field or discipline like Beethoven. It's not until composers along the line of Debussy and Stravinsky come along, does Beethoven's influence seem to become less significant.
I see no relationship to any composer that followed Beethoven and Ludwig himself. I doubt his influence was on Schubert; they lived at the same time and Schubert died much sooner.
I hear more of his influence in Mendelssohn than in Schubert or Shostakovich. Certainly Mendelssohn's "Lobgesang" symphony was a direct descendent of Beethoven's "choral." Mendelssohn also composed "Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage" while Beethoven did same. The violin concertos for the two composers are of similar duration and development, also. Ever heard Mendelssohn's Piano Sonata Op.6? Listen to it sometime and decide if that is not early Beethoven revisited.
It is true that Bruckner began 8 of his 9 numbered symphonies in cadences similar to what begins Beethoven's "choral" but I hear no Beethoven in he or Mahler otherwise. In Mahler, especially, I hear more of an anti-Beethoven developmental form. To me, the composer I think of more often when I hear Mahler and Bruckner is Liszt: all three ramble and meander endlessly before making their points. This is not Beethoven.
I hear more of his influence in Mendelssohn than in Schubert or Shostakovich. Certainly Mendelssohn's "Lobgesang" symphony was a direct descendent of Beethoven's "choral." Mendelssohn also composed "Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage" while Beethoven did same. The violin concertos for the two composers are of similar duration and development, also. Ever heard Mendelssohn's Piano Sonata Op.6? Listen to it sometime and decide if that is not early Beethoven revisited.
It is true that Bruckner began 8 of his 9 numbered symphonies in cadences similar to what begins Beethoven's "choral" but I hear no Beethoven in he or Mahler otherwise. In Mahler, especially, I hear more of an anti-Beethoven developmental form. To me, the composer I think of more often when I hear Mahler and Bruckner is Liszt: all three ramble and meander endlessly before making their points. This is not Beethoven.
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