Fantastic Metropolis

Beethoven’s coach had already left, and another one had to be summoned from a nearby town. As the hours passed in waiting for the coach, it is reported that Beethoven’s agitation grew ever more strong. Finally the coach arrived, and Beethoven climbed in with a strange, jerky-limbed gait, and they set off along the mountain road. On the way back to Mannheim, at the highest point of the journey, Ludwig stopped the coach, walked to the cliff edge, and without a word cast himself over.

Not yet was he to be allowed the easement of death, however. Fifty feet down his coat was caught in a bush, and Beethoven was left hanging over the abyss. It was several hours before a rescue team arrived from Mannheim, and the attempt to save Beethoven took a great deal of time. He was finally brought to the top fifteen hours after he had fallen, suffering severely from exposure.

In the hospital, he began work on the symphony in earnest. In music he could release the feelings that boiled within him—suffering at which we can only guess. In his hospital bed he planned the symphony—a strangely constructed work of two movements—and chose his text from the published works of Totenfreund. It was only a few weeks before he had completed the draft of the short first movement, which leads without a break into the large-scale choral finale.

The opening of the symphony takes place in an atmosphere of desolation and gloom. The double basses intone their solemn motif, and the violins enter with a hushed tremolando. There is a brief oboe solo which adds to the feeling of timelessness, the falling sixths like stones dropping into the stillness of a stagnant pool.

A cymbal clash heralds the beginning of the first subject proper, but first there is a stirring and oddly familiar horn call in an unrelated key, that reminds one of a general marshalling his forces (Ex. 2). Then begins the controversial first subject.

Example 2

There is no doubt that Beethoven’s unfortunate name had a great effect on him. One can only imagine the effect that this name, the name of the greatest of all masters, would have on the mind of a sensitive composer. Some critics have suggested that Beethoven was influenced by his namesake to an unhealthy degree, and have quoted this symphony, and particularly its first subject, as their evidence. This writer maintains that one has only to listen to the delightful close of this section (Ex. 3) after it has modulated into the E flat major of the forthcoming second subject, to hear the impressive originality of this composer’s mind.

Example 3