Symphonic Beethoven vs Chamber Beethoven
Are Beethoven’s works meant for the symphonic hall significantly different from the ones meant for a small venue?
I’ve been listening intensely to classical music for more than 15 years and one of my favorite composers is a guy that would be 250 years old were he still alive this December — Ludwig van Beethoven. In my years listening to his works I have always heard the chamber works (string quartets, piano trios, etc…) as bolder and more innovative than his symphonic music (symphonies, concertos, etc…). Beethoven revolutionized almost every genre that he touched, so could I be right? It seems a little unlikely but I would like to explore this hypothesis with you.
So, what’s the difference between symphonic music and chamber music?
Let’s go back to Beethoven’s time to understand the context in which his music was performed. There are blatant differences in purpose for symphonic works and chamber music. The former is meant to be played by a large number of (usually professional) musicians to a large audience in a concert hall and the latter is meant to be played by a small ensemble (which usually includes a lot of amateur musicians in Beethoven’s early career) in a small (think “palace small”) room of a patron’s house for a small audience consisting of the patron’s guests that day. The Classical period was the Age of Enlightenment which wasn’t very good news for the privileged noble families of the time and composers transitioned from being a servant at a nobleman’s house to being a freelancer that lived off of his published works and usually self-promoted concerts. This meant that the stark difference between symphonic music and chamber music blurred a little since chamber music started being included in public concerts played by professional musicians (the musical performance as we know it today). Nevertheless, there has always been a difference in character between the two genres.
For the purpose of this article, here are the criteria I’m going to use to define if a work is symphonic or chamber music:
Symphonic music: any work that requires an orchestra to perform.
Chamber music: everything else.
Note that according to this criteria symphonic music includes not only symphonies but also concertos, masses, and anything else that involves an orchestra. By including everything else in chamber music I’m also including solo works such as piano sonatas which are usually considered a genre on its own. However, the solo works are usually composed for the same context as a chamber work.
Using this definition I have plotted the number of major works¹ composed by Beethoven in each year. The first thing you notice is that he composed a lot more chamber than symphonic music. This is understandable since symphonic music is a lot more work. Perhaps more interestingly is that his symphonic output is concentrated between the years 1803 and 1810 which is known as Beethoven’s middle or heroic period.
Scholars usually identify three distinct periods in Beethoven’s work.
Early years in Vienna (1792–1803)
Beethoven comes from Bonn and is a newcomer to the Vienna musical scene. He is taught by Haydn and his work during this phase is heavily influenced by his master’s and Mozart’s style.
Heroic period (1803–1810)
Beethoven starts finding a voice of his own and starts shaking the foundations of the classical form. He starts composing in a grander, more expressive style which is appropriate to a full orchestra and that’s why most of his symphonic music is composed during these years. Some of his best-known works such as the 5th Symphony and the Waldstein Piano Sonata are from this period.
Late period (1810–1827)
Beethoven has earned his fame in Vienna with his large-scale works from the middle period. By this time, he is almost completely deaf and he struggles in social settings. He retreats to his study to find a more intellectual, intimate, and deeply expressive style which is why this period is dominated by chamber music. However, he also writes two of his most important symphonic works during this time, the Missa Solemnis and the 9th Symphony.
Returning to our hypothesis:
Beethoven’s chamber music is more innovative than his symphonic music
Could it be that I’m just not taking into account this chronology? Maybe I’m just listening to his later chamber works and comparing them to his earlier symphonic work and since his style developed a lot I’m reaching the wrong conclusion. Maybe Beethoven used his chamber works to “rehearse” ideas for his symphonic music? Maybe he just thought of the two genres as fundamentally different and was trying to express different things with each one of them?
I will try to find out the answers to these questions by analyzing three works, a symphony, a piano sonata, and a string quartet, from each of his creative periods.
Early years in Vienna
When he came to Vienna Beethoven started taking lessons from Haydn and his output from this period clearly shows his influence. I’m going to comment on three major works from this period and then draw some conclusions.
The four standard movements of a symphony (as established by Haydn and Mozart) are:
- Fast movement in sonata-form²
- Slow movement
- Minuet
- Fast movement
Beethoven also uses four movements in his first symphony. However, the second movement is not the usual slow movement. At first, the listener is tricked into thinking it’s the minuet already. It is “danceable” and the tempo is that of a minuet. This movement is actually in sonata form and the third movement is the movement that Beethoven called the minuet but sounds more like his Scherzos which are faster and more forceful forms of a minuet.
The first movement is a pretty standard sonata form but the slow introduction is noteworthy because it delays the establishment of a tonal center for quite a while and is even considered a musical joke by many. The final movement also uses a slow introduction effectively mirroring the first movement and then bursts into a very Haydnesque high-energy finale in a standard Rondo form.
All in all, the symphony is quite standard except for:
- The unusual tempo of the second movement
- The explosive orchestration that is often used to forcefully mark some key moments of the work — this would become a trademark of Beethoven
- The transformation of the Minuet into a Scherzo — also a trademark of Beethoven’s later symphonies
- The use of a distant tonality right at the beginning of the Scherzo
- The use of syncopation to create some rhythmic confusion — Beethoven would explore this technique very deeply in his later works
Sonata for Piano №3 in C major op. 2/3
This piano sonata became known for establishing Beethoven as a piano virtuoso because of its very difficult passagework using parallel thirds, trills, and fast arpeggios.
The first movement’s second theme is in the minor mode and it takes a while to arrive at the traditional dominant key. Close to the end, we also hear a surprising chord that is out of the key and then launches into a series of exploratory arpeggios that sound like an improvisation. This improvisational character is pervasive throughout the whole sonata.
The second movement is a slow classic Rondo form that uses some unusual harmonic progressions. The third movement is a Scherzo featuring a lot of imitative writing which is something that Beethoven used more and more in his Scherzos throughout his career. The final movement also uses a second theme in a minor key and features a musical joke in the coda where there is a huge build-up on the dominant chord that then resolves into a not very convincing restatement of the main theme followed by a quick conclusion of the sonata. The imbalance between the length of the build-up of tension and the rushed way that Beethoven resolves it sounds really odd and probably left the listeners of his time thinking “Uh… Okay. Is that it?”.
String Quartet №4 in C minor op. 18/4
This string quartet is heavily influenced by Beethoven’s teacher, Haydn, who is considered to be the father of the string quartet. His influence is clear by the first movement’s form which is a sonata form that is monothematic³ and by the use of a Hungarian sounding theme in the final movement. Haydn was fond of using material from a single theme in his sonata expositions and he lived most of his life in service of his Hungarian patron, Nikolaus Esterházy.
Also noteworthy is the fact Beethoven refuses to finish the first movement in the major mode as was usual at the time and insists on maintaining the C minor key until the end of the movement. He eventually caves in the final movement and finishes the string quartet in C major although this mode change is quite understated.
The second movement is very similar to the first symphony’s second movement. It resembles a minuet and takes the place of the usually slow second movement. As in the first symphony, the actual minuet follows this movement and is more forceful in character, featuring a lot of accents on the “wrong” beats. Since the string quartet was composed prior to the symphony we think that Beethoven was practicing the idea in this quartet and used it later in the symphony. The final movement ends with an extremely fast coda that would be unusual for the time.
So, are there any differences in innovation between these works? There are important formal innovations in the first symphony, interesting harmonic experiments in piano writing, and some formal innovation in the quartet as well. Maybe there aren’t significant differences in innovation between the symphonic and chamber music after all. But we should remember that this was the least innovative of Beethoven’s creative periods so we should refrain from conclusions until later.
Heroic period
After coming to terms with his severe deafness, Beethoven starts trailing new paths and goes through a highly productive phase featuring a lot of symphonic music.
Symphony №3 in E flat major op. 55 “Eroica”
This is the first symphony where Beethoven breaks completely with symphonic tradition. The work is still four movements long and they appear in their standard order. However, the form is enlarged and the style is heavier and more dramatic than anything that preceded it. It wasn’t well-received in its first audition and was described as unbearably long.
The first movement is in sonata form but it is 16 to 18 minutes long, which is a lot for that time’s standards. It uses a simple theme that finishes inconclusively on a note outside the key, the exposition is expanded by the use of several transition themes and the development is almost twice as long as normal by the unprecedented introduction of a new theme in the middle of that section. It ends with an equally expanded coda that is sometimes analyzed as a second development.
The second movement is a deeply moving funeral march in ABA (ternary) form. The second A section is not a mere repetition of the first but instead employs fugal writing to enrich it. It also ends with a coda further expanding the length of the movements that usually clocks in at 15 minutes.
The third movement is a Scherzo that lightens the mood a bit and is 5 minutes long. It features an instrumental innovation by using three french horns instead of the usual two and Beethoven calls attention to this by giving them center stage during the middle section of the movement.
The final movement is a theme and variations, a form that Beethoven would develop during his career. The movement is a build-up towards the triumphant final variation. In the end, there is a surprising interruption and then a sudden pianissimo that then launches into a Presto that finishes the symphony with forceful affirmations of the tonic chord.
Sonata for Piano №23 in F minor op. 57 “Appassionata”
This sonata would leave listeners of its time in shock. It is tragic from beginning to end. Even for works in minor keys, it was customary at the time to end them in a major key but Beethoven would have none of that and instead chose to compose this sonata with a direction towards the tragic finale in a minor key that has been described as a descent into hell.
The first movement opens with a mysterious theme exploring the deepest notes on the piano. Right in the second statement of the theme, Beethoven uses a non-diatonic chord intensifying the mystery and tension. Beethoven also explores in this movement the dynamic contrasts that are possible with the piano with quiet phrases being followed by explosive writing that made Beethoven famous for frequently breaking the strings of the pianos he played.
The second movement is a contemplative and dreamy set of variations on a simple theme that uses the most basic harmonic progressions in a major key. It serves as beautiful contrast and sets the stage for the final movement which opens with a forceful repetition of a very dissonant chord that then launches into a perpetual movement that drives us into the tragic finale.
String Quartet №9 in C major op. 59/3 “Rasumovsky III”
This string quartet opens with a tonally ambiguous slow introduction that has been studied by scholars throughout the world and is often compared to Mozart’s “Dissonance” quartet. As in Mozart’s case, it then bursts out into a brilliant main theme in C major.
The quartet as whole features a lot of syncopation, and a lot counterpoint that tends to give equal importance to each instrument instead of having an imbalance between the soloist first violin and the accompanying others. The Scherzo which is usually simpler in texture also features imitative writing and gives the melody to the second violin and the viola.
The last movement is a brilliant fugue with a very lively theme that is a lot of fun to hear and, I imagine, to play. However, this quartet, like the others in the Razumovsky set⁴, is much more difficult to play than any other string quartets before them mainly due to its heavy use of syncopation, counterpoint, and modulations to distant keys that posed problems for intonation. One of the Count Razumovsky’s musicians complained about this to Beethoven who responded:
Do you think I give a damn about your fiddle when the muse hits me?
So, where do we stand on innovation in these works from the middle period? The Eroica symphony breaks symphonic tradition in a lot of ways, the Appassionata is a force of nature and has an emotional weight that had never been heard before and the string quartet innovates in harmony, rhythm, and form.
I think it starts to become clear that Beethoven is not innovating more in his chamber music than in his symphonic music but maybe he is innovating in different ways and he is developing each genre in the way that makes the most sense. He is making the Symphony larger and more grandiose, clearing the path for the gigantic symphonies by Mahler who said “The Symphony should be like the World. It should contain everything!”. He is taking more harmonic risks and giving greater emotional weight to the Piano Sonata because it is the perfect vehicle to express personal feelings and by doing this he is starting to create the image of the romantic lonely artist who expresses himself fully in his music. He is also developing the String Quartet into an intellectually deep genre that is capable of expressing intimate emotion through a complex texture which makes sense because chamber music listeners would be more likely to have more sophisticated musical knowledge.
Late period
If Beethoven had stopped composing after writing such revolutionary works as the ones we discussed above, he would already have been remembered as a great composer. By this time, he is famous in Vienna as an artist that pushes boundaries. He is now free to venture into even more revolutionary ideas.
Symphony №9 in D minor op. 125 “Choral”
It is clear to anyone who listens to this work that Beethoven was composing for his time, for ours, and for times to come. This was his legacy. The scale of this symphony is something never seen before⁵ and its greatness is something that would haunt composers for centuries. I highly recommend you to watch this video from the Inside the Score YouTube channel. He does a really good job conveying the weight this work has had in music history.
The first movement is a very long sonata form that sounds tragic and dooming. The second movement is a Scherzo in the typical ABA form but each A section is a whole sonata form with a fugue as its main theme. Never has a Scherzo had such formal weight and complexity in a symphony. The third movement is a long exploration of melody in a slow tempo through a set of variations.
But the final movement… Oh, the final movement! It is so rich that it can be analyzed as a full symphony within the symphony.
It starts tragic and mysterious and it seems that it can’t get off the ground. Beethoven quotes the main theme from the first movement but interrupts it again. Then he quotes the second movement and interrupts it again. Then he quotes the third movement and interrupts it again! Then he shows a glimpse of the main theme of the final movement (the famous Ode to Joy) and interrupts it again.
Only after about 3 minutes does the movement get some momentum with the first full statement of the Ode to Joy theme. Its simplicity and openness sound magical after all the dread that preceded it. It is restated again and again each time more joyfully and when it can go no further a human voice sounds!
In the rest of the movement, Beethoven takes us through Schiller’s poem and its form is resemblant of the symphony as a whole.
Sonata for Piano №31 in A flat major op. 110
The first movement of this sonata strikes us as sublime and beautiful. Beethoven opens with a slow movement instead of a fast one and uses a pristine and simple sonata form. It shows us that Beethoven mastered his craft and is able to use the classical form to write an incredible piece of music.
The middle movement is a rather simple Scherzo which is in double meter instead of the usual triple meter and connects to the finale without interruption. It serves as a relief to prepare us for the final movement which shows Beethoven’s late style at its best — intimate, deeply moving, and highly complex.
This final movement starts with a free and exploratory slow section that sounds like a recitative. After the recitative, we have an arioso⁶ that sounds like a lament. This is followed by a fugue, then a slight variation of the arioso returns, and then we have a final fugue whose theme is the inversion of the first fugue’s theme.
The intellectuality of the fugues contrasts beautifully with the slow arioso sections but these are not used simply for their complexity. They are seamlessly integrated into the drama of the sonata as a whole.
String Quartet №14 in C sharp minor op. 131
One of Beethoven’s last string quartets, a genre to which he dedicated most of his creative energy in his last years. This one was actually his favorite and he says it is “the most perfect” of his quartets.
The form of the whole work is highly innovative. It consists of seven distinct movements but they are all connected and are meant to be played with no interruption. At that time, it was unusual to listen to the entirety of a work in a concert and the programs usually consisted of selected movements from different works. This quartet, however, was clearly conceived as one single piece of music and the last movement even quotes the first one.
There are many interesting details in this work, such as the fact that the first movement is a gut-wrenching fugue that starts in a very orthodox manner but then presents a lot of rhythmic ambiguities and wanders through many distant keys, but what stands out is the incredible balance of the work as a whole. It is the ultimate treaty on form by Beethoven who, after having extended the classical forms almost to their breaking point, after having reestablished counterpoint’s importance with his recurrent use of fugues, after having discovered ways of expressing himself more freely as an individual artist, finally conceives a work of perfectly balanced proportions using a formal mold that is entirely his own.
So, where do we find the most innovative output from Beethoven? In his symphonic music or his chamber music?
In fact, he develops each genre in distinct ways to as to obtain the grandiosity of scale in the symphony, the dramatic personal expressiveness in the piano sonata, and the introspection in the intimacy of the string quartet.
So, why did I have this idea that his chamber music was more innovative? Maybe I was more attentive to details of innovation in texture or harmony that tend to be more apparent in chamber settings. Maybe because my taste in music tends more towards the intimate setting of chamber music. Maybe because I wasn’t paying attention to the obvious formal innovation of his symphonic work.
This is one of the major difficulties in listening to classical music — to put oneself in the context of the work and to have an idea of what would be normal at the time and what would sound odd. The Eroica symphony is a good example — its duration, scale, and heroic style do not sound off to us because that is exactly how we see the symphony today — something grandiose that is conceived to leave a mark and create a legacy. But the innovative Eroica symphony is exactly why we see the symphony that way. We forget that the concept of the symphony in its time was totally different — an orchestral work of 30 minutes maximum with a relatively simple and predictable form and with a strong component of mere entertainment.
Footnotes
[1] Only works like sonatas, symphonies, concertos, trios, quartets. I’m ignoring shorter works like bagatelles for piano or arias for soprano and orchestra.
[2] This is a very relevant and very usual form. If you’re not familiar with it you can learn about it in Wikipedia or watch a beginner-friendly video about the topic.
[3] Sonata forms usually feature two contrasting themes. When we say that a sonata form is monothematic we mean that it only uses a single theme or at least the second theme is heavily based on the first theme which is more the case in this string quartet.
[4] Beethoven composed a set of three string quartets for the Russian ambassador in Vienna Count Andrey Razumovsky.
[5] The instrumentation alone is revolutionary. Beethoven employs two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, and three trombones. This is the birth of the modern symphony orchestra. Dozens of symphonies would use the same instrumentation for decades.
[6] An arioso is a genre that sits between the speech-like recitative and the melodic aria. It has a steady rhythm but the melody is still dominated by the words and it does not employ repetition. Of course, in this case, there are no words since this is a piano sonata but the writing style is the same.
