16.4 - Beethoven's Gift to Music: SOUND

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En provenance du cours de Yale University

Introduction to Classical Music

1578 notes

Yale University

Introduction to Classical Music

1578 notes

Using a simple and enjoyable teaching style, this course introduces the novice listener to the wonders of classical music, from Bach fugues to Mozart symphonies to Puccini operas.

À partir de la leçon

The Bridge From Classical to Romantic

If you could put a soundtrack to the French Revolution, it would surely contain music from Beethoven's "Heroic" period, during which, he “brought sound to symphonies.” We’ll see how Beethoven’s incorporation of new instruments, as well as, his creation of a large orchestra, made his symphonies much louder and "sonically vivid" than those of his predecessors. The point of focus here will be a comparison of the music of Beethoven's "Heroic" period, represented by his Symphony No. 5, with that of his "Late" period, epitomized by his famous Ode to Joy. We'll also consider Beethoven the man, as revealed through primary source accounts of his life at that time. They paint a picture of a disheveled, wild-looking Beethoven, who lived among filth and clutter and was consumed by his work. The ultimate question: in what ways might his life of isolation and his hearing disability affected the nature (style) of the great music he created?As we bid aufwiedersehen to Beethoven, we move on to full-blown musical Romanticism. Romantic music, and indeed all romantic art, was known for its idealistic views on love and nature. Occurring roughly from 1820 to 1900, musical Romanticism saw an evolution of musical style as well as a change of venue (place) for musical performance. In addition to the aristocracy and their royal palaces, a strong middle class arose in Europe during this period. With the music of the ever-lyrical Franz Schubert, we'll step into the parlor of an upper-middle class home, to experience his domestic chamber music and songs. We’ll finish off the module by asking the question: How do we use musical sound to communicate? A look at program music (instrumental music that uses musical gestures to tell a story) will help us figure this out. After a quick auditory review of the workings of program music (we'll follow Vivaldi on a spring day), we'll watch Hector Berlioz go to hell. More accurately, we’ll follow the sequence of musical gestures he employs to re-create a fantastical tale of pursuit, destruction, damnation. Having learned our lesson, we’ll end with a little fun as we try to match themes extracted from various symphonies to the mental images that the composer had in mind. Do you speak the language of program music fluently? Join us and find out!

16.1 - The Three Periods of Beethoven5:07

16.2 - Symphony No. 3, the "Eroica"9:55

16.3 - Symphony No. 518:06

16.4 - Beethoven's Gift to Music: SOUND10:41

16.5 - Beethoven Toward the End7:55

16.6 - The Late Period and "Ode to Joy"4:30

Rencontrer les enseignants

Craig Wright
Henry L & Lucy G Moses Professor of Music
Department of Music

[MUSIC]

Sorry to leave you hanging there.

Did that intentionally.

The title of this segment is, Beethoven's Gift to Music, Sound.

That seems like a silly thing to say that Beethoven's gift to music was sound.

But in a sense it was.

He was the first composer to create a sound that was so big and so

gorgeous, that, we the listener, well we just want to wallow in it.

By comparison, here's the sound of a typical big symphony, by Haydn.

And by Mozart too, for that matter, but here's one by Haydn.

[MUSIC]

End of Haydn's [FOREIGN]

[MUSIC]

Now that's a big sound for Haydn.

That's as big as it gets.

Now here's a moment in a symphony by Beethoven.

[MUSIC]

Well obviously that's a huge buildup of volume.

And there's really only one musical idea there that gets repeated over and

over and over and over again, iteration.

As more and more instruments are added to play and the volume of sound builds.

And almost inevitably with Beethoven, as the volume of sound builds to a climax,

the brasses enter with a heroic sounding theme.

Here's another example of Beethoven using the same sort of musical gambit or

creating a grand gesture as I like to call it.

This one is from the overture to Leonore No 3.

And for this, we'll show an image drawn from YouTube that's really a promo for

the London Philharmonic and 50 great classical hits.

But it's kind of fun to watch.

[MUSIC]

And Beethoven not only wallowed in sound per say just by itself,

merely to build a crescendo.

Often he seemed to do so just because he liked that particular sound.

He was prepared to sit there for a long time because he liked the sound.

This tended to make, of course, his pieces much longer, and

here's a particularly lovely example of that from his 6th Symphony,

the Pastoral Symphony, symphony of 1808.

And before we begin, here's what he's doing, he's essentially,

[MUSIC]

It's really just coming down a triad there.

So let's give a listen.

It's the autograph on the screen.

[MUSIC]

There's the bottom note, just sitting on that note.

[SOUND]

[MUSIC]

Finally he's

moved.

[MUSIC]

[INAUDIBLE] Wow,

that was lovely.

I really enjoyed that and

by the way on the screen you can see the autograph of this pastoral symphony here.

But he's not finished.

[MUSIC]

As a matter of fact he's back.

He's starting again in another pitch.

[MUSIC]

All the way down there, he sits on there.

[MUSIC]

And finally he moves, finally he moves.

[MUSIC]

A long, long passage on just one sound, but the sound is luxurious, it's gorgeous.

Well, how did he create this luxurious or gorgeous sound?

Well, he did it in part by adding new instruments.

So let's go back to his 5th Symphony.

As you can see here, in the 5th Symphony, Beethoven adds for the first time,

the contrabassoon.

Now, the contrabassoon actually plays the lowest pitches of any

instrument in the symphony orchestra, the lowest note, lower than the double bass.

So Beethoven is bulking up the lower sounds of the orchestra.

And in addition he added trombones to the symphony for this symphony number five.

Now that seems like a strange thing to say because

trombones had really been around since the 14th century.

But they'd been used exclusively in religious music, and in operas.

Especially to signify the sounds of hell.

But here Beethoven uses the trombone in a symphony to enrich the sounds

of the brasses, creating this big robust brass in the vernacular ballsy

sound that became part and parcel of romantic music.

Let's listen to a bit of the sounds of the trombone as heard here for

the first time in a symphony here in the final movement

of the finale of Beethoven's Symphony No 5.

We've heard this before, but let's focus particularly on the brasses now.

[MUSIC]

So the trombone's been playing underneath.

[MUSIC]

And then they'll be foregrounded in just a second.

[MUSIC]

With part two of this.

[MUSIC]

And here we go, oops we're not going to go, but I'll play it for you.

[MUSIC]

Trombone solo.

[MUSIC]

And on it goes.

But the addition of contrabassoon and trombone weren't all.

Beethoven also here in the 5th

Symphony adds a piccolo thereby expanding the top range of the orchestra.

Now Beethoven most effectively used the piccolo, a small high flute, of course, in

the storm scene of his Pastoral Symphony, here provides a sort of, sonic special

effect of the wind whistling at the top of the sonic spectrum during a storm.

This high piccolo can cut cleanly

through even the densest sort of orchestral texture.

Let's give a listen.

[MUSIC]

Hear it up on top?

[MUSIC]

So Beethoven adds new instruments to the orchestra top and bottom and

accordingly he creates a larger orchestra.

New woodwinds, new brasses were added.

And to balance them, well, he needed more strings.

If Mozart usually had 30, 35 in his orchestra,

Beethoven usually had around 60 players in his, twice the number.

And similarly, here we see Mozart's piano on the left and Beethoven's on the right.

Mozart's piano weighed exactly 100, still does, still weighs that,

because it still exists, weighs 187 pounds.

Beethoven's Broadwood piano weighs, which also still exists,

weighs about 400 pounds, more than twice as much weight, twice as much volume.

So technology, in some ways, has allowed Beethoven to create this bigger sound,

and delight in it.

To stop the music.

I don't need more motives.

I don't need more themes, more melodies.

I just want to hear that sound.

I want to hear that sound.

Do you hear that?

Do you hear that?

Do you hear that?

That's what he seems to be saying in so much of his music.

Beethoven could make the sound bigger, hit the ball farther,

because he had new and better equipment.

A silly comparison I know but it makes a point.

Well, let's see what we've learned in this segment.

Let's review by means of a quiz.

I'll let you study for a few moments.

And then we'll talk about the answer.

Okay let's see how you did now.

Let's check out the incorrect answer.

Okay, good for you.

C is correct.

Beethoven actually slows down the rate at which musical ideas, new motives,

melodies, harmonies, etc, slows down the rate at which musical ideas come to us.

Because he wanted to take more time to stop and enjoy the sound of the moment.

For him more than any previous composer, the sound was the thing.

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