A Profound Comedy
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 (1806)
Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony seems an anomaly compared to the heroic Third and the fateful Fifth. Many have commented upon its difference: the famous musical encyclopedist George Grove described the symphony as “a complete contrast to both its predecessor and successor…as gay and spontaneous as they are serious and lofty,” whereas composer Robert Schumann delighted in describing the work as “a slender Greek maiden between two Norse giants.”1 While such descriptions seem to argue against considering the symphony as metaphorically promethean, remember that storm and strife are but one aspect of being promethean. Listen below to Franz Welser-Möst’s take on this quandary:
The Cleveland Orchestra's Centennial Season ends with Music Director Franz Welser-Möst’s “Prometheus Project,” a special presentation of all nine of Beethoven's symphonies, examined through the metaphor of Prometheus, the daring Greek Titan.
Jean Paul and the “inverted sublime”
The “Jean Paul” to which Franz referred is the German author and philosopher Jean Paul Friedrich Richter (1763-1825). During his life, he was famous as an author of humorous and satirical novels, which were filled with dramatic contrasts of tone and style. Fittingly, his major philosophical work, School for Aesthetics (1804), is a study of humor. It is here that he introduces an interpretation of humor as “inverse sublimity.”2 If the romantic sublime is an attempt to represent the unrepresentable — the metaphysical, the ideal, the world of inexpressible emotions and ideas — then its inverse, humor, is a juxtaposition of the sublime with our finite and imperfect real world. The real world is shown to be wanting, but through this failure, some truth about the incomprehensible sublime is revealed.
As Franz described, Beethoven paired the dark, serious, and foreboding slow opening with a spirited, high-octane main section. Like one of Jean-Paul’s novels, this section is dominated by quick shifts in mood and dynamics and, delights in exaggeration. The stark contrast created by this juxtaposition is comic: The opening’s sublime searching reveals nothing like the wrenching internal struggle of the Fifth or the world-conquering heroism of the Third, but, rather, it is music that seems apt for the overture to a comic farce. Beethoven seems to present a humorous counterargument to the earnest seriousness and intensity of works such as the "Eroica." As we’ll see, he continues this counterargument in the remaining movements of this symphony.
Franz discusses the second movement of the Fourth Symphony and its connections to other heroic works by Beethoven.
“[The second] movement seems as if it had been sadly murmured by the Archangel Michael….on some day when he contemplated the universe from the threshold of the Empyrean.”
- Hector Berlioz (c. 1840s)3
Berlioz’s flowery description of the second movement is a good counterpoint to that provided by Franz. Although both focus on different aspects – Berlioz on the wistful, long-breathed melody, and Franz on the connections to ideas of freedom and heroism present in other works by Beethoven – both perceive the movement as in the midst of a symphony that otherwise is devoted to humor. Perhaps this movement provides a contrast to the remaining movements of the symphony, which helps throw the overall theme into sharper relief. Or, perhaps, through its mixture of slow lyricism and an insistent rhythm it offers another alternative to Beethoven’s more bombastic “heroic” style. Whichever and whatever it is, Beethoven leaves it for you to decide. Listen below and see what you think.
The remaining two movements of the symphony return to a frantic, comic tone. In the spirit of Richter’s concept of humor, they might be a reminder, after the second movement’s extended sojourn in sublimity, that joy and freedom are not achieved through serious and sorrowful music alone. The third and fourth movements revel in speed, exaggeration, and mock rhetoric.
1George Grove. Beethoven and his Nine Symphonies (London: Novello, 1896), 98; Lewis Lockwood. Beethoven’s Symphonies: An Artistic Vision (New York: Norton, 2017), 80.
2Thomas Sipe. “Beethoven, Shakespeare, and the ‘Appassionata.’” In Beethoven Forum , Vol. 4, edited by Christopher Reynolds, Lewis Lockwood, and James Webster (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 76.
3Hector Berlioz. A Critical Study of Beethoven’s Nine Symphonies, translated by Edwin Evans (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 56.
— Dr. Alexis Lawler worked in The Cleveland Orchestra Archives and completed The Prometheus Project while a Historical Musicology PhD student at Case Western Reserve University.