DAILY DOSE of BEETHOVEN (May 11, 2020)
If you are hiking along the long Appalachian Trail, and you wish not to get lost, you need trail-markers to guide you. The long Ninth Symphony has such trail markers, serving not just as guide-posts, but reminders of the work's unity, as it unfolds in a lawful process of beautiful change.
Today, in this last of 12-part post on the great Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, we are focusing on the included audio file. We have to delve a bit into music theory, but we will make every effort to make it comprehensible to all.
We provide a written description of what the audio discusses, but as an aid, not a substitute. Please listen to the audio, since music is meant to be heard to be understood!
The audio begins with the opening of the first movement. Some of this is repeated from 3 days ago, but it is necessary. Beethoven starts with an octave of A, divided into two intervals, by the tone E. A to E, ascending, is a fifth (A B C D E-five notes). E to A ascending is a fourth (E F G A).
If we invert the process, then a fifth descending gives us the tone D as a dividing point (A G F E D). D to A descending, is a fourth ( D C B A.)
That gives us an ambiguity as to WHETHER THE TONE A, is a TONIC, GENERATIVE TONE, or the FIFTH OF D. Beethoven plays on that irony, and resolves it to D minor.
Beethoven then re-starts the symphony, this time on his newly derived fifth, A to D. If he resolved it in the same way, we would proceed to G minor, G D Bb G. Instead he moves by a DESCENDING MAJOR THIRD in Bb major- D Bb F D Bb. This time, the irony is not whether the tone D can be both a tonic and a fifth, but A TONIC AND A MAJOR THIRD.
Those two changes come up in two interventions in the third movement. The first centers around the interval of the fifth, in this case, Eb, Bb, and F. The play is on the tone, Bb. Is it the fifth of Eb, or is F the fifth of Bb?
The second intervention adds a DESCENDING MAJOR THIRD Eb, Bb, F F Db.
The same process is utilized in the fourth movement on the words, " Und der Cherub steht vor Got!" (and the Cherub stands before God!) A D, E A, A F. It goes one step further. F becomes the fifth of Bb major, for the Turkish March.
If you like, play or sing the following tones, DD GG AA D A-D E-A A-F F-Bb
The opening interval of a fifth comes into play often in the fourth movement, on the words Freude (Joy), and Gotterfunken (God's sparks.)
https://soundcloud.com/user-385773006/trail-makers-in-the-9th-symphony