Paper Example on Beethoven's Symphonies: Exploring Art & Ideas

Geck, Martin. Beethoven's symphonies: nine approaches to art and ideas. Translated by Stewart Spencer. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2017. Scholars Portal Books.

Source: Scholars Portal Books through the University of Toronto Library

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Annotation: This book presents a look into nine symphonies completed by Ludwig van Beethoven and considered as major masterpieces in western music. Focusing on Beethoven's composing approach including the ideals that moved and shaped him, the book brings to a life an account of the major themes which unified his perceived radical and diverse works. The nine symphonies were created in the enlightenment era from 1800-1824 when most philosophers were illuminating the human culture and intellect.

The author, Martin Geck, presents the contribution of Beethoven towards intellectual exploration and how his unique notes contributed to social change since the classical period. Geck has delved into the uniqueness and innovativeness of how Beethoven approached the beginnings and finishings of his symphonies, the musical elements including the pitch, chord, and theme, all of which offers new ways of thinking to the audience. The Symphony no5 in C minor, op. 67, was composed between 1804 and 1808 and consists of four movements: it starts with an allegro of the sonata, continues with andante and ends with a scherzo that links directly with the finale, an element of very original and original musical continuity. The first movement (Allegro with brio) of this symphony is a paradigmatic example of the sonata form and is in the form of an allegro sonata. It consists of an Exhibition, Development, Recapitulation, and Coda. The book demonstrates the significance and relevance of the nine symphonies which have occupied a preeminent, important and fundamental place in the history of Western music in general and specifically within the development of symphonic language.

Steinberg, M. (1995). The Symphony: A Listener's Guide. Oxford University Press, USA.

Source: Scholars Portal Books through the University of Toronto Library

Annotation: This book presents a guide and commentary of several musical forms by celebrated composers among whom, Ludwig van Beethoven. Beethoven is considered as the main precursor of the transition from classicism to romanticism. His works include the Fifth Symphony and the Ninth, whose music of the fourth movement has been established as the Anthem of the European Union (EU). The author, Michael Steinberg, a renowned teacher and critic traces how symphonies have developed in expressions, sound, and form and how composers have dealt with the exceptional musical challenges experienced throughout the history of symphonies.

As the book illustrates, the beginning of the first movement of the fifth symphony is among the popular passages of classical music; it begins to grow and become entangled in a construction that is not at all casual, with the famous motif of four notes, similar to dry hammer blows, skillfully driven by the strings next to the clarinets. From this main motive all the following themes are born, in a concentrated and monothematic atmosphere that easily enters through the ears of any listener whatever their origin and culture, to the point of being immediately whistled. This energetic motif, presented twice initially, then takes form on the strings, with free contrapuntal imitations; later a new subject appears, like a call, presented by the horns, a melodic extension of the first theme; the secondary theme appears with a quieter rhythm (although the basses subtly remind us of the first theme), more pastoral and the cadences announce us the end of the exhibition always with the rhythmic motif of the symphony.

As the book notes, the main ideas appear at the beginning and then go through an elaborate development that passes through numerous tones, with a dramatic return to the initial section (the re-exposure), until the end. The development takes the audience by several tonalities and takes the drama to its extremes.

Mikutta, C., Altorfer, A., Strik, W., & Koenig, T. (2012). Emotions, arousal, and frontal alpha rhythm asymmetry during Beethoven's 5th symphony. Brain topography, 25(4), 423-430.

Annotation: The paper identifies the physiological effects of continuous changes in a subject's emotional state while listening to Beethoven's 5th symphony. The objective of the study was to determine whether and how music arouses various emotions among listeners. The authors observe that there are emotional states that are induced through musical pieces. There are components of music such as tempo, which change, change the emotions generated, for example, are more emotional valence, the highest tempo musical pieces. Research carried out in 2009 shows that most individuals, when listening to a musical piece with a happy emotional valence, select (in a test of emotional states) words that describe happy emotional states. Concerning the brain processes involved in the processes of musical emotion, research shows that male and female brains work differently, in women a wider network of musical emotions participates.

The study understands the musical emotion from cerebral functioning. This theoretical position attempts to account for the brain processes involved in musical emotion. Experimental tools such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalogram (EEG) are used to visualize processes, for example, of cerebral activation (arousal). There are three main theories about musical emotion: the Cognitivist theory, the Emotivist and the one that raises musical emotion as an emotional evocation. The cognitivist theory states that music only expresses emotions and that people recognize them. This means that the subject does not feel the emotion when listening to certain music, but what he does is recognize or interpret what the music wants to express. The Emotivist theory proposes that music can induce emotions and that the subject feels what music generates in it. The last theory states that music simply evokes in the listener emotions felt in the past. This presents a more comprehensive understanding of how Beethoven fifth symphony evokes emotional arousal in listeners.

Waltham-Smith, N. (2017). The Time It Takes to Listen. Music Theory Spectrum, 39(1), 18-35.

Annotation: This article explores the unique harmonic and melodic processes of Beethoven's Arietta Variations and how they inscribe the feeling and desire to listen on their own. The author, Naomi Waltham-Smith argues that Beethoven's tonality anticipates a "desire" to listen and progress from a dominant to a tonic tone and that by the time of sonic unfolding of the music, the analysis produces a minimally dislocated temporal representation. Everyone, at some point, has been excited to hear some song and, therefore, from this experience, share with the majority of people the old and widespread idea that music has an extraordinary ability to evoke and express our deeper emotions. The emotional effects of music are central to its enjoyment. This ability is particularly intriguing because, unlike most other stimuli that evoke our emotions, such as smell, taste or facial expression, the music itself has no biological value or intrinsic survival that is obvious.

The fact that music, as demonstrated by numerous studies, activates brain structures that are similarly activated in other states of euphoria induced by stimuli such as food, sex, and drug abuse, implies that musical stimulation It relates to biologically very relevant stimuli for survival, given its convergence with the circuits of the brain involved in pleasure and reward. This is very important since functional and anatomical bridges or couplings were formed between phylogenetic brain systems, that is, between older systems related to survival and the newer systems related to cognitive abilities, the general capacity to infer meaning in an abstract stimuli and, with it, the ability to experience pleasure with increased musical stimuli.

Mathew, N. (2013). Political Beethoven. Cambridge University Press.

Annotation: This book presents a biography of Beethoven's with a focus on his political works. The author, Nicholas Mathew, demonstrates Beethoven's occasional political works which refute the notion that the composer was isolated from society. Mathew asserts that Beethoven's voice was plural and that he represented the people surrounding his life. The image of a solitary man, who only dedicates himself to music, does not correspond to the reality of Beethoven, at least in his young years. The composer had a keen interest in politics as observed from his enthusiasm about the French revolution. He came to include in his work rhythms and melodic motifs of French revolutionary music. The fifth symphony is interpreted as embodying the revolutionary spirit as it systematically traces the progression from a minor key to a major one. The book has, therefore, presented Beethoven as a revolutionary which offers an understanding of his political persuasion.

Swafford, J. (2014). Beethoven: Anguish and triumph. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Jan Swafford is a writer and composer just like Beethoven and thus suited to offer a professional and expert opinion of symphonies. He has also written several musical works ranging from orchestras to film and theater music. The biography, therefore, analyses Ludwig van Beethoven life as a normal human being and how his life was reflected in his remarkable work particularly the nine symphonies.

Annotation: This biography reanimates the revolutionary nature of the Enlightenment in Bonn, where Beethoven lived and how his future work was shaped by his experiences. The author, Jan Swafford has also tracked Beethoven to Vienna, the capital of music in Europe, where the composer built his career amidst critical incomprehension, crippling ill health, romantic rejection, and most of all, his deafness. Beethoven was born in German in the city of Bonn in a humble family. His grandfather Ludwig, of Mechelen, settled in Bonn around 1733 and became a choirmaster of the Elector Prince. His parents, Maria Magdalena Keverich and Johann van Beethoven, had lost four of their seven children. Ludwig spent all his childhood and adolescence consecrated to music, without games or friends, and in a nefarious family environment, factors that would influence his rebellious and romantic character. The composer spent some time in the capital of Austria before going back to Bonn here his mother died of hunger. His father was unemployed because of his alcoholism and was unable to care for his younger brothers, so Ludwig was forced to support his family by playing the violin with an orchestra and giving piano lessons for five years. In 1792 he returned to Vienna, a city where he continued his life as a composer before falling in love tragically and suffering deafness.

Hatten, R. S. (2004). Musical meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, correlation, and interpretation. Indiana University Press.

Musical Meaning in Beethoven offers a fresh approach to the problem of expressive meaning in music. Robert S. Hatten examines the roles of Classical topics, markedness, and musical tropes expressive genres, and how the aspects foster expressive interpretation at all levels of structure.

Annotation: This article presents close readings of Beethoven's movements from string quartets and piano sonatas, highlighting the less obvious expressive meanings and explaining how more familiar styles and meanings are derived from one to the other. In the fifth sympho...