Repertoire & Analysis Class blog

For the record, I quintuple-checked the assignments list to make sure there really was no work for today and did not find out about this assignment until approximately 12:15.

That said, the two analyses could not be more different. Hoffmann writes exactly the sort of analysis that we have been told time and time again to avoid -- a blow-by-blow description of almost every single harmonic or melodic move in the entire symphony. In fact, this particular description shows us exactly why we have been told time and time again to avoid it: Hoffmann's analysis is utterly uninteresting in every single way. I found myself involuntarily skimming the article faster and faster just to get through it. Simply put, no one cares that you can identify every chord or every modulation -- and worse still, by cataloging them all, you remove any weight from ones that you do highlight as unusual or interesting. I am hard pressed to tell you what Hoffmann even said without going back and looking through his essay; as a consequence I'm forced to conclude there's nothing of interest or insight there.

Tovey, on the other hand, writes a somewhat polemical article which is by far the more interesting of the two -- he sets out to prove that, contrary to what most of us believe, the musical ideas are not built out of small fragments, but instead are long, brilliantly constructed phrases which later fragment. It is a curious way of approaching the piece -- one which I am not entirely convinced by, but at least I did not fall asleep during.

Hoffman's review of Beethoven's 5th is a curious mixture of specificity and vagueness.  He clearly adores Beethoven; the first paragraphs laud him in the highest terms, labeling him as a paradigm of Romantic composition and a genius who accesses the infinite through his music.  This bias continues to show itself throughout the essay—in between Hoffman's dry blow-by-blow descriptions of the music itself.  It is in these descriptions where the greatest problem with Hoffman's essay lies.  His recounting of the symphony overpowers his interpretations of it, so that when we reach his final point—that the symphony is expressive of a lasting yearning which haunts the listener—it is difficult to remember exactly which musical details invoke such a yearning.  Despite the weakness of the essay's body, Hoffman goes some way toward redeeming himself in his conclusion, in which he discusses the closeness of the piece's musical relationships and the ineffability of its general unity.  This section is devoid of specific references to the music, but it is a welcome contrast to the deluge of analysis that smothers the rest of the essay.

Tovey's essay differs from Hoffman's in several ways.  It is shorter, for one; Tovey does not attempt to cram the description of an entire symphony into a few pages.  The beginning of the essay reveals Tovey's bias, but unlike Hoffman, he does not demonstrate strong feelings toward the composer; instead, he appears to be offended by the mere suggestion that the first movement is built on its initial four-note phrase, despite the fact that this is a somewhat popular opinion amongst critics.  Any clear bias in an essay might put off the reader, but one directed for or against an idea instead of a person seems more palatable.  When Tovey does describe the symphony, he uses more general (and agreeable) phrases than Hoffman, comparing sequences to "echoing afterthoughts" instead of simply saying something like "This theme is played by the violins alternating with the clarinet."  His main goals here, apart from refuting the idea that the first movement is built from its initial motive, appear to be elaborating on the significance of particular moments which may or may not be obvious to the listener (or even the analyst).  Overall, Tovey's essay is more pleasant to read and more interesting to one familiar with the symphony, while Hoffman's would be helpful to one inexperienced with Beethoven't 5th.

The primary difference between Hoffman and Tovey’s analyses is their attitude towards the idea of the motivic or thematic unification of the piece. Hoffman’s examination of the piece is centered primarily on the recurrence of the initial fragmentary theme, and how this pervasiveness unifies the work. This idea is perfectly in accord with the organicist concept of a piece growing out of a single kernel or idea. It is worth noting, however, that Hoffman does a poor job of “analysis” as we’ve discussed it—his account of the piece is much more of a blow-by-blow narrative of what happens in the music, offering very little examination or interpretation of the musical events (e.g. key changes) that he so meticulously catalogs.

Tovey, on the other hand, treats the organicist idea with derision, and he seems to take it as one of his primary goals to debunk this understanding of the piece. From the very beginning his analysis is more critical and substantive than Hoffman’s. He begins by pointing out that this rhythmic figure appears in many others of Beethoven’s works, and sarcastically suggests that these other works should also be thought of as “unified” with the 5^th Symphony by this common theme as well. Instead, Tovey claims that longer “sentences” are the more important features of the piece, and strives to analyze the relationships between these more substantial phrases, rather than breaking the piece down into inconsequential fragments (as Hoffman does in trying to identify the theme fragments throughout the different movements). Tovey still seems to share Hoffman’s conception of the piece as some great vision of the sublime, as well as the image of Beethoven as the inspired genius, commenting even that “Beethoven’s own special form…had to yield to the terrific impressiveness of the emotions created by these themes” (p. 43).

I found Hoffmann’s discussion fairly flimsy. He begins with a grand climactic statement of great composers and the spirits they represent–nicely noting that Beethoven succeeds in instrumental rather than vocal music because his aim is often to express what cannot be defined in words–but continues his argument with a play-by-play of each iteration of the theme and every notable chord change without strong reference to his original points. In fact, his introduction and conclusion were so energizing, I felt cheated that the actual analysis was so distant from its bookends. His attempts to reference musical moments as “the breast…struggling for air” or “a friendly figure…shining through the darkness” are wildly fanciful and unsupported by musical detail (242). He appears to center around principal theme’s various manifestations, but he provides too much excess to allow that point clarity.

Tovey takes a more historical approach, continually citing famous this and oft-quoted that. Understanding the fame of the piece, he does not wade through the smaller details, but instead chooses specific moments of interest. His argument is a bit bitter, attacking the idea that the theme really only has four notes, but I enjoyed the context provided by his engagement with musical detail and historical anecdotes, even if his examples did not quite sway me.

(On a lesser, purely stylistic note, I find it fascinating at the evolution of academic language. Whereas Hoffmann gives his opinion as “this reader,” enough time has passed and regiments loosened that Tovey is allowed to use the first person. His moments of personal belief, then, flow easily in the argument of the text; Hoffmann’s convention overly divides the man from his own thoughts, often reading like a police report rather than a heartfelt opinion.)

Tovey focuses his analysis on “denouncing the heresy which preaches that ‘the whole first movement is built up of the initial figure of four notes’”. Tovey’s attempted argument ad absurdum may not stand up to scrutiny, but its main point does serve as a useful warning against the oversimplification of a musical work. Of course the 5^th Symphony is more than just the short-short-short-long opening idea. While it may be a hugely important structural feature of the work, it is not to be confused with the work itself, which, though built upon the short-short-short-long motive, is made up of and defined by more than simply that motive. Beethoven’s 5^th Symphony, according to Tovey, is defined by not just short motives, but also by longer phrases.

On some level, this poses a problem for critics such as Hoffmann, who focus on the short-short-short-long motive. Though he focuses on other things such as the character of Romanticism that can be found in Beethoven’s 5^th Symphony (contrasting Beethoven with Haydn and Mozart), Hoffmann’s analysis of the 5^th Symphony is an organicist analysis. Hoffmann details, in a somewhat blow-by-blow manner, the way in which Beethoven manages to relate each detail of the symphony to the opening theme. But I do not think the views are irreconcilable. Tovey’s tirade need only serve as a warning to not forget the other aspects of the work, not as a mandate to forget the obvious structural importance of the four-note motive.

Hoffman and Tovey both write from a particular historical angle; Hoffman, one of the first critics to address Beethoven's 5th Symphony, focuses more on narrating and describing the music than does Tovey, who has a definite axe to grind, correcting what in his view are misconceptions that plague previous critical accounts of the work. Hoffman also takes on the task of arguing for Beethoven's status as a genuis, explaining the nature of music and expression, and comparing Beethoven's music to that of Haydn and Mozart. Beethoven, he asserts, is the most "Romantic" of these, since his music "irresistable sweeps the listener into the spirit-realm of the infinite." One can also see the emergence of the Organicist approach in Hoffman's article, in such passages as "one percieves with admiration how [Beethoven] was able to relate all the secondary ideas and episodes to this simple theme, so that they serve to reveal more and more facets of the movement's overall character." This "character" is the most important aspect of a musical work for Hoffman, and accordingly Beethoven's genius at creating a piece with a unified "character" makes him, in Hoffman's eyes, a genius.

As he does with some established critical points on the symphony, Tovey takes on this Organicist view, saying "no great music has ever been built from an initial figure of four notes." This assertion becomes the guiding point of his analysis, leading him to discuss the long lines present in various of the opening themes, rather than looking at the small-scale motivic ideas. Tovey's tone is much more critical and less fanciful than Hoffman's, and he vehemently disputes such orthodoxy as the bassoon entrance in the recap, which he calls "an unmitigated nuisance." Just as Hoffman's fanciful imagery, blow-by-blow descriptions, aesthetic judgements, and zeal in proclaiming Beethoven's genius owed much to the time in which it was written, Tovey's biting tone and more restrained descriptions come from his historical situation as yet another in a long line of critics. Thus, Tovey feels it incumbent upon him to add material to the debate, and correct what he views as misconceptions, while Hoffman is more interested in describing the piece to people who may not have heard it yet, both narrating the music and describing the emotional effects it has on him.

Both Hoffmann and Tovey agree that Beethoven is a genius composer, yet they disagree on what constitutes his genius manifested in Symphony No.5. Essentially, Hoffmann fully embraces, it seems, the idea of organicism. In his CHRONOLOGICAL description of the symphony work, Hoffmann traces its musical materials to the opening ba-ba-ba-bum motive, its basic organic component. Tovey, on the other hand, suggests one look beyond the basic organic components of the piece. His argument on organicism, it seems, is similar to that of Kerman on Schenkerian analysis. Tovey agrees that the simple ba-ba-ba-bum motive is a foundational block for the symphonic work. He disagrees, however, that it can sufficiently explain this particular symphony, since it appears in other works of Beethoven too. Tovey attempts to look for something more specific to this work that makes it a genius masterpiece, and he seems to have found its answer in the symphony's incredibly long phrases.

The comparison of Hoffmann and Tovey might shed light on the way in which organicism (and Schenkerian analysis) can apply to musical analysis. Indeed, Hoffmann rightly points out the existence of organic working in Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 and the existence (just as Schenker might be write with his charts showing the foundamental tonal structure). Yet Tovey's warning is also legitimate: on cannot rely entirely on the general principles of organicism, and ignore the specific parts (in this case the phrase lengths) of a piece's whole.

Hoffmann and Trovey’s analyses offer very different explanations of why Beethoven’s fifth symphony is a masterpiece. Hoffmann focuses on the unity of the work. He observes that there exists an ineffable relationship between the subjects of the two allegros and the two middle movements; this relationship provides the unity of the work by sustaining one feeling – “that of nameless, haunting yearning” - in the listener’s heart. The rhythmic pattern of the opening motiv, claims Hoffmann, engenders the groundwork upon which Beethoven has built this relationship.  Finally, Hoffmann concludes that the work is a masterpiece because “it is conceived of genius”, “executed with profound awareness”, and “expresses the romanticism of music to a very high degree”.

Trovey starts his analysis, on the other hand, by stating that he is going to refute “the heresy which preaches that “the whole first movement is built up of the initial figure of four notes’”.  He argues that “no great music has ever being built from an initial figure of fours notes” and tries to repel what he believes to be a misconception that there are no long sentences. This argument exactly undermines Hoffmann’s interpretation of what he sees as repetition of short phrases and single chords that maintain the spirit of eternal yearning in the piece. Essentially, Trovey claims there are a lot more musical elements in the fifth symphony than the opening motiv; it is a masterpiece precisely because these elements are marshaled together to make four coherent movements.

(Note: I did post this before the deadline, but did a little revising for class and figured I'd just post what I now have)

Undoubtedly the most famous four notes in music, the opening “fate” motive of Beethoven’s 5^th symphony sums up the entire work, providing the kernel from which the entire 30-minute piece is built. Aptly enough, Beethoven first states this kernel at the very beginning of the work, framed with dramatic fermatas that immediately draw the listener’s attention, to borrow a term, to “stare” at it, devoid of the context of meter or harmony.

Indeed, this kernel provides the rhythmic pulse of the entire piece. It appears at every stage in the first movement’s sonata-form structure, driving the forward through the constant fermatas. In the second and third movements, it appears as triplets, powering the driving Scherzo. Finally, as a low rumble in the timpani, it creates a bridge to the finale with its final blaze of C major. This “fateful” rhythm finds its apotheosis here, propelling the violins to the heights of glory in m. 6, and appearing again in triumphant triplets in m. 45.

            Beethoven’s facility with limited material is manifest at every level, from overall structure to individual themes. The second movement, for instance, is built on short gestures, repeated until they become almost fragmentary. It takes him almost 20 measures to provide a consequent to the opening phrase. The main “theme” of the movement, too, is fragmentary, consisting of the opening melody, the closing gesture in m. 8, and the motive in 23. Beethoven then subjects these to variation, using the key of C major to provide a contrast in color and character and to disguise the simplicity of the process at work. A flat and C, third relations that mirror the Eb and C of the opening, are the only keys this movement actually moves through, and the three motives stated at the movement’s beginning are the only motivic material to appear over the course of the its 247 measures, other than gestures such as the E flat scale, which grow organically out of the process of variation, showing us, as it were, Beethoven exploring a particular sonority, or tinkering with motivic raw material.

            Like the opening of the first movement, the symphony’s third movement also provides another glimpse of the composer at work, setting forth a motive and then pausing to think. As in every movement of this symphony, what follows comes entirely from the opening material, in various inversions and variations. The simple four-note horn theme, derived from the “fate” motive both in its rhythm and harmonic ambiguity, leads him through a series of keys within the space of a few bars. The trio, based completely on the fugue subject, uses even less material. A characteristically Beethoven gesture turns this masterful piece of craftsmanship into a stroke of genius as the final remains of the once-robust fugue subject, a descending woodwind line, turns into the movement’s opening gesture in m. 236.

            This transformational process leads Beethoven out of the mysterious third movement into the blazing finale. Over the course of mm. 242-373, the trio theme gradually changes over a static background in which the piece’s four-note rhythmic kernel echoes in the timpani. Finally, a dominant chord emerges out of the mist, leading to the glorious C major, whose emergence over the horizon comes as a natural, organic outgrowth of the preceding material. Its unequivocally major opening, unlike that of the first and third movements, ends squarely on the tonic, and as if this, combined with the blaring trombones, piccolo, and contrabassoon weren’t enough to create a sense of unrestrained victory, Beethoven both incorporates transformed versions of the “fate” motive and revisits the C minor of the scherzo once again in order to recreate the journey from darkness to light in miniature, mirroring on a smaller scale his organic compositional process and at the same demonstrating the effectiveness of such an approach in taking the listener on a rich emotional journey.

First of all, to take a step back from even motivic relationships, it seems to me that the if there is an overarching story to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony it is the struggle between C minor and its attendant forces – especially Ab major, G minor, and F minor – and C major (with Eb major lying, to some extent, between the two). That said, however, the battles that form this larger war are generally fought with motivic material. Each camp has its own characteristic motives. Most notably, C minor is largely symbolized by the motives articulated in the first four bars of the first movement and the first four bars of the third movement, while that stated by the brass and woodwinds (and top voice of the violins) in the first eight measures of the fourth movement seems to be the main standard-bearer for C major.

There seem to be two main ways in which these key areas jockey for motivic supremacy throughout the piece. The first is when one key area cuts the other off and supercedes the prior motives with its own. An example of this would be the transition between the third and fourth movements). However, it happens occasionally that we hear some of the C minor motives in C major, and vice versa; this could be heard either as one key area co-opting the motives characteristic of the other, or as this key area being insidiously invaded by the other’s motives (or, potentially, as simply an instance of a drawn battle between the two key areas). An example of this would be in the first movement when the second theme returns in C major, rather than Eb major, in the recapitulation. (I am aware that this transposition is a standard move in sonatas, but I would still argue that it acquires a larger significance when the sonata is the first movement of a larger piece which centers around the opposition of C minor and C major.)

The one motive which seems to underpin the whole piece is the rhythmic pattern of the opening two bars: four notes with the stress overwhelmingly on the last of the four. This rhythm is tossed around between the instruments for much of the first movement. It also returns in force during the scherzo, beginning with the horns in bar 19. It is almost so fundamental to the nature of triple meter that, in a way, a heavily stressed 3/4 (especially when characterized by groups of four adjacent quarter notes with the first and last on downbeats) seems, by the fourth movement, almost by itself to reference the opening motive – for example, the 3/4 section in the fourth movement.

The two places where this motive is conspicuously absent are the very end of the symphony and the entirely of the second movement. (While the second movement is in triple meter, its slow tempo and minuet-like stress on every note force us to hear it in three, rather than in one as the scherzo sometimes seems to be. Therefore, this motive is seldom actually heard as such, even when the characteristic rhythm is visible on the page.) Its absence at the symphony’s triumphant, C major ending may well be read as the most powerful illustration of C major’s eventual (if possibly conditional) triumph over C minor.

Its absence in the andante con moto, however, is harder to explain, and in fact seems like merely the best illustration of the fact that this movement is motivically disconnected from the rest of the piece in a way that no other movement is. Ultimately, it strikes me that Ab – the key centered on the flat 6th scale degree in C minor – may have its own motivic world, that neither C major and its motives nor C major and its motives can ultimately invade (or can violently cut off – after all, the second movement is allowed to end peacefully, in Ab major, before C minor asserts itself again in the third). This fleeting moment, when Beethoven’s symphony offers an alternative to the warring camps of C minor and C major, is one of the most poignant moments of the pieces, and seems equally meaningful for its presence as for its eventual vanishing.

Any discussion of the motives in Beethoven's 5th Symphony—indeed, any discussion of Beethoven's 5th Symphony at all—must place in the starring role the famous four-note figure that starts off the first movement, the "short-short-short-long" that is present in some form through nearly the entire movement.  And yet this is hardly the only motive in the symphony; it is simply the most pithy and memorable.  The first movement, for example, also includes a sweet, legato melody fragment that makes its first appearance in m. 63 in the violins.  It does not linger long, giving way once again to the pounding initial motive that has been threatening it in the bass all along, but it does reappear in m. 307, again providing some measure of contrast.

This is a pattern that repeats itself in some variation in each movement.  The second begins with an extended melodic line in the strings, but in m. 22 we get a new motive: a dotted-eighth sixteenth pickup followed by three straight eights and a quarter finish.  The rhythm repeats itself, outlining a different inversion of the tonic triad, and is followed by three identical pickup-quarter note pulses.  Overall, it is cleaner and simpler than the initial motive, and it becomes more prevalent through the movement, its pieces scattered but recognizable because of their rhythmic signature even when the whole figure isn't present.  The third movement is somewhat like the first, although the order of the motives is switched—the melodic, rarer motive comes first, only to be subsumed by a marchlike rhythm, a "short-short-short-long" which repeats identically three times and falls in pitch on the fourth repetition.  Again, this motive is cleaner and simpler and thus becomes more prevalent.  The fourth movement is a culmination of all the others, combining the brightness of the second movement with the grandiosity of the first, and using material directly from the third.  The motives in this movement are harder to define, as they seem more numerous and less dominant than in other movements.  There is an obvious initial motive, but it does not have the near-constant presence of the motives in the other movements, instead ceding much of the movement to runs, sequences, or repetitions of the symphony's briefest "short-short-short-long" iteration: an eighth triplet followed by a quarter note..  However, the movement's callbacks to previous instances in the symphony—the generous occurrences of dotted rhythms that recalls the second movement, the back-and-forth at m. 124 of a "short-short-short-long" that recalls the first movement, and the obvious repeat at m. 156 of material from the third movement—make such ambiguity understandable.

Overall, motives act in a similar way throughout the symphony: in each movement, a melodic motive provides contrast to a more recognizable one that carries much of the weight.  The "short-short-short-long" pattern does provide a thread of similarity between movements, but due to differences in accent, such a thread is somewhat tenuous.

Beethoven is repetitive. (see Shenglan)  He can hardly write a melody. (see Bob and Jenna) He also makes use of very little truly ‘motivic’ material. (see Luca)  Instead, his fifth symphony does exactly what he wants it do - much to Ludwig Spohr’s confusion and dismay.  It unfolds naturally, just as Beethoven presumably heard it.  Hence, the organicism: Beethoven was willing to disregard tradition and ‘good’ compositional practice where necessary in order to move his music along.

From the very beginning, the symphony is specific.  The main motive is sounded twice.  Not only is it short and played consecutively, but it is interrupted by a long fermata.  In theory, a piece should not stop as soon as it begins.  How will it move anywhere?  The recurring motive merely sounds again, more playfully and without allowing itself to be contained.  Beginning on an offbeat, the motive creates its own motion when treated suitably harmonically.  It also blends nicely into other melodic material.  I am a little more careful than some to see the pattern everywhere - because the motive itself is so unspecific - but there is no question that it is considerably more omnipresent than an average opening symphonic motive.       

In my view, Beethoven’s orchestration is one of the most significant devices of his organicism.  He is willing to combine the three main ‘choirs’ - brass, woodwind, and string - to great effect.  He doubles, triples, quadruples voices to an at times absurd level.  None of this is particularly academic, which is precisely the point; it is natural.  

Even within this orchestration, Beethoven’s writing is by no means conventional.  String players will all say that playing Beethoven symphonies is often a perplexing experience.  The phrases are unusual and often awkward to play properly.  The opening bass and cello line of the third movement is a suitable example.  It twists and winds its way up and down, without too strong of a rhythmic center.  Despite the awkwardness of sometimes bowing Beethoven passages, string players still love the music.  Once again, by composing in a way true to his ear - and not to his profession - Beethoven creates an organic musical experience.

In one or two pages, I cannot express the details of what makes Beethoven’s music organic.  Nor do I have the knowledge base to write a longer paper on the subject.  My main argument, however, is that Beethoven’s acclaimed genius is more than mere motivic connection or motivic organicism.  He had a unique ear for orchestral sounds - sometimes motives, sometimes even full phrases, but often just clusters of sounds - that felt organic in the early nineteenth century and that still feel organic today.

In his Symphony No. 5, it is undeniable that Beethoven uses a great deal of motivic development within each movement, but the extent to which this development bridges between movements is a point of contention among critics. Is the rhythmic motive of “short-short-short-long” too broad to be presumed intentional when it returns in the later movements?

In the first movement, we can clearly see the organic effort by Beethoven; beginning with a statement of the “fate motive” in octaves, repetitions and variations of this theme immediately dominate the texture. Naturally, Beethoven transforms his four-note motive into versions that, though easily identified within the context of the first movement, are objectively vastly different from the original. In measures 159-164, an inverted fate motive appears in the first violin; though it bears no resemblance to the original motive in terms of pitch, it is instantly recognized as motivic development, weakly linked by a common rhythm. This suggests that similarly drastic variations appearing in other movements may refer back to the first, regardless of how grounded they are in other contexts.

Motivic development in the second movement is closely related to the “double variation” form, in which Beethoven presents several themes and varies each of them separately. Arguably, the first instance of a possible reference to the fate motive occurs with the introduction (m. 23) of the second theme: here, a greatly augmented version of the “short-short-short-long” idea comprises the theme in the winds, though it is in a character vastly different from the C minor first movement. In a sense, Beethoven’s integration of the fate motive into a more lighthearted context may represent a temporary relief from (or prevailing over) the nightmarish first movement.

Beethoven’s intention to create inter-movement motivic development seems most clear in the symphony’s third movement: now back in C minor, the heroic first theme presented by the brass represents a triple-meter analogue to the first movement’s opening theme. At the end of the scherzo (mm. 127-130), a variation on the fate motive appears as an ascending scale in the melody, easily recognizable as a joyous corruption of the first movement theme. We have now, however, characterized an ascending scale as motivic development on the fate motive, and consequently we must recognize other such gestures (mm. 158-160). This begs the question of what to do with motivic material that is, in its own context, not at all reminiscent of the first movement’s fate theme, but is vaguely (and weakly) related by its similar (and ubiquitous) rhythm.

One reason why the finale may sound so initially triumphant is that its first theme bears almost no resemblance to the fate motive. The “short-short-long” rhythm creates momentum but no urgency, replacing the frantic first movement theme. Dotted rhythms, which do not appear in the melodies of the first and third movements, suggest a new, upbeat direction. As in the second movement, references to the fate motive are subdued and unassociated with the first movement’s terror: if intentional, these references imply a weakening of the nightmare in the second and fourth movements. Though they are often subtle enough to have been unintentional, these instances of inter-movement motivic development are certainly present and expressive.

(Nota Bene: I was lucky enough to find a score with pre-numbered measures. I did not go through the score and manually number the measures since that would be insane.)

    Beethoven’s 5^th symphony is one of the most well known classical works, even to those unfamiliar with the classical tradition. Its characteristic theme, announced in the opening measures, is a simple rhythmic motive: short, short, short, long. It is precisely the simplicity of the motive that makes the work so memorable (you don’t need to have exceptional pitch abilities to understand the main theme).

    It is easy to be impressed by such a grand work built on so simple a motive. After all, the 5^th Symphony is, essentially, half an hour of music built on a tiny 4-note motive. It is, however, the simplicity of the motive that makes it possible to build with. The simple theme lends itself well to modification and it recognizable so long as the “short, short, short, long” motive is maintained to some degree. Because the motive is so simple, it is actually fairly difficult to avoid accidental “reference” to the short-short-short-long motive.

    Thus, the motive weaves itself throughout the symphony, most obviously in the first, third, and fourth movements. The first movement, in sonata form, is obviously peppered with the motive. In fact, the few passages without the obvious short-short-short-long motive are heard as wandering transitions (for example, measures 196-267 (though this is arguably a deconstruction on the first theme)). The third movement introduces a new theme, but that new theme is immediately contrasted with a version of the short-short-short-long motive (beginning in measure 19). References to the motive are more subtle toward the beginning of the fourth and final movement and grow more and more obvious toward the end.

    This simple rhythmic motive is simple enough to work in with almost any main theme. Even in the second movement, which sounds unrelated to the others, the 4-note motive still lurks in the background (and occasionally the foreground). Even as early as measure 13, I can hear the motive hiding behind a melody (in oboes, clarinets, and bassoons). The theme at 23 also appears to be a variation on the short-short-short-long motive. Indeed, there are many other instances of the sneaky “short-short-short-long” motive to be found in the second movement.

    The genius of the piece is in the flexibly simple 4-note motive. It is impressive to watch such a grand (in both quantity and quality) work blossom from so small a seed and it is precisely the smallness of the seed that makes this possible. This malleable motive makes its way into each movement, sometimes discreetly and sometimes with its full (perhaps bombastic) grandeur.