Carlos Eduardo Orta

MUS 7725

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Op. 125, 1st Movement

Ludwig van Beethoven composed his final full-length symphony, number 9, between
1822 and 1824. It premiered in Vienna on May 7, 1824. Many critics and musicologists
throughout time have seen this symphony as both the greatest composition by
Beethoven and one of the finest works in musical history. This one is one of the
symphonies that is most regularly performed worldwide, making it one of the most
well-known pieces around the globe.

One of the reasons why the ninth symphony is so interesting is its opening. The first
movement starts with no melody, and no real sense of time, only A and E are sustained
as a pedal to establish a harmony but it is very ambiguous and open to move to multiple
possible keys since no major or minor mode is established yet. The direction of the first
measures is determined by the short figures in the strings that go down from octave to
octave. Each time that these 4 measures of descending motives repeat, Beethoven
develops a musical idea more and more. This moment represents the effect of an
orchestra tuning on stage. The entrance of a flute marks the crescendo from p
(pianissimo in the strings), to ff in 6 measures. This fortissimo now establishes the key
of D minor, which feels surprising but kind of expected since the previous measures
had the dominant sustained but with no third. With very few elemental tools,
Beethoven opens the dynamic range of the piece, and catches the attention of the
audience by playing an beautifully ambiguous game of harmony. My favorite part from
this introduction is the sonic effect of introducing the timpani and trumpets until the
fortissimo to give more impact to the arrival.

The explosive tutti declares a phrase that appears to have been asleep or hidden in the
string's motivic figures. After a majestic ff presentation of this theme, the music
repeats back to the beginning to then develop its music motivic fragmentation and a
heroic harmonic progression that takes forward direction.
Another moment that impacted my listening was a particular brief passage that starts a
modulation from B major to B flat major in the development of the movement. The
chromatic line in the strings takes the ear to a very distantly related key in such a
smooth way that the listener does not feel the drastic change.

The ending of the development frantically repeats the “short-short-long” motive that
outlines a B-flat major triad in fortissimo which has been using the same interval as
the opening motive. The use of motives (intervallic and rhythmic) in this movement is
remarkably genius.

The recapitulation takes the opening ethereal harmonies to develop nervously

progressions that let the emotional inevitable to explode again. This recapitulation also
includes a fugato passage, one of many moments that demonstrates Beethoven's
amazing counterpunctual skills. The recapitulation also introduces F# to distinguish D
minor from D major. The keys that will dominate for the rest of the symphony are all
now already presented; D minor, D major, and Bb major. However, Beethoven designs
the presentation of them in such a way that they tend to function as a single modality
rather than three distinct keys.

By the ending of the movement, the orchestra gets to one tutti unison restating the
dramatic explosion from the exposition to send the message across the audience that
the orchestra is present and the music following should be listened to, accomplishing
the goal of the first movement of a symphony in a genius way which evidences
Beethoven’s new style of composition techniques that would revolutionize the genre of
the symphony and western music as a whole.