Preliminary work and first movement

Having achieved considerable success with his Akademie (benefit concert) of April 1800, which a reviewer described as ‘probably the most interesting Akademie for a long time’, it was natural that Beethoven should want to repeat his success with a new symphony the following spring, which was almost the only time when theatres in Vienna were available for such concerts. Accordingly he set to work on his Second Symphony towards the end of 1800. In contrast to his First Symphony, numerous sketches survive for the Second, and they have been discussed in considerable detail by Gustav Nottebohm, Kurt Westphal, Cecil Hill and Nicholas Marston, in addition to brief accounts elsewhere. These authors, however, do not provide the full biographical context, which must be obtained from other sources.

The first surviving sketches for the symphony appear in the sketchbook Landsberg 7. This book was begun around September 1800, though no very precise date is available and it could have been a month or two earlier or later. The first part of the book is devoted mainly to two violin sonatas, Opp. 23 and 24, which had apparently been commissioned by Count Moritz Fries, but Beethoven suddenly left off work on them, with Op. 24 far from finished, to work on the new symphony, starting on what is now page 38. Something, perhaps a proposal for a new Akademie the following spring, may therefore have prompted him to make this rapid change of direction. The earliest sketches seem far from tentative, for page 38 includes an extended continuity draft covering virtually the whole of an introduction and ensuing exposition, albeit in a somewhat compressed form of only about fifty-five bars altogether (the final version of this section occupies 133 bars). It must be suspected, therefore, that either some earlier sketches are lost, or that Beethoven worked on the movement at the piano and in his head for some time before writing anything down. Another possibility is that, just as he could improvise a piece fluently without preparation, the draft is a written-down improvisation, where what came into his head was written rather than played on the piano.

There are several striking features in this initial draft.

After the Ninth: A Tenth?

Although Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony proved to be his last, this was not his intention or expectation when he composed it. As noted in the previous chapter, he had been commissioned in 1817 to write two new symphonies, and while he was drafting the Ninth he noted down occasional ideas about its successor. The first known idea in 1818 was purely verbal and proposed adding voices to the finale of this second symphony, but this plan became absorbed into the Ninth, and it seems hardly probable that he would have wanted to use the idea in both new symphonies. In 1819 he implied to Ferdinand Ries that the two symphonies were at least partially written, saying that he would bring them with him to London the following winter. Then in July 1820, when Franz Xaver Gebauer visited Breslau (now Wrocław), he heard that Beethoven had two new symphonies in progress, and reported this in Beethoven’s conversation book the following month. The earliest known musical sketches for the work, however, are those noted previously that date from about October 1822, appearing near the end of Artaria 201 (pages 124–5) and on a separate bifolio now in Bonn. They show a slow introduction in E flat major leading to a fast section in C minor, plus ideas for three possible later movements. Beethoven considered incorporating both main themes from the first movement into the Ninth Symphony (see Chapter 9), as he had done with the plan for a vocal finale, but he quickly abandoned this idea, leaving them available for future development as the Tenth.

In the theme of the slow introduction the first five notes – even the first seven in some sketches – are identical to the Adagio theme in the Pathétique Sonata, apart from the key (see Example 9.9 above, which shows both versions of the theme at a time when they were being considered for the Ninth Symphony). Beethoven must have noticed this similarity, and may well have had some poetic reason for reusing this theme so conspicuously.

Genesis and context

Beethoven had originally planned the Eroica Symphony as one of two that were to be offered to Breitkopf & Härtel. After completing it in autumn 1803, however, he turned to other works: first the opera Vestas Feuer, which he quickly abandoned, and then to piano sonatas, the Triple Concerto and most notably the opera Leonore or Fidelio. These occupied much of the remainder of the sketchbook Landsberg 6, which was finished around the end of March 1804; but at a stage when plans for the opera were held up or in abeyance, he inserted a few new ideas for what was intended to be his next symphony. They are in C minor and eventually emerged in the Fifth (see the next chapter). He also noted down in the sketchbook a few tentative ideas that were later absorbed into the Sixth (Pastoral), but there is no sign of the Fourth here. His next known sketchbook, Mendelssohn 15, contains no confirmed sketches for any symphony. It was probably begun about July 1804, for there is a significant gap in the sketch record for Leonore between the sketches for its earliest numbers (up to No. 5) in Landsberg 6 and sketches for No. 12 onwards in Mendelssohn 15. Although the latter contains sketches for the Triple Concerto, which had been performed on or before 11 June, as noted in the previous chapter, these sketches must postdate the original performance and reflect a very thorough revision that the concerto received thereafter. Such a revision is confirmed by a violin part for the original version, which differs markedly from the one eventually published.

Between Landsberg 6 and Mendelssohn 15 there may be a lost sketchbook containing Nos. 6-11 of Leonore, but Beethoven also used loose leaves, including a batch of ten that has since been split up and resides in four different locations. The batch has been dated to around April–June 1804, since it includes sketches for two Petrarch sonnets in a translation that was not published until 24 May 1804. Late May–July would seem more likely, however, since there are no sketches for the Triple Concerto.

Initial plans

After the concert that included public premieres of Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth Symphonies in December 1808, it was nearly three years before he embarked on the Seventh. In the meantime, much had changed. He had been offered a permanent position as Kapellmeister at Kassel in late 1808, but this had prompted several noblemen in Vienna to make a counter-proposal early in 1809, consisting of an annuity of 4,000 florins per year, designed to keep him in the capital city. They had surely been impressed by Beethoven’s extraordinary concert of 22 December 1808 in which so many new works, including the two symphonies, had been performed. The contract, drawn up by Baron Ignaz von Gleichenstein, with funds to be provided by Archduke Rudolph, Prince Ferdinand Kinsky and Prince Franz Lobkowitz, recognised Beethoven’s ‘extraordinary talents and genius’ (‘ausserordentlichen Talente und Genie’), and that he should be freed from financial anxiety so as to enable him to produce ‘great, exalted works that ennoble art’ (‘grosse, erhabene, und die Kunst veredelnde Werke’). Beethoven received the contract from Archduke Rudolph on 26 February, and it was signed by the sponsors on 1 March.

The implied expectation was, therefore, that Beethoven would continue composing more symphonies, among other great works, but the next symphony was delayed by various factors; the invasion of Vienna by the French in May 1809 disrupted society so much that Beethoven felt unable to compose anything significant for several months; and inflation reduced the value of his annuity almost immediately. He was also asked to fulfil several commissions – two piano sonatas and a fantasia for Clementi, incidental music to Egmont for the court theatre, fifty-three folksong settings for George Thomson, and in spring to summer 1811 two one-act singspiels, König Stephan and Die Ruinen von Athen, for Pest – plus some works that were probably commissioned, including the Fifth Piano Concerto, two string quartets (Opp. 74 and 95) and the ‘Archduke’ Trio. As soon as he had finished sketching the two singspiels, he began work on his Seventh Symphony, and the final sketches for Die Ruinen von Athen actually appear on the same leaf as some of the first known sketches for the symphony (BNba, BH 105), directly above them.

First steps along the road

There is no evidence that anyone else requested, let alone commissioned, a first symphony from Beethoven. The reason he attempted to write one appears to have been purely internal: his sense of obligation to compose, and his desire to master all branches of composition from the simplest to the most advanced, with special concern for the latter. The symphony was, in his mind, the foremost branch of instrumental music, as already noted, and so it was natural that he would gravitate towards it.

Sketches for the actual First Symphony are almost totally lacking – the relevant sketchbook must be lost, but it is worth tracing the long road that Beethoven took in preparation for his first attempt at this pre-eminent instrumental genre. With the models of Haydn and Mozart before him, he was surely hesitant to rush into competing with them, and so his preparations were lengthy and diverse. Orchestral music was mastered through other genres – concertos, orchestral dances, and vocal music with orchestral accompaniment; meanwhile what was regarded as purest symphonic style – short motifs developed intensively, rather than long, lyrical phrases or a parade of different ideas – was explored in other genres such as the piano sonata. At the same time, Beethoven was also sketching themes for possible symphonies, as a third strand in his preparations.

Beethoven’s earliest known idea for a symphony is a draft in C minor and 3/4 metre in piano score (Hess 298 or Unv 1), headed ‘Sinfonia’ and dating from some time between 1786 and 1790 – most probably 1788. It occupies the whole of one side of a page and proceeds almost to the end of the exposition of the first movement. The draft of 111 bars begins on what was originally a verso, and so it may well have continued on the now lost opposite page of a bifolio – perhaps even to the end of the movement on another page. Two variant sketches for short passages appear on the recto (the current verso). The first subject is borrowed direct from the main allegro movement in his Piano Quartet in E flat (WoO 36 No. 1) – originally the second in a group of three piano quartets that are dated 1785 in the autograph score.