kieran fenby-hulse
Beethoven, literature, and the idea of tragedy
1. Maynard Solomon:
Beethoven (New York, 1998),
p.252. On Beethoven’s heroic
period see, in particular,
Michael Broyles: Beethoven:
the emergence and evolution of
Beethoven’s heroic style (New
York, 1987); Scott Burnham:
Beethoven hero (Princeton,
1995); William Kinderman:
Beethoven (Oxford, 1995);
Stephen Rumph: Beethoven
after Napoleon: political
romanticism in the late
works (Berkeley, 2004) and
Solomon: Beethoven.
2. Contrast the radically
different approaches taken
by the four authors above.
Broyles and Kinderman both
view Beethoven’s ‘heroic’
period as defined by a
change in his compositional
technique, whereas Rumph
is more concerned with
the political climate in
which these works were
situated. Burnham’s book,
by contrast, hovers between
a philosophical and, to a
lesser extent, narrative
understanding of these
works in an attempt to
situate the works in a cultural
context.
3. Alfred Einstein: Essays
on music (London, 1958),
p.244, and Charles Rosen:
The classical style (London,
1972), p.401. For a detailed
discussion of the continued
and problematic reception
A
ccording to maynard solomon, Beethoven’s heroic works are
inextricably connected to ideas concerning tragic drama, Beethoven
placing ‘the tragic experience at the core of his heroic style’.1 Taking
this remark as a starting point, this essay seeks to examine Beethoven’s
understanding and knowledge of literary drama, his thoughts on serious
and tragic drama, and how this might relate to his music.
Beethoven’s works are often interpreted in one of three ways: as political
works that are representative of French Revolutionary politics, as musico-
philosophical tracts, or as works that break with compositional convention
and create new and original musical structures.2 Programmatic or literary
elements to Beethoven’s works, by contrast, are rarely discussed and have
actually proven to be a source of contention for scholars. Beethoven’s
Wellingtons Sieg, for instance, has long been excluded from the academic
canon, the work considered to be of little aesthetic and intellectual value. For
Albert Einstein, the symphony represents ‘the lowest point in Beethoven’s
work’ and for Charles Rosen it ‘is so frankly a potboiler that shame would
have been of very little comfort’.3 For ‘our’ Beethoven, the father of the
modern symphony, programmatic and literary associations need to be
understood as superfluous (as is the case with his symphonies), or else the
work is deemed to have negligible musical and aesthetic value (as is the
case with Wellingtons Sieg). Works such as Wellingtons Sieg, though, do
merit further study, particularly from a narrative and cultural perspective.
As Nicholas Mathew has argued: ‘Wellingtons Sieg quotes history itself –
entire stretches of music and noise, reproduced wholesale [...] its clattering
sound effects imitating even the randomness of rifle fire and cannon blasts
– particularly as it draws to its spluttering close’.4
While works such as the Pastoral symphony and the Coriolan overture
may appear to have escaped the persecution of being associated with the
programmatic, their extra-musical content has been rarely given sufficient
analytical attention.5 Indeed, the Coriolan overture is more often than not
of this work see Nicholas the ruination of Beethoven’s Beethoven’s Coriolan is a
Cook: ‘The other Beethoven: heroic style’, in The Musical notable exception: Lawrence
heroism, the canon, and the Quarterly vol.89 no.1 (2006), Kramer: ‘The strange case
works of 1813–14’, in 19th- pp.17–61. of Beethoven’s Coriolan:
Century Music vol.27 no.1 romantic aesthetics, modern
(2003), pp.3–24 and Nicholas 4. Mathew: ‘History under subjectivity, and the cult of
Mathew: ‘History under erasure’. Shakespeare’, in The Musical
erasure: Wellingtons Sieg, Quarterly vol.79 no.2 (1995),
the Congress of Vienna, and 5. Kramer’s article on pp.256–80.
the musical times Summer 2014 41
42 Beethoven, literature, and the idea of tragedy
6. Several studies have
already attempted to fill
this void and show that
Beethoven had a good
knowledge of contemporary
art and culture. See E. Kerr
Borthwick: ‘Beethoven
and Plutarch’, in Music &
Letters vol.79 no.2 (1998),
pp.268–72; Amanda Glauert:
‘“Nicht diese Töne”:
lessons in song and singing
from Beethoven’s Ninth’,
in Eighteenth-Century
Music vol.4 no.1 (2007),
pp.55–70; Kramer: ‘The
strange case ’; Donald W.
MacArdle: ‘Shakespeare and
Beethoven’, in The Musical
Times vol.105 no.1454
(1964), pp.260–61; Maynard
Solomon: Beethoven essays
(Cambridge, MA, 1988); and
Solomon: Beethoven.
7. William S. Newman:
‘The Beethoven mystique
in romantic art, literature,
and music’, in The Musical
Quarterly vol.69 no.3
(1983), pp.354–87; and
David Charlton, ed.: E.T.A.
Hoffmann’s musical writings:
Kreisleriana, The poet and
the composer, music criticism,
trans. Martyn Clarke
(Cambridge, 1989), p.238.
8. See Anton Schindler:
Beethoven as I knew him:
a biography by Anton Felix
performed as a concert piece, rather than as an introduction to a play, and
there has yet to be an analytical and narrative study of the relationship
between the titles to the movements of Beethoven’s Pastoral symphony
and how this might affect a listener’s understanding and appreciation of the
work.
To understand the literary references and associations in Beethoven’s
works, we first need to understand Beethoven’s engagement with the arts
more generally and his attitude towards contemporary literary tropes.6 The
mythology that has enveloped Beethoven since his death, or mystique as
William S. Newman describes it, has in many ways concealed his cultural
persona, so as to present Beethoven as the epitome of true genius, a man not
weighed down by the world around him, but a man whose music, as ETA
Hoffmann once said, represents ‘the realm of the mighty and immeasurable’.7
This essay attempts to wipe away some of these mythological cobwebs
and show that Beethoven actively engaged with contemporary culture and
modern literature.
Anton Schindler’s early biography of Beethoven is partly responsible for
the view of Beethoven we hold today, as a man set apart from both society
and culture.8 In the section dedicated to Beethoven’s personality, Schindler
refers to the composer’s ‘modest’ private library, which contained a ‘meagre’
musical collection.9 Schindler indirectly suggests here that Beethoven took
little interest in the literary and musical world that surrounded him. The
comments are, however, misleading and fail to draw attention to the fact
that Beethoven’s library, although small, did contain some of the most
important literary works of that time. Beethoven was familiar with many
modern German poets, had a good knowledge of European poetry and,
during his time in Vienna, acquired a familiarity with the works of Homer
and Euripides. In a letter to his publishers, Beethoven makes his enthusiasm
for modern and Greek literature evident. He request ‘editions of Goethe’s
and Schiller’s complete works’ and says that ‘these two are my favourites,
as are also Ossian [and] Homer’.10 Although Beethoven never received
the pricey editions from Breitkopf & Härtel, we do know that during
Schindler, trans. Donald S. Newman: ‘Yet another biography’, in 19th-Century
W. MacArdle (London, major Beethoven forgery by Music vol.7 no.3 (1984),
1966). On the reliability of Schindler?’, in The Journal pp.209–21.
Schindler’s biography see of Musicology vol.3 no.4
Joseph Kerman: ‘Schindler’s (1984), pp.397–422;, and 9. These comments appear
Beethoven’, review of Anton Peter Stadlen: ‘Schindler’s in the revised version of
Felix Schindler: Beethoven Beethoven forgeries’, in Schindler’s biography (1860):
as I knew him: a biography, The Musical Times vol.118 Schindler: Beethoven as I
ed. Donald W. MacArdle no.1613 (1977), pp.549–52. knew him, p.528.
& trans. Constance S. See also Alan Tyson:
Jolly’, in The Musical Times ‘Ferdinand Ries (1784– 10. Emily Anderson, ed.:
vol.108 no.1487 (January 1838): the history of his The letters of Beethoven
1967), pp.40–41; William contribution to Beethoven (London, 1961), vol.1, p.241.

11. On the content of
Beethoven’s library see
Albert Leitzmann, ed.:
Ludwig van Beethoven:
Berichte der Zeitgenossen,
Briefe, und persönliche
Aufzeichnungen (Leipzig,
1921), pp.379–83, and
Eveline Bartlitz, ed.: Die
Beethoven-Sammlung in der
Musikabteilung der Deutschen
Staatsbibliothek: Verzeichnis
(Berlin, 1970), pp.207–18.
12. Solomon: Beethoven
essays, p.261.
13. ibid., p.259.
14. ibid., p.246.
15. On Beethoven and
opera see Emily Anderson:
‘Beethoven’s operatic plans’,
in Journal of the Royal
Musical Association vol.88
no.1 (1961), pp.61–71, and
Dyneley Hussey: ‘Beethoven
as a composer of opera’, in
Music & Letters vol.8 no.2
(1927), pp.243–52.
16. On Beethoven and
Shakespeare see Kramer:
‘The strange case ’, and
MacArdle: ‘Shakespeare and
Beethoven’.
his early career he obtained a number of volumes of Friedrich Schiller’s
collected works (including Wilhelm Tell and Die Jungfrau von Orleans),
before later acquiring the entire series. We also know that Beethoven’s
library contained select volumes of Johann Joachim Eschenburg’s trans­
lations of Shakespeare’s plays, as well as the complete works translated by
August Wilhelm Schlegel. The collection also hosted Homer’s Odysee [sic],
Goethe ’s Westöstlicher Divan, Immanuel Kant’s Naturgeschichte und Theorie
des Himmels, Johann Nikolaus Forkel’s Allegemeine Litteratur der Musik,
the writings of Johann Michael Sailers (a prominent theologian), as well as
the works of poets such as Augustus von Kotzebue and Friedrich Gottlieb
Klopstock.11
The content of Beethoven’s library confirms that he had a discern­ing
literary palette, his tastes ranging from Euripides to Goethe and from
Shakespeare to Schiller. His library also shows that he had a notable
predilection for serious and tragic drama, something that can also be detected
in his Tagebuch. In this collection of comments and quotations there are
numerous citations from works by dramatists such as Johann Gottfried
Herder and Friedrich Ludwig Zacharias Werner alongside quotations from
Kant’s philosophical writings and Homer’s Iliad. Most pertinently, there
are a whole host of quotations that centre on ideas of fate, freedom, tragedy,
and free will. For example, Beethoven quotes a passage from Herder
concerned with suffering and guilt: ‘under the tiger’s tooth I heard the
sufferer pray. Thanks to you, sublime one, I die in pain but free of guilt’.12
A quotation from the Iliad carries a similar tragic resonance and is
of particular interest because it bears scansion marks, suggesting that
Beethoven may have intended it for a musical setting. It states: ‘but now
Fate catches me! Let me not sink into the dust unresisting and inglorious, but
first accomplish great things, of which future generations too shall hear’.13
There are several other passages in the Tagebuch that address the nature of
tragedy and that appear to represent Beethoven’s own personal views on the
matter. For instance, in one passage Beethoven writes: ‘submission, deepest
submission to your fate, only this can give you the sacrifices – for this matter
of service ’.14
The interest in serious, tragic drama and ideas of tragic suffering in
Beethoven’s Tagebuch is also reflected in some of the libretti he considered
setting to music.15 Although Beethoven failed to write an opera after Fidelio,
he entertained ideas about writing another operatic work for the rest of his
life. We know that Beethoven had considered setting operatic texts based
on Goethe ’s Faust and two by Heinrich Joseph von Collin: Bradamante
and Macbeth (a revised version of Shakespeare’s play).16 None of these,
however, came to fruition. According to Ferdinand Laban, Collin’s bio­
grapher, Beethoven deemed Macbeth too gloomy and Bradamante too
the musical times Summer 2014 43
44 Beethoven, literature, and the idea of tragedy
17. Ferdinand Laban:
H.J. Collin: ein Beitrag
zur Geschichte der neueren
deutschen Literatur in
Oesterreich. (Vienna, 1879),
p.65.
18. Letter from Beethoven
to August von Kotzebue,
Vienna, 28 January 1812, in
Anderson, ed.: Letters, vol.1,
p.353.
19. For a discussion of
Goethe ’s Egmont see
Benjamin Bennett: Modern
drama and German classicism:
renaissance from Lessing
to Brecht (Ithaca, 1979),
pp.121–87; John M. Ellis:
‘Once again, Egmont’s
political judgement: a
reply’, in German Life and
Letters vol.34 no.3 (1981),
pp.344–49; Irmgard Hobson:
‘Oranien and Alba: the
two political dialogues in
Egmont’, in Germanic Review
vol.50 (1975), pp.7–36; Paul
E. Kerry: Enlightenment
thought in the writings of
Goethe (Rochester, 2001),
pp.53–75; Roger A. Nicholls:
‘Egmont and the vision
of freedom’, in German
Quarterly vol.43 (1970),
pp.188–98; George A. Wells:
‘Criticism and the quest
for analogies: some recent
discussions of Goethe ’s
Egmont’, in New German
Studies vol.15 (1988–89),
pp.1–15; George A. Wells:
‘Critical issues concerning
Goethe ’s Egmont’, in German
Life and Letters vol.32 no.4
(1978–79), pp.301–07; and
Elizabeth M. Wilkinson:
‘The relation of form
and meaning in Goethe ’s
Egmont’, in EM Wilkinson
& LA Willoughby, edd.:
Goethe: poet and thinker
(London, 1962), pp.55–75.
20. OG Sonneck, ed.:
Beethoven: impressions by his
contemporaries (New York,
1954), p.126.
super­natural.17 Beethoven, it seems, did not have just a predilection for
serious subject matter, but for a certain type of plot. Indeed, he rejected
supernatural plots in the hope of finding a libretto that dealt with serious,
human situations. In a letter to August von Kotzebue, Beethoven outlined
exactly what he sought in a libretto: ‘Whether it be romantic, quite serious,
heroic, comic or sentimental, in short, whatever you like, I will gladly accept
it. I must admit that I should like best of all some grand subject taken from
history and especially from the dark ages, for instance, from the time of
Attila or the like.’18 Mirroring the interests of Goethe, Beethoven wanted to
set an opera that was based upon an historical plot that carried an heroic, if
not, a tragic resonance.
T
he invitation to write the incidental music to Goethe’s Egmont
must have been an opportunity Beethoven relished. Based upon the
historical conflict that arose out of the Spanish occupation of the
Netherlands in the 16th century, the play focuses on the figure of Count
Egmont, whose execution is believed to have instigated the national uprising
that led to the emancipation of the Netherlands from Spanish rule.19 We
know that Beethoven held Goethe in high respect and thought his work to
be particularly well suited to musical settings. Friedrich Rochlitz recalls a
conversation in which Beethoven compares the relative merits of Klopstock
and Goethe:
He [Klopstock] hops about so from pillar to post; and he always begins altogether too
much from top to bottom. Always Maestoso, and in Db major! Is it not so? Yet he is
lofty and he uplifts the soul. When I did not understand him then I made my guess and
comprehended more or less. If only he did not want to die all the time! Death comes soon
enough to all of us. Well, at any rate, what he writes always sounds well. But Goethe – he
is alive, and he wants us all to live with him. That is why he can be set to music.20
According to Rochlitz, Beethoven understood Goethe’s poetry to be full
of life and perfect for setting as it created a space by which music could
emphasise and enlarge the meaning of the text. In fact, Beethoven had
already set several of Goethe’s poems before coming to write Egmont:
Maigesang (sometime before 1796), Marmotte (c.1790–92), Neue Liebe, neues
Leben (1798/99, revised in 1809), four settings of Sehnsucht (1807–08), Es
war einmal ein König (1809), and Mignon (1809).
To highlight the way in which Beethoven’s understanding of literature
may have informed his approach to composition, I want to explore in a little
more detail Beethoven’s understanding of Goethe’s writings and undertake
a brief examination of Beethoven’s Egmont overture, and in particular its
closing section. At bar 287 of the overture a lively Allegro con brio section
begins that contrasts sharply with the rest of the music of the overture,
jubi­lant and triumphant music replacing the melancholic and tragic tone

21. Donald Francis Tovey:
Essays in musical analysis:
illustrative music (London,
1937), p.46.
22. Carl Dahlhaus: Ludwig
van Beethoven: approaches
to his music, trans. Mary
Whittall (Oxford, 1991),
pp.13–16.
23. ibid., p.13.
24. James Hepokoski: ‘Back
and forth from Egmont:
Beethoven, Mozart, and the
nonresolving recapitulation’,
in 19th-Century Music vol.25
no.2 (2001), pp.127–54.
25. Hepokoski: ‘Back and
forth’, p.128.
26. Charles Rosen: The
classical style (London, 1972),
p.51.
27. Hepokoski: ‘Back and
forth’, p.134.
that had constituted the best part of the overture up until this point. This
closing section has sparked much scholarly discussion, based entirely on
new thematic material that ‘fails’ to resolve the conflict expounded in the
overture (ex.1).
According to Tovey, the coda to the overture looks back to history where
Alba supposedly drowned out Egmont’s farewell speech with fanfares.21 It
is interesting to note that in his discussion of the overture, Tovey forgoes
a musical analysis of this final section, choosing instead to cite a lengthy
quotation from Egmont’s final monologue. He appears lost for words,
the coda’s unusual musical structure causing him to shy away from his
usual rigorous analytical explanations. Tovey’s programmatic description
immediately marks out the overture as different, as lying outside the normal
corpus of works that can undergo standard musical analysis.
Carl Dahlhaus also struggles with the coda. According to Dahlhaus,
the coda is not part of the overture’s dramatic narrative, but an example
of where programmatic music dissolves into the necessities of formal
structure.22 In his opinion, understanding the coda as a Utopian ending to
the drama is ‘too reductionist an interpretation to sustain much weight, and
the emphasizing of the end – as if it was an “outcome” – is a fundamentally
inadequate response to the structure of a drama, and to that of a piece of
music that holds a mirror up to a drama’.23 Dahlhaus’s assertion that the
music here has no dramatic significance is at odds with the fact that the
music of the coda is taken from the incidental music Beethoven wrote for
Goethe ’s play, the coda quoting directly from the Victory symphony that
accompanies the final scene. Unlike the rest of the overture, the dramatic
connection with the play is actually explicit.
For James Hepokoski, it is not the dramatic narrative of the overture
that ‘fails’, but the musical structure.24 According to Hepokoski, the Egmont
overture is host to a nonresolving recapitulation. As he explains:
In a nonresolving recapitulation the composer has crafted this rhetorically recapitulatory
revisiting, or new rotation, of previously ordered expositional material to convey the
impression that it ‘fails’ to accomplish its additional generic mission of tonal closure. Rare
in the decades around 1800, this phenomenon is easy to identify, but the conceptual and
interpretive problems swirling around it are numerous and challenging.25
In the recapitulation to the Egmont overture, the re-presentation of the
second theme does not occur in the expected key of F major, but in Db
major, challenging Charles Rosen’s assertion that ‘an emphatic and marked
return to the tonic at a point no more than three-quarters of the way through a
movement is basic in late-eighteenth century style’.26 As Hepokoski points
out, ‘Beethoven’s Egmont falls short of the most basic harmonic feature of a
sonata at that time: a sufficient sense of tonal resolution within recapitulatory
space ’.27 Indeed, the anticipated F major is not reached until after the coda
the musical times Summer 2014 45
46 Beethoven, literature, and the idea of tragedy

° b
Allegro con brio
Flute 1 & c ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑

Flute 2 & bc ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑

pp
Oboes & bc w ∑
w
∑ nw
w nw
w

#
Clarinets in Bb & cw
w w
w bw
w bw
w
pp

? c
Bassoons
¢ b ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑

° c
Horns in F &b w w w w
w w w w
pp

Horns in Eb & bc ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑

¢&
Trumpets in F c ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑

°? c Ÿ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Timpani in F, C ¢ w w w w
pp

° cœ œnœ œ œ œJ ‰ Œ œ œnœ œ œ œJ ‰ Œ œ œ#œ œ œ œJ ‰ Œ œ œ#œ œ œ œJ ‰ Œ

Violin 1 &b
pp

æ æ æ æ æ æ æ
Violin 2 & b c ˙æ ˙ ˙ ˙ n˙˙ ˙˙ n˙˙ ˙˙
pp

æ æ æ æ
b˙ ˙ b˙ ˙
Viola B b c æ˙ æ
˙
æ
˙
æ
˙
pp

? cœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
Violoncello b nœ . . nœ . . nœ . . nœ . .
pp

? c
Bass ¢ b œ nœ œ. œ. œ œ œ œ œ nœ œ. œ. œ œ œ œ œ nœ œ. œ. œ œ œ œ œ nœ œ. œ. œ œ œ œ
pp

Ex.1: Beethoven: Egmont overture, bars 287–96

 °
Fl. &b ∑ ∑ ∑

Ÿ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fl. &b ∑ ∑ w
p cresc.

˙ ˙˙ ˙˙ ˙˙ ˙˙ ˙˙
Ob. &b ˙
cresc.

# ˙ ˙˙
Cl. & ˙ ˙˙ ˙˙ ˙˙ ˙˙
cresc.

? ˙˙ ˙˙ ˙˙ ˙˙ ˙˙ ˙˙
Bsn.
¢ b
cresc.

° b
Hn. & w w w
w
cresc.
w w
p cresc.

Hn. &b ∑ ∑ ∑

Tpt.
¢& ∑ ∑ ∑

°? <Ÿ>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Timp. ¢ w w w
cresc.

° œ œ œ œ œJ ‰ œ œ œ œ œJ ‰ œ œ œ œ œJ œ œ œ œ œJ œ #œ œ œ œJ œ œ œ œ œJ
Vln. I & b ‰ ‰ ‰ ‰
cresc.

æ æ æ æ œ #œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
æ æ
& b bæœ œ œ œ
æ
Vln. II œ œ œ œ
cresc.

æ æ
nœ œ
Vla. B b æœ æ
œ œ
æ æ
œ œ
æ
œ
æ œ nœ œ. œ. œ œ œ œ
cresc.

Vc.
?b œ nœ œ. œ. œ œ œ œ œ nœ œ. œ. œ œ œ œ œ nœ œ. œ. œ œ œ œ
cresc.

?
Cb. ¢ b œ nœ œ. œ. œ œ œ œ œ nœ œ. œ. œ œ œ œ œ nœ œ. œ. œ œ œ œ
cresc.

Ex.1 continued

the musical times Summer 2014 47

48 Beethoven, literature, and the idea of tragedy

° ˙ œ™ œœœ ˙ œ œ œ. œ. ˙ œ œ œ. œ.
Fl. & b
3 ff sf
<Ÿ>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cresc.

œ œ œ œ ˙ œ œ œ. œ. ˙ œ œ œ. œ.
Fl. & b ˙™
ff sf
œœ. œœ.
œœ. <n>œœ.
œœ #œœ œœ. . ˙˙ œœ œœ. . ˙˙ œœ œœ. .
œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ
Ob. &b
ff sf

œœ. <n>œœ. œœ. œœ.

˙˙ œœ œœ. ˙˙ œœ œœ. .
# œœ. œœ. .
œœ nœœ nœœ œœ
Cl. & œœ #œœ

œœ. <n> œœ.

ff sf
. ˙˙ œœ œ. œ. ˙˙ œœ œ. œ.
œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ œ
œ œ
œ
œ œ
? œœ #œœ œ œ
Bsn.
¢ b
ff sf

° ˙ œ ˙˙ œœ œœ œ œœ ˙˙ œœ œœ œ œœ
Hn. &b œ ˙ œ œ. . œ. .
œ ff sf

#˙˙ œœ #˙˙ œœ
Hn. &b ∑ J ‰ Œ J ‰ Œ
ff sf

. . . .
¢& w
˙ œ œ œ ˙ œ œ œ
Tpt.
˙ œ œ ˙ œ œ
w . . . .
°? <Ÿ>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
p cresc. ff sf

Timp. ¢ w Œ Ó Œ Ó
œ œ
ff sf
œ œ ˙ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
° œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ nœ œ
Vln. I & b
æ æ
ff sf
œ œ ˙ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
œ œ #œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ æ æ
Vln. II &b
ff sf

œ œ œ œ æœ ˙
æ
˙
æ
˙
æ
˙
æ
˙
æ
Vla. Bb
ff sf

œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
?b œ ˙ œ œ œ. ˙ œ œ œ.
Vc. œ. œ.
ff sf

œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
? ˙ œ ˙ œ
Cb. ¢ bœ œ œ. œ. œ œ. œ.
ff sf

Ex.1 continued

28. Burnham: Beethoven hero,
p.129.
29. David Hill: ‘Goethe ’s
Egmont, Beethoven’s
Egmont’, in Siobhán
Donovan & Robin Elliott,
ed.: Music and literature
in German romanticism
(Rochester, NJ, 2004), p.80.
30. Elliot Forbes, ed.:
Thayer’s Life of Beethoven
(Princeton, 1964), p.471.
31. Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly,
ed.: Friedrich Schiller: On
the naive and sentimental in
literature (Manchester, 1981),
p.23.
32. ibid., p.33.
has begun (bar 295). Resolution, it seems, arrives too late, occurring outside
the sonata form design.
For Dahlhaus, Tovey and Hepokoski, the conclusion to Beethoven’s over­
ture is problematic, the music ‘failing’ in both musical and dramatic terms.
The problem, though, may lie less with the music and more with how we
understand the final scene of Goethe’s play and, as a result, the conclusion
to Beethoven’s overture. In his autobiography, Goethe claims that the
ending to his play depicts the fulfilment of the wishes of all men. To express
this, Goethe chooses to use music rather than words. For Burnham ‘this is a
potentially stunning dramaturgical move, for the tragic emotion associated
with Egmont’s execution is immediately subsumed by the music, as by fiat,
into one of glorious consummation’.28 David Hill echoes this view, saying
that ‘it is appropriate that while the “real” events on stage present Egmont’s
defeat and death, a different medium – music – intervenes to present the
case for the principles for which Egmont stands’.29 For both Burnham
and Hill, the Victory symphony that concludes the play is not intended to
represent the on-stage events, but transcend the action and portray a much
larger victory. In essence, music is used to idealise the grim reality of the
situation and allude to the future independence of the Netherlanders.
Goethe ’s decision to use music in this final scene is striking given that for
the best part of the play the drama is intensely realistic. The narrative space
that Goethe gave to music was possibly one of the reasons why Beethoven
was attracted to this project. In fact, in a conversation with Beethoven,
Czerny recalls Beethoven once remarking that ‘Schiller’s poems are very
difficult to set to music. The composer must be able to lift himself far above
the poet: who can do that in the case of Schiller? In this respect Goethe is
much easier’.30 The difference between the works of Goethe and Schiller
perceived by Beethoven seems to mirror Schiller’s theoretical distinction
between naive and sentimental approaches to poetry. In his essay On the
naive and sentimental in literature (Über naïve sentamentalische Dichtung,
1795), Schiller claims that naive poetry is realistic and objective, and classical
and sentimental poetry idealist, subjective and romantic. The premise of
Schiller’s argument is that the attempt to represent nature in art will always
fail because man is no longer one with nature. As a result, art only reveals
what is ‘unnatural in us’, emphasising the divide between man and nature.31
For Schiller, a naive approach to art chooses to ignore this schism, presenting
nature as perceived by the creator. This approach Schiller believes to be true
of the Greeks and, indeed, of Goethe. But as he acknowledges, whereas in
the Hellenic world there was ‘no difference between what exists through
itself and what exists through art and the human will’, in the modern world,
man and nature are divided.32 Thus, in the case of modern naive poets such
as Goethe, their art can never capture nature in its true form. In contrast,
the musical times Summer 2014 49
50 Beethoven, literature, and the idea of tragedy
33. ibid., p.40.
34. Martin W. Swales:
‘A questionable politician:
a discussion of the ending
to Goethe ’s Egmont’, in
Modern Language Review
vol.66 (1971), p.839.
35. Ludwig van Beethoven:
Briefwechsel Gesamtausgabe:
Ludwig van Beethoven:
im Auftrag des Beethoven-
Hauses Bonn, ed. Sieghard
Brandenburg (Munich,
1996), vol.1, p.89.
36. Burnham: Beethoven hero,
p.129.
sentimental literature acknowledges the divide between realistic art and
nature, and chooses to bridge the gap by providing a view of the world as
ideal, rather than real. Sentimental poetry, in short, returns us to, rather than
recreates, the unity that once existed between man and nature. As Schiller
states, ‘nature makes him one with himself, art separated and divides him,
through the ideal he returns to that unity’.33
For the best part of the play, Goethe attempts to present the spectator
with a realistic portrayal of events, or what Schiller may have called a naive
presentation of nature. This presentation enabled Beethoven in the final
scene to expand the dramatic moment and present a more sentimental view
of the world. In effect, music is used to bridge the gap between man and
nature and to represent an idealised, transcendental realm. The combination
of the visionary and transcendental music of Beethoven’s Victory symphony
with the grim reality of Egmont’s ensuing execution makes for a complex
and unsettling conclusion to Goethe’s play. According to Martin W. Swales,
the ending to the play is intended to have a double function: ‘the ending
is, at the level of actuality, the apogee of all Egmont’s egocentricity, and
at another level – the level behind the actualities of the play which have
yielded the stuff of its dramatic action – it is an overwhelmingly ideal
image of human energy, of both personal and political freedom’.34 In short,
while the execution of Egmont represents the tragic culmination of the
dramatic narrative, his vision of a future freedom serves to overshadow
this. In effect, Egmont undergoes a transfiguration in the final scene; he
is no longer concerned with his own situation and beliefs, but those of his
people. Despite the fact that throughout the play Egmont consistently fails
to resolve the political situation and walks straight into Alba’s trap, Egmont
ascertains an heroic status at the end of the play through the combination of
his stoic acceptance of his fate and his vision of the future. Indeed, he does
not walk to the scaffold melancholically, but courageously. He embraces his
fate, or to paraphrase a comment made by Beethoven in a letter to Franz
Wegeler, he grabs fate by the throat.35
I think the coda to Beethoven’s overture aims to recreate the ending to
Goethe ’s play in musical terms. In the overture Beethoven makes Egmont’s
execution explicit (an event that does not occur in the play) through the
use of a severed melodic motif, silent pause and religioso passage (bars 278
onwards), and through the creation of an audible and narrative disjuncture
between the musical events before and after the coda (ex.2). This furnishes
the overture with a conclusion that, on the one hand, sounds jubilant and, on
the other, sounds disconnected and detached. The feeling of dissatisfaction
and unease is emphasised, as Scott Burnham observes, by the ‘garish
treatment’ of the mediant note and the piercing effect of the piccolo.36 In
his opinion, the coda over-compensates for the preceding tragic music,
 ° bb
[Allegro] œ. œ. œ œ œ œ œ œ U
Flute 1 & b b ∑ ‰ J ‰ J Œ Œ Œ ‰ ‰ ∑
ff
œ. œ. œ œ œ œ œ œ U
b
Flute 2 & b bb ∑ ‰ J ‰ J Œ Œ Œ ‰ ‰ ∑
ff

b œ. œ. œ œ œ œ œ œ U
Oboes & b bb ∑ œ œ ‰ œ
J
œ œ ‰ œ
J
œ œ Œ Œ Œ ‰ ‰ ∑
ff
ppp
U
˙™
b
Clarinets in Bb &b ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ Œ Œ ‰ ‰
∑

? bb U ˙™ ∑
¢ bb
Bassoons ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ Œ Œ ‰ ‰
ppp

° ∑ ‰ œj œ ‰ œj œ Œ
U
Horns in F & œ œ œ œ Œ Œ ‰ ‰ ∑
œ. œ. œ œ œ œ œ œ
ff
U
Horns in Eb & ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ Œ Œ ‰ ‰ ∑

U
‰ œj œ ‰ œj œ
¢&
Trumpets in F ∑ œ œ œ œ Œ Œ Œ ‰ ‰ ∑
œ. œ. œ œ œ œ œ œ

°?
ff
U
‰ œj œ ‰ œj œ
¢ ∑
Timpani in F, C œ. œ. œ œ Œ Œ Œ ‰ ‰ ∑
ff

° bb ˙ œ ˙ œ U
&b b ‰ j ‰ j Œ J ‰ ∑
œ. œ. œ œ œ œ œ œ
Violin 1
f
ff

b j U
Violin 2 & b bb œ œ
Œ
œ. œ.
‰ j
œ œ œ
‰ j
œ œ œ
Œ ˙ œ ‰ ∑
f
ff
U
Viola B bbbb nœ œ Œ œœ. œœ. ‰ œœj œœ œœ ‰ œœj œ œ Œ Œ Œ ‰ ‰ ∑
ff

? bb b nœ U
œ Œ ‰ j ‰ j Œ Œ Œ ‰ ‰ ∑
Violoncello b œ. œ. œ œ œ œ nœ œ
ff

? bb U
¢ bb
∑ ‰ j ‰ j Œ Œ Œ ‰ ‰ ∑
Bass
œ. œ. œ œ œ œ nœ œ
ff

Ex.2: Beethoven: Egmont overture, bars 274–86

the musical times Summer 2014 51

52 Beethoven, literature, and the idea of tragedy

° bb U
Fl. &b b ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑

b U
Fl. & b bb ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑

˙™ ˙™
ppp U
b
Ob. & b bb ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑
˙™
∑
˙™
∑
u

Cl. &b
b
˙™ ˙˙ ™™ ˙˙ ™™ ˙˙ ™™ ˙˙ ™™ #˙˙ ™™ ˙˙ ™™
∑ ppp

˙™ ˙™ ˙™ ˙™ ˙™ ˙™
ppp
? b b ˙™ ˙™ ˙™ ˙™ ˙™
∑
Bsn.
¢ bb ˙™ ˙™

° ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑
U
∑
Hn. &

U
Hn. & ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑

U
¢&
Tpt. ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑

°? U
¢ ∑
Timp. ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑

° bb U
Vln. I &b b ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑

b U
Vln. II & b bb ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑

U
Vla. B bbbb ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑

? bb b U
Vc. b ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑

? bb U
¢ bb
Cb. ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑

Ex.2 continued

37. ibid., p.127.
38. Lawrence Kramer:
‘Dangerous liaisons: the
literary text in musical
criticism’, in 19th-Century
Music vol.13 no.2, pp.159–67.
39. Solomon: Beethoven,
p.252.
tingeing the jubilant finale with a sense of irony. This view of the coda to
Beethoven’s overture as ironic is, perhaps, compounded by the fact that at
bar 307 disconcerting Ebs and Dbs enter the texture, reminding the listener
of the overture ’s tragic F minor opening. In essence, the jubilant music is
given a tragic tone. To claim, though, that the coda is simply ironic fails to
take into account the fact that coda still sounds overwhelmingly jubilant. As
Burnham notes: ‘it is hard not to hear Beethoven’s coda as a culminating
outcome of the overture’.37 To my mind, the coda, like the play, has a double
function and is representative of both victory and tragedy at once.
The complex conclusion to the overture asks us to rethink our
understanding of the relationship between not only music and literature
in the works of Beethoven, but perhaps also Beethoven’s so-called heroic
period. The contents of Beethoven’s library, letters, and Tagebuch suggest
that Beethoven’s interest lay predominantly with tragic and serious subject
matter. It would be a mistake to think that, given Beethoven wrote only one
opera, his interest lay solely with symphonic music, Beethoven having a
deep interest in the relationship between words and music throughout his
life. The literary, and in some cases theatrical, significance to Beethoven’s
works, then, should not be underplayed. While on the one hand we need
to take due care when considering the relationship between literature and
music as Lawrence Kramer asserts, on the other hand we should not assume
that the two media are diametrically opposed.38 Programmatic readings and
literary understandings of Beethoven’s works have the potential to enrich
and inform our understanding of Beethoven’s oeuvre and why Beethoven
may have placed ‘the tragic experience at the core of his heroic style’.39
the musical times Summer 2014 53
2 In memoriam

Arnold Whittall Decline and fall 118 Göttinger Händel-Beiträge,

Constant Lambert: beyond The Rio Grande
by Stephen Lloyd
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Ad Parnassum and Performance
contributors this issue
rita steblin is the author of
Die Unsinnsgesellschaft: Franz
Schubert, Leopold Kupelwieser
und ihr Freundeskreis (Böhlau,
1998) and A history of key
characteristics in the 18th and early
19th centuries, now in its second
edition (University of Rochester
Press, 2002).
kieran fenby-hulse is
Researcher Development Officer
at Bath Spa University. He
received his PhD from King’s
College London in 2011 for a
thesis entitled ‘The “dramatic”
overture and the idea of tragic
narrative’.
andrew thomson is author
of monographs on Widor
(1987) and d’Indy (1996), both
published by OUP.
arnold whittall is Emeritus
Professor of Musical Theory
and Analysis at King’s College
London. He continues to work
on The Wagner style as well as
on an extended series of essays,
British music after Britten.
beverly jerold’s articles
about tempo, performance and
other subjects have appeared
recently in Early Music,
Dutch Journal of Music
Theory, The Beethoven Journal,
BACH, Eighteenth-Century
Music, The Musical Times,
Practice Review.
leo black is author of books
on Schubert (2005) and Rubbra
(2008) published by The Boydell
Press, and a memoir, BBC music
in the Glock era and after (2010),
from Plumbago Books.
peter williams is the author
of the two-volume Figured
bass accompaniment and of
The Chromatic Fourth during
four centuries of music.
patricia howard is Visiting
Research Fellow at the Open
University. Her publications
include books on Gluck and
Britten, and a new biography of
Gaetano Guadagni from OUP.

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