Beethoven's Compositional Innovations

(keyboard)

Alterations to the Classical Symphonic Form


1.  Beethoven's use of repeated motifs across multiple movements

Far more than his predecessors did, Beethoven wrote movements keeping the whole of the composition in mind.  Prior to him, the movements of a work were complementary of each other, but rarely had any conjoining ideas.     

While composers would often use a motif (a phrase of certain notes or a certain rhythm, like Beethoven's famous triplet pattern in Symphony #5) throughout a movement, Beethoven would have one or more motifs reoccur throughout multiple movements of a piece to give the piece, as a whole, a unifying coherence.  

As his composing advanced, sometimes the unifying motif would be something more obscure, such as the use of the same modulations, a pattern of silences, or just a particular atmosphere. 


2. "Kampf und Seig" (Struggle and Victory)  

      A common theme in Beethoven's music, mostly in his "heroic" middle period (1803 - 1815), but it can also be found in Symphony #9 (1824).  It relates to Beethoven's struggle with his increasing deafness and was popular with the European bourgeoisie (middle, capitalist class) of Beethoven's day in their goals of economic and political freedom from the aristocracy. 

      With a few exceptions, Haydn's and Mozart's symphonies and string quartets in the classical era always had four movements, and most of Beethoven's did, too.  But in the classical era composers put the emphasis of creativity in the first two movements.  The first movement was a fairly fast movement, where the composer would show of his skills at manipulating (writing variations on) one or two themes that opened the movement.  The second movement was a slow movement where the composer presented his most beautiful melodies and harmonies.  The final two movements were usually less creative, with the composer trying to leave the audience in a happy, positive, but not overly excited.    

      Beethoven, however, usually made the final movement as creative as the others, and tried to leave the audience in an ecstatic mood by bringing light (victory) to the darkness (struggles) in the earlier movements.  


3.  Beethoven's destabilization of key tonality 

Beethoven used nontraditional means of moving from one chord to another or modulating from one key to another to leave the listener in a state of suspense as to where the music was going.  This creates a state of apprehension, emotional anxiety, a feeling of being lost, within the listener making one long for the musical to resolve itself to a root tonality.  Beethoven first does this in many works.  Famously, he opens Symphony No. 9 with a 30 seconds of rumbling orchestra sounds before announcing the first theme, which is in D minor.  


4.  The use of minor keys, particularly C minor (online piano)  

      Minor keys have a "darker" sound than major keys and can expresses a wide range of emotions from loneliness to great apprehension.  Only two of Mozart's 41 (2%) symphonies are in a minor key, two of Beethoven's nine are (22%).  While Mozart used minor keys for a few of his most dramatic pieces, Beethoven also used them in chamber works and piano sonatas much more frequently than did Mozart.  (see "Beethoven and C minor").  

In his heroic music, the first movement(s) would often be in a darker mood (often using a minor key) and the final movement would be bright (often in  a major key) 


5.  Beethoven's "disrespect" for traditional forms and styles

From his early twenties, Beethoven would defy conventional "rules" of composing.  Hayden criticized him for combining the sonata form with a fugue.  His fourth piano concerto was the first to open with a piano statement rather than one from the orchestra.   

Beethoven many times abandoned the traditional "sonata form" that was traditionally used in the first movements of sonatas and symphonies.  Also, his two piano sonatas of Opus 27 (the second of which is the "moonlight" sonata), open with a nontraditional quiet movement.