It is difficult to find someone who, among Beethoven’s nine symphonies, would choose the Fourth as their favorite. Its seemingly modest character, however, should not deceive us. After all, this is the composer of the Eroica, but showing a different facet than the one we usually associate with him.
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After completing the Eroica Symphony in early 1804, Beethoven faced the failure of the opera Fidelio the following year and began sketching a new symphony in C minor — what would become the Fifth. However, several projects got in the way. The Fourth Symphony was one of them. In the summer of 1806, Beethoven was staying at Prince Lichnowsky’s palace in Silesia, about 300 kilometers northeast of Vienna. It was then announced that Count Franz von Oppersdorff would visit. Also a music lover, the count maintained an orchestra at his castle some 300 kilometers further north. Upon hearing Beethoven’s Second Symphony, he was so enthusiastic that he immediately made an offer (financially irresistible) commissioning a new symphony. This might have been the symphony in C minor, had Beethoven not felt that a score with less expressive intensity would better suit the occasion.
Thus originated the Fourth Symphony, often noted for the contrast it establishes with the Third and the Fifth. It is true that in those two symphonies, the epic scale, dramatic passion, and formal boldness mark technical and aesthetic paradigm shifts that opened the way to a new period in music history, and immediately captivated audiences. But it is a misconception to label the Fourth Symphony as “a step back.” One cannot say Beethoven abandoned his progressive drive just because he seems to indulge in more intimate and harmonious experiences, or because the work does not readily evoke archetypes related to great humanistic causes. Is it a “minor” work? Certainly not.
Rui Campos Leitão
Image: Beethoven 1804 or 1805 | Painting byJoseph Mahler (1778–1860) Source: Wikimedia Commons