Beethoven's 5th. Why is it popular?

electrogrimey

Just played a concert including this symphony, and it made me wonder why it's one of the most famous symphonies in the classical repertoire, with references in Clockwork Oranges etc. The famous first movement is quite effective, but the three other movements, particularly the 4th, are repetitive, mundane, and completely lacking in originality or brilliant expression of emotion.

So, why is it so famous, and popular? Does anyone here really love this symphony?

I, personally, would say this has more musical endeavor.

banquo

Heresy!

The other three movements are incredible, especially the final movement.

topper75

The raging majesty of it. Listen again.

electrogrimey

topper75 wrote: »

The raging majesty of it. Listen again.

I spent hours listening to it while rehearsing it, and it really isn't that great a symphony. Especially when compared to the likes of Strauss, Mahler and Shostakovich. While playing the Alpine Symphony, at parts where I had long rests or tacet parts I used to just revel in the amazing power and beauty of the symphony, but none of that with this, which begs the question of why these amazing symphonies are overlooked while the 5th gets worldwide praise.

Sandwich

It is 'popular' with the populace due to the opening theme of the first movement which is ear catching. And partly by accident, achieved a critical mass of widespread recognition which is self propagating; movies, adverts, ring tones, elevator music etc.

It is enjoyed and regarded as a masterpiece by knowledgeable music lovers because it is indeed, an all-time masterpiece.

electrogrimey

Sandwich wrote: »

It is enjoyed and regarded as a masterpiece by knowledgeable music lovers because it is indeed, an all-time masterpiece.

What are you implying by this? Most musicians I know to whom I have talked on the subject agree with me, so it is clearly not just me who finds this symphony over-rated.

Morlar

Sandwich wrote: »

It is 'popular' with the populace due to the opening theme of the first movement which is ear catching. And partly by accident, achieved a critical mass of widespread recognition which is self propagating; movies, adverts, ring tones, elevator music etc.

It is enjoyed and regarded as a masterpiece by knowledgeable music lovers because it is indeed, an all-time masterpiece.

It was also used by the BBC during the 2nd world war radio broadcasts as the opening bars are morse for V for victory. I like it but haven't listened to it in a good while, it is a shame how it has been bastardised over the years.

stevejazzx

The 5th is amazing. BTW I tihnk the 9th has more to do with Clockwork Orange.

electrogrimey

stevejazzx wrote: »

BTW I tihnk the 9th has more to do with Clockwork Orange.

Just checked it there, you're right. Apologies.

Nulty

I think it has to do with people more than music. There is a psychology of power and aggression in the music i think a lot of people identify with. I'm no expert but I think it inspires people find courage and strength.

FYI, my favorite part is in the 3rd movement when the flutes (i think they're flutes) go on an off beat and the violins do some crazy jumping. Awesome.

Doshea3

Funny, I remember chatting to members of an orchestra before after a concert including this work and they all said they hated playing it and that it was a boring and overrated work.

I think the 5th suffers from bad performance a lot. Popular culture has a lot to answer for for this. People in general (and musicians are not exempt) have preconceptions regarding its character and so on and so it's hard to escape from the cliché that gives rise to the inevitable DAH! DAH! DAH! DAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!! at the beginning.

I find Beethoven symphonies generally leave me rather cold on listening. Don't get me wrong, I think they are masterpieces, but there is something almost inhuman about them that leaves me wondering what is it that I fail to understand. Perhaps when I'm sixty years old I'll finally get it and while away my evenings smoking my pipe and listening to Beethoven.

The 5th can be interpreted as bombastic, and from what we know of Beethoven the man perhaps that is the way he intended it to be played. But I don't think that is how it has to be played.

The first movement is very cleverly constructed but I feel its impact has been destroyed because of the ubiquitous use of that motif. The second movement is amazing, the third movement bizarrely delightful and the transition from third to fourth movement is an incredible moment of genius. However, as Banquo well knows from that time he handed Carlos Kalmar my drawing of a fermata after he conducted the National Symphony Orchestra in a perormance of this work, I think the coda at the end of the symphony is the blandest and most unfortunate overstatement in all of Beethoven.

Norrdeth

Mahler 2 FTW =P

electrogrimey

Norrdeth wrote: »

Mahler 2 FTW =P

1st is also amazing.

The Mad Hatter

electrogrimey wrote: »

1st is also amazing.

As are the fourth, fifth, seventh, eighth and tenth. And the others, but I don't know them so well.

I'll have to write a response rant about your Beethoven heresy, though.

funky penguin

electrogrimey wrote: »

Just played a concert including this symphony, and it made me wonder why it's one of the most famous symphonies in the classical repertoire, with references in Clockwork Oranges etc. The famous first movement is quite effective, but the three other movements, particularly the 4th, are repetitive, mundane, and completely lacking in originality or brilliant expression of emotion.

So, why is it so famous, and popular? Does anyone here really love this symphony?

I, personally, would say this has more musical endeavor.

Are you in the academy orchestra?

While I can respect the fact that you are entitled to your own opinion of it......



ARE YOU MAD?!?!?!?!?!*



Seriously, as a matter of interest what do you think of his other symphonies, specifically the other "famous ones", the 3rd and the 9th?


* :P

westtip

electrogrimey wrote: »

Just played a concert including this symphony, and it made me wonder why it's one of the most famous symphonies in the classical repertoire, with references in Clockwork Oranges etc. The famous first movement is quite effective, but the three other movements, particularly the 4th, are repetitive, mundane, and completely lacking in originality or brilliant expression of emotion.

So, why is it so famous, and popular? Does anyone here really love this symphony?

I, personally, would say this has more musical endeavor.

The reference you gave on You tube to click through was testimony to the iconic nature of Beethovens 5th; I for one will never be drawn into a comparison of one beethoven symhony v another - my personal favourite is the 6th; but that is for very personal reasons;

Not least being the performance I took my (at the time) 76 year old mother to at the RAH for a prom featuring Rattle and the Berlin Phil. A quite astounding evening some eleven years ago (Not to mention the Mahler Resurection the following evening).

My mother had probably heard B6 many many times in both concert hall and on record; after the concert she said she felt that night she was at the premiere - it summed it up, had I been writing a review I would have said as much -I heard music from an orchestra that night played in such a way I cannot recall before or ever after - sheer magic, such was the quality of playing and conducting . I was standing on the floor of the RAH as a prommer about five yards from Rattle; he seemed to melt into the first violins and pull out music I had never heard before, you see it is the moment and time in which you place any music which enlivens it - allow B5 and any Beethoven to melt your soul in this way -

B5 is simply one of the masterpieces of the classical repertoire, I am sorry but your OP in which you ask So, why is it so famous, and popular? Does anyone here really love this symphony? is to put it bluntly just rather quizzical and to my mind a bit meaningles - I mean why ask such a question. I for one love it - because it is a mastepiece... why do we need to debate it.

Nulty

I may be way off but I think you can compare its "musicality" to paintings.

Sure you can have some one who paints or draws pictures that look like photographs - as in - they can draw amazingly accurately (al la Mozart).

But why are picasso paintings so popular? he might be **** at drawing (I dont know!) but what ever he managed to get down on canvas people love -

Why?

(Am I way off?)

rcaz

Nulty wrote: »

I may be way off but I think you can compare its "musicality" to paintings.

Sure you can have some one who paints or draws pictures that look like photographs - as in - they can draw amazingly accurately (al la Mozart).

But why are picasso paintings so popular? he might be **** at drawing (I dont know!) but what ever he managed to get down on canvas people love -

Why?

(Am I way off?)

Picasso was also very good at drawing. But he made really abstract art because he thought it was interesting, I guess. And other people love it because they find it interesting too.

I'm sure Gyorgy Ligeti could write good, 'normal'-sounding music, but I guess he found stuff like Atmospheres and Poeme Symphonique for 100 Metronomes more interesting. And other people (like me) find it interesting too.

And there are people who love both the traditional methods and the weirder ones. I myself find the weirder stuff more appealing. I love the big clusters of stuff like Atmospheres and Lontana. I think Picasso's abstract stuff looks really cool. I can't extract any sense from it, like some claim to, but it's pleasing to just look at shapes.

I don't really like B5 either, but I don't know how much of that is me actually not liking it subjectively, or me just it writing off because it's so overplayed. It sounds very glossy and perfect, which doesn't always appeal to me. I'm probably just ignorant.

CliffHuxtabel

Nulty wrote: »

I may be way off but I think you can compare its "musicality" to paintings.

Sure you can have some one who paints or draws pictures that look like photographs - as in - they can draw amazingly accurately (al la Mozart).

But why are picasso paintings so popular? he might be **** at drawing (I dont know!) but what ever he managed to get down on canvas people love -

Why?

(Am I way off?)

not an accurate comparison...the dynamic is too different

TheBandit

CliffHuxtabel wrote: »

the dynamic is too different

What do you mean by this?

aluna

god, i will never get sick of the fifth, esp. the third movement. i absolutely adore it, particularly the beginning....i consider it a masterpiece.