Talk:Symphony No. 8 (Beethoven)

Classical vs. Romantic

I disagree with the classification in the summary of this as a Classical symphony. Allmusic.com says it is a Romantic symphony, and I should agree because it sounds more like from the Romantic era than the Classical era. The symphonies of CPE Bach sound much closer to those of Haydn and Mozart than Beethoven. Therefore those should be considered classical. Marcus2 23:47, 1 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh. It's really quite a stretch to call this particular symphony, which echoes throughout with memories of Haydn and Mozart, "Romantic". However, given that the "Classical" label is causing trouble, I've replaced it with "in all of Beethoven's works". Please don't continue the revert war. Opus33 00:23, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't Beethoven's death the begining of the Romantic period? The symphony sounds more classical than Romantic for sure. Justin Tokke 01:11, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

1827?? No, it didn't begin that late. And rather than "echoing with memories of Haydn and Mozart", the Eighth Symphony rather foreshadows the works of Mendelssohn, Schumann, and even (yikes!) Tchaikovsky, all of whom were also Romantic composers. Justin Tokke, if you don't believe me, listen to one of CPE Bach's Hamburg symphonies, one of Haydn's first symphonies, or Mozart's Symphony No. 40. They sound by far closer to the Classical period than Beethoven's symphonies 3 to 9. And all of Beethoven's works from the beginning of his Middle period onward differ greatly from his Early period in that they sound something far removed from the Classical style, which I call Romantic. I hope this helps. Marcus2 01:59, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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So, I did my standard procedure for getting ordinary critical opinion, which is to Google "Beethoven Eighth Symphony program notes". This gives you the stuff people read in their program at a concert, which is typically written by people with musical training. Not a one of these people calls this a Romantic symphony; rather, they say:

Critics still condemn the symphony as a throwback to older forms and styles. To this there is some truth, but it is Beethoven's last word on the old classical sonata form that he had learned from Haydn and Mozart and used in his own earlier symphonies. The Eighth is really a jovial stab at the old classical forms to which he bids adieu. http://www.jhu.edu/jhso/about/prgrmnotes/pn_101803.html

the eighth has often been seen, by modern listeners as well as Beethoven's contemporaries, as a throwback to the styles of an earlier period. http://www.barbwired.com/barbweb/programs/beethoven_8.html

But now, scarcely a decade later, came a piece that appeared to return to the more restrained language and modest dimensions of the symphony as it had been conceived in the eighteenth century, a work more brief and lightly scored than any of its recent predecessors in Beethoven’s symphonic output. http://www.carnegiehall.org/article/box_office/events/evt_7614_pn.html?selecteddate=12282006

One of the shortest of Beethoven's symphonies, it returns to the more compact dimensions of Haydn and Mozart, and pays tribute at several points to 18th-century symphonic style. http://facstaff.uww.edu/allsenj/MSO/NOTES/0607/2.Oct06.html

The ebullient eighth recalls the older, classical style he inherited from Mozart and Haydn, but still reveals Beethoven’s forward-looking brilliance. http://www.jacksonsymphony.org/concerts/2003/pn-04-02-07.htm

Even in his middle and late periods, when he was writing his most radical and idiosyncratic music, Beethoven would occasionally take a backward glance at the late-18th-century forms and styles that he had inherited and would never wholly abandon. The Fourth Symphony (1806), the charming Piano Sonatina in G major, Op. 79 (1809), and his very last completed work, the String Quartet in F Major, Op. 135 (1826), were just such affectionate, witty, tongue-in-cheek tributes to the sound world of Haydn and Mozart. The Eighth Symphony, composed in 1812, was another, http://www.tso.ca/season/experience/programme_notes.cfm?pID=160&cID=6&ID=361&FileName=

By the time Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote this scherzo, he was well past eighty and enveloped in Beethovenian deafness . . . but not the thunderous temper that went with it in the earlier composer. This is actually a movement of his Symphony No. 8 -- one wonders how seriously Vaughan Williams might have been following treadmarks that were well over a century old . . . but both composers, on their way to a large, definitive, and rather difficult final Symphony No. 9, paused to do a tidier, vervous "Haydnesque" Eighth. http://www.lowellphilharmonic.org/program.htm

I would be curious where a critic has said that this is a Romantic symphony. (I can't find the discussion that Marcus2 cites at allmusic.com - though I do notice they've got Beethoven's birth date as 1782, making me wonder about their merits as a source.) Opus33 03:41, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the lengthy explanation, but take a look at this. According to this allmusic.com site (http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=41:6981), Beethoven's birth date is 1770, and in the "Work Type" heading of the Eighth symphony (http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=&sql=42:34920), the description is "Romantic Symphony". I hope this helps. Marcus2 13:18, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Allmusic.com's "Work Type" is not the final say on a complex question such as this. This is indeed a complicated question. Yes, the work is short and Haydn's influence is strong here, but the composer of Eroica, Waldstein and Egmont doesn't just forget all that. So there are aspects to this symphony that would never appear in Haydn. I'm not sure its really "neoclassical" either. Anyhow, rather than insist that the symphony is either classical or romantic, the older-style-yet-still-forward-looking can be mentioned and played up in the article somehow. 1812-1814 is in the grey area where the two periods meet anyways. DavidRF 03:22, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]