Isn't this fun? A meaningless debate on a subject no one but you and I give a flip about and we probably don't either, but anyway...
Beethoven was the culmination of classicism-he grew out of that eighteenth century environment, wanted to study under Mozart, who unfortunately died before he could do so,and even in his last incredible works he still paid great attention to form and used remarkable self discipline to stay with his themes. It's just that his passion pushes the boundaries so deceptively. Unlike the Romantics, he never abrogates what he saw as his responsibility to the music. Even though he used a chorus in the 9th, a Romantic characteristic to meld poetry and music-it was subjugated to the music, was incidental to the whole. He took a few words from Shiller's ode and fit them to his theme, but never allowed them to be dominant.
Classicism is about equilibrium and proportion. Beethoven never, in any of the symhonies, forgot those guiding principles. Everything remains balanced and anchored. Yes, he felt the pull of the Romantics, in mnay ways broke ground for them, but he never lost the classical elements, just embued them with his own heroic vision, creating a synthesis of the whole movement that carried into the next great musical period. |
