Deryk Barker <[log in to unmask]>:

>Mats Norrman ([log in to unmask]) wrote:
>
>>Now a question which would intrigue me to hear your suggestions to:
>>Beethovens Eroica 4TH movement: Where does the theme actually start?
>
>As I believe I menitoned before, the first appearance of the theme (as
>opposed to the "bass del tema" as Beethofven called it in the Eroica
>Variations) is with the apperance of the complete, as orchestrated
>Kontretanze (can't recall the WoO number).  Taking a quick look at my
>score, there are four repeated passagesand this comes immediately after
>them.  The theme is played by oboe and clarinet.  Bar 78 or thereabouts.

I disagree, I'm afraid.  I could read this movement in a quite different
way, i.e.  in its own structutral context.  What we have at bar 76
(Kontretanz) is not the main theme, properly, but a material that seems
having already passed through a variation work.  At least, it makes the
effect of a derived counter-melody.  I would say that this Kontretanz
melody is an "alias" or a "mask" of the main theme, which has already
appeared at bar 12.  Think about it:

a) You have a perfectly "closed" melody (AA,BB) clearly exposed after the
introduction (bar 12), and later you have two contrapuntal variations of
it.  In a "tema con variazioni" scheme, that's enough to define a theme.
You know...  Gestalt and that stuff...  That melody may be later the basso
of a more complex structure, but it has melodical autonomy and personality
enough to be a theme in itself.

b) Later (bar 76) you have a *third variation*, in which you hear
perfectly the theme as background (basso) of another melody (Kontretanz).
This is strongly felt as an expansion (i.e.  transformation i.e.
variation) of the original theme at bar 12.  Precisely, this is one of
the most elementary resources at variations, and is usually placed among
the first variations of a theme (see for example Mozart's Quintet K 581,
last movement, bar 17 and ss).  Usually, the "Tema con variazioni" scheme
implies additive complexity.  So, the main theme is heard traditionally at
the beginning in its simplest formulation, which is precisely what happens
at bar 12.

The spicy thing here is that Beethoven gives to this Kontretanz melody a
strong thematic weight, and then we have a certain ambiguity about what the
real theme is.  This resource allows him to deal with "expanded material"
(traditionally, the theme con variazioni focuses in a single melody or
cells of it) in order to build a *large* symphonic structure.

Perhaps the original question by Mats Norrman should have been: "where
does the theme actually ends?":-)

Pablo Massa
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