On the question of Beethoven and "melody," I would say that, if you look
at how he developed his ideas in his sketchbooks you will see that he is
usually not concerned with improving the "beauty" of a theme (which I would
take to be its singability, or charm if considered as a song melody), but
rather with reworking what might be called the architectural form of a
series of notes so that it would work well in the overall musical structure
he was building up, for example, by providing the maximum opportunity for
development, or by balancing or combining with other themes.

Many listeners (perhaps conditioned by listening a lot to popular
music) tend to think of all music as composed of song-like melodies
with accompaniments filling in the background, and some CM composers work
that way, too.  Beethoven, however, was not among them.  He was much more
interested, it seems to me, in seeing how elaborate a structure he could
build up with the simplest elements, like a huge building constructed out
of simple bricks and mortar.  The most impressive example, of course, is
the four-note motif of the 5th Symphony; another one is the five-note one
announced by the timpani at the start of the Violin Concerto.  It is
particularly interesting to recognize that these two note groups are almost
identical, but with a subtle difference in how they end, which results in
the very different characters of the first movements of the respective
works generated out of them.

Of course, a work like the Violin Concerto has much more in it than this
purely "architectural" aspect; there is also plenty of the emotional,
indeed, passionate side to it. To, me, it's the combination of both that
makes it a masterpiece.

Jon Johanning // [log in to unmask]