Mikael Rasmusson ([log in to unmask]) wrote:


Deryk Barker:
>
>>Would you really consider Beethoven 9 cyclic? The themes from mvt 1-3 do
>>reappear (briefly) at the beginning the finale, but only to be swept away
>>and never referred to again.
>
>I expected this question.  He's linking the movements, but very briefly.
>Berlioz did something similar in Harold in Italy.

And of course the Symphonie Fantastique uses the 'idee fixe' in every
movement, but I'm not sure that would be called cyclic either.

>I'm not sure, Deryk.  But if you have'nt hard the earlier movements, the
>last one doesn't make sense.  Could that be a pragmatic definition of
>cyclic?

Hmmm, never thought of that.  I'm not sure I'd want to do so though: I was
thinking last night, and Bruckner would seem to be another prime candidate:
the coda of the 4th (at least in the Haas edition) brings back the opening
movement's main theme, the finale of the 5th uses the main theme of the 1st
movement as one of its fugue subjects, the opening theme of the 6th
reappears in the final coda, as someone has pointed out the coda of the 8th
combines the themes of all four movements in glorious counterpoint - and
there is evidence that B intended to do the same in the finale of the 9th.

Yet, I've never seen anyone call Bruckner symphonies cyclic.

Deryk Barker
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