Bill Pirkle writes:

>I sense a lot of impulse, rather than overall design in Beethoven's music.
>As if he decided to fly into a rage at a point in a composition - like OK
>that's enough of this, it time for some excitement.  Maybe that is part of
>his meta-composing style.

The listener of Beethoven can hardly miss the emotionalism of some,
perhaps all, of his music.  The crescendo and decrescendos alone make
for mighty dramatic music.  In this sense, Beethoven is the pioneer of
Romanticism in classical music.  But the notion that Beethoven lacks
overall design just doesn't hold up under scrutiny.  Take the 5th Symphony,
a very classically-designed symphony in every way.  Yes, there's four
movements, just like the classicists Mozart and Haydn who preceded him.
No, it's not in the strict allegro, andante, allegretto, and allegro
paradigm, but the sonate-allegro form is very evident.  Even the 9th, where
a chorus and a fifth movement are introduced in a departure from strict
classicism, there's no denying the 9th is very well conceived and executed
with a clear over-arching sense of direction and purpose.  That Beethoven's
symphonies exhibit a greater dynamism than his predecessors (e.g., Haydn
and Mozart) doesn't mean that "rage" is involved, but I rather like to

Stephen Heersink
San Francisco
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