The second movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No.7, Allegretto, has captivated and emotionally grabbed listeners since it was first performed, with Beethoven conducting, in 1813. At the performance’s conclusion, the audience exploded with enthusiastic approval and demanded an encore, which was honored by the orchestra. Beethoven’s expressive conducting no doubt heightened the experience, as the performing violinist Louis Spohr reported, “as a sforzando occurred, he tore his arms with a great vehemence asunder … at the entrance of a forte he jumped in the air.” Even Beethoven himself reportedly said that the piece was “one of my best works.”
What about this movement captivates us so? It begins and ends with instability, unresolved chords missing roots, yet beautifully and gradually builds with layered instrumentation and a droning, rhythmic current that carries the intensifying lament of the melody. It is a masterpiece that somehow connects to our deeper understandings – of despair and the beauty of realizing the fleetingness of life and the inevitability of death. The importance of love and hope amidst this turmoil. The unstoppable expression of the human spirit as well as its great capacity for strength and endurance. The transformative power of connecting to emotional tenderness, allowing us to evolve and to heal. And the simple, sheer beauty and acceptance of joy and grief, of gaining and losing.
Beethoven was certainly aware of his own mortality, of the fading abilities of his physical body that came with hearing loss, and the frustrations that ensued as he sought to capture and express the musical ideas that seemed like a gift from beyond. That tension is translated musically into his work and influences the rhythmic and harmonic support for his breathtakingly beautiful motifs.
What is brilliant about the Allegretto is that it stirs the listener’s curiosity, especially upon first hearing it. We wonder, where is Beethoven going with this piece? How and will he resolve the instability, the climaxing tension? How will he bring us back to earth after elevating us to a heightened state? It is the subtlety and the playful mystery of this piece, when performed with appropriate timing, dynamics (which Beethoven explicitly marked) and tempo, that draw us in and leave us wanting to pay closer attention.
The French Romantic composer Hector Berlioz eloquently analyzed how the rhythm elementally shaped the Allegretto. In 1862 Berlioz wrote:
“[A]simple rhythm is again the principal cause of the extraordinary effect produced by the Allegretto. The rhythmic pattern consists merely of a dactyl [one long and two short syllables] followed by a spondee [two long syllables] played relentlessly, either in three parts, or in only one, then in all parts together. Sometimes it serves as an accompaniment, but frequently it focuses attention on itself, and also provides the starting point for a small fugal episode with two subjects played by the strings. It appears first in the lower strings—violas, cellos, double-basses—played piano, then is repeated soon after in a pianissimo full of melancholy and mystery. From there it passes to the second violins while the cellos sing a kind of lament in the minor mode. The rhythmic pattern rises from octave to octave, reaches the first violins who then pass it in a crescendo to the wind instruments at the top of the orchestra, where it bursts out in its full force. Sounded with even greater vehemence, the melody now assumes the character of an anguished lament. Conflicting rhythms clash painfully with each other; these are tears, sobs and supplications—this is the expression of limitless grief and all-consuming suffering… But a ray of hope appears: these heartbreaking sounds are followed by a transparent melody, pure, simple, gentle, sad and resigned, like patience smiling to suffering. The basses continue on their own with their inexorable rhythm under this melodic rainbow; to borrow yet another quotation from English poetry, ‘One fatal remembrance, one sorrow, that throws its black shade alike o’er our joys and our woes.’
“After a similar alternation of anguish and resignation, the orchestra, as though drained by such a painful struggle, plays only fragments of the main theme and collapses in exhaustion. Flutes and oboes pick up the theme in a dying voice, but do not have the strength to finish it, which the violins do with a few barely audible pizzicato notes. At this point the wind instruments, reviving like the flame of a candle on the point of extinction, utter a deep sigh on an unresolved harmony and… the rest is silence. This mournful cry, which begins and ends the andante, is produced by a six-four chord, which always tends to resolve itself onto another one. Ending on an unresolved harmony is the only way to conclude, by leaving the listener in suspense and thereby increasing the impression of dreamy sadness into which everything that came before must have plunged him.”
Allegretto influenced many classical composers including Wagner and Schubert, as well as modern-day composers. The theme has been borrowed and used in several pieces, and arrangements for various instruments have been written. Even as a simplified solo piano arrangement it retains its mystery and charm.