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Coram Deo: The Trombone and the Sublime in the Works by Beethoven
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Kim, Gwang Hyun
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2023
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles
Coram Deo: The Trombone and the Sublime
in Works by Beethoven
A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the
requirements for the degree Doctor of Musical Arts
by
Gwang Hyun Kim
2023
© Copyright by
Gwang Hyun Kim
2023
ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION
Coram Deo: The Trombone and the Sublime
in the Works by Beethoven
by
Gwang Hyun Kim
Doctor of Musical Arts
University of California Los Angeles, 2023
Professor William Andrew Kinderman, Chair
This dissertation explores the profound role of the trombone (in
German: Posaune) as a musical embodiment of the presence of God, or
Coram Deo, and discusses its contribution to the aesthetics of the
sublime in compositions by Ludwig van Beethoven.
The first chapter examines the Drei Equali WoO 30, Beethoven’s only
work for trombones by themselves. The expressive qualities of these
pieces are associated with spiritual and transcendent qualities in
the rich historical context of Tower Music (Turmmusik). Beethoven’s
only opera, Fidelio, invites study of Beethoven’s use of the trombone
in passages associated with death or ombre style, as found in the
grave-digging scene in the last act. Beethoven’s use of the trombone
in association to death follows his predecessors such as Mozart, and
calls to mind the prominence of the trombone in the Tuba Mirum of the
ii
Mozart Requiem. The second chapter of the dissertation investigates
Beethoven’s employment of trombones in the Fifth Symphony to
emphasize qualities of brotherhood, freedom, and hope, themes
connected to the ideals of the French Revolution, and to those
Masonic attributes bound up with the sublime. The Sixth Symphony
explores use of the trombones to portray an aspect of fear inherent
in the sublime--“Gottesfürcht” (“fear of God”)--an element referenced
in writings by Edmund Burke. The final chapter addresses the
Schillerian notion of the sublime embraced by Beethoven in his Ninth
Symphony and Missa solemnis. These works employ the trombone to help
convey spiritual themes evoking a sense of the sublime. In this pair
of choral-orchestral compositions, the distinctive tonal qualities
of the trombone, with its deep and resonant sound, enhance the sonic
representation of the voice of God or Vox Verbum.
Drawing on an interdisciplinary approach combining musicology,
theology, and aesthetics, this project assesses recurring motives,
orchestration choices, and other musical techniques that emphasize
the trombone’s association with the divine. By examining the special
role of the trombone as an instrument with a distinctive range of
expressive and spiritual associations, we can enhance our
understanding of the relationship between the trombone, spirituality,
and the sublime.
iii
The dissertation of Gwang Hyun Kim is approved.
Cesar Daniel Favila
David Kaplan
Raymond L. Knapp
James T. Miller
William Andrew Kinderman, Committee Chair
University of California, Los Angeles
2023
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………ii
Committee…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………iv
List of Illustrations and Music Examples ……………………………………………………………………vi
Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………v
Vita………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………xi
I. Beethoven, Trombones, and the Drei Equali, WoO 30…………………………………………1
II. Fidelio, and the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies……………………………………………………30
III. The Missa solemnis and the Ninth Symphony……………………………………………………106
Afterword………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………169
Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………177
v
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Illustration 1a. Old Cathedral in Linz
Illustration 1b. The Towers of Old Cathedral in Linz
Illustration 2. Instruments used in Stadtpfeifer including trombones
Illustration 3a. Beethoven’s Funeral Procession, 29 March 1827
Illustration 3b. Detailed view of Figure 3a showing four trombonists
followed by the choir
Illustration 4a. Ceiling of the Oratory of the Benedictine Monastery
Illustration 4b. Close-up view showing Vox Verbi with the trombone
Illustration 5. Vesuvius from Portici, Joseph Wright of Derby
Illustration 6. Beethoven’s Funeral Procession, 29 March 1827
LIST OF MUSIC EXAMPLES
Music example 1a. Dotted half note, quarter note motive (Beethoven,
Drei Equali No. 1 mm. 1-7)
Music example 1b. Dotted half note, quarter note motive (from Gustav
Nottebohm, Zweite Beethoveniana)
Music example 2. Beethoven, Equal No. 1
Musical example 3. Beethoven, Equal No. 2
Music example 5. Gluck, Orphée et Euridice Act I, Scene 1, mm. 15-22
Music example 6. Mozart, Don Giovanni Act II, Scene 11, mm. 51-54
vi
Music example 14. Mozart, Tuba Mirum from Mozart’s Requiem, mm. 1-18
Music example 15. Mozart, Die Zauberflöte Overture, mm. 1-3
Music example 17. Mozart, Die Zauberflöte, Act II, Scene 1, mm. 1-6
(between Marsch der Priester and O Isis und Osiris)
Music example 18. Mozart, Die Zauberflöte Act II, Scene 1 (No. 10),
mm. 1-7
mm. 21-24
Music example 20. Mozart, Die Zauberflöte Act II, Scene 10 (Finale),
mm. 190-195
Music example 21a. Martin Luther’s melody from Ach, Gott, vom Himmel
sieh darein, mm. 1-6
Music example 21b. Mozart, Die Zauberflöte Act II, Scene 10 (Finale),
mm. 206-215
Music example 22. Beethoven, Fidelio Act I, No. 8
Music example 23. Beethoven Fidelio No. 12
Music example 24a. Beethoven, Fidelio No. 12, falling thirds in the
trombones
Music example 24b. Beethoven, Fidelio No. 14, Pizarro’s descending
thirds at ”Er sterbe!” (“He dies!”)
Music example 25. Beethoven, Fidelio No. 14, “false” trumpet call
(Pizarro)
vii
(Florestan)
Music example 27. Beethoven, Leonore #3 mm.530-538
Music example 28. Beethoven, Symphony No. 5 Transition into the
Finale
Music example 29. Beethoven, opening measures of the Finale in
Symphony No. 5
Music example 30. Beethoven, Symphony No. 5 mm. 72-75
Music example 31a. Claude Joseph Roguet de L’Isle, Hymne
dithyrambique: ”Chantons la liberté, courron nous sa statue”
Music example 31b. Symphony No. 5 mm. 113-118
Music example 32. Beethoven, Symphony No. 5 mm.382-390
Music example 33. Beethoven, Symphony No. 6 Bird Call Section
Music example 34. “Long-long-long-short" cryptic message
Music example 35. Beethoven, opening of ”Der Wachtelschlag” WoO 129
(”The Quail”)
Music example 36. Beethoven, Symphony No. 6, Depiction of
”Thunderstorm”
Music example 37. Beethoven, Symphony No. 6, Timpani in transition to
the Finale
Music example 38. Beethoven, Symphony No. 6, Oboe solo and ascending
flute into the Finale
Music example 39. Beethoven, Gloria (“Deus pater omnipotens”)
Music example 40. Beethoven, Gloria (“miserere nobis”)
Music example 41a. Beethoven, Gloria, Alto line (mm. 383-389)
viii
Music example 41b. Beethoven, Gloria, Alto trombone line (mm.
383-389)
Music example 41c. Beethoven, Gloria (mm. 390-396)
Music example 41d. Beethoven, Gloria (mm. 399-402)
Music example 41e. Beethoven, Gloria (mm. 416- 427)
Music example 42. Beethoven, Gloria, quarter-note “amen” figure in
trombones
Music example 43. Beethoven, Gloria, trombone movement on “Deo”
Music example 44. Beethoven, Credo mm 135-137
Music example 45. Beethoven, Credo, “Crucifixion”
Music example 46. Beethoven, Credo, “Et resurrexit tertia de secondum
scripturas”
Music example 47. Credo mm 221-228
Music example 48a. Beethoven, Credo, setting of “vivos”
Music example 48b. Beethoven, Credo: “mortuos”
Music example 49. Beethoven, Sanctus, mm. 1-11
Music example 50. Beethoven, Missa solemnis, Kyrie motive
Music example 51. Beethoven, Benedictus, violin solo
Music example 52. Beethoven, Benedictus, trombones enunicating
“Be-ne-dic-tus”
Music example 53a. Beethoven, Agnus Dei, “Dona nobis pacem”
Music example 53b. Handel, Hallelujah Chorus, “And he shall reign for
ever and ever”
Music example 54. Beethoven, Symphony No. 9, opening
Music example 55. Beethoven, Symphony No. 9, “terror fanfare”
Music example 56. Beethoven, Symphony No. 9, solo baritone recitative
ix
Music example 57. Beethoven, Finale of Symphony No. 9, transition at
“vor Gott”
Music example 58. Beethoven, finale of Symphony No. 9, mm. 595-610
Music example 59. Beethoven, Symphony No. 9, “Über Sternen muss er
wohnen”
Music example 60a. Beethoven, Credo motive
Music example 60b. Beethoven, “Gott ist eine feste Burg,” WoO 188
x
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As an immigrant to the United States of America, and a
first-generation college student, I could not have overcome the
challenges and obstacles involved in completing this dissertation
without the encouragement, guidance, and assistance from all those
involved. To everyone mentioned and to those whose names may have
been inadvertently omitted, please accept my sincere gratitude for
your contributions.
First and foremost, I would like to praise God for His sovereignty,
goodness and unwavering love. A special thanks goes to my loving
family: 우리 가족 너무 사랑하고 감사합니다. I am also grateful to the
members of my dissertation committee: Cesar Favila, David Kaplan,
Raymond Knapp, James Miller and William Kinderman, for their valuable
insights and suggestions. I offer a very special thank you to William
Kinderman for his expertise, translations, and guidance which have
greatly enriched the quality of this work. And I give thanks to James
Miller, whose influences have been crucial to my development as a
modern day performer-scholar.
I am also grateful to my colleagues and friends who provided me with
their support and encouragement during challenging times. And lastly,
thank you to the members of the Mijoo Peace Church, especially Pastor
Bernie and his wife Debbie.
Soli Deo Gloria!
xi
VITA
Gwang Kim is the second trombone of the Bakersfield Symphony
Orchestra and has performed with notable ensembles around the world
including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, New
West Symphony, Seocho Philharmonic, and the Daesan Philharmonic. He
has also performed at Coachella with artists from 88 Rising and has
recorded for numerous television shows including ABC’s The Fosters
and Netflix original The Chef’s Table. As an educator, Gwang has been
invited as a guest clinician for the Rockport Brass Festival,
Pasadena City College, California State University Northridge, WMU
Symphony and KAYS Orchestra.
Currently, Gwang serves on faculty at Loyola Marymount University and
Ventura College Schwab School of Music while continuing his duties as
teaching associate at the Harmony Project, at the Pasadena
Conservatory of Music, and at UCLA. As an advocate for serving
communities in need, he also is the teaching artist at YOLA-Los
Angeles Philharmonic, Inglewood. He holds his Bachelor of Music
degree from the USC Thornton School of Music and a Master of Music
degree from the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. With the present
dissertation, he concludes his Doctorate in Musical Arts degree at
the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.
xii
I. Beethoven, Trombones, and the Drei Equali, WoO 30
Toward the end of the year 1812, Ludwig van Beethoven experienced a
turning-point in his life and art. His “Immortal Beloved” crisis
occurred in July of that year, forcing the composer to become
resigned concerning his long-desired prospects for a happy married
life. Artistically, Beethoven had completed a remarkably productive
period since 1800, during which eight of his nine symphonies were
written as well as his only opera, Fidelio, which would undergo its
final thorough revision and at last find enduring success on the
stage in 1814. Beethoven spent time during summer 1812 at the spa
resorts in Bohemia, where he met the celebrated poet Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe, who was “amazed” by Beethoven’s talent, but found him to
be an “utterly untamed personality.”1 Despite all his creative
achievements, Beethoven entered an unproductive phase during 1813.
The composer’s biographer Maynard Solomon comments that “Beethoven
wrote no work of the slightest significance during 1813: essentially,
he abandoned composition during the first seven months of this
year.”2 It would take another decade before the increasingly isolated
and soon virtually stone-deaf composer completed the pair of
choral-orchestral works that would crown his career: the Missa
solemnis, virtually finished by 1823, and the Ninth Symphony, first
performed in 1824.
1
Alexander Wheelock Thayer, Life of Beethoven, revised and edited by Elliot Forbes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), 537.
2
Maynard Solomon, Beethoven (New York: Schirmer, 1977), 221.
1
A conspicuous feature of several of Beethoven’s orchestral
works—including Fidelio and the Missa solemnis as well as the Fifth,
Sixth, and Ninth Symphonies—is the expansion of sonority and
expression produced by instruments not conventionally employed.
Particularly striking among these is his use of trombones, which
appear already in Beethoven’s oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives
from 1803, and then in Fidelio (whose first versions date from 1805
and 1806), preceding their crucial use in the finale of the Fifth
Symphony and last two movements of the Pastoral Symphony, works
premiered in December 1808. On the other hand, the role these
instruments play in both the Missa solemnis and Ninth Symphony is
hardly less impressive and resourceful. In the context of Beethoven’s
special musical treatment of the Mass text, and the rich imagery of
Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” in the choral finale of the Ninth, these
instruments assume an outstanding symbolic significance.
Before examining these larger works, let us set the scene by
recalling Beethoven’s visit to Linz, Austria, a city west of Vienna,
during October 1812, following his meetings with Goethe and his time
spent in Teplitz, Bohemia, in September. One reason for Beethoven’s
travel was to visit his brother Johann in Linz, where he tried to
interfere with his brother’s relationship with a woman—Therese
Obermayer—who was soon to become his sister-in-law. However, the trip
to Linz had another, more positive aspect. Beethoven visited his
musician friend Franz Xaver Glöggl, Kapellmeister of the Linz
2
cathedral, and this encounter resulted in his only composition for
trombones alone, the Drei Equali, WoO 30, composed by early November
of that year.
While staying in Linz, Beethoven received a commission from the
Kapellmeister Glöggl to compose these so-called “Equali” for 4
trombones in dedication to All-Souls’ Day (2 November). Beethoven was
eager to do so. Some uncertainty surrounds the exact origin of the
musical form called Equali. During the observation of All Souls’ Day
in Linz, the inhabitants of the town, all classes and professions,
every age group and lineage, would typically walk out to the cemetery
to visit graves of deceased relatives. On the evening before All
Saints’ Day (1 November) and on the morning of All Souls’ Day (2
November), the town musicians or Stadtmusiker would lead a
performance with trombones heard from the balcony of the Town Hall or
tower of the cathedral, an earnest memento mori for the living. The
figure below (Illustration 1a) shows present-day Linz Cathedral (also
known as Alter Dom), the location of the Drei Equali‘s premiere
(dated 2 November 1812). The high towers (Illustration 1b) feature
openings beneath the clocks where Turmmusik would have been
performed. This venerable tradition associated the use of the
trombone with matters of death and the afterlife, and as we shall
see, this same tradition extended to Beethoven’s own funeral held
thirteen years later, in 1827.
3
Illustration 1a. Old Cathedral in Linz3
Illustration 1b. The Towers of Old Cathedral in Linz4
Let us consider the tradition of tower music (Turmmusik) in the
broader historical context of central Europe. Municipal musicians
(Stadtpfeifer) included players in various towns especially in German
but also some Czech-speaking areas, who performed on a variety of
wind instruments, including the trombone (Illustration 2).
3
Dein Freund der Baum, “Alter Dom Linz,” Photograph, (Linz: CC BY-SA 3.0, 15 June 2009).
4
Michael Kranewitter, “Alter Dom Außen II. Jpg,” Photograph, (Linz: CC BY 2.5, 10 May 2008).
4
Illustration 2. Instruments used by Stadtpfeifer including trombones5
In earlier times, Turmmusik was often performed in the celebration of
large religious events, thereby proclaiming the souls of the dead. It
was used for sacred processions which required the performance of
Ablassen (fanfare) pieces (sacred works for the trombone and trumpet)
from towers, rituals connected to biblical passages (2 Kings 11:14, 2
Chronicles 23:13). Such specific traditions related to Stadtpfeifer
can be traced back especially to the Moravian church, which has the
5
Sebastian Virdung, Musica getutscht und ausgezogen (Basel, 1511). See also, “Stadtpfeifer um 1475: Die historischen Vorbilder unserer
Gruppe,” Landshuter Stadtpfeifer, accessed May, 1 2023, http://www.landshuter-stadtpfeifer.de/index.php?id=spieler_200901.
5
most richly documented history of continuous usage of the trombone.
Trevor Herbert states that “the Moravian church stands alone in
having an extensive and continuous tradition of amateur trombone
playing. . . the church can be traced to fifteenth century Bohemia
and Moravia and the followers of the radical Czech religious reformer
Jan Hus. . . this community created the German town of Herrnhut in
Saxony, the first of many settlements formed throughout the world by
Moravian communities.”6
The perception of trombone sound heard from a tower conveys sacred
associations. One such example stems from the later
eighteenth-century history of a Moravian community in Pennsylvania.
According to one of the stories documented on Christmas morning 1755
in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a recently converted member notified the
Moravian community of a planned attack from the Indians. When the
bishop heard this news, he responded not with violence, but with
trust in God for their protection. With this response, the Moravian
community is said to have prayed as the trombone players of the tower
continued to play. At four o’clock on Christmas day when the
trombones played again, it is said that the sound of the trombones
“mystified the Indians, who took it to be a sign of the Moravians’
spiritual protection and fled.”7 Although there is a shortage of
evidence to fully prove the details, such a report shows how the
sublime tone of the trombone heard from a tower assumed special
6
Trevor Herbert, The Trombone (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006), 230. Herrnhut (Czech: Ochranov), founded in 1722, is in
the Görlitz district of Saxony.
7
Herbert, The Trombone, 229-237
6
associations for such communities, carried forth from one generation
to the next.8 Regarding the traditions of tower music, according to
Herbert, “it stands to reason that the practice of using trombones
owes much to the tradition established at Herrnhut, and it has been
argued that this in turn might derive from the German Stadtpfeifer
tradition, but it is equally possible that the credibility of
trombones in religious worship is aided by references of Posaunen in
the Lutheran Bible.”9 David Guion, in his book The Trombone, surveys
older handbooks while providing translations in his first chapter,
entitled “The Trombone and its Music in the Seventeenth and
Nineteenth Centuries: An Introduction,” from which I draw some of the
following references.
Johann Phillip Eisel, in his Musicus autodidactos, oder der sich
selbst informirende Musicus (1738), writes that according to Philo’s
testimony, the trombone is believed to have been invented by Moses in
2400 BC.10 Johann Heinrich Zedler in his Grosses vollständiges
Universal-Lexicon (1741), claims that the trombone served to bring
together the people of God. This coming together of citizens could
have been triggered by important public events, as when high
officials and kings would be present for a call to battle, or a
signal of victory in war. In addition, the trombone could signal or
contribute to a sacrificial procession, religious services,
8
See also, Sarah Justina Eyerly, Moravian Soundscapes: A Sonic History of the Moravian Missions in Early Pennsylvania, (Indiana:Indiana
University Press, 2020).
9
Herbert, The Trombone, 229-237.
10
Johann Philipp Eisel, Musicus autodidactos, oder der sich selbst informirende Musicus (Erfurt: Johann Michael Funcken, 1738), 70-74. See also
David Guion, The Trombone: Its History and Music, 1697-1811 (New York: Routledge, 2013), 40-46.
7
coronation of kings, and also serve to signal danger from watch
towers.11 Writers like Johann Mattheson, Christian Friedrich Schubart,
Johann Philip Eisel and Johann Heinrich Zedler observe a continuous
thread of associations of the trombone to a sacred or ceremonial
role. With the passing of time and the eventual emergence of a rising
middle class and the upper class of German society, the trombone
continued to hold a significant symbolic place in German musical
traditions.
The Protestant and specifically Lutheran context provide an excellent
bridge for analyzing the role of the trombone in expressing the
sublime. Martin Luther’s Bible translation renders both Hebrew word
‘shofar’ and the Greek ‘salpigx’ as “Posaune,” so designating those
instruments used to signal the solemn pronouncements of the Lord, and
the Last Judgment.12 The shofar is an ancient instrument that was used
by the Egyptian and Jewish people. It is made from the horn of a ram
and is played by buzzing on the small end of the instrument. The
salpigx is an ancient Greek brass instrument that is also played by
buzzing through the smaller end. The salpigx was mainly used for
military, ceremonial and sporting events. Both instruments appear in
the Bible, the shofar as the tool used to pronounce the presence of
God, the salpigx as the instrument to signal the Last Judgment. In
Luther’s bible, these names were translated as Posaune. An example of
11
Johann Heinrich Zedler, Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon 64 vols. (Leipzig: Zedler, 1732-50), vol. 6, col. 1145; vol. 28, col. 1695-1700; vol.
45, col. 1089-90. See Guion, The Trombone, 47-59.
12
In this dissertation, I shall generally capitalize the noun Posaune as in modern German usage.
8
a passage from the Luther bible13 in which we see the trombones being
used in conjunction with the presence of God is Revelation 1:10: “Ich
war im Geist an des Herrn Tag und hörte hinter mir eine große Stimme
wie einer Posaune” (“I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and heard
behind me a great voice, as of a trombone”). Another passage stems
from Revelation 4:1 where the voice from heaven is depicted to be
like the trombones: “Darnach sah ich, und siehe, eine Tür war
aufgetan im Himmel; und die erste Stimme, die ich gehört hatte mit
mir reden wie eine Posaune, die sprach: Steig her, ich will dir
zeigen, was nach diesem geschehen soll.” (“After this I looked, and
behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice that I heard
was as it were of a trombone talking with me; which said, come up
here, and I will show you things which must be hereafter”). Through
these passages, we can observe how the Posaune from Luther’s bible is
used as the instrument to signal the Coram Deo (the presence of God).
The Bible also references the Posaune as the instrument used to
gather the people of God for worship. In Joel 2:15, “Blaset mit
Posaunen zu Zion, heiliget ein Fasten, rufet die Gemeinde zusammen!”
(“Blow the trombone in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn
assembly!”). Another passage that portrays the trombone as the
instrument used for calling the people of God to worship is also seen
in Joshua 6:4, “Und laß sieben Priester sieben Posaunen des Halljahrs
tragen vor der Lade her, und am siebenten Tage geht siebenmal um die
Stadt, und laß die Priester die Posaunen blasen.” (“And seven priests
13
All German biblical passages in this dissertation are from the Luther Bibel 1545 edition.
9
shall bear before the ark seven trombones of rams’ horns: and the
seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests
shall blow with the trombones”). Lastly, in Psalm 150, the passage
shows how the trombones are clearly listed as an instrument used to
praise and worship God. Psalm 150:3 states “Lobet ihn mit Posaunen;
lobet ihn mit Psalter und Harfen” (“Praise him with the sound of the
trombone: praise him with the psaltry and harp”).
The Posaune finally also achieves its role as the signifier of
judgment at the call of the last trump when the trombone shall sound.
Matthew 24:31 states, “Und er wird senden seine Engel mit hellen
Posaunen; und sie werden sammeln seine Auserwählten von den vier
Winden, von einem Ende des Himmels zu dem andern,” (“And he shall
send his angels with a great sound of a trombone, and they shall
gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven
to the other”). Again in 1 Corinthians 15:52, “Und dasselbige
plötzlich, in einem Augenblick, zur Zeit der letzen Posaune. Denn es
wird die Posaune schallen, und die Toten werden auferstehen
unverweslich, und wir werden verwandelt werden.” (“In a moment, in
the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trombone shall
sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be
changed”). And lastly, Revelation 8:1-2 states, “Und da es das
siebente Siegel auftat, ward eine Stille in dem Himmel bei einer
halben Stunde. Und ich sah die sieben Engel, die da stehen vor Gott,
und ihnen wurden sieben Posaunen gegeben” (“When he broke open the
10
seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about a half an hour.
And I saw that the seven angels who stood before God were given seven
trombones”). These passages from both the Old and New Testaments goes
to show how the Posaune reflects the Coram Deo, the calling for
assembly of God’s people, and the sound representing the final day.
A noteworthy point arises in the Bible, where God commands Moses to
make two trumpets for calling the communities without any mention of
God or His presence. Notice how the Posaunen in this case is replaced
with Drommeten (trumpets), “Und der Herr redete mit Mose und sprach:
Mache dir zwei Drommeten von getriebenem Silber, daß du sie brauchst,
die Gemeinde zu berufen und wenn das Heer aufbrechen soll. Wenn man
mit beiden schlicht bläst, soll sich zu dir versammeln die gaze
Gemeinde vor die Tür der Hütte des Stifts. Wenn ihr aber drommetet,
so sollen die Lager aufbrechen, die gegen Morgen liegen. Und wenn ihr
zum andernmal drommetet, so sollen die Lager aufbrechen, die gegen
Mittag liegen. Denn wenn sie reisen sollen, so sollt ihr drommeten (4
Mose 10: 1-6 Luther Bibel 1545)” (“The Lord said to Moses: “Make two
trumpets of hammered silver, and use them for calling the community
together and for having the camps set out. When both are sounded, the
whole community is to assemble before you at the entrance to the tent
of meeting. If only one is sounded, the leaders—the heads of the
clans of Israel—are to assemble before you. When the trumpet blast is
sounded, the tribes camping on the east are to set out. At the
sounding of a second blast, the camps on the south are to set out.
11
The blast will be the signal for setting out (Numbers 10:1-6).” In
this context, we can recognize that the general perception of the
trombone was that of an instrument signaling topics related to the
divine, such as service of worship, burial services, and the dead.
This background of associations is highly relevant to our
consideration of Beethoven’s only work for trombones alone, Drei
Equali, WoO 30.
Let us now return to Beethoven’s visit to Linz in 1812. According to
the Kapellmeister’s son Franz Glöggl’s recollection of the origins of
the Equali, during the autumn of the year 1812 Beethoven received a
commission from Franz Glöggl’s father, the Kapellmeister Franz Xaver
Glöggl, to compose these so-called Equali for 6 trombones for All
Souls’ Day (2 November).14 This could have included the soprano and
quart trombones in Franz Glöggl’s instrument collection.15 However,
whether the number of trombones was four or six is seriously in
question. Some scholars, such as Howard Weiner, maintain that it was
Franz Xaver Glöggl’s faulty memory that was a possible cause for this
discrepancy.16 Uncertainty also surrounds the exact origin of the
musical form called Equali. What exactly is this musical form called
Equali, and how did Beethoven come to write these for trombones?
14
Thayer’s Life of Beethoven, revised and edited by Elliot Forbes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), 541.
15
Göggl supposedly had a soprano and a quart trombone, and those instruments are apparently still held in Vienna in the Kunst Historisches
Museum Wien.
16
Howard Weiner, “Beethoven’s Equali (WoO 30): A New Perspective,” Historic Brass Journal 14 (2002), 215.
12
Kapellmeister Franz Xaver Glöggl wrote a guide for music performance
during church services published in 1828, in which he mentions the
use of trombones on several occasions. According to Weiner, in
Glöggl’s book Kirchenmusik-Ordnung (Church Music Regulations), he
describes the funerals as follows: “In der ersten Klasse wird bei
Ankunft der Geistlichkeit durch eine kurze Trauermusik mit Posaunen
oder andern Blasinstrumenten das Zeichen zur geistlichen
Trauerhandlung für die Anwesenden gegeben, nach deren Vollendung sich
der Leichenzug in Bewegung setzet, welches wieder mittelst der
blasenden Trauermusik angezeigt wird, mit welcher dann wahrend des
Zuges di Gesangmusik, ein drei-oder vierstimmiges Miserere singet,
abwechselt bis zum Eingang der Kirche oder Grabstätte, wo vor der
Einsegnung der Vors.: Requiem eternal, gesungen wird (“In the first
class, the start of the spiritual service (Geistlichkeit) is marked
by a brief music of lament (Trauermusik) (Equal) with trombones or
other wind instruments, giving announcement of the ceremony. After
its completion, the funeral procession is set into motion with those
present, and the lamenting music is heard along with the vocal music,
with a three-or four-voice Miserere sung in alternation, until the
church or burial place is reached, whereupon before the blessing a
Requiem aeternam is sung.”)”.17 According to Glöggl, the tradition at
funerals was to let a group of trombones or other wind instruments
play a short mournful piece, known as an Equale, meaning “a work in
which instruments or voices of the same type play each part. In
17
Franz Xaver Glöggl, Kirchenmusik-Ordnung: erklärendes Handbuch des musikalischen Gottesdienstes, für Kappellmesiter, Regenschori, Sänger
und Tonkünstler; Anleitung, wie die Kirchenmusik nach Vorschrift der Kirche und des Staats gehalten werden soll; in drei Abteilungen (Wien:
Wallishausser, 1828), 20-21. See also Howard Weiner, “Beethoven’s Equali (WoO 30): a New Perspective,” Historic Brass Journal 14 (2002), 227.
13
Austria during the eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries,
the term denoted a type of short piece played, usually by four
trombones, at a funeral service,”18 before the ceremony started,
alternating with a choir singing the text of the Miserere, during the
funeral procession.19 A Miserere is a setting of Psalm 51 that
acknowledges the recurring problem of sin in mankind, and the need
for repentance resulting in redemption and restoration. This same
musical work as the Miserere was performed at Beethoven’s own funeral
(Illustration 3a), to pay final respects to the composer. In the
illustration, note how the four trombonists are leading the funeral
march with singers following immediately behind. This vivid tie
between Beethoven and the trombone alerts us once more to the
symbolism of its role in association with funeral ceremonies.
18
Franz Xaver Glöggl, Kirchenmusik-Ordnung: Erklärendes Handbuch des musikalischen Gottesdienstes, fur Kapellmeister, Regenschirm, Sänger
und Tonkünstler, translated by William Kinderman (Vienna: J.B. Wallishauser, 1828). See also Howard Howard Weiner, “Beethoven’s Equali (WoO
30): a New Perspective,” Historic Brass Journal 14 (2002), 227.
19
Sebastiaan Kenmer, “The Choral Sublime: A Study of Beethoven’s Drei Equale,” Music and Practice,
https://www.musicandpractice.org/volume-8/the-choral-sublime-a-study-of-beethovens-drei-equale/.
14
Illustration 3a. Beethoven’s Funeral Procession, 29 March 1827.
Watercolor by Franz Stöber. Beethoven-Haus Bonn, Sammlung H.C.
Bodmer. Trombones can be seen at the head of the procession on the
left.
15
Illustration 3b. Detailed view of Figure 3a showing four trombonists
followed by the choir.
Weiner states that, as Beethoven was lying on his deathbed, Tobias
Haslinger, who had been one of Franz Glöggl’s choirboys in Linz, took
the manuscripts of the Equali to Kapellmeister Ignaz Ritter von
Seyfried to have the text of the Miserere added to two Equali for use
at the funeral. In addition to this arrangement, he also employed the
funeral march from Beethoven’s Piano Sonata op. 26 for 4 trombones
16
and men’s chorus.20 Three months later, the inside cover of
Haslinger’s publication of Seyfried’s arrangement of the Equali
included a description of the funeral by Seyfried, including
information of the genesis of the Equali. The translation of the
transcription states that:
“In the autumn of the year 1812, when L. van Beethoven was
visiting his brother, then residing as an apothecary in Linz,
he was asked by the Kapellmeister of the Cathedral there, Mr.
Glöggl, to compose for him so-called equali for four trombones
for All Souls’ day (2nd November), to then have his musicians
play these, as was usual, on this feast.”21
Regarding these origins of the Equali, we note that the requested
number of trombones was only four. It is noteworthy that although
Franz Xaver Glöggl mentions “several” pieces of music were made and
given to Haslinger--evidently four pieces—Glöggl kept one for
himself. The question is if three of the Equali are found in
Beethoven’s Drei Equali, where then is the fourth? Could it be that
the missing fourth is that composition written for six trombones as
Franz Xaver Glöggl recollects? On the other hand, Othmar Wessely puts
forth a theory in view of Franz Xaver Glöggl’s letter to Robert
Schumann, according to which Beethoven wrote four equali for Glöggl,
20
Georg Predate, “Behind the Curtain Beethoven’s Funeral Music,” Interlude (December 19, 2020),
https://interlude.hk/behind-the-curtain-beethoven-funeral-music/.
21
First edition of the Miserere/Amplius (Vienna, 1827). Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Musikabteilung, 4 Mus. pr. 16808. See also Howard Weiner,
“Beethoven’s Equali (WoO 30): a New Perspective,” Historic Brass Journal 14 (2002), 215.
17
three pieces for four trombones and one for six trombones, the latter
of which he kept for himself.22 As of now, there is no clear proof of
an Equal composed by Beethoven that was written for six trombones.
Until one finds such evidence, the most convincing claim is that
Franz Xaver Glöggl simply had an untrustworthy memory of the genesis
of Beethoven’s Equali.
In 2018, Bernhard Rainer mentioned the discovery of an anonymous
example of an Equal turning up in the Diocesan Archives in Linz.23
Linz of course was a center of the tower music tradition, and the
very location at which Beethoven was commissioned to write his
Equali. This newly found manuscript (A-Lld-49) is not in Beethoven’s
handwriting but does correspond to that of Glöggl. In this working
sketch, the arrangement is set for three vocal parts and four
trombones. As Rainer points out, when comparing Beethoven’s Equali to
this newly found Linz Equal, the differing compositional techniques
and scribal handwriting do not support a convincing argument that
this was Beethoven’s presumed lost Equal.24 However, the notation for
the trombone parts is labeled in alto clef for two trombones, tenor
and bass clef for the remaining two trombones. This corresponding and
yet unusual notation is found in Beethoven’s Equali as well. Could
this after all relate to the missing Equal? The most probable answer
22
Othmar Wessely, “Zur Geschichte des Equals,” in Beethoven-Studien: Festgabe der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zum 200.
Geburtstag von Ludwig van Beethoven, ed. Erich Schenk, Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Musikforschung 11 / Sitzungsberichte der
philosophisch-historischen Klasse 270 (Vienna: Böhlau, 1970), 341–60; and Howard Weiner, “Beethoven’s Equali (WoO 30): A New Perspective,”
Historic Brass Society Journal 14 (2002): 215–77.
23
Bernhard Rainer, “In Search of a Lost Composition by Beethoven: The Equale in A-Lld-49,” Musicological Austriaca: Journal for Austrian Music
Studies (March 10, 2022).
24
Bernhard Rainer, “In Search of a Lost Composition by Beethoven: The Equale in A-Lld-49,”.
18
is no, but this example nevertheless provides a clear testament to
Linz’s Stadtmusiker tradition in using trombones as the messenger of
an earnest memento mori for the living.
In the first and second pieces of Beethoven’s Drei Equali, WoO 30,
the rhythmic motive of a dotted half note and quarter note is used
conspicuously (music example 1a). My suggestion is that the
performers could connect this motive to Beethoven’s later works such
as the setting of “judicare” in the Credo of the Missa Solemnis.
Already in Beethoven’s earlier sketch of “judicare,” as found in
Gustav Nottebohm’s transcription from the manuscript (music example
1b),25 we can observe this rhythm of dotted half with a quarter note,
as fits to “ju-di-[care]”. This rhythmic motive is no mere
coincidence, but a sharp difference is that at the moment of the
“judicare” in the Mass, with the sole trombone’s weighty announcement
of God as Judge, the tempo is rapid and urgent. In the Drei Equali,
by contrast, the tempo is slow, an Andante, almost as if the rhythmic
motive is taking its solemn final breath. The dynamic level in this
first of the Equali is piano, as compared to forte in the Credo of
the Mass.
25
Gustav Nottebohm, Zweite Beethoveniana, (Leipzig: Peters, 1887), 155.
19
Music example 1a. Dotted half note, quarter note motive (Beethoven,
Drei Equali No. 1 mm. 1-7)
Music example 1b. Dotted half note, quarter note motive (Gustav
Nottebohm, Zweite Beethoveniana)
In Equali 1 (music example 2), the key center is D minor continues
throughout until the D major ending. The instrumentation texture is
either as a quartet (mm. 1-3), or individually (mm. 15-18). All of
20
the Drei Equali are written with techniques that are reminiscent of
Renaissance harmonic treatment.26
26
See in this regard Thomas Scherman, “Three Equals,” in Beethoven Companion, ed. Thomas Scherman and Louis Biancolli (Garden City:
Doubleday and Co., 1972), 747.
21
As with the Renaissance compositional technique, the Equali are
structured in homophonic four-part chordal progressions. The final
four-measure unit features the plagal cadence; the minor iv chords in
mm. 46-47 create a clear close in D major. Although there are no
contemporary statements about the symbolism of D minor in church
music, Glöggl in his 1828 treatise makes a comment about D major in
accordance with Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart, describing D
major as the “tone of triumph, of hallelujah (“Ton des Triumphes, des
Halleluja”).27 For much of the first piece, the trombone quartet moves
as a unit, but some individual moving lines occur, first with
trombone 1 beginning the new phrases. Each time the individual voices
highlight the ascending lines, the transition from the full quartet
to the solo voice yields a rather lonely, rather melancholy solemn
tone. The ascending line is not responded to by the other voices,
except by the trombone 4 in measure 9; it is as if the group does not
accept this hopeful inflection. This passage then brings us back to
the same figure as the opening in measure 14. This time, trombone 1
plays a descending line which then is responded to in identical
motion by all other trombonists in a sequential order (mm. 16-18). It
is as if this time, the implied descent to the grave is a message
accepted by the other voices. However, in measure 19, the trombone
quartet comes into conflict. Trombones 1 and 2 ascend, trombone 3
descends, while trombone 4 repeats the same note. This leads to the
loudest dynamic marking so far, a repeated sforzando in the
27
Franz Xaver Glöggl, Kirchenmusik-Ordnung: Erklärendes Handbuch des musikalischen Gottesdienstes für Kapellmeister, Regenschirm, Sänger
und Tonkünstler; Anleitung, wie die Kirchenmusik nach Vorschrift der Kirche und des Staates gehalten werden soll (Vienna: Wallishausser, 1828),
19-22. Glöggl clearly refers in this and the following key characteristics to Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart, Ideen zu eiiner Ästhetik der
Tonkunst (Vienna: Degen, 1806), 377-80.
22
corresponding measures, followed by a soft response, as if to portray
the point of most intense expression. Perhaps Beethoven was
expressing here a juxtaposition of the living and the dead in a
technique similar to that employed many years later in the “judicare”
in the Credo of the Missa solemnis. In the following phrases (mm.
20-24), we see Beethoven shifting back and forth between the two
opposites of the dynamic spectrum. For two measures, the music
displays sforzando markings which then is followed immediately by a
piano marking (Figure 5). This pattern is then repeated. After this
point of conflict, resolution is needed, as the trombone 1 returns
with the ascending quarter notes in measure 31, which then is
accepted and repeated in the other trombones. This trading of the
ascending quarter notes leads to the climactic fortissimo section in
measure 40, once again echoed by soft responses. The trombones
continue to fade, but this time ascending lines lead the music out of
D minor, leading into the hopeful D major mode, yet without much
strength, remaining pianissimo.
If we regard the Drei Equali as a group of pieces, we can see how
Beethoven structurally unifies this trilogy of Equali with similar
compositional techniques. Each of the pieces begins with homophonic
writing, which then is repeated in a progressive chord structure. In
piece no. 1, it is only at the third time the melody is played, that
Beethoven breaks out of the chorale texture to introduce polyphony to
the composition.
23
Equal No. 2 (musical example 3) begins in D major, the same key in
which Equal No. 1 has ended. Once more, the dotted rhythmic motive of
a dotted half-note followed by a quarter note is especially repeated
at the end. But in this piece, some musical features stand out.
Musical example 3. Beethoven, Equal No. 2
In measure 6, the trombone 4 plays an ascending passing tone. Not too
long afterwards, in measure 8, the trombone 4 returns with descending

24
quarter notes, which then are repeated in the other trombones in
descending order.26 The striking chromatic descent in mm. 9-11
suggests a lamenting cry while showcasing Beethoven’s proficiency in
writing for the trombones. The slide allowed the trombones to easily
move chromatically—a feature unique to the instrument—providing an
ominous sonic effect. Clive McClelland categorizes this sound as the
ombra style stating that “chromaticism as a device by which composers
could express pain and suffering was well-established by the
eighteenth century...as a vehicle for expressing awe and fear
chromaticism is especially appropriate, since it often involves the
blurring of tonality and the introduction of dissonance, and it is
therefore no surprise that chromaticism in melodies, bass lines, and
harmony is a pervasive feature of the ombra style.”28 In mm. 10-12,
the parts cross each other in range, another prominent feature of
this piece, perhaps suggestive of how lower realms and higher realms
can coexist. In mm. 22-25, D minor is resolved to A major twice in a
row. It is not until the third time in measure 26, that D major
emerges, leading us to our final line of music. Starting from measure
28, the dotted-half and quarter-note motif is especially prominent.
Beethoven lends variety with this motive in measures 32 and 33,
giving the second trombone its own moving voice on beat two.
Beethoven’s use of the lone trombone voice throughout his
compositions is noteworthy. The lone second trombone--much like in
the “judicare” in the Mass--functions as an interruptive voice in the
midst of the other voices, as if portraying the deity as the final
28
Clive McClelland, Ombra: Supernatural Music in the Eighteenth Century (Lexington Books: Maryland, 2012), 39.
25
judge. Finally, as this work was originally prepared for All Souls’
Day and later performed at Beethoven’s own funeral, performers do to
well remember the composer’s original intentions. A performance
should not be too casual or experimental but may more properly
suggest hymns sung inside a cathedral. Therefore, in No. 2, when the
first eight measures are repeated in measures 14-21, the ensemble may
perhaps consider performing those phrases as musical echoes, the
first louder and the second more muted. Such musical echoes can be
observed later in Beethoven’s treatment of the ”Be-ne-dic-tus"
section of his second Mass, as we shall see. In this Poco adagio,
note how structurally Beethoven again employs homophonic voicing for
the first two full phrases (mm.1-8) before moving in polyphony.
Equal 3 (musical example 4) is set in triple meter and the key of B
flat major for its whole duration and could be considered as the
simplest of the three in compositional content. The key to Bb major,
again according to Schubart, represents “cheerful love, good
conscience, hope” (“heitere Liebe, gutes Gewissen, Hoffnung”).29
Cheerful, and hopeful would be good adjectives to describe this
number.
29
Franz Xaver Glöggl, Kirchenmusik-Ordnung: Erklärendes Handbuch des musikalischen Gottesdienstes für Kapellmeister, Regenschirm, Sänger
und Tonkünstler; Anleitung, wie die Kirchenmusik nach Vorschrift der Kirche und des Staates gehalten werden soll (Vienna: Wallishausser, 1828),
8. Glöggl clearly refers in this and the following key characteristics to Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart, Ideen zu einer Ästhetik der Tonkunst
(Vienna: Degen, 1806), 377-80.
26
With these five-bar phrases, the first two bars announce a pattern,
to which the next three bars respond. The third bar of each phase
(mm. 1- 10) includes the dotted-half and quarter-note motive, helping
hold the three pieces together. Even in its simplicity, the Equali 3
features new techniques in its composition. Rhythmic doubling occurs
for the first time in mm. 10-11 (trombones 3 and 4) and in mm. 10-13
(trombones 1 and 2). Lastly, this final number features the 3/2 time
signature, in contrast to the duple meters of the other two numbers.
Scherman finds this piece to be “the most solemn and moving of the
three.”30 The three-quarter-note upbeat figure leading to a long note
(mm. 10-14) might remind the listener very distantly of Beethoven’s
favorite tendency to use such upbeat motives with repeated notes in
30
Scherman, “Three Equals,” in Beethoven Companion, 747.
27
larger compositions, such as the so-called Appassionata Sonata op. 57
or even the so-called “fate” motif launching the Fifth Symphony, but
quite unlike those pieces, the musical character here is gentle and
sustained. This time, instead of notes descending a third, the music
tends to ascend by thirds, with its shifting sonorities conveying a
hopeful character. As one might expect, the funereal feeling
motivates a dark, solemn tone, yet Beethoven chooses to complete his
set of three Equali in an uplifted, moving spirit. The voices now
move together, in ascending fashion, while unveiling a major key. It
is noteworthy to point out that Beethoven coordinates the structure
of the three Equali, in that this number too has the first two
phrases (mm. 1-10) voiced as homophony; only at the third appearance
of the main phrase does polyphony unfold.
In concluding our discussion of the Drei Equali, let us consider
choices of instruments, as there are options regarding the different
types of equipment used to perform this work. The most obvious issue
involves the clef listed: alto, alto, tenor and bass. As Herbert
mentions, Viennese scoring publication practices standardized the
categorization of alto, tenor and bass clef and therefore should not
always be taken literally.31 Another school of thought maximizes the
instruments available to present-day musicians. Some performers
employ alto trombone, small tenor trombone, large tenor trombone and
bass trombone. While this may exploit to good advantage a collection
of instruments, it seriously conflicts with the overriding principle

31
Herbert, The Trombone, 165.
28
of Equali. The Oxford definition of Equali specifies “a musical piece
for equal voices or instruments,”32 suggesting that this work should
be played on equal, uniform instruments. The score itself does not
specify what type of trombone to be used.
When musicians--typically trombonists--refer to the tenor trombone,
they often consider this instrument the basic default version of the
instrument. This could suggest that the music be performed by tenor
trombone on all parts. The range of all parts written by Beethoven
are not too high or low and fits well within the normal tenor
trombone range. Furthermore, this limited range clearly was not due
to Beethoven’s limited understanding of the trombone nor the
instrument’s historical capabilities during that time, since his
earlier compositions with trombone, such as Symphonies No. 5 and No.
6, all have extended ranges encouraging other options. The Fifth
Symphony and the Ninth, as we shall see, benefit from the use of an
alto and bass as well as a tenor trombone. With all due
consideration, I strongly recommend that the Drei Equali be performed
by equal-voiced instruments and played on tenor trombones for all
four parts, honoring the composer’s intentions and the musical
context in its historical setting of Turmmusik.
32
Jane Bellingham, “Equale,” The Oxford Companion to Music. Ed. Alison Latham. Oxford Music Online,
<http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/opr/t114/e2296> (2009), accessed 12 June, 2009.
29
II. Fidelio, and the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies
Beethoven’s first work including trombones is his oratorio Christ on
the Mount of Olives, op. 85, completed in early 1803 to a text by
Franz Xaver Huber. He began composing the oratorio soon after his
recent appointment to be resident composer for the
Theater-an-der-Wien and the writing of his Heiligenstadt Testament.
This moving personal document, dated October 6 and 10, 1802, can be
regarded as marking Beethoven’s acceptance of his own fate with
deafness; he refers to contemplating suicide on account of his
incurable deafness and to rejecting such action in favor of renewed
commitment to his art. In a similar light as Beethoven’s own personal
struggle, his oratorio depicts Christ’s struggle before his fate of
dying on the cross to atone for the sins of mankind. Maynard Solomon
describes it as “an unorthodox exploration of the psychological
presence of Christ.”33 Beethoven’s own religious faith was
unorthodox,34 but it seems clear that the subjects of God, death and
human destiny occupied the composer's thoughts during this period and
beyond.
With death as the subject, trombones find a natural place in the
orchestration of the music of Christ on the Mount of Olives. Guion
33
Maynard Solomon, Beethoven (New York: Schirmer, 2001), 247-249.
34
See in this regard also, Nicholas Chong, “Beethoven’s Theologian: Johann Michael Sailer and the Missa solemnis,” Journal of the American
Musicological Society Volume 74, No. 2 (August, 2021), 365-370.
30
identifies the trombone writing in the oratorio as follows, as a
“tradition that can be traced through Haydn back to Handel rather
than the Austrian tradition exemplified by Fux and Mozart.
Beethoven’s trombone parts are largely independent. They never
slavishly double the chorus as in traditional Austrian church music,
but they never take on a soloist role, either.”35 Although Beethoven
does not strictly follow the Austrian church music traditions, the
writing for the trombones (alto, tenor, and bass) in this work for
the most part doubles the alto, tenor and bass vocal parts of the
work. Daniel Cloutier observes that “they serve a cola voce role and
do little else except for a few supportive chords in tutti
sections.”36 In Christ on the Mount of Olives, trombones are used in
four of the six numbers of the work: Number 1, the Introduction and
Recitative; Number 2, the Chorus; Number 3, Recitative; and Number 6,
Final Chorus. In all these sections, the trombones serve a specific
purpose. This purpose is to play when God (Numbers 2, 3, and 6) or a
message from God (Number 1) is being presented. However, in the music
of Beethoven in general, we can recognize how the trombone’s
contributions extend beyond the symbolic representation of the deity.
The next work including trombones is Beethoven’s only opera. The
beginnings of this work reach back to around the end of 1803, the
same year Christ on the Mount of Olives was premiered. After becoming
35
Guion, The Trombone: Its History and Music, 1697-1811, 223.
36
Daniel R. Cloutier, “Ludwig van Beethoven’s orchestration of the trombone” (DMA diss., West Virginia University, 2009), 24.
31
strongly discontent with the fanciful libretto he was offered by
Emanuel Schikaneder for a projected opera entitled Vesta’s Fire,37
Beethoven rejected that text and soon discovered Leonore in early
1804, a French libretto by Jean-Nicolas Bouilly that had in 1798 been
brought to the stage as an opera in Paris. This French text was
adapted and translated into German by Joseph Sonnleithner of the
Vienna Court Theatres. Concerning the complicated evolution of
Fidelio, Beethoven’s nineteenth-century American biographer Alexander
Wheelock Thayer quotes the composer’s friend Stefan von Breuning as
follows: “…nothing, perhaps, had caused Beethoven so much vexation as
this work, the value of which will be appreciated only in the
future…”38 With the Eroica Symphony in gestation at the same time,
Beethoven agonized over his only opera. On November 20, 1805, the
opera, which then began with the Leonore Overture No. 2, was
premiered as Fidelio. On this premiere date--due to the occupation of
Vienna by Napoleon’s army--the initial performance and those
following were but sparsely attended. Other, later performances of
the revised opera on March 29 and April 10, 1806, at which the
Leonore Overture No. 3 was performed, were still not so well
received. It was not until 1814, following the success of the “battle
symphony” Wellington’s Victory, op. 91, that the nearly final revised
version of Fidelio was performed at the Kärntnertor Theater in Vienna
on May 23, 1814, and the opera then entered the permanent repertoire.
37
See William Kinderman, Beethoven (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 115.
38
Alexander Wheelock Thayer, ed. Elliot Forbes, Thayer’s Life of Beethoven (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), 393.
32
For clarity of discussion, the 1805-06 version will here be called
Leonore, and the 1814 version Fidelio. Notably, Beethoven changes the
orchestration of trombones between the versions of the opera. Leonore
is scored for three trombones (alto, tenor, and bass), while Fidelio
is scored for just two (tenor and bass). Already during this time of
Beethoven’s life as he tackled the opera--soon after the composer’s
confession in his Heiligenstadt Testament of almost taking his own
life while it was only art that held him back--the topic of death was
surely at the forefront of the composer’s thoughts. His works during
this period include the famed Eroica Symphony with its impressive
funeral march in C minor, the key that returns so decisively in the
Fifth Symphony, op. 67. In Fidelio, the grim grave-digging scene
displays an ominous dramatic effect with its haunting bassline,
whereas the following hopeful trio (Euch werde Lohn) leads toward the
climactic vocal quartet in the dungeon with Leonore’s heroic
intervention, enhanced by the electrifying off-stage trumpet call
from the tower, announcing the arrival of the Minister Fernando, and
thereby confirming Florestan’s rescue.
An earlier celebrated musical passage involving trombones that
Beethoven would have known is the opening chorus of Christoph
Willibald Gluck’s Orphée et Euridice from 1762. Gluck died at Vienna
in 1787, the year the young Beethoven first visited the city. Gluck’s
Alceste and Orpheus were performed as early as 1785 at Bonn, where
the young Beethoven played viola in the court orchestra.39 Regarding

39
See Thayer’s Life of Beethoven, 80.
33
these performances, Edgar Istel states that Beethoven “held the post
of theatre-accompanist on the “cembalo,” and even assisted at the
rehearsal of two works by Gluck; later, in Vienna (1793-1802), he was
a pupil in vocal composition of Antonio Salieri (1750-1825), of whom
Gluck had said that he was the only one who had learned from him;
therefore it is not improbable that Beethoven was also influenced—at
least indirectly—by Gluck, more especially as the Cherubini-Spontini
school deriving from Gluck was so congenial to him.”40 As we shall
observe, Beethoven’s musical setting of the scenes associated to
death, and especially scenes that include graveyards and funerals,
will imply how Gluck’s operas were a prominent influence on
Beethoven’s only opera. The impressive music from the opening act of
Gluck’s Orfeo presents Orpheus and the chorus mourning at the grave
of Eurydice. This scene portrays Gluck’s use of trombones to enhance
sacred and supernatural events of the drama. Of the seven instruments
that provide accompaniment for the voices, three are trombones. The
trombones double the voices as they express their loss and grief in a
funeral ritual. As shown in the image below (music example 5), the
trombones play the same musical figures as the vocal parts adding
onto the harmonic tensions which intensify the atmosphere.
40
Edgar Istel, “Beethoven’s ‘Leonore’ and 'Fidelio’, The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 2 (April, 1921), 229.
34
Music example 5. Gluck, Orphée et Euridice Act I, Scene 1, mm. 15-22
Timothy Dueppen states that “by using the trombone in this
church-based compositional manner, Gluck is able to help certify to
the audience that this scene is of strong sacred significance.”41 The
solemn sonority of the trombones and voices together achieve an
enhancement of tone that would have been found in Renaissance church
music practices. In the temple scene of Gluck’s later opera Alceste,
41
Timothy M. Dueppen, “The Trombone as Sacred Signifier in the Operas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,” (DMA dissertation, University of
Houston, 2012), 51.
35
from 1767, the trombones, together with bassoons and horns, again
play an essential role in the stirring passage that leads to the
solemn oracle.42 In Beethoven’s opera, on the other hand, the
grave-digging duet involving Fidelio (the disguised Leonore) joining
the jailer Rocco in the dismal task for preparing her own husband’s
grave, is comparable to Gluck’s opera in its solemn association with
mortality. This association involves in Eurydice’s case her actual
death; in Florestan’s case, his (seemingly) imminent death. In this
context, the trombones serve to darken the sound texture, while also
imparting expressive associations made familiar from other works that
Beethoven knew.
Consider, for example, how trombones are used in parts of the
overarching narrative in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, another work well
known to Beethoven already from his youth. A key dramatic event is
the death of the Commendatore at the outset, leading much later to
the graveyard scene where Don Giovanni incautiously invites the
sepulchral voice of the Stone Funeral Monument to dinner (showing Don
Giovanni’s disbelief and lack of fear or reverence for things
spiritual), and finally to the climactic confrontation in the finale
of the last act, where the Stone Guest appears and demands that the
Don repent (which he does not). In this context, the Stone Guest is
embodied in sound conspicuously including trombones on account of his
returning from the dead. As Dueppen states, “Mozart uses the trombone
section (consisting of an alto, tenor, and a bass trombone) to
represent the otherworldly nature of the Commendatore’s ghostly
42
See Alfred Einstein, Gluck, translated by Eric Blom (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964; first published in German in 1936), 70.
36
spirit, embodied in the statue of the murdered Commendatore, and its
use is closely associated with the statue’s appeal to have Don
Giovanni repent for his sins—a type of death-bed offer of
atonement—and ultimately with the Commendatore’s (working as one of
God’s messengers) subsequent decree of eternal damnation.”43 In both
scenes, the trombones enhance the ghostly spirit of the Commendatore
through their contribution to the harmony, dynamics and tonal color.
In Act II, Scene I, the trombone section’s presence helps convey a
sense of the supernatural. Throughout the opera, Mozart uses distinct
strategies of orchestration to achieve such expressive effects.
Consider for instance the entrance of the Commendatore’s voice as the
trombone section plays together to deepen the atmospheric tone of the
graveyard scene in Act 2. Edward Dent notes how Mozart originally
intended only trombones to be used in this passage, but then added
winds to his score before the premiere to reinforce the orchestral
balance.44 The passage is set in D minor, that key of vengeance which
we can observe elsewhere in Don Giovanni as well as in the famous
revenge aria of the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte.
By beat four of measure 51, Mozart adds an A minor chord that is
followed by a dissonant D-sharp diminished seventh chord (vii07/V) in
the key of A major (cadence in this key in measure 54). The dissonant
harmony occurs as the statue speaks “pria dell’aurora” (“cease before
43
Dueppen, “The Trombone as Sacred Signifier in the Operas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart”, 77.
44
Edward Dent, Mozart’s Operas, a Critical Study (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 169.
37
dawn”), foreshadowing Don Giovanni’s future damnation in hell while
raising the dramatic tension (music example 6).
Later in this scene (music example 7), as Don Giovanni seeks the
origin of the ghostly voice, the Commendatore resumes, stating,
“Ribaldo, audace lascia a’morti la pace” (“Audacious scoundrel! Leave
the dead in peace.”). Death is musically portrayed in the alto and
bass trombone’s chromatic descent as McClelland describes “a fully
chromatic descent from tonic to dominant is a clear indication of
lamentation.”45
45
McClelland, Ombra: Supernatural Music in the Eighteenth Century, 63.
38
Here, once again, the trombone section--along with oboe, clarinets,
bassoon, and the low strings--accompany the statue’s message. The
music begins in C major (m. 59), but cadences in G major by measure
63. Mozart employs the trombones yet again to highlight dissonance
(the C-sharp diminished seventh) in measure 60 as the statue speaks
‘audace’ (‘audacious’) without any true harmonic resolution. In
measure 61, the bass trombone and the low strings descent by half
steps, musically supporting the text “morti” (“the dead”), until
arriving at D major in measure 62 (4-3 suspension in the tenor
trombone and bassoon 2) with the beginning of the text “pace”
(“peace”). Finally, with the G-major chord in measure 63, Mozart
39
resolves the tension as the Commendatore utters the word “pace”
(“peace”). The sudden dissonance within this short excerpt portrays
how Mozart uses trombones to underscore and highlight the text,
notably with its link to the Commendatore; an eerie depiction of a
ghostly supernatural spirit. The use of the trombones in conjunction
with the sacerdotal themes of the statue’s text deserve special
attention as Laurel Zeiss notes: “the supernatural elements of the
plot call forth musical language that goes beyond the ordinary. The
ghost of the Commendatore, for example, does not ‘speak’ in normal
tones.”46
In Act II, Scene 15 (music example 8), the trombones enter at the
Commendatore’s first words in the finale. The scene opens in the
vengeful key of D minor, with the trombone section playing a
fortissimo G-sharp diminished chord (vii07/V), once again providing
dissonance and a lack of harmonic resolution. Then the Commendatore
begins his text “Don Giovanni, a cenar teco m’invi” (“Don Giovanni,
you invited me to dine with you”). After this initial jolting
entrance, the lone trombone section follows the text with a soft D
minor chord (m. 438), and soft A minor chord (m. 440), helping convey
the “solemnity of the scene.”47
46
Laurel Zeiss, “Permeable Boundaries in Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni,’” Cambridge Opera Journal 12, no. 2 (July 2001), 132.
47
Dent, Mozart‘s Operas, 173.
40
In the aforementioned passage, the trombones provide a duality of
roles in conjunction to the Commendatore, announcing the coming of
judgment while conveying an atmosphere of the supernatural. Further
into the scene in mm. 487-501 (music example 9), as we have seen,
Mozart again uses trombone sound to underscore the Commendatore’s
question, “verrai tu a cenar meco?” (“Will you dine with me?”). This
moment can be understood as asking Don Giovanni to join the
Commendatore in his “last supper” before arriving at the destination
in the afterlife. Mozart uses the trombone section independently,
giving it parallel octaves with sudden forte-piano and crescendo
markings to highlight the text. The forte-piano opposition begins
each phrase, and the crescendo propels the tension into measure 500,
where the final question “verrai tu a cenar meco?” (“Will you dine
41
with me?”) is posed in a sudden mysterious piano as if to allude to
sacred implications extending beyond the mortal sphere. This sacred
aroma is juxtaposed with the presence of death and fear through the
chromatically ascending passage in octaves. Each forte-piano stamps
the rising of an augmented tonality that is bridged by the haunting
chromaticism.
The next trombone entrance with otherworldly or sublime connotations
occurs in mm. 523-527 (music example 10) when the Commendatore offers
42
Don Giovanni his final chance to repent. As we can observe in measure
525, the trombones reinforce the word “vita” (“life”) in D-dominant
seventh chord, and “momento” (“moment”) on a G-minor chord, lending
weight to important words of the Commendatore’s text.
Mozart’s most intensive use of the trombones to highlight the drama
can be seen in the ensuing mm. 538-545 (music example 11) as the
Commendatore insistently delivers “Pentiti!” (Repent!”) while Don
Giovanni responds “No!” (“No!”). Mozart uses dynamics to portray the
sharply contrasting attitudes of the protagonists. A solemn piano
marking (m. 538, 540) depicts the irresistible Commendatore, while
forte is used for the mortal Giovanni insisting on maintaining his
own ways and sinful desires (m. 539, 541), and forte-piano is
employed as a combination of the two “Si!” (“Yes!”). Clive McClelland
43
states that in the music of the eighteenth century, a darkened ombra
effect conveying the supernatural can be achieved through
“juxtaposition of soft and loud passages serving to heighten the
effect.”48 This technique of depicting the text with contrasting
dynamics is a resource Beethoven also uses to depict the living and
dead in his Missa solemnis, as we shall see.
In mm. 549-553 (music example 12), the tension of this climactic
scene with Don Giovanni refusing to repent continues to build, with
the Commendatore stating “tempo più non v’è” (“there isn’t any more
48
Clive McClelland, Ombra: Supernatural Music in the Eighteenth Century (Lexington Books: Maryland, 2013), 12.
44
time”). Here the trombones are again placed in octaves, but this time
the bottom two trombones are in unison, as if to foreshadow the
underworld in comparison to the octaves in mm. 487-501, where the top
two voices are in unison.
Then in mm. 563-570 (music example 13), as Don Giovanni is dragged
down to hell to the accompaniment of the chorus of spirits, the
trombones highlight this moment of divine reckoning, that damnation
Don Giovanni has brought about for himself. In measure 563, the alto
and bass trombone are placed in octaves, followed by unisons in the
top two trombones and octaves for the bass trombone. This
orchestration shows how Mozart brings a final form of variation to
the trombone voicing by giving octaves to the alto and bass, while
waiting to provide a unison passage until the latter half of measure
563. Visually, the span of over two octaves seems to depict a sense
of top and bottom, with the second trombone stuck between, as if
45
dragged down into a boundary realm with no escape. Robert Donington
rightly points out how in this finale, the trombones leave the
audience without any doubt of the solemnity of this moment.49
In this passage where divine wrath towards the unrepentant Don
Giovanni is being unleashed, McClellend observes that “musical
features such as sforzati, strong dynamic contrasts, pauses” are all
joined to portraying the ombra character.50
Bernard Williams, in his essay “Don Giovanni as an idea,” advances
the idea that Mozart’s musical embodiment of the Stone Guest in the
second-act finale, with its prominent trombones, is bound up with the
supernatural and the sublime, but lacks explicit sacred implications.
He writes that
49
See Robert Donington, “Don Giovanni Goes to Hell,” The Musical Times 122, no. 1661 (July, 1981), 448.
50
McClelland, Ombra: Supernatural Music in the Eighteenth Century, 13.
46
If Giovanni’s willful defiance does not have a luciferian
significance, then what he is defying cannot be God. The
Commendatore in stone is on any showing an impressive figure:
[George Bernard] Shaw said that those trombones were “a sound
of dreadful joy to all musicians.” But his is not the voice of
God. He is made of stone, and does not come from Heaven
(whatever he says about his diet), but from the churchyard
where we first heard him.51
Mozart’s use of the trombone to depict a divine call to judgment is
found as well in the tenor trombone solo of the Tuba Mirum in his
Requiem (music example 14). Here the text is sung by the baritone
voice, accompanied by the solo trombone, which emits a “wondrous
sound”:
Tuba mirum spargens sonum per sepulcra regionum, coget omnes
ante thronum.
Mors stupebit et natura, cum resurget creatura, judicanti
responsura. Liber scriptus proferetur, in quo totum continetur,
unde mundus judicetur. Judex ergo cum sedebit, quidquid latet,
apparebit, nil inultum remanebit.
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? quem patronum rogaturus, cum vix
justus sit securus?
51
Bernard Williams, “Don Giovanni as an idea,” in W.A. Mozart: Don Giovanni, ed. Julian Rushton. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1981), 88.
47
The trombone will send its wondrous sound throughout earth's
graves and gather all before the throne.
Death and nature will be astounded, when all creation rises
again, to answer the judgment.
A book will be brought forth, in which all will be written,by
which the world will be judged. When the judge takes his place,
what is hidden will be revealed, nothing will remain
unpunished.
What shall a wretch like me say? Who shall intercede for me,
when the just ones need mercy?
48
Music example 14. Mozart, Tuba Mirum from Mozart’s Requiem, mm. 1-18
The “Tuba mirum” solo trombone leads, providing a lone declamatory
three-measure solo in B-flat major which the bass voice follows, much
like an echo of the congregation. Mozart’s employment of the trombone
by itself to convey a supernatural message is a technique used by
Beethoven in his “judicare” in the Missa solemnis, and at “Seid
umschlungen Millionen” in the choral finale of the Ninth Symphony.
When the voice sings the above Mozartian text “sonum” (“sound”), the
trombone plays a succession of eight notes that lead back to Bb
major, as if preparing to convey a message. The trombone passage from
mm. 8-18 (end of passage) is independent in content, yet serves here
49
as accompaniment to the baritone voice, providing harmonic structure
and phrasing. From mm. 8-10, the phrases descend in these opening
measures, before ascending at the text “per sepulcher regionum, coget
omnes ante thronum” (“throughout earth’s graves, and gather all
before the throne”) in mm. 11-18. The trombone’s obbligato line seems
to portray those ghostly spirits awakening from the call of the
trombone, which rise out of the earth’s graves up before God as the
final judge at His throne. Although present-day practice encourages
legato playing for all the notes after the opening call, it is worth
noting how the only slur marking is written in mm.15-17, when the
text refers to all gathering before the throne. Perhaps this is
Mozart’s way of portraying the solemnity of the presence of the
ultimate royalty, God himself.
Such use of the trombone in sacred music is richly evident,
especially by Catholic and Lutheran churches. Relevant in this
context is the longstanding use of such instruments by European
Stadtpfeifer in the tradition of Turmmusik (Tower Music), in which
the trombone assumes a significance, particularly in relation to
funeral rites, as we have seen. In Mozart’s case, the composer could
portray his Catholic identity particularly in the Requiem, whereas
his standing as a Freemason comes into prominence especially in The
Magic Flute from 1791, a work Beethoven also knew intimately and
regarded as the greatest of Mozart’s operas.
50
In Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, trombones are used to help create the
sonorities representing sacred characters, especially Sarastro and
his brother priests. German literary ideas, Freemasonry and Christian
values seem to be reflected symbolically in this work as well. The
famous gestural “threefold chords” are apparent at once in the
overture, when the orchestra sounds the opening sequence of Eb major,
C minor and Eb major chords (music example 15).
These threefold chords can be understood as foreshadowing Tamino’s
quest and later those initiation rituals that he will face, while
also alluding to the three-step initiation rituals that all
Freemasons complete before being admitted into the secret society. In
51
a Masonic ceremony, the Grand Master asks those members present
whether they find a prospective applicant to be worthy. If the Masons
respond with three knocks repeated three times, this indicates
acceptance of a candidate. Much like this ritual ceremony, Mozart
from the very outset of the drama begins with such a “threefold
chord,” giving a nod to the secret society to which he himself
belonged. In the first statement of the chords, the trombones join
the winds and strings, with a loud sforzando providing support.
Later, at the threshold of the development of the overture, the
threefold chords return in mm. 97-102 (music example 16), this time
without the strings and while remaining harmonically stable on Bb
major chords.
52
The omission of the string section underscores the role of the
trombones, increasing their aural presence in the orchestration. The
threefold chords are played by the trombone section for a third time
in Act II, Scene 1 (music example 17), heard between the dialogue
separating March der Priester (March of the Priest) and Sarastro’s
aria, O Isis und Osiris (Oh Isis and Osiris), alluding to the ancient
Egyptian deities. This dialogue rather explicitly portrays the
Masonic ritual of the Grand Master (Sarastro), who asks his members
(his priests) whether the individual (Tamino) is deemed worthy to be
initiated into their secret society hence the threefold chord (three
knocks) of the trombones and winds. The clear marking of the three
chords, and even an inclusion of the fermatas, shows that Mozart
wanted the chords to be played like gestural knocks, interspersed
with pauses.
Music example 17. Mozart, Die Zauberflöte, Act II, Scene 1, mm. 1-6
(between Marsch der Priester and O Isis und Osiris)
53
The trombones also assume a weighty role when they are used to
enhance the sonority of the solemn march. Jacques Chailley describes
the “March of the Priests” from Act II as “solemn and meditative, it
immediately situates this act in a quasi-liturgical ambiance.”52 The
parallel thirds found in the alto and tenor trombone lines, according
to Branscombe, were extensively used in known Masonic music.53 The
three notes following those phrases are marked legato but require
good articulation in the front of each note, as if to evoke the
quality of chanting amongst the priests. Appropriately, we can
observe how the trombones included in these scenes assume sublime and
sacred connotations, with Masonic elements enhancing the implications
of this use of the trombones. Yet another scene which Mozart uses the
trombones to enhance sacred elements of the scene is found in
Sarastro’s aria at the beginning of Act II, Scene 1, No. 10 (music
example 18), where Sarastro prays to the gods Isis and Osiris to
watch over Tamino and Papageno. The aria begins with a legato passage
for the trombones containing parallel intervals, which Chailley
describes as an “orchestration for Masonic winds (with doublings by
the strings without violins. . . the style of the religious canticle
is fauxbourdon, in which abound series of parallel sixths and
thirds,”54 thereby supporting the sacred character of this scene. In
mm. 5-8, the alto trombone closely outlines the melody of Sarastro,
and as shown at the end of the example (m.12), the threefold chord
motive returns.
52
Jacques Chailley, The Magic Flute Unveiled: Esoteric Symbolism in Mozart’s Masonic Opera, (Rochester, Vermont, 1992), 235.
53
Peter Branscombe, W.A. Mozart: Die Zauberflöte, Cambridge Opera Handbooks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 137.
54
Chailley, The Magic Flute, 240.
54
mm. 1-7
In mm. 21-24 of the same act (music example 19), the bass trombone
doubles Sarastro, giving further evidence that the trombones were
used to support voices, or perhaps even serve as the instrument
representing those voices of characters with sacred ties. The
combination of trombone and bass voice is not new but follows a
practice also reflected in the Tuba Mirum of Mozart’s Requiem, which
depicted the final call of judgment day. Much like the Tuba Mirum
trombone solo, and throughout the course of Die Zauberflöte, Mozart
uses a musical rhetoric embodying what Katharine Thomson calls the
“chain of brothers”55 found in Masonic music. As observed in the
55
Katharine Thomson, “Mozart and Freemasonry,” Music and Letters 57, no. 1 (January, 1976), 29.
55
example, the trombones are given a legato figure with parallel
intervallic motion enhancing Sarastro’s line.
mm. 21-24
In the finale of Act II, Scene 10 (music example 20), the trombones
announce the “threefold chord” yet one final time, signaling the
armored men’s duet to the text that a “person who walks this
difficult path is purified through fire and water, air and earth; if
he can overcome fear of death he will receive illumination and be
enabled to devote himself to the mysteries of Isis.”
56
Music example 20. Mozart, Die Zauberflöte Act II, Scene 10 (Finale),
mm. 190-195
The melody sung to this text (mm.206-215) is set to Martin Luther’s
1524 chorale Ach, Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein (music example 21a). As
the image shows (music example 21b), Mozart’s only change from
Luther’s original melody involves the doubling of notes in each
phrase, lengthening notes, and transposing the key up a fourth. The
trombone parts, besides the change in key, do not alter from the
original Luther hymn. Dueppen states that “the use of the instrument
(trombone) in this chorale during Tamino’s initiation into Sarastro’s
order, one of the most solemn scenes in the entire singspiel,
connects him to both his Catholic and Lutheran audiences who
understood the trombone as a sacred instrument within their
liturgical music.”56
56
Dueppen, 130.
57
Music example 21a. Martin Luther’s melody from Ach, Gott, vom Himmel
sieh darein, mm. 1-6
Music example 21b. Mozart, Die Zauberflöte Act II, Scene 10 (Finale),
mm. 206-215
58
Much like the way the text in the Singspiel set to this melody speaks
of remaining faithful through the difficult path of trials--which
leads to the illumination and enablement of the individual--the text
set to Luther’s hymn, Psalm 12, teaches faithful Christians to call
on the Lord for help in remaining faithful in the human race; this is
a depiction of fraternity. As for his final use of the trombones in
The Magic Flute, Mozart employs these instruments in the solemn march
that occurs as Tamino and Pamina await their final trial. The
trombones--along with the timpani, clarinets, and horns--punctuate
the harmonies heard under the solo flute (the Zauberflöte or titular
“magic flute”), which occurs after their love-duet. While at the
conclusion, Tamino and Pamina lack supernatural connotations, they
assume enormous dramatic importance in jointly assuming progressive
humanistic leadership over the spiritual order.
The trial duet found in Mozart’s remarkable Singspiel reminds us at
least distantly of a duet in the last act of Fidelio, the piece heard
when Rocco and Leonore enter the dungeon to follow Pizarro’s orders
to prepare the grave. Florestan does not recognize Leonore in her
disguise as Fidelio; the weakened prisoner is languishing near death.
The trombones in this scene help embody in sound the dark expressive
character of this death-haunted episode in the dungeon. The physical
proximity of the grave in the deepest level of the prison is
reinforced by the extremely vulnerable state of a prisoner near
death.
59
These trombones contribute a sepulchral character to the gloomy,
death-tinged atmosphere of Rocco’s resigned utterances, whereas
Leonore’s vocal part is supported by a brighter contrasting
accompaniment.57 The compositional history offers clues about the role
of C major for this duet, touching on a key association within the
whole opera and even with relevance to later Beethovenian symphonies,
notably the powerful transition into the culminating Finale of the
Fifth Symphony. As Michael Tusa observes, “Beethoven’s earliest
sketches for the duet associate the key of C major with Leonore, and
throughout the compositional process he always foresaw that her
heroic and selfless decision to rescue the helpless victim would come
to resolute cadence in C major.”58 This is musically a very dark
scene, a grim, almost hopeless situation, with Leonore compelled to
help prepare her own husband’s grave. Surely there is nothing
triumphant or redemptive here. Nevertheless, as Tusa reports from his
study of the sketches, Beethoven strove to coordinate his music for
Leonore with a hopeful associated key of C major, despite the dark
tone of the duet taken as a whole.
In order to point out how the trombones enhance this scene in the
dungeon, we should note their earlier appearance at the text in Act
57
See in this regard especially Michael C. Tusa, “Beethoven and Opera: The Grave-digging Duet in Leonore (1805),” Beethoven Forum 5
(University of Nebraska Press: Lincoln & London 1996), 16.
58
Tusa, “Beethoven and Opera: The Grave-digging Duet in Leonore (1805),” Beethoven Forum 5 (University of Nebraska Press: Lincoln & London
1996), 52.
60
I, No. 8 at Pizarro’s text “Cisterne” (“Grave”) with his mention of
the dungeon: “Dann werd’ ich selbst vermummt, Mich in den Kerker
schleichen” (“then I’ll sneak into the dungeon myself disguised”)
(music example 22), foreshadowing the trombone’s later presence in
the grim grave-digging scene.
Music example 22. Beethoven, Fidelio Act I, No. 8
Beethoven only includes the trombones briefly to underscore this
text, with its key word “Cisterne,” and these instruments do not
return until No. 10, just after Fidelio requests that the prisoners
be allowed into the fortress garden to experience the outside air of
this beautiful day, a request to which Rocco consents. As if to
portray the spotty rays of the sun from the prison cells, this moving
number opens with ascending strings, pianissimo. The beauty of the

61
sunlight lends hope to the prisoners, and as the modulation from Bb
major into G major brings about this hope, the solo prisoner sings
“bauen, die Hoffnung flüstert sanft mir zu: Wir werden frei, wir
finden Ruh, wir finden Ruh” (“build, hope whispers softly to me: We
will be free, we will find peace, we will find peace”), with the
chorus responding “O Himmel! Rettung! Welch ein Glück! O Freiheit; o
Freiheit, kehrst du zurück, kehrst du zurück” (“Oh Heaven! Rescue!
How Fortunate! Oh freedom; oh freedom, if you return, you return”).
Then reality sinks in, and the key of Bb major returns with a sudden
sforzando piano dynamic, music set to warnings that the prisoners
lower their voices, since the eyes and ears of the guards are upon
them. The duality of hope emerging in the midst of fear continues,
until the prisoners are guided back into the darkness of their cells.
Then follows a duet between Rocco and Fidelio, where Rocco delivers
the positive news that both the marriage of Marzelline with Fidelio
and Fidelio’s assistance in the dungeon have been approved. Fidelio
momentarily celebrates, until she hears more about their task, namely
that the prisoner will be killed by Pizarro, and that the two must
prepare the grave in which the doomed prisoner is to be buried. An
entrance of the trombones occurs at Rocco’s text “Wir beide graben
nur das Grab” (“We two only have to dig the grave”), again
illustrating the use of trombones to intone the musical character
associated with death and impending burial.
62
The trombones then enter in No. 12 (music example 23) as Fidelio and
Rocco enter the dungeon to begin digging the grave. The triplets in
the strings set the mood of the two picking at the ground, while the
flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and the trombones
contribute to the death-haunted tone of the music, with the
contrabassoon’s triplet figures suggesting the digging. The trombones
are used jointly with Rocco’s texts yet significantly disappear when
Leonore speaks.
Music example 23. Beethoven Fidelio No. 12
In this grave-digging music, the trombones play in octave As and
descend a half step to G sharp, then moving back to A. In this
precise orchestration, the trombones maintain a continuous sonority
63
with Rocco, and move consistently in octaves. Beethoven clearly
intended the trombones to be a conspicuous feature in this scene. The
descending thirds heard in the trombones (music example 24a),
foreshadow Pizarro‘s vengeful melodic motif announcing Florestan’s
death (“Er sterbe!”) during his exchange in the climatic No. 14
(compare music examples 24a and 24b).
Music example 24a. Beethoven, Fidelio No. 12, falling thirds in the
trombones
64
Music example 24b. Beethoven, Fidelio No. 14, Pizarro’s descending
thirds at ”Er sterbe!” (“He dies!”)
Rocco urges Fidelio to continue digging, as time is running out.
Their exchange continues until Florestan awakes after remaining
unconscious ever since he fainted after his hallucination. Then,
following the grave digging, interactions between Florestan and
Fidelio occur, resulting in Fidelio’s successful negotiation to allow
food and water to Florestan. Florestan remains still unaware of the
true identity of Fidelio, but gratefully accepts the gesture. Then,
with the digging completed, Pizarro enters, determined to murder
Florestan and dispose of his body in the grave before Minister
Fernando should arrive.
Pizarro arrogantly represents himself as a force Florestan should
have feared, as an avenger, while an exaggerated, falsely tainted
trumpet call including the horns is heard (music example 25).
65
(Pizarro)
To this utterance, Florestan responds by deflating him, labeling
Pizarro as a murderer, which again prompts music suggestive of the
“false” fanfare involving trumpets, horns and timpani (music example
26), but this time rising triadically.
66
(Florestan)
The music throughout this section is articulate, often using the
sixteenth quarter-note rhythmic motive akin to the trumpet call
Pizarro had ordered, but that will mark the end of his tyranny. As
the tension rises with a constant back-and-forth between the tyrant
and innocent prisoner, the strings busily descend downwards while the
brass (excluding the trombones) hold fortepiano chords with a
crescendo heard as the tyrant Don Pizarro lurches towards Florestan
with a dagger. At this critical moment, Fidelio intervenes, revealing
her true identity, and will soon draw a pistol to hold Pizarro at
bay. At the moment Leonore reveals herself as “his wife” on a high B
flat--the key center that was earlier used to present the prisoners
at the fortress garden--the breathless pacing of the action veers to
67
a sudden halt. Here she introduces herself as Leonore, with music
beginning with a cautious pianissimo and growing to fortissimo as she
reaches again the high B flat at “Verderben dir!” (“Damn you!”). The
tense exchanges continue, and with Pizarro still determined to kill
both Florestan and his wife Leonore, he lurches toward with a dagger
until stopped in his tracks by Leonore’s pistol.
This pivotal moment is marked by the offstage trumpet call from the
tower, announcing the imminent arrival of the minister Don Fernando
and depicting an end of the evil tyrant’s plans and the prospect of a
safe haven for the innocent prisoners. The text set to the hymn of
praise that Leonore and Florestan sing upon the arrival of the
Minister (p. 566) involves Florestan asking “O! O was ist das?” (“Oh!
Oh, what is that?“), to which Leonore responds ”Ach, du bist
gerettet, großer Gott!” (“Oh, you are saved, great God!”). Earlier in
the action, upon hearing the second trumpet call from the ramparts,
Rocco states “Gelobt sei Gott! Wir kommen, ja, wir kommon
augenblicklich,” (“God be praised! We’re coming, yes, we’re coming in
a moment”). In this context, at this sudden dramatic shift, the
signal from the tower might even be regarded as embodying a symbolic
redemptive or even divine voice, or if we recall Milton’s Paradise
Lost, as invoking a heavenly tower of utopian ideals.
Tower symbolism is prominent in Milton’s Paradise Lost of 1667.
Satanic pride and delusion are set against the heavenly tower of
68
utopian ideals of freedom and the common good. In Beethoven’s
Fidelio, these poles collide, as the warning signal of the Satanic
Pizarro is usurped, stolen from the tyrant through Leonore’s
intervention and the concomitant timing of the approach of the
Minister Don Fernando. In a single instant--a moment of dramatic
reversal--the function of the trumpet fanfares from the tower are
transformed from being merely Pizarro’s strategic signal into its
opposite, the proclamation of a new, enhanced reality, in which his
cruel sway is overcome and abolished. Edmund Burke refers to the
image of the tower to illustrate various emotions depicted in the
sublime, using Milton’s illustration of Satan in comparison to a
tower.59 In this context, Turmmusik can be recognized as being
referenced by Beethoven to communicate the pivot-point or fulcrum of
the opera, involving a sudden shift from the darkness of the grave to
a bright shining ray of life. Florestan’s impending death--even
though eventually averted through Leonore--forms an overriding topic
of the action, motivating Beethoven to include trombones in the
orchestration.
Just two trombones are used in the grave digging scene, the same
number employed in the Sixth Symphony, as compared to the trio of
trombones found in Beethoven Fifth and Ninth Symphonies and in the
Missa solemnis. I believe this is a purposeful decision by Beethoven
to employ the brighter timbre enabled by the inclusion of the third
59
Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas on the Sublime and the Beautiful, (London — New York, 1958), 62.
69
instrument in the Fifth and those later works, thereby treating the
trombone choir as more trumpet-like in character. The strategic
absence or intermittent disappearance of trombones in the
grave-digging duet is significant. While she does not yet block
Pizarro but digs the grave, trombones are heard; when she utters her
text, the trombones are absent, their voices muted.
We can recognize here how trombones stand here for a proximity to
death, which touches upon a longstanding association with an
historical context. It is helpful to explore this context, which
arose centuries before Beethoven and extended beyond his lifetime up
to the present day. Consider for example a little-known poem by
Heinrich Bernstein published around the centenary of Beethoven’s
death, which begins with an allusion to the sound of trombones at the
composer’s grave site in March 1827:
Phantasie. An Beethoven’s Grabe by Heinrich Bernstein
Wen trugen sie da so stille hinaus?
In’s Grab, in die kühlende Erde,
Zu legen den Körper in’s irdische Haus,
Bis wieder erschallet das: W e r d e !
Wem tönet der dumpfe Posaunenklang?
Wen klaget der düstere Grabgesang?
70
Fantasy at Beethoven’s Grave by Heinrich Bernstein
Whom do they carry forth with such stillness?
To the grave, in the cooling earth,
To lay the body in its earthly house,
Until again shall sound that: A w a k e n i n g !
For whom sounds the languishing tones of trombones?
Who laments the grim graveyard song?60
As we have seen, a trombone quartet was indeed employed at the
composer’s funeral, and these instruments indeed marked the lowering
of the composer’s body into the “cooling earth” of the Währinger
Cemetary on the northside of Vienna in 1827. We shall return to the
music played during the funeral procession, that music composed by
Beethoven himself at Linz in 1812.
The use of the trombones in the opera does not convey divine
intervention in the grave-digging scene in Fidelio. But the crucial
intervention that rescues Florestan portrays the divine by answering
60
Erstes poetisches Beethoven-Album, Zur Erinnerung an den grossen Tondichter und an dessen Säcularfeier, begangen den 17. Dezember 1870,
[First Poetic Beethoven Album, in Memory of the Great Composer and on the Celebration to His Honor on 17 December 1870], ed. Herrmann
Josef Landau. Published by the editor (Prague 1872), 150. Translation by William Kinderman. This poem first appeared in the Allgemeine
Theaterzeitung und Unterhaltungsblatt für Freunde der Kunst, Literatur und des geselligen Lebens, Vienna, 5 April 1827, 165, with the author’s
name given as Heinrich Börnstein, and it was reprinted in Drei Begräbnisse und ein Todesfall, ed. Michael Ladenburger and Silke Bettermann
(Bonn: Beethoven-Haus, 2002), 128.
71
his prayers through the very human actions of Leonore. Florestan’s
first words of the opera cries out “Gott!” (“God!”), asking how much
longer his misery shall last. This prayer is partially answered when
Fidelio provides bread to the malnutritioned Florestan--the first
message of hope--which symbolically parallels the Christian ideals of
communion. Then Fidelio urges the discouraged Florestan to find
discernment through faith, professing “Vergiss nicht, was du auch
hören und sehen magst, vergiss nicht, dass überall eine Vorsicht ist.
Ja, ja! es ist eine Vorsicht” (“Do not forget, whatever you may hear
and see, that there is a Providence over all! Yes, yes, there is a
Providence over all”). During the frenzied moments where the heroine
Leonore enters, Florestan describes her in succession as “O Gott!”
(“Oh God!”), “Mein Weib,” (“My Wife”), and “Leonore!” (“Leonore!”).
Pizzaro advances in fury, raising the dagger, to which Leonore draws
a small pistol as the sound of the trumpet signals from the tower.
This marks the fall of the Satanic tyrant and the answer of prayers
through the divinely inspired helper as Florestan praises “Gott! wie
gross ist dein Erbarmen” (“God! How great is your mercy!”).
Trombones are also used in Fidelio in support of the emphatic moments
proclaiming the ideals aligned with the French Revolution: liberty,
equality, and fraternity. Especially notable is Beethoven’s use of
trombones to support the text “die Liebe wird im Bunde mit Mute dich
befrei’n” near the end of the No. 14 Quartet in Fidelio, where
Beethoven includes these instruments to intone the text “befrei’n”
72
(be free”). There follows Florestan and Leonore’s ecstatic duet (O
namenlose Freude!--”Oh unnamed joy!”), an expression of thanksgiving
that Mosco Carner describes as an “expression of an elemental
paroxysm of joy (that) has no parallel in operatic literature.”61 The
trombones in this instance are used to help support the texts and
sounds that portray freedom. In the subsequent finale (No. 16), the
chorus involving the now liberated prisoners sing as conjoined
spirits as Don Fernando appears to bring final judgment to the
situation. Here, Don Fernando symbolizes equality, far from the
harshness of evil tyranny. He also comes as a brother seeking his own
brothers, expressing fraternity. And finally, he gives Leonore the
honor of completing the liberation, as she is given the key to free
Florestan from the chains of evil tyranny. Unlike Mozart’s use of the
female character of the Queen of the Night, who represents darkness,
and has an antagonist role, with Beethoven, Leonore is an active
dramatic heroine, and the bringer of hope. As Kinderman points out,
the feminine liberty symbol of the French Revolution assumes much
broader meanings, with ties to various freedom emblems including the
Statue of Liberty, for instance. From a biblical perspective, the
Greek word translation used to describe woman is Parakletos,
describing woman as “helper”. This is not a derogatory term, but
rather, it is the same word as used to describe God. Thus in addition
to the feminine symbols of freedom connected historically to the
ideals of the French Revolution, we may add another symbol, that of
the divine (or divinely inspired) helper.
61
Mosco Carner, ”’Leonore’ and ’Fidelio’,” The Musical Times, Vol. 92, No. 1297 (March, 1951), 117.
73
The role of the trombone in supporting the stoic atmosphere of the
grave scenes, and the ideals aligned with the French Revolution seems
consistent with the varying Leonore overtures. Beethoven eventually
sidelined each of the three Leonore overtures for use as curtain
raisers, and presumably came to view especially No. 2 and No. 3 as
too grand and self-sufficient. Istel states that Richard Wagner
described the overture as “far from furnishing a mere musical
introduction to the drama, it presents this drama more completely and
movingly than we find it in the ensuing disjointed stage action. This
work is not simply an overture, but in itself a most powerful
drama.”62 One of these impressive moments which also portray
Beethoven’s consistent use of the trombones can be observed in
Leonore #3 (music example 27) at the Presto coda, beginning with the
rapid violin runs. The first violins begin playing descending eight
notes that rise one note at a time dizzyingly, at the end of each
sequence. The second violin joins in a new perspective, perhaps from
a liberated perspective where they only join in for the ascending
portion of the run. This build-up leads to the intense climatic point
as represented in the orchestration, dynamics, and sonorous range
(mm. 534-537), where the trombones after having been absent come back
to support the ensemble, leading to its later climax on a major-ninth
chord in celebration of the ideals of freedom. Surely, Beethoven uses
an enhanced orchestration here to present the idea of liberated
prisoners celebrating in solidarity for freedom. These political
62
Istel, ”Beethoven’s ‘Leonore’ and 'Fidelio’”, 236.
74
connotations together with a presence of trombones are carried over
in turn to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
Music example 27. Beethoven, Leonore #3 mm.530-538
Following Beethoven’s arduous operatic labors, he turned his
attention during 1806-1808 to orchestral compositions including his
Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. The earliest sketches for these
symphonies are found in the “Eroica” Sketchbook, showing that the
genesis of these works actually reaches back to 1804.63 This implies
that Beethoven’s thought processes with these compositions likely
overlapped with his labors on the first versions of his opera.
63
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C minor, ed. Elliot Forbes (Norton Critical Score with commentary). New York: Norton, 1971.
75
Let us now examine Beethoven’s treatment of the sublime in the
transition to the finale of his Fifth Symphony, a work completed by
1808. Both the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies found their premiere
performances at Vienna’s Theater an der Wien on 22 December 1808. In
his commentary on the Fifth, E.T.A. Hoffmann famously described
Beethoven’s music as “disclos[ing] to us the realm of the tragic and
the illimitable.”64 Despite Hoffmann’s lofty praise, according to
Thayer, composer Johann Friedrich Reichardt describes the initial
performances in 1808 in a down-to-earth fashion as follows:
“I accepted the kind offer of Prince Lobkowitz to let me sit in
his box with hearty thanks. There we continued, in the
bitterest cold, too, from half past six to half past ten, and
experienced the truth that one can easily have too much of a
good thing--and still more of a loud. Nevertheless, I could no
more leave the box before the end than could the exceedingly
good-natured and delicate Prince, for the box was in the first
balcony near the stage, so that the orchestra with Beethoven in
the middle conducting it vexed our patience in the highest
degree. Poor Beethoven, who from this, his own concert, had
found in the rehearsals and performance had lot of opposition
and almost no support. Singers and orchestra were composed of
heterogenous elements, and it had been found impossible to get
64
Arthur Ware Locke and E.T.A. Hoffmann, “Beethoven‘s Instrumental Music: Translated from E.T.A. Hoffmann‘s “Kreisleriana“ with an
Introductory Note,“ The Musical Quarterly Vol. 3, No. 1 (Jan., 1917), 128.
76
a single full rehearsal for all the pieces to be performed, all
filled with the greatest difficulties.“65
The adverse conditions of the concert included a freezing cold
concert venue, a mammoth four-hour program, and a less-than-optimal
performance of the pieces due to inadequate rehearsal. Amongst the
works performed that night, the insufficiently rehearsed Choral
Fantasia, Op. 80 which was finished only a short time before the
concert, resulted in the deaf composer restarting the piece again
from the beginning.66
According to Theodore Albrecht, the trombonists who played in the
premiere of Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth Symphonies on 22 December
1808 can be identified as follows: Franz Hörbeder (1760-1841) and
Phillip Schmidt (1791-1851), who played in both symphonies and were
joined in the finale of the Fifth by Leopold Segner (1762-1834).67
These performers indeed deserve recognition for having first
performed that celebrated transition from darkness to light that
carries the symphony into the triumphant fanfare opening of the
finale! Within Beethoven’s purely ‘instrumental music’, this passage
may be perhaps the most powerful single musical event that involves
the trombone. In this work, the piccolo, contrabassoon and trombones
enter for the first time in the symphony’s finale, providing an
expansion of range and orchestration in the overall narrative. In the
mysterious transition to the finale, the timpanist softly taps out
65
Alexander Wheelock Thayer, Life of Beethoven, ed. Elliot Forbes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), 448.
66
Thayer, Life of Beethoven, ed. Elliot Forbes , 448-449.
67
Theodore Albrecht, “Beethoven’s Portrait of the Theater an der Wien’s Orchestra in His Choral Fantasy, op. 80,” Beiträge zu Biographie und
Schaffensprozess bei Beethoven, ed. Jürgen May. (Bonn: Beethoven-Haus/Carus, 2011), 24.
77
the key rhythmic motive on a low C, which then is joined by the
strings. The gradually rising line of the strings leads gradually
eventually to the dominant-seventh chord taken up by the orchestra,
with a crescendo at the threshold of the breakthrough to the finale
(music example 28).
Music example 28. Beethoven, Symphony No. 5 Transition into the
Finale
78
As Kinderman states, “the motivic scrap from the scherzo is quietly
repeated over and over, and drifts higher and higher until it
converges into the dominant-seventh chord for full orchestra that
resolves to the emphatic beginning of the ensuing Allegro, marked by
the first appearance of trombones in the symphony. The impact of the
dominant seventh is enhanced by the mysteriously understated, yet
logical and even inevitable quality of the transitional passage. The
finale of the Fifth Symphony emerges suddenly, like a mirage in the
desert. As it appears, however, the apparent mirage takes on the
glaring force of reality and exposes the desert as the illusion.”68
This intensely dramatic, sudden appearance of C major in the finale
of the Fifth Symphony is somewhat comparable to the sudden emergence
of “Light” in Haydn’s The Creation, following the Depiction of Chaos.
In these musical narratives, a preceding mood is mysteriously dark
and veiled, leading into a transition to a turning-point, a grand
arrival. In the Fifth, this arrival is embodied once more in the key
of C major, also the key associated with Leonore, who symbolized the
enlightened, selfless and all-embracing love of humanity. John Wilson
writes about the sublime character of the C major finale of the
Beethoven’s Fifth that “it says a great deal that in this political
turbulent age, the attractive image of C major as tabula rasa and its
complicated relationship with the sometimes-triumphant,
sometimes-ungainly militaristic sublime remained part of the musical
68
William Kinderman, Beethoven (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 150.
79
language of freedom, perhaps also reflective of an unavoidable
duality in real life.”69
The opening of the Finale (music example 29) reveals a triumphant,
fanfare-like statement. The trombones provide depth and enhancement
to the body of sonorities of the brass. The timbre and the overall
volume of the instrument provides added weight and color to all of
the previously heard brass sounds, setting this moment apart. This
opening passage of the finale exemplifies Beethoven’s symphonic
writing style for trombone. The alto and tenor trombone are written
within an octave of each other, while the bass trombone closely
parallels the low strings. The bass trombone’s close doubling of the
lower strings can also be heard in Christ on the Mount of Olives and
in Fidelio. The trombones are also written with simplified rhythms
compared to the other instruments of the symphony. Guion explains
this phenomenon by stating that, “Beethoven’s trombone parts have
less in common with the traditional Viennese manner of writing…than
with the new style from France…French composers were severely limited
in what they could expect of trombones because of the lack of expert
players. French trombone parts therefore consist exclusively of the
least interesting of the instrument’s capabilities: doubling,
rhythmic punctuation, harmonic filler, and making loud sounds.”70 The
French influence also reflects the high F written for the alto
69
John David Wilson, “Wer ist ein freier Mann?” C Major as the Sublime Tabula Rasa, and its Shifting Meaning for Beethoven,” Beethoven 6:
Studien und Interpretationen, “ed. Mieczyslaw Tomaszewski and Magdalena Chrenkoff (Krakow: Akademia Muzyczna w Krakovie, 2015), 73.
70
David Guion, The Trombone: Its History and Music, 1697-1811 (New York: Gordon and Breach, 1988), 135.
80
trombone. Howard Weiner states that Gluck was already writing the
high F for the tenor trombone in his opera Alceste, written forty-one
years before Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.71 Regardless of the extent of
Beethoven’s detailed awareness of Gluck’s practice, Solomon states
that Beethoven’s heroic style forged “a collaboration between Vienna
and France.”72
Music example 29. Beethoven, opening measures of the Finale in
Symphony No. 5
The registral reinforcement of the trombone section spanning over
three octaves is repeated on two more notes, C and F. The note F on
the trombone portrays the highest point in the range spectrum of the
instrument, almost as if Beethoven were purposefully representing a
symbolic voice speaking from beyond, or even from the heavens. Hugo
Riemann categorizes the role of the trombones in the finale of the

71
Howard Weiner, “When is an Alto Trombone an Alto Trombone? When is a Bass Trombone a Bass Trombone?—The Makeup of the Trombone
Section in Eighteenth-and Early Nineteenth-Century Orchestras,” Historic Brass Society Journal 17 (2005), 64.
72
Solomon, Beethoven, 179-180.
81
Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony as follows: “the classical composers
employ trombones in symphonies only by way of exception, such as
Beethoven in the finale of the C minor Symphony, where they play a
major role in the performance of two main themes.”73 The themes
depicted then are from the opening theme, and later with the melodic
descending profile in mm. 72-75 (music example 30). In both cases,
the trombones do not play a background supporting role, but join in
vigorously with the main melodic motives and their embodiment in
orchestral sound. But the prominence of trombones is not limited to
these two themes, as Riemann seems to imply. Both Riemann and Wilson
seem unaware of the distinct French Revolutionary echoes or allusions
in the finale, with the “la liberté” resonances of later passages
leading into the midst of the development and into the coda, passages
both prominently employing the trombones.
Music example 30. Beethoven, Symphony No. 5 mm. 72-75
73
Hugo Riemann, Handbuch der Musik-Instrumente (Berlin: Max Hesses Verlag, 1919), 89-91.
82
In commenting on Beethoven’s musical style, Solomon among others has
perceived the impact of the French Revolutionary currents74. Kinderman
cites a close affinity to Claude Joseph Roguet de L’Isle, Hymne
dithyrambique: “Chantons la liberté, courron nous sa statue” (music
example 31a), a theme which is closely bound up with the French
Revolution itself. In the Fifth Symphony, this theme is taken up by
the bassoons, horn and trombones (music example 31b).75
Music example 31a. Claude Joseph Roguet de L’Isle, Hymne
dithyrambique: ”Chantons la liberté, courron nous sa statue
Music example 31b. Symphony No. 5 mm. 113-118
74
Maynard Solomon, Late Beethoven (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 198.
75
Kinderman, Beethoven: A Political Artist in Revolutionary Times (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2020.), 152.
83
As Kinderman puts it, this is “a hymn celebrating the fall of
Robespierre written by Claude Joseph Rouget de L’Isle, composer of
the Marseillaise. Rouget de L’Isle declaims the key word of the
revolution, “li-ber-té” as a rising major third in long notes. This
figure bears the revolutionary text “Chantons la liberté, courron
nous sa statue” (“we sing of liberty, we crown its statue”).”76
The trombones are most conspicuous both times this theme appears,
just before the relapse to the theme of the scherzo in the minor (in
the development) and once again in the important passage leading into
the coda. Beethoven scores the trombones differently in these two
passages. The trombones are at first somewhat held back in the
passage leading into the coda, before they then emerge very
prominently, which is significant, in view of the great power built
up at the end of the finale.
As we can see in these examples, the rising scale outlining a major
third followed by a pick-up note is also part of his writing for the
brass and bassoons in the Fifth Symphony. This hymn, written by
French composer Claude Joseph Rouget de L’Isle, celebrates the fall
of Robespierre by highlighting the word “la li-ber-té,” as a rising
scale outlining a major third. The accentuation and lengthening of
the last, top note of this motive corresponds to the accentuation of
the French phrase. The word “la li-ber-té” thus has a distinct link
76
Kinderman, Beethoven: A Political Artist in Revolutionary Times (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2020.), 152.
84
to the French Revolution and a tangible symbolic connection to the
Fifth Symphony. Much like Beethoven’s use of the trombones in Fidelio
during the liberation of the prisoners, the trombones are used here
again in a critical moment depicting freedom.
How do we understand the meaning of such gestures in their historical
setting? Beethoven embraces the ideals, but not the historical
realities, of the French Revolution, which were betrayed in the Reign
of Terror of 1793-94, and then again when Napoleon Bonaparte seized
absolute power as emperor by 1804. As the idealistic humanistic goals
of the Revolution had by stages become remote or unrealizable, it
would require an ideal vision to still bring it about. Schiller wrote
about this issue in his essays during the 1790s and spoke of an
“effigy of the ideal” as a cultural goal or task for the artist, a
challenge Beethoven enthusiastically adopted. In the passages of the
Fifth Symphony finale alluding to “la li-ber-té,” Kinderman
interestingly points out that “since the motive is played here as a
four-note figure with upbeat, it evokes the words “la li-ber-té,”
while the famous four-note “ta-ta-ta-taaaa” motive of three eights
and a quarter in the orchestra offers affirmative echoes in
compressed rhythm.”77 As Kinderman shows, Beethoven paid much
attention to Friedrich Schiller’s writings, and of course used his
“an die Freude” (“To Joy”) in the Ninth Symphony (we shall explore
this connection in chapter 3).
77
Kinderman, Beethoven: A Political Artist, 153.
85
Brotherhood, freedom, and hope are all themes closely associated not
only with the ideals of the French Revolution, but also with those
Masonic attributes that resemble the sublime. In terms of the
darkness and light analogy, we are reminded of Mozart’s Magic Flute,
and the Masonic duality portrayed by the duality of darkness (Queen
of Night) and light, with the latter associated with Enlightenment.
Noteworthy in the heart of the finale of the Fifth is the relapse
into the minor in the development section, so that the recapitulation
embraces a varied recall of the earlier transition from the scherzo
to the finale. The plaintive solo oboe from the first movement also
returns with the thematic material from the shadowy scherzo in C
minor, resetting the mood of the symphony. The journey to the “effigy
of the ideal” in C major is momentarily halted here, as the music
returns to a similar setting of the Scherzo. Then the timpani return,
and for the final time the orchestra is thrust back into the
triumphant C major recapturing the opening of the movement. The
enhancement of the orchestration (piccolo, contrabassoon, trombones)
helps generate a coda that cannot again be negated by a relapse back
into the minor. Beethoven himself noted this expansion in sound,
stating that “the last movement of the symphony includes three
trombones and piccolo - to be sure, not three timpani, it will
however make more noise than six timpani and to be sure a better
86
noise.”78 The trombones are used again for the themes depicted prior
to the coda, but in mm. 289-294, only the trombones 1 and 2 move in
octaves, leading into C as its highest point of the phrase. This
time, when the trombones play the “la li-ber-té” motive, the whole
orchestra joins the voices of the trombones, as if in fraternity with
one another (music example 32). Then, in the Presto, the trombones
again carry a very significant and distinctive part in mm. 376-390.
The bass trombone and tenor trombone come in, but the lone tenor
trombone moves with piccolo and strings in measure 387 leading into
the final recall of the opening finale motive. The movement of the
tenor trombone there seems significant in view of Beethoven’s special
treatment of the lone second trombone, as we will observe in
Beethoven’s later works. If the role of the trombones in Fidelio is
haunted by death in the grave-digging scene, the trombones
participating in the finale of the Fifth help convey a sense of
liberation somewhat analogous to the finale of the last act of the
opera, with the unchaining of Florestan and liberation of all the
other prisoners, reunited them with their loved ones. A glorification
of freedom is evoked here.
78
German edition of Thayer’s Beethoven biography: Ludwig van Beethovens Leben, ed. H. Deiters and Hugo Riemann. Leipzig, 1907-1917. Vol. 2,
p. 11. Translated by William Kinderman.
87
Music example 32. Beethoven, Symphony No. 5 mm.382-390
In terms of performance considerations, the dynamic markings in this
symphony are not as frequent nor detailed as modern-day composers do.
Therefore, a more detailed realization of dynamic inflections is
needed. In addition, the context of each dynamic differs depending on
the orchestration and role of the trombones in the musical excerpt.
At the opening of the finale, the marking fortissimo is best taken
literally, with the music played with passion and power. There are
differing views concerning the equipment choice in Beethoven’s works,
including the Fifth Symphony. Some commentators promote a common
misconception that the trombonist should play the instrument
indicated by the clef. For example, alto clef should be played on
alto trombone, tenor clef on tenor trombone and bass clef on bass
trombone. As logical as this seems, as Herbert states, the most
probable cause of the different clefs would be due to publishing
88
practices in Vienna rather than an indication of instruments.79
Regardless, when considering the range and texture of the symphony,
it seems most logical to perform with alto trombone on the first,
small tenor trombone on the second to match the alto trombone’s
timbre, and to use a small bass trombone with one trigger to follow
the pattern. Jay Friedman, long time principal trombone of the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, writes that “I have a smaller alto
trombone mouthpiece that I use for Beethoven 5 and 9. There you would
want a “trumpety” sound because these are (especially the 5th) very
percussive type of writing, unique in the literature.”80 I would agree
that in the general context of the “French military style”, Jay
Friedman’s point of producing a “trumpety” sound would be
appropriate. Recognition of the French revolutionary resonances of
Beethoven’s finale supports this proposal, and the notion of the
trumpet’s sound from the tower in Fidelio goes still further to
convey the tone of freedom.
Symphony No. 6
Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony portrays the sublime very differently from
the finale of the Fifth. Instead of the idealistic political
connotations of the C minor Symphony, the F major work conveys the
sublime in a naturalistic but highly symbolic context. In comparison
with the celebrated dichotomous drama of the Fifth Symphony, with its
79
Trevor Herbert, The Trombone, 165.
80
Jay Friedman, “Alto Trombone”, posted December 8, 2003, Alto Trombone – Jay Friedman.
89
passage from dark to light, the naturalistic context of the Pastoral
Symphony provides a completely different expressive context. A
passage in the Heiligenstadt Testament relevant to the Sixth Symphony
is the following: “Oh Providence—grant me at least but one day of
pure joy—it is so long since real joy echoed in my heart. Oh when—oh
when, do Divine one—shall I feel it again in the temple of Nature and
of mankind!” Along with the “temple of Nature and of mankind” echoing
the real joy, the depiction of the thunderstorm in the penultimate
movement motivates an artistic portrayal akin to Edmund Burke’s
notion of the dynamically sublime, “that no awe, no degree of terror,
accompanies the idea of power, and have hazarded to affirm, that we
can contemplate the idea of God himself without any such emotion…yet
no conviction of the justice with which it is exercised, nor the
mercy with which it is tempered, can wholly remove the terror that
naturally arises from a force which nothing can withstand.”81 To
further understand the relationship between nature and the sublime in
this symphony, it is important to observe the bird call passage
(music example 33) near the end of the second movement of the
symphony (“Scene by the Brook”). In this episode, Beethoven includes
three birds: the nightingale (flute), quail (oboe) and the cuckoo
(clarinet). Raymond Knapp observes in the context of the prophetic
bird calls that benevolent nature becomes “an imperiled paradise to
be reclaimed in the finale through the devout faith expressed in the
81
Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, edited with an introduction by Adam Philips,
(OUP, 1990), 62-63.
90
shepherd’s hymn.”82 It is especially the quail’s call that forewarns
of the coming of the storm in the fourth movement.
Music example 33. Beethoven, Symphony No. 6 Bird Call Section
The bird calls including that of the quail bring our attention to
Beethoven’s 1803 song for voice and piano, “Der Wachtelschlag” (“The
Call of the Quail”), WoO 129. This composition is based on the
setting of Samuel Friedrich Sauter’s poem: “Ach, wie schallt’s dort
so lieblich hervor” (“Oh, how do those lovely sounds come forth”).
Three-note figures of repeated tones with a dotted rhythm signal the
warning cries of the quail. The bird’s calls are coordinated with the
three verses of Beethoven’s song, as the quail’s cry becomes symbolic
of pious entreaties to “Fear the Lord!”, “Love the Lord!”, “Praise
the Lord!”, “Thank the Lord!”, “Ask the Lord!”, and “Trust the
Lord!”83 In the Bible, the quail is mentioned in reference to God’s
82
Raymond Knapp, “A Tale of Two Symphonies: Converging Narratives of Divine Reconciliation in Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth,” Journal of the
American Musicological Society, Vol. 53, No. 2 (Summer, 2000), 341.
83
See Kinderman, Beethoven A Political Artist, 149.
91
provision to his people of Israel (Exodus 16:13, Numbers 11:3 and 32,
Psalm 105:40). By incorporating the quail in the symphony, Beethoven
presents the words associated with its call as a representation of
nature’s song of praise and thanks to God.
Owen Jander also presents an intriguing connection to the Fifth
Symphony’s cryptic message often regarded as portraying “fate”
through its long-long-long-short rhythmic pattern. He points out how
amongst the lamenting nightingale, the quail and cuckoo present the
opposite pattern to the Fifth’s famous short-short-short-long message
(music example 34). Jander states that “Beethoven should have caused
his three prophetic birds to deliver their message via a cryptic
reversal of his symbolic short-short-short-long, again conforming to
ancient tradition. Prophecy has forever taken on a more supernatural
aura when crouched in cryptic terms.”84 When the bird calls from the
Sixth Symphony (music example 33) are looked at closely, it
reminisces an exact copy of the rhythmic figure found in Beethoven’s
1803 work for voice and piano (music example 35).
84
Owen Jander, “The Prophetic Conversation in Beethoven’s “Scene by the Brook,” The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 77, No. 3, (Autumn, 1993),
525-526.
92
Music example 34. “Long-long-long-short" cryptic message
In this example, we can clearly recognize the dotted sixteenth and
thirty-second note followed by a quarter note as motivically
exclaiming “fürchte Gott!” (“fear God!”). This same rhythmic figure
is then used in the music representing the quail in the Sixth
Symphony. According to Kinderman, “Beethoven’s meditations on the
natural world are documented in his substantially annotated copy of
Christoph Christian Sturm’s voluminous work Betrachtungen über die
Werke Gottes in der Natur (Observations about the Works of God in
Nature) in an edition from 1811, which shows his deistic or
pantheistic inclinations. In one passage, Beethoven writes next to
the poetic text the inscription “appropriate material for music,” and
marks the entire text in pencil, with its evocation of a
transformative force in nature, manifested in the sun and flowers,
bees and trees, weather and landscape.”85
85
Kinderman, Beethoven: A Politicial Artist, 150.
93
Music example 35. Beethoven, opening of ”Der Wachtelschlag” WoO 129
(”The Quail”)
Nature is the central factor in Beethoven’s portrayal of the sublime
in this symphony. The first movement establishes the beauty of
nature, setting up the prophetic bird calls of the second movement,
which returns in the scherzo as a warning in the form of a trumpet
call. Knapp states that “in parallel to the message at the end of the
second movement, this more emphatic warning emanates from the human
activity to which we have been witness, yet stands oddly apart from
it, with a similar effect of suddenly heightened reality.”86 David Wyn
Jones describes this moment as “a figure that sounds like a bugle
call or posthorn signal.”87 Much like the trumpet’s call from the
86
Knapp, “A Tale of Two Symphonies,” 337.
87
David Wyn Jones, Beethoven: Pastoral Symphony (Great Britain: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 72.
94
tower in Fidelio, in the Sixth symphony, this signal alerts the
arrival of the judge, foreshadowing judgment. Soon afterwards in the
symphony, in the fourth movement, the thunderstorm scene intrudes on
village life. The ensuing movements are directly connected to one
another. Beethoven interrupts the dancing merrymaking of the peasants
with a deceptive cadence, as the natural elements force their
attention on the country folk. The storm, with its wind, rain,
thunder, and lightning, is a frightful emanation of the “Lord of
nature,” in Sauter’s words.”88 The trombones enter in octave Cs (music
example 36), doubling the flutes, oboes, first violins, and the
timpani, in syncopation along with these other instruments form the
diminished chords. The powerful octave, syncopation and the harmonic
texture all bring out the effect of surprise that could be described
as the burst of the trombones. The chord spans over four measures
(piccolo sustains for 6 measures), four successions of sforzando call
and response. Curiously, Beethoven does not include the trumpets and
trombone in the response portion of the second sforzando, most likely
to make sure the moving half notes in the bassoon is heard
throughout.
Hector Berlioz vividly describes this scene as if “no longer just a
wind and rainstorm: it is a terrible cataclysm, a universal deluge,
the end of the world.”89 In this dramatic moment, the trombones then
are used in the same orchestration as in the Fifth symphony, set in
octaves to represent nature’s vocalization of authority and power.
88
Kinderman, Beethoven: A Political Artist, p. 149.
89
Hector Berlioz, A Critical Study of Beethoven’s Nine Symphonies (tr: Edwin Evans) (Reeves: First Edition (January, 1958), 45.
95
Beethoven, as in the Fifth Symphony, employs the piccolo to extend
the range and overall brightness of this moment. The portrayal of the
sublime in nature, and Beethoven’s use of the trombone to announce
its ominous appearance, utilizes the ‘Gottesfürcht’ (“fear of God”)
element as referenced by Edmund Burke. Christoph Sturm’s observations
are that divinity reveals itself manifold ways: in a violet, in a
storm. Kant also defines the dynamically sublime as portraying an
object of fear and describes how “it must be represented as a source
of fear...hence the aesthetic judgement can only deem nature a might,
and so dynamically sublime, in so far as it is looked upon as an
object of fear.”90 The passage cited above in Sturm’s Betrachtungen
carries the inscription “God’s Omnipresence,” and depicts a divine
force as embodied in light and darkness and in all phenomena. Richard
Will adds on stating that “God appears in or as a storm in both the
Old and New Testaments: Moses, for instance, receives the Ten
Commandments in a cloud that thunders and flashes with lightning and
fire, and in Revelations John the Divine describes thunder and
lightning as emanating from God’s throne.”91 Kinderman writes as
follows about Beethoven’s quotation from Sturm’s treatise: “'Hear my
weak song, and hear, omnipresent one, the sound of the cherub’s harp
at the foot of your throne.’ This message with which Beethoven
identified expresses a humble prayer of thanks and expression of
reverence for a spiritual presence manifested in the external
90
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, (Macmillan, 1951), 260. Translation by J.H. Bernard.
91
Richard Will, “Time, Morality, and Humanity in Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony”,” Journal of the American Musicological Society Vol. 50, No.
2/3 (Summer-Autumn, 1997), 321. See also Deuteronomy 5:22, Exodus 19 and 20, Revelations 4:5, Psalm 18, John 12:28-29 for passages of God
speaking through thunder.
96
physical world of nature. The Pastoral Symphony conveys similar
sentiments, as a ferocious storm yields to a pantheistic sense of
harmony in the ensuing shepherd’s hymn in the final movement.”92
Music example 36. Beethoven, Symphony No. 6, Depiction of
”Thunderstorm”
In Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, trombones are included in the fourth
and fifth movements. Beethoven here uses a pair of trombones labeled
92
See Kinderman, Beethoven: A Political Artist, 150.
97
alto and tenor, the same orchestration as in Fidelio. Guion mentions
that in the score, the trombones were listed last (atypical to the
traditional score order), suggesting that the trombone parts were
only an afterthought.93 The timpani enter at the transition point into
the finale, but this time in reverse of their role in the Fifth
Symphony. Instead of the crescendo at the progression into the
finale, in the Sixth, the timpani first enter forte, and then fade
into the background, as the storm fades away (music example 37).
Music example 37. Beethoven, Symphony No. 6, Timpani in transition to
the Finale
93
Guion, in The Trombone: Its History and Music, 1697-1811, 61, states that this orchestration of alto and tenor trombone was a common
practice in Viennese church music. Also see Cloutier's dissertation, 63.
98
Using a similar instrumentation as at the Fifth’s transition to its
finale, Beethoven, when moving from the dancing peasants to the storm
and into the Hymn of Thanksgiving, provides a new scope of effects to
represent the passing away of the storm. The ending of the storm
movement (Gewitter, Sturm), also features the oboe securing the major
mode, which according to Raymond Knapp makes an appropriate reference
to the opening theme of the Sixth Symphony, and to J.S. Bach’s
chorale “Brich an, o schönes Morgenlicht,” from the second part of the
Christmas Oratorio.94 Once again, much like his other symphonies, and
most notably his Fifth and Ninth, Beethoven utilizes the oboe as a
leading melodic voice at the moments of intense expression. The oboe
leads soon after the beginning of the final movement of the Sixth
Symphony to C major, a key traditionally associated with light and
hope. The oboe line, much like its role in the Fifth symphony,
carries a ray of light or “schönes Morgenlicht” as the storm recedes,
creating an appropriate transition to the grateful hearts of the
finale. Wyn Jones expresses this moment as a musical representation
of a rainbow.95 The illustration is convincing, as a musical rainbow
in the flute forms with the appearance of the sun after the storm
(music example 38). The final ascending flute passage also suggests a
physical return of the sun leading into the finale. As Knapp points
out, “Beethoven’s musical rainbow may be seen to represent the
covenant between God and humanity enacted after the Flood.”96 In the
94
Raymond Knapp, “Tale of Two Symphonies,” 318.
95
Wyn Jones, Beethoven: The 'Pastoral' Symphony (Cambridge Music Handbooks), Cambridge University Press, 1996), 84-85.
96
Knapp, “Tale of Two Symphonies”, 318. See also Richard Will, “Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony,” 322.
99
Holy Bible, the rainbow represents a token of covenant between God
and every living creature: “And God said, This is the token of the
covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature
that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the
cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the
earth” (Genesis 9:12-13, King James Bible Version).97 The divine
presence of God can seem to be portrayed here after the storm,
represented through a connection between the heavens and the earth,
and in sound through the oboe’s dolce phrase, the musical
illustration of the rainbow.
97
All English biblical passages in this dissertation will be from the King James Bible translation.
100
Music example 38. Beethoven, Symphony No. 6, Oboe solo and ascending
flute into the Finale
The finale returns to the key to the opening movement, F major, as
the interval of falling fourths, the main interval for the opening
theme, is highlighted in the clarinets to begin the fifth movement.
When the French horns take over the falling interval motive, the
falling fourths and rising fifths creates an archaic sonority,
something that may remind us of the future setting in the opening of
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Will states that the “arpeggiated horn
calls like those that open the movement and form the basis for the
principal theme have a long lineage in religious pastoral music.”98
Surely the atmosphere here is sacred, as if one were standing in a
98
Will, “Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony,” 323.
101
cathedral amongst the presence of the infinite, godly, or sublime.
This leads us into measure 9, where this divine atmosphere relapses
back into the village of thankful and joyous villagers, or back to
earth amongst the mortals as represented by the violin’s melody,
outlining the opening theme. It is worth noting that the harmonies,
orchestration and phrasing remind us of a hymn-like structure, like
the profession of faith expressed by the shepherd’s hymn. The brass
joins in at measure 25, over the triplet sixteenths in the violins,
in fortissimo. Beethoven’s inclusion of the trombones in the storm
and after the storm critically hints that his use of the instrument
serves to portray the presence of deity in all aspects. He is
portrayed as an Almighty God, as we are reminded of his power through
the thunderstorm, but also is portrayed as a God of love that humans
praise and to whom they give thanks. In the fourth movement, the
trombones are joined to the full tutti at the peak of the storm,
embodying threatening aspects of nature. In the final movement, on
the other hand, the trombones join in an expression of thanksgiving
following the cataclysm, or “universal deluge,” in Berlioz’s words.
The trombones are employed in two successive movements of strongly
contrasting character of the divine, first as embodying the God of
Wrath, then the God of love.99
Although the Sixth Symphony in comparison to the Fifth Symphony shows
differences in how the trombone is used, some similarities in the
structure of the parts can be observed. As in the Fifth, Beethoven

99
See also Raymond Knapp, “A Tale of Two Symphonies,” 338, who describes the two faces of God as “wrathful and forgiving.”
102
simplifies the rhythms for the trombone, in comparison to the other
brass instruments. The same kind of simplification is found later in
the same movement in measures 132-139, but at measure 139, Beethoven
gives the trombones and string bass a quarter note, while the rest of
the orchestra has an eighth note. The trombones in this same passage
also play the downbeat of each measure of the melody, but none of the
rhythmic passages. Clearly, Beethoven had thought through the
trombone’s role in the overall texture. Cloutier states that the
Sixth Symphony includes “customary Beethovenian orchestrational
techniques for trombones—-rhythmic abbreviation, doubling the
woodwinds, octave playing, use of thirds and sixths, and longer note
values—”100 The Sixth Symphony includes all these facets, but does so
in the simplest form possible, which perhaps further reflects aspects
of these two symphonies as a contrasting work-pair.
According to the sketchbook known as Landsberg 10 (now in the
possession of the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin), that
lyrical theme now known as “The Shepherd’s Song” was once
characterized by Beethoven as follows: “Expression of thanks. O Lord,
we thank Thee. Slide softly throughout.”101 Beethoven’s attitude of
gratitude and joyful communion seems to outline the overall narrative
of the symphony. As we observed earlier, the bird calls, specifically
that of the quail, present prophetic calls implying “Fear the Lord!”,
100
Cloutier, “Ludwig van Beethoven,” 66.
101
F.E. Kirby, “Beethoven‘s Pastoral Symphony as a “Sinfonia caracteristica,“ The Musical Quarterly, October, 1970, Vol. 56, No. 4, Special Issue
Celebrating the Bicentennial of the Birth of Beethoven, 618. See also the quote reproduced by Dagmar Weise, in Ein Skizzenbuch zur
Pastoralsinfonie op. 68, 17: “Ausdrucks des Danks [.] O Herr wir danken dir [.] schleifen durchaus sanft.”
103
“Love the Lord!”, “Praise the Lord!”, “Thank the Lord!”, “Ask the
Lord!”, “Trust the Lord!”. The sketchbook Grasnick 3, according to
Kirby, holds a leaf containing references to the Pastoral Symphony
with the words “Praise be to God on high — in the church style — holy
in the church style.”102 With the idea of thanking God reflected in
its hymnal character, the theme of joy is eminently represented in
the Sixth Symphony. This Beethovenian motive of Freude (Joy) can be
seen in a larger context as stemming from an overcoming of adversity
in the finale of the Fifth Symphony, while also serving as a
launching-pad for the narrative trajectory of his Ninth Symphony,
with its choral finale set to Friedrich Schiller’s “Ode for Joy.”
Concerning instrumentation, this work paired with the Fifth Symphony
would probably do best with the same proposed choices of alto
trombone, tenor trombone and bass trombone. In the case of the Sixth
Symphony however, Beethoven uses just a pair of trombones, instead of
the symbolic three of the Fifth. With this in mind, the second
trombonist should match the principal trombone’s instrumentation to
provide the most uniform sound. For example, if the principal player
chooses to perform on an alto trombone, a smaller sized tenor would
be recommended. But if the principal player chooses a small tenor,
then a large tenor would be appropriate. I would encourage the
performers to choose the equipment that would most appropriately
102
Kirby p. 619; see also the Sketchbook Grasnick 3, fol. 16 (Ein Skizzenbuch zur Chorfantasie op. 80 und zu anderen Werken, ed. Dagmar Weise
(Veröffentlichungen des Beethovenhauses in Bonn, Neue Folge, 1. Reihe; Bonn, 1957), 92: “Ruhm sei Gott in der Höh im Kirchenstil heilig im
Kirchenstil.”).
104
bring out the emphatic octave chords in the thunderstorm episode. In
this particular symphony, one could imagine that the forte in the
pastoral context is not the same forte found in Symphony No. 5.
However, in the thunderstorm scene, the trombonist should play with
conviction, offering a potent disruptive sonority suggestive of a
forceful sublime presence, or “Gottesfürcht,” in Sauter’s sense.
The Sixth Symphony provides a striking example of Kant’s description
of the Isis inscription, which he found to be the pinnacle of both
sublime thought and sublime expression. Much like the Veil of Isis,
the thunderstorm conveys an experience of a limit suggestive of
mortal humans confronting the sublime, in this instance a seemingly
omnipotent creative force inherent in the natural world.
Significantly, however, the trombones are heard not only in the
thunderstorm, but they continue in the finale, showing that their
role does not end with the portrayal of stormy conflict, but also
embraces a character of thanksgiving to the deity.
105
III. The Missa solemnis and the Ninth Symphony
Missa solemnis
Beethoven’s view of the sublime embraced the Kantian duality of the
moral law on earth and the starry heavens above. In Beethoven’s
conversation book dated the beginning of February 1820, his citation
of Immanuel Kant’s inscription “The moral law within us, and the
starry heavens above us”103 surely pinpoints the philosopher’s
influence in relation to the genesis of the Mass. As William
Kinderman states, the sketchbook inscription of the quotation from
Kant gives us clues about Beethoven’s thought process during his
composing stages.104 The philosopher’s quotation alluding to morality
and to the mysteries of the sublime, which would never be fully
revealed to mankind, finds its symbolic expressions especially in the
Gloria, Credo, and Benedictus of the Mass, and later in the choral
finale of the Ninth Symphony. Only tacet in the opening Kyrie, the
Mass features the most active and varying parts that Beethoven ever
composed for the trombone.
The first entrance of the trombones occurs in the Gloria at a
critical point, at the triple fortissimo explosion of sound (mm.
185-188)105, which spans almost five octaves (music example 39),
surely depicting the sublime with its overwhelming aesthetics to the
103
Ludwig van Beethovens Konversationshefte, vol. 1, p. 235. According to the editors, this entry was copied not directly from the conclusion of
Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason but from the article “Kosmologische Betrachtungen” by the astronomer Joseph Littrow, printed in the Wiener
Zeitschrift on 20 January and 1 February 1820.
104
William Kinderman, Beethoven (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 266.
105
All measure numbers are from the score edition of Beethoven, Ludwig van, Missa solemnis op. 123, Urtext, edited by Norbert Gertsch, G.
Henle Verlag, (München, 2000).
106
text “Deus pater omnipotens” (“God the father Almighty”). Scott
Burnham describes this mighty Bb seventh chord, reinterpreted as an
augmented sixth chord resolving to the dominant of D, as “sonically
overpowering, but the effect of overwhelming transcendence is also
projected.”106
Music example 39. Beethoven, Gloria (“Deus pater omnipotens”)
In her book on the Gloria of the Mass, Birgit Lodes devotes attention
to what she describes as “contrast without synthesis,” by which she
refers to the sharp disparities between heaven and earth, God and
106
Scott Burnham, “God and the Voice of Beethoven,” in The New Beethoven: Evolution, Analysis, Interpretation, ed. Jeremy Yudkin (Rochester:
University of Rochester Press, 2020), 245.
107
humanity, which are projected again and again in the music.107 A
passage like the overwhelming setting of “o-mni-pot-ens” set against
the gentle “Do-mi-ne fi-li u-ni-gen-ni-te” embodies this powerful
contrast. Indeed, the sonorous impact of the syncopated chord with
trombones on “o-“ seems to forcibly project the presence of the
ominipotence of the deity in a sudden eruption of sound, even before
the chorus can utter more than just the opening vowel of the idea:
“o-mnipotens”.
As this exceptionally intense sonority soon fades, the next text
excerpt refers to “the only begotten Son”; about which Roger Fiske
explains that “Beethoven prefers soft music for Christ and an
emphasis on tunes in thirds or, less often, in sixths.”108 The next
trombone entrance occurs to the text “miserere nobis” (“Have mercy
upon us”) (mm. 292-295), in fortissimo, entering ahead with the horns
and winds, before the voices are heard an eighth-note later (music
example 40).
107
See Birgit Lodes, Das Gloria in Beethovens Missa solemnis (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1997), 90-101.
108
Roger Fiske, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis (New York: Charles Scribner, 1979), 41.
108
Music example 40. Beethoven, Gloria (“miserere nobis”)
At “miserere nobis,” the chord is F sharp minor following on F
major--a completely unexpected sonority reinforced by syncopation.
The trombones (in the top staves of the example) do not quite
complete the text setting: they stop an eighth note earlier than the
singers and winds. Beethoven directs the reverberant sonority of the
trombones to be present from the beginning of the text--so much so as
to put it out slightly ahead of the singers--but he terminates their
spectral sound an eighth-note before the other parts, with a
decrescendo to piano, ensuring that the resonance would be dying away
at the close of the vocal phrase on “nobis”.
109
At Beethoven’s next inclusion of the trombones—in the stirring fugue
of the Gloria—the presence of these instruments reinforces the
powerful dynamic level, generating enhanced resonance. In the
Allegro, ma non troppo e ben marcato section, the trombones (alto,
tenor and bass) closely double the corresponding voices, adding
significant reinforcement to the text. The bass trombone plays the
exact notes of the bass voices, and the tenor trombone the exact
notes of the tenors. What is noteworthy is that the alto trombone
plays the same as the alto voices except for the parts where the alto
voice extends to high Ds and Es. For example, in mm. 386-388, the
alto voice line has a melodic figure B-A#-B-C#-D-C#-A-D for the text
“a-men” (music example 41a.), of which the alto trombone only has
B-A#-B (figure 41b.) and returns in measure 389 on G with the alto
voice. Of all the music in which Beethoven includes trombones, the
alto trombone part of this fugue section is most awkward with these
sudden omissions of high Ds and Es given to the alto voices. William
Drabkin states that “No published score of the Missa solemnis meets
the present editorial standards of the musicological profession.”109
Music example 41a. Beethoven, Gloria, Alto line (mm. 383-389)
109
William Drabkin, Beethoven: Missa Solemnis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 23.
110
Music example 41b. Beethoven, Gloria, Alto trombone line (mm.
383-389)
Certain scholars, such as Fiske, cite an account from 28 September
1823--when Beethoven was visited by his publisher from the time,
Tobias Haslinger--as an explanation for this situation. During this
visit, Beethoven asked Haslinger about the highest possible note on
the trombone but was dissatisfied with the answer. Fiske claims that
consequently, Beethoven advised his copyists to leave out the high
D’s and E’s in the alto trombone part that support the alto voice.110
Although this story seems to offer insight into how the composer
would have approached writing for the trombones, not only does
Beethoven include a high D in measure 391 of the Gloria, but he had
already included the high Fs in his earlier Fifth Symphony,
discrediting Fiske’s theory. If anything, the instrument’s
capabilities and musicians’ abilities would have been extended after
Beethoven’s Fifth, where previous limits of the orchestra were
already extended, and new standards of the orchestral writing were
introduced. Norbert Gertsch in his Critical Report published in his
score devotes a section of his commentary to the trombone parts. He
observes how Beethoven made comments in the manuscripts to the effect
that the trombone parts for various sections of the Mass were written
on separate sheets, but these separate sheets have disappeared, so
110
Fiske, Beethoven’s Missa solemnis, 48.
111
that original manuscripts in his hand cannot be consulted. This
applies to Gloria mm. 292-295, 360-459 and 488-569; Credo 1-123,
240-305, 363-371, 398-438 and 470-472; Sanctus 51-52 and 68-78, and
all trombone parts in the Agnus Dei.111
Below are the trombone parts with the inclusion of the omitted high
notes (music example 41c, 41d, 41e):
Music example 41c. Beethoven, Gloria (mm. 390-396)
Music example 41d. Beethoven, Gloria (mm. 399-402)
111
Beethoven, Ludwig van, Missa solemnis op. 123, Urtext, ed. Norbert Gertsch (Munich: G. Henle Verlag,), 299.
112
Music example 41e. Beethoven, Gloria (mm. 416- 427)
In the Sanctus for the most part, Beethoven wrote the trombone parts
directly into his autograph score because he had room; otherwise, the
20-stave paper he used did not allow enough space to notate the
trombone parts. Also, he started including trombones at the
“judicare” in the Credo, and then added them in many places, also in
the preceding movement, the Gloria. The omission of these high notes
in the alto trombone is further clarified through Cloutier’s findings
in his dissertation. He observes that Beethoven’s copyist of nearly
25 years--Wenzel Schlemmer--had died in August 1823, so Schlemmer’s
labors did not contribute to the final stages of revision of the
Missa solemnis .112 Alan Tyson supplements this claim by quoting
Beethoven’s 1825 letter to Schott: “I have no intelligent copyist…the
copyist I had and upon whom I could depend has been in the grave for
eighteen months.113 Therefore, it is most likely that the trombone
parts, frequently composed at the end of the compositional process,
would have been notated by the new copyist Wenzel Rampl. Tyson
states that Rampl’s rendering of the trombones could have resulted in
notes being omitted or awkwardly placed in the score. A plausible
explanation for the irregularity in the trombone writing in my
opinion is that it derived from an honest mistake on the part of
Beethoven’s copyists, who after Schlemmer were often categorized as
substandard. I advocate that these missing notes for the alto
trombone should be supplied in future editions and performances of
112
Daniel R. Cloutier, “Ludwig van Beethoven’s orchestration of the trombone” (DMA diss., West Virginia University, 2009),
166.
113
Alan Tyson, “Notes on Five of Beethoven’s Copyists,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 23, N. 3 (Autumn, 1970), 470.
113
the Mass. To my knowledge no updated editions or performances has
included these notes but adding them would enhance the overall effect
in the stirring fugue of the Gloria.
In the Gloria, there are moments where Beethoven curiously employs
only the trombones to accentuate the text that the chorus sings. An
example occurs at the “amen,” (m. 502) where only the trombone
section and the chorus have two quarter notes intoning this word
(music example 42).
Music example 42. Beethoven, Gloria, quarter-note “amen” figure in
trombones
114
Another instance occurs when the trombones randomly accent the
“a-men” sung by the soloists. Holding the chords in the Gloria, the
trombone section has a lone moving quarter note, while the musical
setting at “Deo” (m. 558) again highlights the presence of the
Posaunen (music example 43).
Music example 43. Beethoven, Gloria, trombone movement on “Deo”
These punctuations seem like sonic effects intoning the presence of
God through the embodied voice of trombones. A stirring visual
artwork from 1682 conveying this kind of message stems from Johannes
Brandenberg of Zug, and is found in the ceiling of a Benedictine
115
monastery in Einsiedeln, Switzerland, featuring the Latin words Vox
Verbi (“Voice of the Word”). A trombone is lodged at the very center
of the image (Illustration 4a).114
Illustration 4a. Ceiling of the Oratory of the Benedictine Monastery
114
Photograph from Benedictine Monastery: Oratory in Einsiedeln, Switzerland, available online:
http://www.emblemata.ch/emblemata.ch/Objects_%26_Emblems/Pages/Einsiedeln_%28SZ%29,_Oratory.html?fbclid=IwAR1UnKQnPlphMVUW
WegQvCRa7U1bY01OUXaex4b8SKn8UELNG9mAP52QE2Y#8 See also Will Kimball’s article “The Trombone as a Symbol of Vox Verbi,”
https://kimballtrombone.com/2019/10/08/trombone-symbol-vox-verbi/
116
Illustration 4b. Close-up view showing Vox Verbi with the trombone
The details of this vaulted ceiling with stucco decorations portray
the text written on scriptural type manuscript, with the trombone
seen in radiating light (Illustration 4b). The Benedictine Monastery
located in the village of Einsiedeln, municipality of Einsiedeln,
Canton Schwyz, was an Abbey of Benedictine monks; founded in the 10th
century, it was later rebuilt during late 17th and 18th centuries.
This religious emblem surely would have been placed in a room
considered sacred and used for theological disputations. In simple
English translation, the meaning of “Voice of the Word” might not
seem immediately significant in relation to the trombone. However,
there is a biblical reason for the presence of the trombone. John 1:1
states: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
117
and the Word was God.” In the Latin Vulgate, the text is: “In
principio erat Verbum, et Verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat
Verbum.” Since the Latin term Verbi is the genitive case of Verbum,
the text in the image means the “voice of the Word (God)” and it is
visually represented by the central Posaune depicting the Coram Deo.
The trombone serves then as the divine voice.
Wilfrid Mellers states that “the Credo is about the relationship of
Man to God; from man’s point of view, in that it is a doctrinal
statement of what the Church, a humanly created institution, requires
us to believe.”115 In its broader form, the Credo is organized into
four main parts: Allegro ma non troppo up to “descendit de coelis,”
with a key center of Bb; the slow section from Incarnatus to the
Resurrexit with the key center of D; the Allegro molto at “et
ascendit in coelum” to the recapitulation with a key center of F
major; and the fugue and coda “et vitam venturi saeculi, amen,” with
the key center of Bb.116
The trombones in the Credo mainly double the chorus, and become
especially prominent in supplementing the text at “consubstantialem
Patri” (“being of one substance with the Father”), as the tenor and
bass trombone in octaves easily overpower the other instruments.
Surely Beethoven envisioned the trombones as empowering the singers
in their assertion of this text. Soon follows the text “descendit” as
descending eight notes in the strings help bring this dynamic image
musically to life. In a delicate later passage, a portrayal of the
115
Wilfrid Mellers, Beethoven and the Voice of God (London: Travis & Emery, 2007), 317.
116
See the analysis in Kinderman, Beethoven, 268.
118
sublime involves slow hovering flute trills to the text “de spiritu
sancto” (“from the Holy Spirit”) (music example 44).
Music example 44. Beethoven, Credo mm 135-137
Here, the violins outline the vocal line as the other strings
accompany. But it is the hovering solo flute whose slow trills most
vividly symbolize the sung text. Mellers states that “Over the fugue
entries of the voices a solo flute hovers, quivering in slow trills
that have the paradisiacal implications habitual to trills in late
Beethoven (bars 135-137) … here the trills, which start on the words
de spiritu sancto, breathe into the Word ‘the breath of life’...the
trills also emulate the fluttering wings of the Holy Dove.”117 Fiske
reaffirms Tovey’s conviction: ‘There is no reasonable doubt,’ wrote

117
Mellers, Beethoven and the Voice of God, 323.
119
Tovey, ‘that the picture in Beethoven’s mind is that of the Holy
Ghost hovering in the likeness of a dove.’”118 The Holy Dove
references the biblical passage of Genesis 8, where the dove is the
messenger of new life after the flood incident of Noah's Ark and
Jesus’ baptism from Matthew 3:16-17.
Then follows the tenor’s solo describing “et homo factus est,” (“and
was made man”), implying Jesus Christ, God made human through the
Virgin Mary. Beethoven’s musical progression from D Dorian to D major
places the creation of tonality in relation to the creation of
humanity. A telling feature of Christ in the ensuing section of the
Credo is his crucifixion on the cross to bear the sins of humankind.
The pain and terror of the nailing is depicted in the sudden shift of
mood into the minor, with double-dotted eight and thirty second
notes, marked sforzando piano (music example 45). This depiction of
pain reflects Christ’s suffering, and certainly embraces ombre style
through its dissonance and fluctuating dynamics. In this violently
evocative passage featuring aggressive dynamics suggesting nails
being hammered into the body on the cross, the trombones (implying a
Godly presence) are conspicuously absent.
118
Fiske, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, 59.
120
Music example 45. Beethoven, Credo “Crucifixion”
Before one can fully process this tragic narrative, following the
“death” chord (m. 187) with a sonority missing the third, the tenor
voice intones “Et resurrexit tertia de secondum scripturas” (“And the
third day he rose again according to the scriptures”). In Beethoven’s
orchestration, the tenor voices begin the phrase, and the remaining
voices join in the middle of the phrase to musically embody the text,
conveying Christ’s rising on the third day (music example 46).
121
Music example 46. Beethoven, Credo “Et resurrexit tertia de secondum
scripturas”
Then follows Christ’s ascent to Heaven to the sound of the rising
scales to the text “et ascendit in coelum” (“and ascended into
heaven”). The exhilarating ascending lines burst with energy. In a
theological context, this passage might perhaps call to mind Mary
Magdalene, after first seeing that the stone from the tomb had been
taken away: “The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early,
when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken
away from the sepulchre. Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter,
and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them,
They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not
where they have laid him. Peter therefore went forth, and that other
disciple, and came to the sepulchre. So they ran both together: and
the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the
sepulchre.” (John 20:1-4). The rising scalar lines lead to an
emphatic F major chord with high A on the top, a sonority depicting
Heaven--or the heavens--high above. After this musical portrayal of
122
resurrection, and just preceding the key word “judicare,” the tenor
trombone returns urgently to signal the “last trump” at the
four-syllable motive “ju-di-ca-re” marking Judgment Day (music
example 47).
Music example 47. Credo mm 221-228
As we have seen, the text of the “last trump” is rendered as “die
letzte posaune” in Luther’s Bible, and hence in the German cultural
context, it is the last trombone call that signals God’s judgment, or
judicare. The C flat breaks the expected sequence of modulations and
marks a divine message. As Mellers writes, according to the biblical
texts “traditionally trombones, like trumpets, were solemn and sacred
instruments through which spoke, on the Old Testament analogy, the
breath of God (Exodus 19:16; Zechariah 9:14). The New Testament
handed them to God’s minions, the angels, who ‘blew a great sound’ to
‘gather together his elect’. Majesty, splendour, judgement and fear
123
are qualities manifest in the sonorities of trombones throughout the
music of European tradition.”119
Much like the bass trombone entrance in the finale of the Ninth
Symphony (to be discussed below), the trombone at “judicare” precedes
the voice entrance to signal the call. This method of orchestration
alerts the listener with the powerful, symbolic sound of the
trombone. In accordance with this thought, Maynard Solomon also
states that the role of trombones in the “judicare” section was to
“symbolize divine power.”120 The entrance here, where the tenor
trombone enters before the tenor voice, represents Beethoven’s sole
use of the trombone as a solo voice heard by itself. After the many
dotted rhythms set to “gloria” and the rapid driving momentum of the
passage leading to “judicare,” the sudden rhythmic augmentation of
the motive exposed in the trombone has an electrifying impact. The
alto and bass trombones along with organ, bassoon and horn, then join
in with their corresponding voices supporting the text “et iterum
venturus est cum gloria judicare vivos et mortuos,” which is
translated as “and he shall come again with glory to judge the living
and the dead.”
In addition to the biblical reference, another possible explanation
for the use of the tenor trombone might have to do with the tenor
trombone solo written in the Tuba Miriam of the Mozart Requiem. As
William Drabkin states, “the sacred work which [Beethoven] seems to
119
120
Maynard Solomon, Beethoven (New York: Schirmer Books, 2001),400.
124
have cherished above all was Mozart’s Requiem; he staunchly defended
it when rumors of its doubtful authenticity reached Vienna in the
mid-1820’s.”121 An article by Bathia Churgin discusses a Beethoven
sketchleaf that came to light on which the Kyrie of the Requiem is
written out in short score, with extensive annotations of its themes
and formal sections. Such analysis by Beethoven was surely made for
purposes of study, and dates during the period of work on the “et
vitam venturi” fugue of the Missa Solemnis.122 With the selection of
the tenor trombone as the solo voice at the setting of the Last
Judgement, it could very well have been the Mozart Requiem that
influenced Beethoven’s Credo, with its tenor trombone intoning the
four syllables “ju-di-ca-re.” By examining Beethoven’s sketchbooks,
as studied by Gustav Nottebohm and others, we can also observe how
that chord with trombones was purposefully selected after long
deliberation.123
Beethoven’s sketchbooks offer insight into how and when he developed
his ideas about the character and orchestration of the Mass. On p. 25
of the “Wittgenstein” Sketchbook, used in 1819, he writes “deus
omnipotens,” referring to the text “deus, pater omnipotens” (“God,
omnipotent Father”) in the Gloria, and he also writes the words “alte
tonarten” (“old modes”) next to a D minor sonority, while adding
below the notation “sepultas historisch in den alten Tonarten”
121
William Drabkin, Missa Solemnis, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 21.
122
Bathia Churgin, “Beethoven and Mozart’s Requiem: A New Connection,” The Journal of Musicology Vol. 5, No. 4 (Autumn, 1987), 459-463.
123
Gustav Nottebohm, Zweite Beethoveniana: nachgelassene Aufsätze (Leipzig: Peters, 1887), 155.
125
(“burial [to be] historic in the old modes”).124 This shows his strong
interest in employing archaic modality in certain passages, and in
the finished work, D dorian is indeed used at “Et incarnatus est,” in
the Credo.
Near the end of the “Wittgenstein” Sketchbook, on p. 74, Beethoven
sets the text “judicare,” but with no indication of trombones or of
any instrumental anticipation of the vocal setting. This sketch dates
from early 1820. But by April 1820, at the bottom of the first page
of the following “Artaria 195” Sketchbook, Beethoven indicates the
anticipation of the “judicare” motive using a trombone or trombones,
already envisioning this distinctive musical treatment of the Last
Judgement.125
Immediately after “judicare,” there follows a musical portrayal of
the living and the dead as Beethoven employs the rapid dynamic
changes from the “vivos” in fortissimo to “mortuos” in piano (music
example 48a and b).
124
Joseph Schmidt-Görg, ed., Ein Skizzenbuch zu den Diabelli-Variationen und zur Missa solemnis, SV 154 (Bonn: Beethoven-Haus, 1968,
appeared 1971 [facsimile vol.]; Bonn: Beethoven-Haus, 1972 [transcription, commentary, and critical notes vol.]). See Robert Winter’s review of
this edition in Journal of the American Musicological Society 28 (1975), 135-38. This source is known as the Wittgenstein Sketchbook because it
was for a time in the possession of the famous Viennese Jewish family to which the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein belonged. A discussion of
the cultural background of the family is offered in chapter 6 of Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin’s Wittgenstein’s Vienna (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1973), 167-201.
125
William Kinderman, Artaria 195: Beethoven’s Sketchbook for the Missa solemnis and the Piano Sonata in E Major, Opus 109 Volume 3:
Transcription (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 1.
126
Music example 48a. Beethoven, Credo, setting of “vivos”
Music example 48b. Beethoven, Credo: “mortuos”
In Beethoven’s deliberate approach to composition, we can view the
sudden changes in dynamics and inversions of meaning to be
significant to the symbolism portrayed in the Mass. The word
“mortuos” is set subito piano, with low notes depicting the dead
souls through its restrained mournful sonority. Warren Kirkendale
127
categorizes these sonorities as “’dead’ chords, without a third.”126
According to Kinderman, in Beethoven’s sketches for the Egmont
Overture, the composer wrote that “death could be expressed by a
rest,”127 or silence, reminding us how Beethoven was sensitive to the
music reflecting the import of the text. The silence and sudden
stillness at “mortuos” are noteworthy, and the suppression of the
music’s vitality conveys death through the removal of energy.
What follows next is the third appearance of the “Credo” motive,
which assumes the role of recapitulation despite its distinctive
tonal orientation in F major spanning over thirty measures. Kindreman
states that “here the return and development of the “Credo’ motif
carries the music through the most doctrinal parts of the Mass text,
where the words are rattled off syllabically, rendered inconspicuous
by the many imitative entries of the “Credo” motif.”128 In addition to
the symbolic text of “descendit” and “ascendit”--referring to
Christ’s descent into the world and ascent back to the heavens--the
large-scale contrast setting the music from the Incarnatus to the
Resurrexit apart from the rest of the Credo is important and
noteworhty.
The Sanctus opens calmly after the glorious ending of the Credo,
featuring the solemn tones of the trombone chorus which leads to the
alto voice singing “Sanctus” (“Holy”) (music example 49).
126
Warren Kirkendale, “New Roads to Old Ideas in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis”, The Musical Quarterly Vol. 56, No. 4 (Special Issue Celebrating
the Bicentennial of the Birth of Beethoven) (Oct., 1970), 681.
127
Kinderman, Beethoven, 170.
128
128
Music example 49. Beethoven, Sanctus, mm. 1-11
The trade-off between the human voice and the symbolic voice of God
fits well to the text depicting the Holiness of Lord, God of Hosts.
The long-short-long rhythm recalls motives heard already in the Kyrie
(music example 50). The movement titled Sanctus which translates as
holy is designated as “mit Andacht” meaning “with devotion” or “with
prayer” which certainly designates a sacred atmosphere for the four
measures of brass ensemble (mm. 9-12), and seems significant when we
recall the biblical passage depicting the Holiness of God in Isaiah
6: 1-4 which one can read by imagining the awe-striking vision of God
Isaiah evokes: “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw also the Lord
sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the
temple. Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with
129
twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and
with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy,
holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his
glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that
cried, and the house was filled with smoke.” What the prophet Isaiah
is describing is both majestic and awe-inspiring, much like the tone
of the radiant brass instruments. The Lord’s robe which fills the
temple evokes a sense of power and strength, and the seraphs cover
their eyes to shield them from such divine force. Their cries of
praise lift up God’s holiness and glory, shaking the temple filled
with smoke.
Before the Allegro pesante section, the trombones return (mm. 30-33)
with the solemn tones which evoke the spiritual in a mysteriously
hushed atmosphere which Warren Kirkendale observes: “the rhetoric of
the Sanctus is further illuminated through the pianissimo tremolos on
the identical minor ninth chord for a passage of similar religious
content in the Ninth Symphony: “Über Sternen muss er wohnen”
(measures 650-54).”129 Kirkendale further observes that the chords
intoned by the brass chorus are like “Tower Music” representing
singing of angels130 depicting the presence of God. William Drabkin
states that “it is easy to overinterpret this evidence, yet
Kirkendale’s contribution is a valuable reminder to us that, whatever
our own perception of Beethoven’s antecedents may be, Beethoven’s
129
Kirkendale, “New Roads to Old Ideas in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis”, 672.
130
Kirkendale, “New Roads to Old Ideas in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis”, 686.
130
perception of them was certainly different.”131 I would agree that
this passage connects to the tower music tradition whereby
Beethoven’s Drei Equali certainly portray the music evoking a divine
presence. In his Ninth Symphony, Beethoven reflects Schiller’s text
musically at the moment of pondering about the “One” who dwells above
the canopy of stars.
Music example 50. Beethoven, Missa solemnis, Kyrie motive
Passages alluding to the deity follow later in the Benedictus section
(music example 51). An implied presence of the divine may be sensed
in the remarkable violin solo in the Benedictus, which precedes the
trombone section’s clear enunication of the four syllables of
“Be-ne-dic-tus.”
131
William Drabkin, Beethoven: Missa solemnis, Cambridge University Press (Great Britain, 1991), 5.
131
Music example 51. Beethoven, Benedictus, violin solo
As Kinderman observes, “the violin solo of the Benedictus effectively
symbolizes the absolute, ideal quality of the divine presence, using
the high G major chord as a point of departure and return.”132 The
visual/spatial dimension evoked through the sonorous descent of this
violin solo from the high exalted realm (Heaven from the Christian
perspective; the stars above in Kantian philosophy) to earth provides
a fitting balancing response to the earlier upward scales of the
Credo. The distinct orchestration of flutes with violin may remind us
as well of the passage from the midst of the Credo, with slow flute
trills representing the Holy Dove.

132
132
This lofty G major triad in first inversion is thus embodied by a
pair of flutes with solo violin. This is comparable to the second
inversion E flat major triad, with a similar flute-violin pairing,
heard at the end of the Credo. As in response to the ascending scales
at the end of the Credo, the slow descending violin in the 12/8 meter
portrays what Mellers calls the portrayal of the Holy Ghost (Holy
Spirit), “A high G major triad in first inversion shines on two
flutes and solo violin. Inevitably we recall the second inversion of
an E flat major triad, at the same pitch, in a similar flute-haloed
sonority, at the end of the Credo. . . for the solo violin as Holy
Ghost–or as the Jewish Messenger of Peace, or the Arabian Rohmat
Allah–floats down from the heights in a swinging 12/8. This slow
declension answers the ‘aspirational’ upward scales at the end of the
Credo; we cannot miss the parallel because Beethoven releases the
Holy Dove with a chord and sonority so similar, though in a different
key, to that on which the Credo’s soaring prayer has ended.”133 The
Holy Spirit can also be seen as having a role of a Parakletos, or a
divine counselor.
If the violin’s descent evoking the Holy Spirit carries religious
significance, then a parallel meaning may be attributed to the
trombones. At “Be-ne-dic-tus,” a kind of soft four-syllable chant is
sounded by the trombone choir (music example 52).
133
133
Music example 52. Beethoven, Benedictus, trombones enunicating
“Be-ne-dic-tus”
Fiske states that “The three close-knit strands slowly descend,
symbolizing the Real Presence of Christ coming down from heaven to
earth and entering the Host.”134 The Holy Dove references the biblical
passage of Genesis 8, where the dove is the messenger of new life
after the flood incident of Noah's Ark and Jesus’ baptism: “And
Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water:
and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of
God, descending like a dove, and lighting upon him. And lo a voice
from heaven saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased,”(Matthew 3:16-17).
This moment in the Benedictus enables us to venture a parallel to the
book of Matthew. By analogy, the Spirit of God (violin) descends like
a dove (flutes), and is blessed by a heavenly voice (soft trombones).
The trombone section highlighting the word “Be-ne-dic-tus” plays
pianissimo, in conjunction with the violin solo, played dolce e
cantabile. Beethoven’s sensitive employment of the trombones intoning
134
Fiske, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, 77.
134
the four syllables “Be-ne-dic-tus” lends to this passage a sublime
aura associated with the sublime and the supernatural.
According to Tovey, when the Italian conductor Sir Michael Costa
conducted the Benedictus in the middle of the nineteenth century, he
decided that these trombone chords were echoing a cheap dance music
cliché, and to Tovey’s fully-justified indignation, Costa very
foolishly crossed them out.135 But not only is this passage musically
moving, but also fascinatingly allusive, for these Posaune are indeed
quietly speaking, enunciating the word “Benedictus”. Later in the
Benedictus, the same group of brass instruments intone the text
“be-ne-dic-tus” together with the voices, providing further
confirmation of this association. The implications of text subtly
conveyed through the sonority of the brass led by the trombones is
without doubt. When performing this piece, it is crucial that the
performer(s) understand the symbolic role conveyed by the music. As
we have seen, in the judicare, the tenor trombone outlines the
motivic rhythm set to that word: “ju-di-ca-re.” The four-syllable
motive at “Be-ne-dic-tus” is rhythmically similar, yet utterly
different in its expressive character. Judicare should be played
boldly, whereas Benedictus should be rendered warmly, endowed with a
sacred aura. I recommend the use of the different trombones to match
the very different musical contexts of these passages. To best convey
the varying characteristics of the Mass, I would recommend that the
bass trombonist play a large modern bass trombone with a 0.562 bore
135
135
size and a bell size of 9.5” to provide the necessary warmth of tone.
The tenor trombonists should play a modern F-trigger tenor trombone
with a 0.547 bore size and 8.5” bell size to appropriately match the
size of the bass trombone while still being able to contain the
bright sonority required for the “judicare." And lastly, the alto
trombonist should play the alto trombone to match the timbre of the
alto voice and to have assistance for the high range. The choice of
larger equipment especially for the bottom two voices will help
project the solemn tones of the Benedictus at a soft dynamic level.
The Missa Solemnis features the most extensive and some of the most
resourceful and original writing for the trombone among all of
Beethoven’s compositions.
A brief but striking passage in the Agnus Dei, which begins in the
low voices, low strings, bassoons and the bass trombone, written
fortissimo with accented pitches, sets falling sixths (music example
53a) to the text “dona nobis pacem”, where the music seems to allude
to the passage in Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus “And he shall reign for
ever and ever” (music example 53b).
136
Music example 53a. Beethoven, Agnus Dei, “Dona nobis pacem”
137
Music example 53b. Handel, Hallelujah Chorus, “And he shall reign for
ever and ever”
According to Fiske, “[Beethoven] is known to have studied and copied
out several Handel choruses with a view to preparing himself for the
composition of the Missa Solemnis, and this was surely one of
them.”136 Beethoven had the highest regard for Handel, even claiming
him as “the greatest composer who ever lived.”137 Laura Tunbridge,
referring to Churgin’s aforementioned study, supports this claim,
stating that “[Beethoven] did expand his knowledge of the repertoire
beyond his familiarity with the Masses of Haydn and Mozart, exploring
the music of J.S. Bach, Handel, and copying out parts of Mozart’s
Requiem.”138 An influence of Handel on Beethoven’s later works seems
undeniable, especially in connection with the depiction of the
sublime through the allusion to a heavenly Father or deity beyond the
heavens. Amy Carr-Richardson states that “if Beethoven did model his
Gloria on ideas from the Messiah, his reasons for doing so could have
been mixed, characterized both by a desire to pay respect to Handel
and also an interest in competing with his musical
accomplishments.”139 This idea is impressively treated as well in the
choral finale of Beethoven’s final grand symphonic work: the Ninth
Symphony.
136
137
Alexander Thayer, The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, revised and edited by Elliot Forbes, (Princeton: 1967), 871.
138
Laura Tunbridge, “Spirit: Missa solemnis, op. 123 (1823)” in Beethoven: A Life in Nine Pieces (Yale University Press, 2020), 187. See also Bathia
Churgin, “Beethoven and Mozart’s Requiem: A New Connection” The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 5 No. 4 (Autumn, 1987), 457-458.
139
Amy Carr-Richardson, “Handel’s Messiah as Model and Source for Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis”, Musicological Explorations Vol. 13
(December, 2012), 117-118.
138
Ninth Symphony
The general kinship with and influence of Enlightenment (and
especially Kantian) thought on Beethoven and his contemporaries
reminds us of their awareness of the philosophical basis for the
concept of freedom and duty. As Kant writes in his treatise Religion
within the limits of Reason alone (1793), “there are mysteries which
are hidden things in nature (arcana) and there can be mysteries
(secrecies, secrets) in politics which ought not to be known
publicly; but both can, after all, be known to us, in as much as they
rest on empirical causes. There can be no mystery with respect to
what all men are in duty bound to know (i.e. what is moral).”140 This
notion of unknowable mysteries of the “arcana” and of a moral law
within us on this earth is reflected in Beethoven’s perspective and
attitudes. Mellers states that “only with respect to that which God
alone can do and the performance of which exceeds our capacity, and
therefore our duty, can there be a genuine, that is a holy mystery
(mysterium) of religion; and it may well be expedient merely for us
to know and understand that there is such a mystery, not to
comprehend it.”141
Friedrich Schiller, in his Aesthetic Letters of 1796, already argued
that artists could embody insights and perspectives not capable of
140
Pasternack, Lawrence and Courtney Fugate, "Kant’s Philosophy of Religion", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2022 Edition),
Edward N. Zalta (ed.), <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2022/entries/kant-religion/>.
141
139
representation through reflection alone. Beethoven then, much like a
philosopher, could be regarded as having sought the presence of a
supernatural Creator, while reflecting upon moral laws amongst the
mortals. Raymond Knapp organizes the structuring of Schiller’s poem
stating that “in setting the first three stanzas of Schiller’s An die
Freude for the first choral section of the finale, Beethoven sets
only the first two quatrains of each stanza, leaving out the final
quatrain even though the ABB musical structure he employs could
presumably have accommodated the full text, with minor accentual
revision. Two of these omitted quatrains return, however–beginning
“Seid umschlungen” and “Ihr stürzt nieder,” respectively–to form a
fifth, two-part stanza with a subject matter different from all that
has come before: humanity’s longing and search for “ein lieber
Vater.” Thus, what had been a local strategy for Schiller, to move
within each stanza from projecting the union of “Was die Mode streng
geteilt” (explicitly, he refers to the “brotherhood” of mankind;
implicitly, to the modern German states) to a shared religious
feeling, becomes a more global strategy in Beethoven’s finale, which
adds the dimension of reuniting what Beethoven himself had
“artificially divided.”142 In his selection of lines from Schiller’s
poem “To Joy” (An die Freude) in the choral finale of the Ninth
Symphony, Beethoven included the text “Seek him beyond the canopy of
stars!” (“Such’ ihn über’m Sternenzelt!”) referring to the quest of
humanity for a Creator existing beyond the starry vault. In a
conversation book used by the deaf composer in 1820, Beethoven wrote
142
Raymond Knapp, “Reading Gender in Late Beethoven: An die Freude and An die ferne Geliebte,” Acta Musicologica Vol. 75 Fasc. 1 (2003), 47.
140
down a paraphrased version of a famous quotation from Kant: “The
starry heavens above us, and the moral law within us.” Kant!!!” in
which his enthusiastic attribution to the philosopher underscores his
commitment to this perspective.143 Through such evidence, we can see
how Beethoven’s convictions about a transcendent ultimate reality or
deity coexisted with other ideals, such as the values of liberty,
fraternity and equality, those idealistic values bound up with the
French Revolution which were often negated in the chaotic aftermath
of post-revolutionary France.144
As Solomon points out, in Schiller’s essay, “Naive and Sentimental
Poetry (1795-96), in the closing section entitled “The Idyll”,
Schiller attempts to recapture an idyllic or utopian condition: “no
longer can we return to Arcadia, forward to Elysium.”145 As we
approach the Ninth Symphony, and the key role of the trombones in the
choral finale, it is helpful to gain insight into the overall
narrative trajectory of the work. The Ninth Symphony as a whole can
be understood as the narrative of a journey towards Elysium, whereby
the sublime is a key element. Especially in the first movement with
its mysterious opening hovering over the interval of open fifths in
pianissimo, there is a mysterious vagueness demanding clarification.
The ambiguity is further heightened by the descending motivic fifth,
E to A, in the violins, a seminal idea that proves so important in
143
Ludwig van Beethovens Konversationshefte, vol. 1, ed. Karl-Heinz Köhler and Grita Herre (Leipzig: VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1972), 235.
144
Yet another work that should be mentioned here is Beethoven’s cantata “Der glorreiche Augenblick” (The Glorious Moment), which
prominently includes trombones at the setting of “Europa steht” (“Europe stands”); see in this regard John David Wilson’s essay “Beethoven’s
Popular Style: Der glorreiche Augenblick and the art of writing for the galleries,” in Beethoven und der Wiener Kongress (1814/15) (Schriften zur
Beethoven-Forschung 26), ed. Bernhard A. Appel, Joanna Cobb Biermann, William Kinderman, and Julia Ronge , (April, 2016), 219-283.
145
Maynard Solomon, “Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony: A Search for Order,” 19th-Century Music, Vol. 10, No. 1, Summer, 1986), 9. See also The
Works of Friedrich Schiller: Aesthetically and Philosophical Essays, ed. Nathan Haskell Dole (New York, 1902), II, 36.
141
the symphony. What are some landmarks of the overall narrative? The
build-up from the ambiguous opening might be thought to depict
elements of Creation, leading later to the trio of the second
movement--which Harry Goldschmidt considers a musical metaphor for
rustic innocence or Arcadia146--before we ultimately reach the
disorienting chaos of the “terror fanfare” or Schreckensfanfare at
the threshold to the finale, before concluding with the final journey
in the choral finale toward Elysium. This is the destination point
where the brotherhood of mankind overcomes its struggle and casts its
gaze beyond, toward the starry heavens.
The opening section of the first movement to set the setting of the
finale. In the opening movement, the dark, ominous mood is
immediately set with horns softly holding an open fifth, while the
violin II and cellos murmur sextuplets (music example 54).
146
Harry Goldschmidt, Beethoven: Werkeinführungen (Leipzig, 1975), 66.
142
Music example 54. Beethoven, Symphony No. 9, Opening
David Levy writes that “Beethoven heightens the mystique of his
opening by introducing, sotto voce, a rhythmic motive that begins to
bring order and shape to the amorphous murmur of sounds.”147 This
mysterious ambiguous gesture brings us back to the Violin I
descending from E to A, then from A to E, echoed by the violas and
basses. Kinderman describes this opening as “the journey out of the
sphere of the inaudible into that of the audible.”148 The bassoon
entrance in measure 15 breaks this sequence, and descends to a D
instead of an E. This harmonic digression is quickly dissolved but
leads to the first ensemble statement in mm. 17-21, to what seems to
cadence in D minor, but in measure 24, the low strings leap a sixth
interval from the subdominant chord to a surprise chord, Eb major.
The Eb major chord, elsewhere associated with the Divine, in the
147
David Benjamin Levy, Beethoven: The Ninth Symphony (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003), 50.
148
143
midst of unclarity, seems important, as the trumpets and timpani
respond with a fanfare like motive in mm. 27-30. Beethoven also
employs the contrasting dynamics from forte to piano, surely a
gesture of importance. To further the rich ambiguity of this opening
to the symphony, Beethoven places sforzandi on weak beats (mm.31-34),
to metrically displace the listener, and further destabilize the
atmosphere. Then follows a sweeping gesture of thirty-second notes in
the violins and violas, while the second violins and cello resume the
sextuplets from the opening. This brings us back to a setting like
the opening, again with descending intervals, but this time a step
lower in pitch, from D to A. Once more the motive develops, and the
bassoon breaks the chain and thrusts the orchestra into an unexpected
key, Bb major in measure 51. But again, this key is short-lived, and
sequential messages between the winds and strings lead the music into
A major (measure 63), forming a parallel to the “Neapolitan”
relationship between Eb and D in earlier passages of the movement.
The unfolding events of this first section of the great initial
movement are unpredictable yet orderly.
Beethoven’s planting of thematic allusions and gestures throughout
all four movements is apparent: he subtly anticipates the “Joy”
theme, cautiously anticipating the jubilant finale.149 Notice how in
mm. 74-79 the leading voice of this theme is the flute, the
instrument that was used in the Mass during the passages that intoned
scared and divine implications. Later episodes in D major, most
149
For detailed discussion of Beethoven’s anticipation in earlier movements of the “Joy” theme of the choral finale, see especially; Maynard
Solomon‘s essay, "Beethoven‘s Ninth Symphony: A Search for Order,“ in his Beethoven Essays, (Harvard University Press, 1990).
144
strikingly, the horn passage in the coda, with its luminous vocal
timbre, resonates in the character of the chorus finale. The
recapitulation of the movement, featuring a jolting first-inversion D
major chord, which long precedes the horn’s later anticipation of the
“Joy” theme, sustains the unpredictable yet orderly character of the
first movement. This impactful moment of the recapitulation with the
powerful orchestra fortissimo, is in the key center of D major, but
with F# in the bass providing the necessary impact while still
recalling the open, hollow sonority of the open intervals as featured
in the opening. Certain scholars like Levy describe this moment with
F#s in the low strings spanning over two octaves and with
“thundering” Ds in the kettle drums as “apocalyptic.”150 Beethoven
continues to intensify the tension, with fanfare chords, now in the
tonic major, replacing the expected tonic minor. But this too is cut
off prematurely, as Bb momentarily returns in the bass, leading the
orchestra back into “the darkness of minor, with unmistakable
expressive overtones of “Verzweiflung,” or despair.”151 The
recapitulation remains in minor, while showing much emphasis on the
Neapolitan degree, a half step above the tonic. Yet Beethoven uses
the horns and other winds to perform the D major dolce passages with
the unmistakable motivic figures of the opening lurking in the
background.
A dramatic quality of unpredictability amid order rings true
throughout the symphony. One example of this is in the fourth
150
Levy, Beethoven: The Ninth Symphony, 62.
151
145
movement, where the ascending A to E interval is prominent in the
recitative in the lower strings heard after the first
Schreckensfanfare. Fear is a primary aspect of Friedrich Schiller’s
ideas about the sublime. He writes in his essay Über das Erhabene
(About the Sublime) that
“the feeling of the sublime is a mixed compound feeling. It
arises as a combination of painful apprehension (Wehsein), which
reaches its highest intensity as fear, and happiness (Frohsein),
which can be intensified to ecstasy; and although not quite a
result of desire, it is something that for sensitive souls
reaches beyond the sphere of our desires
(Das Gefühl das Erhabenen ist ein gemischtes Gefühl. Es ist
eine Zusammensetzung von Wehsein, das sich in seinem höchsten
Grad al sein Schauer äußert, und von Frohsein, das bis zum
Entzücken steigen kann und, ob es gleich nicht eigentlich Lust
ist, von feinen Seelen aller Lust doch weit vorgezogen wird).”152
Beethoven paid much attention to Schiller’s writings, and of course
used his “An die Freude” in the Ninth Symphony, so there is no doubt
about Schiller’s ideas striking Beethoven directly.
The notion of the sublime involving “painful apprehension” is
reflected in other arts from this historical period. Joseph Wright of
152
Schiller, Friedrich, Über das Erhabene (About the Sublime), in Schiller, Vom Pathetischen und Erhabenen, Stuttgart: Reclam, 1970; first
published 1793). Quotation above from p. 87 of Reclam edition; translation by William Kinderman.
146
Derby’s painting, Vesuvius from Portici (Illustration 5), held in the
collection of the Huntington Library in San Marino, California,
visually illustrates the sublime by evoking something of the deep
vitality of our planet erupting from within.
Illustration 5. Vesuvius from Portici, Joseph Wright of Derby
Wright sketched the erupting volcano during a visit to Naples in
1774, after becoming intrigued by the destructive power and awesome
beauty of Mt. Vesuvius. The painting shown depicts the sublime, in
its aesthetic orientation arousing fear, with the thrill of danger
enhancing the experience of pleasure. The painting magnifies the
147
volcano’s intensity as compared to the defenseless buildings on its
side. The moon off to the side evokes light, but the central bright
light created by the massive explosion shines mightier than does the
pale moonlight, and in direct comparison, the blast of light in the
midst of smoke and clouds enhances this portrayal of the sublime. The
painter is of course powerless to generate sounds, but Beethoven’s
Schreckensfanfare at the threshold of his choral finale is a fitting
musical portrayal of the painful sensation that evokes the sublime.
That “terror fanfare” or Schreckensfanfare (music example 55)—to cite
the Wagnerian expression—consists of the combination of the tonic
triads of the keys most important in this symphony as a whole—D minor
and Bb major. This dissonant harmony erupts out of the peaceful
meditation of the Adagio, posing a problematic question that demands
an answer.
148
Music example 55. Beethoven, Symphony No. 9, “terror fanfare”
Beethoven recalls music from each of the preceding movements,
interspersed with recitative. Then the “Joy” theme is discovered, and
variations of the theme unfold in the orchestra, before the return of
the “terror fanfare” (harmonically enhanced) sets the scene for the
baritone’s entry. The solo baritone intones the recitative figure
with Beethoven’s text “O Freunde, nicht dies Töne! Sondern laßt uns
angenehmere anstimmen, und freudenvollere. Freude! Freude!” (“Oh
friends, not these tones! Rather let us sing more cheerful and more
joyful ones. Joy! Joy!”) (Music example 56).
149
Music example 56. Beethoven, Symphony No. 9, solo baritone recitative
The soloist proclaims the same notes in reverse of the opening, as if
to musically portray new tones of joy in contrast to the dark tones
of terror. It is noteworthy that Beethoven deliberated over his
choral finale, and even sketched an alternative instrumental finale
in case he would not have used Schiller’s optimistic text.153 In the
end, Beethoven retained Schiller’s text, bringing his final symphony
to a culmination and final destination: Elysium. This proclamation
triggers the famous “Ode to Joy” theme, with the choir singing the
text from Schiller’s poem “An die Freude” (“Ode to Joy”). The key is
now in D major, the transition from pure instrumental music to vocal
music is achieved, and the quest for “Joy, divine sparks of the Gods;
for Elysium, with its promise of brotherhood, reconciliation, and
internal life”154 ensues. The brotherhood of mankind absorbs
humanistic and Masonic influences as well, such as are also found in
the chorus of the prisoners in Fidelio. In the ensuing Allegro assai,
when the baritone soloist intones “Freude,” the male chorus echoes
the same text in conjoined spirits. As the solo baritone sings this
153
Kinderman, Beethoven: A Political Artist in Revolutionary Times, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020), 197.
154
Solomon, “Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony: A Search for Order,” 15.
150
text, the oboe--the instrument that assumed an important symbolic
role in Fidelio--dominates the accompaniment sonority, surely
conveying a fragrance of hope reminiscent of the opera. The vocal
soloist and the chorus echo one another in call-and-response. It is
worth pointing out that in the chorus, Beethoven omits the soprano in
the first phrase of the vocal variation (“Whoever has been so
fortunate”). The soprano joins by taking up the tenor’s line for the
text “He who has obtained a dear wife/Add his jubilation,” giving to
a musical text an added poetic effect. The Ninth Symphony might be
described in Schopenhauer’s terms as “express[ing] the deepest wisdom
in a language which. . . reason does not understand.”155 Such language
conveys something of the idealism of the Enlightenment and the ideals
of the French Revolution,156 depicting the sublime in its
awe-inspiring vastness.
A depiction of the sublime surfaces at the critical juncture point of
the choral finale. The vocal presentation of the tune motivates the D
major to Bb Major transition in Beethoven’s finale to the text “und
der Cherub steht vor Gott!” This transition to B flat major finale
brings about a great transition--an extension of the sixth variation
of the “Joy” theme with emphasis on the last words of this text
excerpt: “vor Gott.” (“before God”). At this pivotal moment (music
example 57), it is important to realize what emphasis Beethoven puts
on the text by highlighting “vor Gott” as an ultimate message during
this impressive and dramatic musical moment. At the last climactic
155
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, vol. I (Garden City, N.Y., 1961), 271.
156
151
repetition of “vor Gott,” it is as if time stops, and the community
gazes upward, as all are focused on the deity “above the canopy of
stars." The musical lines leading up to this moment move upwards
while the immutable rhythm portrays mortals chanting in awe, overcome
by an atmosphere of sublime expectancy. Kinderman writes that “for
Beethoven himself, the single most decisive compositional model for
the choral finale was his own Missa solemnis. Its influence is felt
particularly in those parts of the choral finale that have a
religious text, such as the pivotal phrase “und der Cherub steht vor
Gott” (“and the cherub stands before God”), the setting of which
forms the first great climax of the movement.”157 It is in this key
center that the F-major chord with A on top which intones the text
“coelis” (“heaven”) in the Mass is followed by a descent down to
earth with music of the Incarnatus. In the Ninth Symphony, the
dominant of D is tonicized by the G# moving to A, as the bass falls
to F, forming a harmonically incomplete, hollow sonority highlighting
the name of “Gott” (“God”). Burnham finds that “we are suddenly aware
of just what it means to be standing before the throne of God: this
sudden vastness is sublime.”158
This momentous passage is followed by “Turkish” march-like music in
the key of Bb.
157
Kinderman, Beethoven, p. 304.
158
Scott Burnham, “God and the Voice of Beethoven,” in The New Beethoven: Evolution, Analysis, Interpretation, ed. Jeremy Yudkin (Rochester:
University of Rochester Press, 2020), 246.
152
Music example 57. Beethoven, Finale of Symphony No. 9, transition at
“vor Gott”
According to Kinderman, “Beethoven’s treatment here of the modulation
from D to Bb and the ensuing military processional music recall the
Agnus Dei of the Mass (Missa Solemnis)...the setting of “Gott” as a
long-protracted sonority, with A at the top, corresponds with the
climax on the Bb in the Credo.159 Levy states that the music of
Fidelio as well was influenced by “Turkish” music, which was later
absorbed into the Ninth Symphony.160 Levy describes the “Turkish”
March which follows as befitting “Schiller’s chorus, with its
comparison of heroes running their victorious course like suns flying
through Heaven’s firmament, [which] may be more religiously-based
than commonly believed.”161 Lawrence Kramer argues that Beethoven’s
treatment of the “Turkish” March “extracts, arranges, and handles
verses from Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” in ways that resonate with a
159
Kinderman, Beethoven, p. 304.
160
Levy, Beethoven: The Ninth Symphony,45.
161
153
narrative paradigm that flourished in the symphony’s cultural
milieu...this “universal history,” as Hegel called it, focused most
often on the relationship between Greek antiquity and
German-Christian modernity.”162 One plausible explanation of the
religious influence can be found by comparing the text of the chorus
to Psalm 19: 5-7 as it would have been written in Luther’s Bible.
Psalm 19: 5-7:
“Und dieselbe geht heraus wie ein Bräutigam aus seiner Kammer und
freut sich wie ein Held zu laufen den Weg. Sie geht auf an einem Ende
des Himmels und läuft um bis wieder an sein Ende, und bleibt nichts
vor ihrer Hitze verborgen. Das Gesetz des Herrn ist vollkommen und
erquickt die Seele; das Zeugnis des Herrn ist gewiß und macht die
Unverständigen weise.”
(“In them hath He set a tent for the sun; which is as a bridgegroom
coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run his
course. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his
circuit unto the ends of it; and there is nothing hid from the heat
thereof”).
Schiller’s Text:
162
Lawrence Kramer, “The Harem Threshold: Turkish Music and Greek Love in Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”,” 19th-Century Music Vol. 22, No. 1
(Summer 1998), 79.
154
Froh, wie seine Sonnen fliegen. Durch des Himmels prächt’gen Plan
Laufet, Brüder, eure Bahn, Freudig, wie ein Held zum Siegen.
(“Happily, flying like his suns through Heaven’s splendid firmament,
run, Brothers, your course. Joyfully, like a hero towards victory”).
The parallels between these texts are unmistakable. Psalm 19 falls
into three parts, of which part one (vv. 1-6) recalls the story of
creation in Genesis 1, declaring that the heavens and firmament
portrays the glory of God. The sun represents not a heavenly being,
or a deity to be worshiped, but has been placed there by its Creator,
and illustrates the poet’s imagination of a youthful, vibrant
bridegroom on the first day of married life. Full of energy and hope,
it runs from one edge to the other full of jubilance. Similarly,
Schiller’s text embodies a sense of jubilant spirits of heroes,
triumphantly heading towards victory. Levy comments that “in
Beethoven’s day, “Turkish” music could simply have been an exoticism,
but it also could have been interpreted as a code for heroism.”163 In
other words, as Nicholas Cook states, “Turkish music is not an alien
element or a cheap piece of exoticism; it is absorbed within the
organic structure of the music.”164 We should note Beethoven’s
consistent use of key centers in this symbolism, with a transition
from the moment where all gaze toward God in the key of D major, but
then look earthward in the key of Bb, the key chosen for the chorus
of prisoners in Fidelio.
163
Levy, Beethoven: The Ninth Symphony, 108. See also, Lawrence Kramer, “Music and Love in “Ode to Joy”,” 78-90.
164
Nicholas Cook, Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 (Great Britain: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 39.
155
It is relevant in this connection that Beethoven recalled at least
part of Schiller’s “An die Freude” in a paraphrased form in Fidelio,
as shown below:
“An die Freude” 2nd strophe:
Wer ein holdes Weib errungen, Mische seinen Jubel ein!
(He who has obtained a dear wife, add his jubilation!)
Fidelio (Act II, Finale):
Wer ein holdes Weib errungen, stimm’ in unsern Jubel ein!
(He who has obtained a dear wife, join in our rejoicing!)
Kinderman observes that “according to the Schillerian concept
embraced by Beethoven. . . freedom is manifested in a resistance to
despair or suffering, modalities associated in this case with the
first movement or with the Schreckensfanfare.”165 I would further note
that this concept is also depicted in Fidelio, in which the evil
tyrant, Don Pizarro, negates the pursuit of liberty, equality, and
fraternity. In the Ninth Symphony, it is the baritone solo which
liberates the orchestra from the shadow of terror; in Fidelio, it is
the female heroine who breaks the chains of evil tyranny. The opera
concludes with a text rejoicing over the courageous wife, whereas the
165
156
Ninth features a powerful chorus of united spirits, almost resembling
a congregation praising God. The setting of “Gott” with its elongated
duration, with A atop an F sonority, parallels that climax on the
dominant of Bb at “descendit de coelis” in the Credo. The
orchestration and registers of the voices also match closely,
highlighting “God” in the symphony and “heaven” in the Mass. At the
last line of the Adagio ma non troppo, ma divoto, Beethoven uses a
similar treatment of referential sonorities drawn from the Mass to
emphasize the text through music.
Music example 58. Beethoven, finale of Symphony No. 9, mm. 595-610
157
In connection with Beethoven’s use of the trombone, it should be
mentioned that certain parts of Schiller’s poem quickly attracted his
attention for use of this instrument. Early in the process of
composition and while contemplating the use of “Turkish” music,
Beethoven wrote a memorandum that “On Welt Sternenzelt forte trombone
blasts.”166 This reference refers to the slow section of the choral
finale, with its consecutive lines “Ahnest du den Schöpfer, Welt?”
(“Do you sense the Creator, world?”) and “Such’ ihn über’m
Sternenzelt!” (“Seek him above the canopy of stars!”). There is
indeed a brief forte trombone “blast” anticipating “Welt?” in the
chorus, and a sustained fortissimo support from the trombones occurs
at the ensuing monolithic setting of “Above the starts must He
dwell.”
Already at the beginning of this slow section of the choral finale,
in the Andante maestoso, the bass trombone enters, doubling the tenor
and bass voices (music example 58). Berlioz describes the trombones
in this section as “religious, solemn, and immense.”167 Here, once
more, the bass trombone enters as an upbeat before the voices;
Cloutier describes it as “like an intonation of an organ to alert a
cantor to introduce the new text.”168 The text, which proclaims the
Freemasonry ideals of a Brotherhood of Man followed by mention of a
heavenly Father, fits well to the symbolic role of the trombone.
Beethoven’s music to “Seid umschlungen Millionen” in this Andante
166
See Thayer’s Life of Beethoven, 891.
167
Hector Berlioz, Beethoven: A Critical Appreciation of Beethoven‘s Nine Symphonies, and His Only Opera, Fidelio, with Its Four Overtures,
translation by Ralph De Sola (Boston: Crescendo Publishing Company, 1975), 47.
168
Cloutier, “Ludwig van Beethoven,” 161.
158
maestoso in G major features the bass trombone intoning the same
notes and rhythmic gesture of the male voices. A noteworthy point is
how the bass trombone briefly precedes the low voices, with its tonal
quality thereby heard clearly by the audience. Beethoven writes
staccato to prescribe chant-like articulations, and he even adds
sforzando markings to highlight the accompanying instrumental tones.
This archaic-sounding setting in conjunction with the Schiller text
emphasizes the sacred aura of the Posaune. The words sung are as
follows:
“Seid umschlungen, Millionen! Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt!
Brüder—überm Sternenzelt Muss ein lieber Vater wohnen.”
“Be embraced, you millions! Here’s a kiss for all the world!
Brothers! Above the canopy of the stars there must dwell a loving
Father!”
As Kinderman points out, the “canopy of the stars” reminds us of
Kant’s view of the polarity between impersonal nature and the
introspective individual, “the starry heavens above us and the moral
law within us.”169 This assimilation of Kantian thought in combination
with the mention of a “loving Father” provides the motivation for
this depiction of the sublime. Furthermore, the presence of the bass
trombone in conjunction with the low voices pronouncing such a text
adds to the sacred quality of the artistic expression. Levy states
169
Kinderman, Beethoven, 305-306.
159
that “the use of trombone here is another one of those semiotic
codes, as this instrument traditionally was associated with sacred
music.170 Almost as a confession, the theme of the “Brotherhood of Man
and the Fatherhood of God” reminds the listener of the Masonic and
religious aura, the association with the sublime. The Viennese
practice of doubling the trombone voices with its corresponding
choral parts is in full effect throughout the finale of this
symphony.171 Beethoven’s invocation of a Kantian depiction of the
deity, which conveys the sense of a supernatural musical
transcendence, is mediated through an impressive naturalistic image
of the starry canopy looming above the earth.
Trombonists should consider a smaller bass trombone to appropriately
match the diction and clarity of the male voice. The second trigger
is not necessary to perform all the notes indicated in the music, and
often it seems more suitable for a single trigger bass trombone in
terms of blend with the human voice. Special attention should be paid
to the text being sung by the male voices, especially to punctuations
such as commas where a logical breath should be taken. The trombone
and vocal sound need to support one another. One should be careful
about breaking up words and do best to match the phrasing of the low
voices. Although this passage is a standard excerpt, all leads should
be made by the voices, with the bass trombone as an essential
supporting role.
170
171
See David Guion, “What Handel Taught the Viennese about Trombone,” Historic Brass Society Journal XV (2003), 291-321.
160
A climax of this passage occurs as Beethoven references Schiller’s
text: “Ahnest du den Schöpfer, Welt? Such’ ihn über’m Sternenzelt!”
(“Do you sense the Creator, world? Seek him beyond the starry dome!”)
thereby setting forth a vision extending beyond the limitations of
human perception, and striving toward the sublime (music example 59).
Music example 59. Beethoven, Symphony No. 9, “Über Sternen muss er
wohnen”
This upward gaze toward the infinite or “Blick nach oben” is
reflected near the end of the finale, where Beethoven seems to
reflect upon Kant’s depiction of the phenomena of the deity. In the
Critique of Practical Reason (1788), Immanuel Kant describes two
things that evoke the sublime, filling our senses with admiration and
awe:
161
“Der bestirnte Himmel über mir, und das moralische Gesetz in mir.”172
173
“The starry heavens above me, and the moral law within me.”
As Kinderman reminds us, “This dictum from Kant, embraced by
Beethoven, gives expression, in terms not of speculative or received
doctrine but of concrete experience, to the relationship between
eternal, infinite nature on the one hand and man’s subjective
inwardness on the other. This polarity resonates throughout the Mass,
and especially in its later movements.”174 As stated above in our
discussion of the Missa solemnis, Beethoven wrote this dictum into
his conversation notebook around February 1820 in the following form:
“das Moralische Gesez in unß, u. der gestirnte Himmel über uns”
Kant!!! Littrow Direktor der Sternwarte175
“the moral law in us, and the starry heavens above us.” Kant!!!
Littrow Director of the Planetarium
A recent essay by Franz Michael Maier convincingly amplifies the
context of Beethoven’s notation, with its emphasis on Kant.176 As
Maier shows, Joseph Littrow had been appointed director of the
planetarium in Vienna in September 1819, and he contributed a series
172
Immanuel Kant, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft. Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten. Werkausgabe vol 7, ed. Wilhelm Weischedel
(Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1978), 300.
173
174
William Kinderman, “Beethoven’s Symbol for the Deity in the Missa solemnis and the Ninth Symphony” 19th-Century Music Vol. 9, No. 2
(Autumn 1985), 118. See also his book, Beethoven, 306.
175
Ludwig van Beethovens Konversationshefte, vol. 1, ed. Karl-Heinz Köhler and Grita Herre (Leipzig: VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1972), p.
235.
176
Franz Michael Maier, “Beethoven liest Littrow,” in Beethoven liest, ed. Bernhard R. Appel and Julia Ronge (Bonn: Beethoven-Haus, 2016),
251-288.
162
of essays on Cosmological Observations to a journal which Beethoven
read and to which he also contributed. Between 1820 to 1823, the
years in which Beethoven’s Mass and final symphony were written,
Littrow wrote no fewer than 19 essays for this journal which
Beethoven also received. Beethoven copied this dictum not directly
from Kant’s writings but from one of Littrow’s essays in this series
of Kosmologische Betrachugen (Cosmological Observations) in early
1820. In Littrow’s inscription of the text, he reverses the order of
the awe-striking features, placing first the “moral law” and then the
“starry heavens.” For Littrow, the formulation is shifted to the
plural, “the moral law within us” and “the starry heavens above us,”
providing an appropriate tone of fraternity in conjunction to
Schiller’s ode An die Freude (To Joy). Scott Burnham further points
out that the emphasis of this passage occurs on the text “Welt” and
then “Zelt”,177 surely a purposeful technique to highlight nature and
to convey a communal scene under the starry heavens. As we observe
the voices, and especially the sopranos, we can see how the melodic
line gradually ascends, as if in an effort to gaze toward the
heavens, while still remaining on earth, while the chorus sings
together, chanting the same rhythms. The upward leap from G to E at
“über’m Sternenzelt!” reminds us perhaps distantly of the “leap of
faith” heard at the very opening of the Credo of the Mass. Burnham
states that “this great cry of faith from the height of Beethoven’s
most extended, most exalted harmonic monolith thus far seems both an
expression of faith and a plea for faith: “He must live there!” One
177
Scott Burnham, “God and the Voice of Beethoven,” in The New Beethoven: Evolution, Analysis, Interpretation, 252-254.
163
could hear this outburst as an attempt to overwhelm doubt by sheer
sonic force.”178
Then a brief silence ensues, which is broken by a mysterious, almost
ghostly diminished-seventh chord, now soon blending with the notes of
the chorus. The bass then breaks the monolithic chords by moving to
A, creating a dominant-seventh sonority of D including a minor ninth,
while quietly pulsating, like the stars shining in the starry
heavens. The chorus returns in pianissimo, first with the highest two
voices, followed by the low voices featuring the high G yet again,
but now without a sense of blessed assurance. Maynard Solomon
describes this sonority as the sound of “deus absconditus,” the
absent God,179 until D major returns with the syncopated altos on high
D proclaiming “Seid umschlungen, Millionen! Diesen Kuss der ganzen
Welt!” followed by the sopranos echoing this call, with the tenor and
bass voices joining soon after. The trombones soon join as well, in
the glorious D major celebration of the “Joy” theme, leading at last
to the frenzied and dramatic close of the choral finale—the end of a
quest that seems to embrace so much, the Alpha and the Omega.180
By no means did Beethoven hold orthodox Catholic beliefs. However, if
Beethoven possessed understanding of Kant’s thought as reflected in
his Religion within the limits of Reason alone (1793), he would have
had insight into “mysteries (secrecies) beyond the knowledge of
society,”181 and might well have posited and affirmed the existence of
178
Burnham, “God and the Voice of Beethoven,” in The New Beethoven: Evolution, Analysis, Interpretation, 253.
179
Maynard Solomon, “The Ninth Symphony: A Search for Order,” in Beethoven Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 30.
180
See also Revelation 21:6 and Revelation 22:13 where God is described as ”Alpha” and the ”Omega.”
181
Kant Immanuel, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, translated by Theodore Meyer Greene and Hoyt H Hudson, edited by John R.
Silber, (New York: Harper & Row, 1960).
164
an ultimate, supernatural, divine Being. Around 1819, when Beethoven
began his work on the Mass, he copied three ancient Egyptian
inscriptions, which he kept framed under glass of his desk.182 These
inscriptions were drawn from Friedrich Schiller’s essay “Die Sendung
Moses” (“The Mission of Moses”) which Schiller found in turn from the
1789 study of the Freemason scholar and Kantian philosopher Carl
Leonhard Reinhard. In this manuscript, Beethoven copied a famous
dictum associated with the veiled Egyptian goddess Isis, a dictum
known to be derived from the temple of Sais which the composer
carefully copied in German:
I am all That is, That was, and That shall be. No mortal human has
lifted my veil.
Ich bin alles, Was ist, Was war, und Was seyn wird. Kein sterblicher
Mensch hat meinen Schleyer aufgehoben.
In his Critique of Judgement (1790), Kant, referring to this same
dictum, commented that “perhaps nothing more sublime was ever said
and no more sublime thought ever expressed than on the Temple of Isis
(Mother Nature).”183 The ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus,
similarly stresses the same three states of temporality to describe
the cosmos to have been always, is always, and shall be always and
everlasting.184 In this connection, one can reflect on the manifold
states of the deity in the Bible, as when God appears before Moses as
182
See Beethovens Glaubensbekenntnis: Drei Denksprüche aus Friedrich Schillers Aufsatz Die Sendung Moses,” ed. Friederike Grigat (Bonn:
Beethoven-Haus, 2008).
183
See the “Analytic of the Sublime” in Kant, Critique of Judgment, trans. J. H. Bernard (New York: Hefner, 1951), 160.
184
William Kinderman, “Beethoven’s “Upward Gaze” (“Blick nach oben”) in the Missa solemnis: Compositional Genesis and Musical Symbolism,
Beethoven-Haus (Bonn: Beethoven-Haus, 2024), 12. See also Josef Chytry, Cosmotheism: Cytherean Sitings Between Heraclitus and Kittler (New
York: Peter lang, 2020), 366.
165
a burning bush in Exodus 3:14 -15, and on the three states as when
God describes himself to Moses as “And God said unto Moses, I am that
I am: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I
am hath sent me unto you. And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus
shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, the Lord God of your
fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,
hath sent me unto you: this is my name forever, and this is my
memorial unto all generations.”
Following this train of thought, the Missa solemnis provides to the
listener especially rich insight into Beethoven’s expression and
interpretation of the sublime. The power of the music, often
overwhelming, reflects the intense efforts of the composer to portray
a sublime mystery. Mellers observes that “the Credo of the Mass in D
has an overwhelming note of authenticity; the words doubtless
expressed something of which Beethoven was passionately convinced;
but his conviction was probably better expressed in the mystical
sentences he was fond of copying down from Eastern literature. Such
phrases as “I am that which is. I am all that was, that is, and that
shall be,” part of a creed that Beethoven copied out in his own
handwriting and kept permanently framed on his desk, probably
expressed better, through their very vagueness, Beethoven’s
intuitions."185 This “mystical sentence,” as we have seen, actually
derived from ancient Egypt, and indeed seems connected to Beethoven’s
determined quest to convey ultimate reality through artistic means.
185
Mellers, Beethoven and the Voice of God, 141-143.
166
In the choral finale of the Ninth Symphony, Beethoven’s quest for the
deity focuses on the mention of a Heavenly Father. Sullivan states
that “it is rather that we feel that the spirit which has climbed up
the heights of those three movements should now, like Moses on Sinai,
be granted a vision of God Himself. To turn back from the serene,
unearthly heights of that great Adagio to the warm human world of
humanitarian ideals and optimistic rejoicings, is to disappoint our
expectation of, and craving for, some ultimate sublimity.”186
According to the biblical texts, Mount Sinai symbolizes where God’s
presence was felt. Sullivan’s reference to Moses on Sinai provides an
analogy in that the listener, drawn into the Ninth Symphony, may be
transported toward higher insight, and even perhaps brought toward
the presence of the everlasting and divine.
The passages we have discussed from the Credo and Benedictus, and the
choral finale, all allude emphatically to the heavens as a symbol of
perfection and a goal for spiritual aspiration.187 In the Mass, the
portrayal of the sublime and omnipotent power in the heavens in
comparison to the limited mortal earthly sphere sets the scene for
the depiction of a human journey towards Elysium. In this context,
the trombones, and especially the bass trombone, contribute solemn
tones that enhance the sonorous quality, heightening the symbolic
depiction of the deity. Beethoven himself once wrote on a musical
sketchleaf that ”the height of the stars [can be conveyed] more by
the way of the instruments.”188 In the choral finale of the Ninth
186
J.W.N. Sullivan, Beethoven: His Spiritual Development (New York: Vintage Books, 1960), 141-143.
187
Kinderman, Beethoven, 305-306.
188
The inscription is transcribed in Gustav Nottebohm, Zweite Beethoveniana: nachgelassene Aufsätze (Leipzig: Peters, 1887), 186.
167
Symphony, where many of the same techniques of the Mass are shared,
Beethoven builds on the rich associations of Schiller’s poem to
provide a climatic depiction of human experience in the presence of
God (Coram Deo).
168
Afterword
Around the 20th of March, 1820, just a few weeks after Beethoven’s
enthusiastic embrace of the Kantian dictum about “The moral law
within us, and the starry heavens above us, he made a series of
entries in a conversation-book. He may then have suffered from a
dental problem, because he notated the name and address of a dentist
in the center of Vienna, on the Graben close to St. Stephen’s
Cathedral. Directly beneath this entry for the dentist, Beethoven
wrote a pattern of rising entries of the “Credo” motive marked
“cre[scendo],” leading to an assertion of that “Credo” figure marked
“tutti”; these are surely early sketches related to the beginning of
the Credo. Then, below the musical excerpt, the composer writes the
following:
Ganzes orchester erst bey patrem omni potentem / d.h. Pauke u
Tromp[eten / trombonenn
Full orchestra [to be used] first at patrem omni potentem /
that means timpani and trumpets / trombones189
Hence the notion of unlimited power of the deity is associated by
Beethoven with the augmentation of his orchestral resources to
include trombones as well as organ, instruments with rich
associations extending to the sacred, sublime, and supernatural.
189
The conversation-book entry is found in Ludwig van Beethovens Konversationshefte, vol. 1, ed. Karl-Heinz Köhler and Grita Herre (Leipzig: VEB
Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1972), 176. Also see Norbert Gertsch Critical Report to his edition of the Missa solemnis (Beethoven Werke:
Abteilung VIII, Band 3, Missa solemnis (Munich: Henle, 2000), 298. An extra “n” is written by Beethoven in his notation of the word
“trombonenn”.
169
Noteworthy as well is the rhythmic context: the syncopated onset of
the powerful prolonged sonority, which is imposed upon a lively,
driving motivic texture leading up to “omnipotem.” Such a musical
treatment of omnipotence fits not only to this passage in the first
part of the Credo, but also to the setting of “Deus pater omnipotens”
(“God the father Almighty”) in the first part of the Gloria, as we
have seen. As Warren Kirkendale observes, we also witness Beethoven’s
characteristic musical treatment related to faith such as the shaping
of his four-note Credo motive (music example 60a.), featuring a
falling third and fifth with dotted rhythm, which parallels his later
use in 1825 of this rhythmic figure in a riddle canon with the text
“Gott ist eine feste Burg,” WoO 188 (music example 60b.).190
Music example 60a. Beethoven, Credo motive
190
See Warren Kirkendale, “New Roads to Old Ideas in Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis”, The Musical Quartely, Vol. 56, No. 4 [Special Issue
Celebrating the Bicentennial of the Birth of Beethoven (Oct., 1970)], 682-683.
170
Music example 60b. Beethoven, “Gott ist eine feste Burg,” WoO 188191
The notion of a high looming tower as in a “mighty fortress” (“Feste
Burg”) carries with it a sense of the supernatural, appropriately
evoking an atmosphere eminently fitting to the sound of the Posaunen,
that instrument biblically associated with God’s presence. Multiple
perspectives apply here. From a Christian perspective, the Bible
describes God himself as a strong tower, “The name of the Lord is a
strong tower; the righteous runneth into it, and is safe,” (Proverbs
18:10). From a secular perspective, Katarzyna Murawska states that
“the tower’s height, and the privileged position of those at the top
of it, were still associated with social prestige and power.”192 And
from a poetic/philosophical perspective, Edmund Burke discerns the
sublime as embodied in towers through his examination of Milton’s
Paradise Lost.193
My own attempt to come to grips with Beethoven’s Turmmusik included a
performance of the three Equali with esteemed colleagues as part of
my Doctoral of Musical Arts program at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of
Music. A link to this performance in June 2022 is provided here:
https://on.soundcloud.com/NMSAM. My fellow performers in this
recording are Hiram Rodriguez, Nathan Culcasi, and Charles Brunson.
191
Ludwig van Beethoven, "Gott ist eine feste Burg", zweistimmiger Kanon WoO 188, Prelinger , Beethoven-Haus Bonn, Sammlung H. C. Bodmer,
Nd 11 / 1907 Prelinger, HCB Nd 11 / 1907 Prel.
https://www.beethoven.de/de/media/view/5206106078969856/Ludwig+van+Beethoven%2C+%26quot%3BGott+ist+eine+feste+Burg%26quot
%3B%2C+zweistimmiger+Kanon+WoO+188%2C+Prelinger?fromWork=5085608691105792 See also Kirkendale,
192
Katarzyna Murawska, “An Image of Mysterious Wisdom Won by Toil: The Tower as Symbol of Thoughtful Isolation in English Art and Literature
from Milton to Yeats”, Artibus et Historiae Vol. 3, No. 5 (1982), 142.
193
Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas on the Sublime and the Beautiful, (London: New York, 1958), 62, 72.
171
Musical guidance for this quartet was provided by James Miller
(Associate Principal Trombone, Los Angeles Philharmonic and Lecturer
of Trombone, UCLA). As with many live performance recordings, this
performance may be less perfect but it encapsulates the spirit of the
program at UCLA, complementing my dissertation by bringing these
works to sound. As I have recommended, everyone is playing the tenor
trombone, maintaining thereby the spirit and tone of an Equal.
In reflecting on the symbolism of the tower, and its prominent
literary background, let us observe how tower symbolism is prominent
in Milton’s Paradise Lost of 1667. Satanic pride and delusion are set
against the heavenly tower of utopian ideals of freedom and the
common good. Furthermore, the biblical passages related to the “Tower
of Babel” represent humanity’s misguided attempt to level oneself
with God (Genesis 11:1-9), or in the Kantian sense, represent a vain
attempt to overreach the starry heavens, or lifting that veil that
should remain a mystery.194 Anthony Low views the tower as “a unifying
device…it helps connect the activities and aspirations of Heaven,
earth, and Hell as each creates its own characteristic
architecture.”195 In Beethoven’s Fidelio, these poles collide, as the
warning signal of the Satanic Pizarro is usurped, stolen from the
tyrant through Leonore’s courageous intervention and the concomitant
timing of the approach of the Minister Don Fernando. In an instant, a
moment of dramatic reversal, the function of the trumpet fanfares
194
Even the most recent developments in astrophysics—such as black holes and dark matter—continue to make us ever aware of mysteries that
elude complete comprehension.
195
Anthony Low, “The Image of the Tower in Paradise Lost,” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 10 No. 1 (Winter, 1970), 181
172
from the tower are transformed from being merely Pizarro’s strategic
signal into the opposite, the proclamation of a new, enhanced
reality, in which his cruel sway is abolished.196 In yet another
example, Beethoven’s Drei Equali assume the symbolic function of
Turmmusik, representing signals from the tower portraying the
sublime.
This dissertation has surveyed Beethoven’s usage of the trombones in
depicting the sublime, and in some cases representing the voice of
God. The phrase “in the presence of God”, or in Latin, Coram Deo,
appears in Psalm 55:13197 and is now the identifying motto for the
reformed churches. Reformed theologian R.C. Sproul states that “this
phrase literally refers to something that takes place in the presence
of, or before the face of, God…under the gaze of God.”198 Hence the
role of the Posaunen in the works of Beethoven with its context to
Turmmusik and the Bible seems to appropriately convey the aural
presence of the divine. The Missa solemnis and the Ninth Symphony
were the last big choral-orchestral works for Beethoven, which
especially highlights such use of the instrument. At the age of
fifty-six, not long after finishing the alternate Finale for his
String Quartet Op. 130, Beethoven’s last breath on earth would
follow. The trombones leading the funeral procession for the
composer, intoning the solemn tones of the chorus, to the biblical
196
See in this regard especially Kinderman, Beethoven: A Political Artist in Revolutionary Times, 134.
197
See Psalm 56:13 in modern translations
198
R.C. Sproul, ”What does ”Coram Deo” mean?” Ligonier, November 13, 2017,
https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/what-does-coram-deo-mean. See also, R.C. Sproul’s In the Presence of God: Devotional Readings on the
Attributes of God (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2003).
173
text Psalm 51, embodied Beethoven’s musical deed—even now after his
death--of employing Posaunen to depict the sublime and Coram Deo.
An autopsy was performed on 27 March 1827, with Beethoven’s funeral
two days later on 29 March, held at the church in Alsergrund—the
ninth district of Vienna—before the body was buried in the Währing
cemetery. The funeral became a momentous event, with an estimated
10,000 to 30,000 onlookers lining the streets from Beethoven’s final
residence—the Schwarzspanierhaus—to the cemetery. Illustration 6
shows a watercolor by Franz Stöber which illustrates Beethoven’s
coffin being carried from the church of the Holy
Trinity—Dreifaltigkeitskirche--where the funeral procession began.
Notable figures who participated as torchbearers included Johann
Nepomuk Hummel, Carl Czerny, and Franz Schubert. The musical details
of the funeral service were programmed by conductor and composer
Ignaz von Seyfried.
174
Illustration 6. Beethoven’s Funeral Procession, 29 March 1827.
Watercolor by Franz Stöber. Beethoven-Haus Bonn, Sammlung H.C.
Bodmer.
This program featured Beethoven’s Drei Equali WoO 30—originally
composed for trombone ensemble—now arranged for men’s chorus singing
to the Miserere Latin text. According to Seyfried, on the morning of
26 March, when it was clear that Beethoven was dying, the publisher
Haslinger took the manuscript of the Equali to Seyfried, with the
suggestion that the music of these pieces be arranged to the words of
a Miserere in a choral setting. Seyfried quickly made the
arrangement. According to Theodor Frimmel, Seyfried is also known to
have also arranged the funeral march from Beethoven’s Piano Sonata
Op. 26 (3rd movement) for four trombones and men’s chorus,199 and he
also conducted the “Chorale of the Brethren of Charity,” from the
199
Theodor Fimmel, Beethoven-Handbuch, vol. 2 (Leipzig, 1926), 330.
175
opera Wilhelm Tell by Bernhard Anselm Weber. The four trombone
players in the funeral procession are named as the two brothers Böck,
as well as Weidl, and Tuschky.200 Seyfried also featured his own
compositions with a setting of “Libera me” including quotations from
Mozart’s Requiem. The Requiem was performed in full at the
commemorative service for Beethoven, just a couple of days later.
Today, Beethoven’s earthly remains are buried in the Central Cemetery
to the south of Vienna, resting in the “Musicians Corner,” while his
eternal spirit endures in the resounding legacy of his music. As we
have seen, his important use of trombones in Fidelio and the Fifth
and Sixth Symphonies was followed by his remarkable but still too
little known Equali in 1812, pieces bound up with an age-old
tradition of central European funeral music. More than a decade
later, after the completion of his final symphony and around the time
of the first publication of his Missa solemnis, in 1827, Beethoven’s
contribution to the ancient tradition of Turmmusik with trombones
accompanied his own burial at Vienna, while his determined upward
gaze--his Blick nach oben--continues to inspire our collective
artistic aspirations, bound up as they are with an urgent,
irrepressible spiritual quest.
200
Michael Ladenburger, “Beethovens Begräbnis am 29. März 1827” (“Beethoven’s Funeral on 29 March 1827”) in Drei Begräbnisse und ein
Todesfall: Beethovens Ende und die Erinnerungskultur seiner Zeit (Three Funerals and One Death: Beethoven’s End of Life and the Culture of
Remembrance of His Time) (Bonn: Beethoven-Haus, 2002), 118-120.
176
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Coram Deo: The Trombone and the Sublime

A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the

requirements for the degree Doctor of Musical Arts

Gwang Hyun Kim

Gwang Hyun Kim

Coram Deo: The Trombone and the Sublime

in the Works by Beethoven

Gwang Hyun Kim

Doctor of Musical Arts

University of California Los Angeles, 2023

Professor William Andrew Kinderman, Chair

This dissertation explores the profound role of the trombone (in

German: Posaune) as a musical embodiment of the presence of God, or

Coram Deo, and discusses its contribution to the aesthetics of the

sublime in compositions by Ludwig van Beethoven.

work for trombones by themselves. The expressive qualities of these

pieces are associated with spiritual and transcendent qualities in

the rich historical context of Tower Music (Turmmusik). Beethoven’s

only opera, Fidelio, invites study of Beethoven’s use of the trombone

in passages associated with death or ombre style, as found in the

grave-digging scene in the last act. Beethoven’s use of the trombone

in association to death follows his predecessors such as Mozart, and

Beethoven’s employment of trombones in the Fifth Symphony to

emphasize qualities of brotherhood, freedom, and hope, themes

connected to the ideals of the French Revolution, and to those

Masonic attributes bound up with the sublime. The Sixth Symphony

explores use of the trombones to portray an aspect of fear inherent

in the sublime--“Gottesfürcht” (“fear of God”)--an element referenced

in writings by Edmund Burke. The final chapter addresses the

Schillerian notion of the sublime embraced by Beethoven in his Ninth

convey spiritual themes evoking a sense of the sublime. In this pair

of choral-orchestral compositions, the distinctive tonal qualities

representation of the voice of God or Vox Verbum.

Drawing on an interdisciplinary approach combining musicology,

theology, and aesthetics, this project assesses recurring motives,

orchestration choices, and other musical techniques that emphasize

the trombone’s association with the divine. By examining the special

role of the trombone as an instrument with a distinctive range of

expressive and spiritual associations, we can enhance our

understanding of the relationship between the trombone, spirituality,

and the sublime.

Cesar Daniel Favila

William Andrew Kinderman, Committee Chair

University of California, Los Angeles

List of Illustrations and Music Examples ……………………………………………………………………vi

I. Beethoven, Trombones, and the Drei Equali, WoO 30…………………………………………1

II. Fidelio, and the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies……………………………………………………30

III. The Missa solemnis and the Ninth Symphony……………………………………………………106

Illustration 1a. Old Cathedral in Linz

Illustration 1b. The Towers of Old Cathedral in Linz

Illustration 2. Instruments used in Stadtpfeifer including trombones

Illustration 3a. Beethoven’s Funeral Procession, 29 March 1827

Illustration 3b. Detailed view of Figure 3a showing four trombonists

followed by the choir

Illustration 4a. Ceiling of the Oratory of the Benedictine Monastery

Illustration 5. Vesuvius from Portici, Joseph Wright of Derby

Illustration 6. Beethoven’s Funeral Procession, 29 March 1827