Ludwig van Beethoven

Terry Williams explores the best recordings of a symphony that shows the perky sense of humour lurking within its curmudgeonly composer

- Terry Williams

The work

Whether it was Robert Schumann or musicologist Donald Tovey who described Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony as ‘a slender Greek maiden between two Nordic giants’, the observation was wide of the mark – it is certainly no shrinking violet. But then, neither is it a grand heroic statement like the ‘Eroica’ Third nor a fist shaking stand against Fate like the Fifth. It is a symphony in the four-movement classical tradition, absorbing the style of late Haydn and then transforming it. Even more than its famous predecessor, the Fourth represents Beethoven’s coming of age as a symphonist.

In 1806, Beethoven left the distractions of Vienna for Hungary at the invitation of his friend Count Brunswick. At the Count’s palace in Martonvasar, Beethoven began work on two new symphonies. For reasons never fully explained, he shelved the Fifth to concentrate on the Fourth, but also found time to fall in love with one (or even two!) of the Count’s sisters. Later that summer, Beethoven visited another aristocratic friend, Prince Lichnowsky, and became acquainted with a neighbour, Count Franz von Oppersdorff, a benefactor of the arts and amateur musician who, impressed by the Second Symphony, paid the composer 500 guldens for the privilege of becoming dedicatee of a C minor symphony which would take the musical world by storm. However, Beethoven reneged on the deal in favour of a more lucrative offer from the publishers Industrie-Comptoir. In an obsequious letter to the Count in 1808, Beethoven offered him the Fourth instead; this was met with fury, as the work had already been premiered in a private performance for Prince Lichnowsky. Negotiations between Beethoven and Oppersdorff came to an acrimonious end.