哈农库特大师谈贝多芬4&5交响曲

当一个像尼古劳斯·哈尔库特这样杰出的音乐家，在超过二十年的间隔之后，再次面对解读贝多芬的交响曲的挑战时，一定会有一种特殊的感觉——况且这次是首次与他自己的Concentus Musicus（维也纳古乐团）合作这些作品。以下是2015年6月他接受采访的摘录。

在2013年，我们的古乐团和我在维也纳剧院上演了《费德里奥》，这个剧院可以被称作是贝多芬音乐的天然主场。对于我们来说，这些表演让我们眼界和听觉大开，也说服了古乐团，现在是时候着手演奏贝多芬的交响曲了。我们开始演奏第一和第二交响曲，然后是第三交响曲，现在是第四和第五。换句话说，我们正在缓慢地摸索前进，希望随后能够在格拉茨演奏贝多芬交响曲的全集。

对我来说，从一开始就很清楚，所有的交响曲都必须原汁原味地演奏。而没有经过某种程度修改的贝多芬作品，无论是对于赫伯特·冯·卡拉扬、埃里希·克莱伯、卡尔·舒里希特还是其他任何指挥，那简直是不可能的事情。在我作为一名普通音乐家的十七年里，我从未演奏过这样的作品。如今仍然有人认为他们必须对贝多芬进行修正或以某种方式增补，这一现象始于门德尔松和瓦格纳，由马勒延续下来。

但贝多芬非常清楚每种乐器的能力，以及它们几乎能够做到什么和不能做到什么。例如，在第四交响曲的开头，第二圆号演奏了一个低音的D音。这个音符可以更容易地由巴松管演奏，但贝多芬对于轻松或简单并不感兴趣，而是关注于与所涉及的乐器紧密相连的特定音响效果。贝多芬必须使用捂手圆号奏出（译者注：没有阀键或活塞，必须用手来调整音高）。但这种乐器在其和声音域中存在一些间隙，必须通过各种技巧来填补这些间隙，例如利用手来停止，而这反过来会影响音色。如果贝多芬以这种方式创作，那并不是出于无知，而是完全经过深思熟虑，因为几乎没有哪位作曲家像他一样熟悉不同乐器内在可能性。阀键圆号和阀键小号在19世纪20年代已经存在，尤其在维也纳。事实上，甚至有人声称第九交响曲中的第四圆号使用了阀键圆号。因此，人们承认贝多芬在他的作品中融入了他那个时代乐器的特点。这些技术问题几乎影响到所有的管乐器。弦乐器只受到它们产生不同声音的影响，这是由于它们不同的制作方法和使用肠弦所致。我仍然记得这种声音，因为肠弦在维也纳歌剧院一直使用到20世纪30年代。

简而言之，重演这些交响曲的原因之一是乐器。我还回归了原始资料，重新审视了一切。与其他指挥不同，我不会去刻意地演奏某些曲目。对我来说，每一场演出都是一次首演。当然，这适用于所有真正伟大的作曲家，事实上也适用于所有伟大的艺术家，包括诗人和画家。这一切永无止境。你永远不能说：“现在我明白了这首作品，我终于理解它了。”因为这是不可能的。归根结底，所有真正伟大的艺术作品将永远保持一种谜团。它们将永远无法被解释清楚。这是因为真正伟大的艺术家凭借他们的想象力创作，而这是普通人所无法理解的。像莫扎特和贝多芬这样的作曲家在自己的领域中独树一帜，也就是说，他们根本不受任何限制。这意味着只要我是一名音乐家，我就不能重复一场演出。这是不可能的。其他人也许能够这样做，但我不能。我认为我最大的愿望就是能够更接近这个谜团。这也涉及到是否能够实现你的目标的问题。我坚信唯一能够实现自己目标的人是那些没有明确目标的人。如果你设定一个目标并成功实现了它，那这个目标到底算是什么样的呢？你之后又应该如何度过余生呢？因此，目标最多只是一种可望而不可及的追求，但这本身也是有价值的。如果你在二十年后再次尝试追求同一个目标，那么可能你会离它更近一点。这就是为什么永远不可能完美呈现音乐，你永远不会达到终极的完美。对我来说，仅仅使用"完美"这个词就意味着有些不对劲，因为没有什么能够达到完美。

另一个重要的问题涉及到速度。贝多芬的许多乐谱上包含了节拍器的标记，这些标记代代相传，但贝多芬本人并没有在他的乐谱中亲自标注这些。贝多芬是聋子，但他非常关心他的作品能以正确的速度演奏。发明家约翰·内波穆克·梅尔策尔为贝多芬制造了一台节拍器，同时还为他制作了助听器，其中包括一种为钢琴设计的装置，当他尽可能大声地敲击琴键时，可以让他听到一些声音。少量流传下来的原始节拍器非常准确。当然，还是有人声称这些节拍器不准确，并且寻找各种借口，坚持认为贝多芬的节拍标记是错误的。贝多芬与他的学生进行过一些节拍的研讨。他会在钢琴上演奏已完成的作品，而学生会相应地调整节拍器。但仍然存在疑问：贝多芬的学生是根据节拍器可调节的滑块的上边缘还是下边缘来读取节拍？这个选择会产生很大的影响。如果你看滑块的顶边，它所表示的速度要比你看底边慢得多。在一些段落中，明显使用了滑块错误的那一边。

还有另一个重要的观点：贝多芬不可能以这种方式演奏他的很多音乐，因为钢琴重复音符的能力有限，而旧式钢琴的运行方式非常流畅，就像润滑良好的发动机一样，可以轻松重复音符，因此，如果贝多芬在需要重复的主题中超越了这个限制，那么我们只能得出结论，他可能只是指的每隔一个拍子。此外，每种速度都取决于音乐厅或场地。在一个小房间里用钢琴演奏，特定的速度可能是绝对合理和正确的，但在更大的空间里，比如和弦乐四重奏一起演奏，“相同”的速度可能会慢一到两拍，因为在钢琴上，任何给定的速度似乎都比在弦乐四重奏中慢。音乐厅越大，演奏团体越庞大，用节拍器测量时速度就越慢，尽管音乐给人的印象是以完全相同的速度演奏。但贝多芬也说过一些很少被引用的话，即节拍器的速度仅适用于前七小节。那么，剩下的曲子是如何进行的呢？这个问题间接地由第二交响曲的慢乐章回答了。我们有一个非常详细的记录，关于贝多芬演奏这个乐章的情况，记录了他在哪里加快，哪里减慢，以及幅度有多大。当我们回到乐章开头的原调时，也回到了原来的速度。当我们在我们的第一场贝多芬音乐会上演奏第二交响曲时，我试验了这一点。我们简直不敢相信。你感到这是完全合乎逻辑和自然的。在音乐会之前，我朗读了贝多芬的相关信件，因为否则人们可能会说我只是任性！但任性的是贝多芬！我们只是试图追随他的脚步：一直处于误解他的风险之中。

第四交响曲仍然被严重低估。第一和第二交响曲都不同寻常——它们是贝多芬年轻时的作品。从《英雄交响曲》开始，你会找到真正的、狂野而古怪的贝多芬。我现在说的是当代的评论和反应，其中一些在措辞上非常苛刻，比如被认为与第三或第五或第七不同的唯一交响曲是第四交响曲。然而在当时，人们觉得它在结构上并没有刻意违反传统，也没有如此决心迎合听众的期望——毕竟，这就是贝多芬被批评的原因。感谢上帝，我不得不说。但这种态度也源于人们从未真正理解这首作品。我认为很有趣的是，不久后去世的舒曼认为第四交响曲是贝多芬交响曲中最重要的一部分。可以推测，这只是一部贝多芬带入了他所有的音乐知识和理解的交响曲。从他的作曲方法来看，他可以说是在这里开辟了熟悉的道路，人们有一种感觉，他的灵感来自诗歌，包含非常富有诗意的韵律。我认为第四交响曲为我们提供了意外地多的联想和形象。在这里，听众将根据他们对艺术的理解而有不同的感受。交响曲的开头类似于海顿的《创世纪》，描述了混沌的情景，而贝多芬在这里规定了一条我们需要一直跟随的路线，直到最后一乐章，许多评论家将其比作了斯美塔纳的《沃尔塔瓦河》——可以说是前者的前身，就像一条穿越美丽乡村、突然穿越荒野峡谷和瀑布的大河。有趣的是，这种比较不仅仅是一个听众提出的观点，而是多个人提出的观点。这是对音乐非常敏感的音乐爱好者的看法，他们认为音乐是一种必需品。对于他们来说，第四交响曲显然是贝多芬开辟了与第三交响曲不同的领域。一个世纪后，奇怪、非传统的交响曲被视为伟大的作品，我们早已习惯了这个观念。但听到你期望听到的东西是一种完全不同的体验。比如说：“今天，我要去听第五交响曲。”我有时告诉观众，他们根本不了解这个作品。我也不得不告诉自己，尽管我非常了解这部作品，在我内心深处存留了六十年，但这仍然是一种新的体验。在我格拉茨的第一次贝多芬音乐会之后，有位观众说：“那确实是贝多芬，但不是我们的贝多芬。”这位女士说得对，她听得没错。

对于第五交响曲，它被认为是典型的交响曲，这是有一些怪诞的。我之所以这么说，是因为可以说它是所有交响曲中唯一一个非典型的交响曲。它是一部没有任何主题开头的交响曲——毕竟，"铛铛铛铛"并不算是一个主题。现在，想象一下生活在贝多芬时代，这个动机突然击中你的心脏。而且，它还是c小调的。你会感到困惑，不知道接下来会发生什么。这究竟是什么意思？"命运敲响了门" — 这真是太美了！据说后来是贝多芬的秘书安东·辛德勒说的，但他说了许多他自己不理解的话。你不应该相信那些与天才交往之人口中的任何一个字。所以，我们不再讨论命运敲门的话题。如果命运敲门，那么房子就会倒塌。但对我来说，这个作品的重点是从c小调到C大调的转变，以及它以c小调开始，让听众在前三个乐章的悲剧中徘徊，并在C大调突然爆发之前创造了一种发展。这本身就是神秘而不可思议的。在我们的音乐会上，我们特别强调了贝多芬在这个C大调部分引入了许多新乐器。他为交响曲谱写了通常的管弦乐队编制，但在第三乐章过渡到第四乐章时，他增加了三把长号、一把短笛和一把低音大管。关于短笛的具体种类，他没有详细说明，只是期望你了解。除了低音大管，这些乐器都与户外音乐有关。对我来说，即使在很年轻的时候，我也很清楚，在这首交响曲中，不是屋外有人敲门，而是从内部打开了一扇门，让屋内的人可以走出一个大阳台，将交响曲带到室外。简而言之，这是户外音乐。有趣的是，在巴黎的首演中，观众中有拿破仑时代的士兵据说大声喊道：“皇帝万岁”。他们立刻将这个作品视为一种政治意义，一种解放的行动，一场伟大的胜利。从这个角度来说，我不得不说，对我来说这是贝多芬唯一的政治交响曲。它涉及到镇压 — 当然，这只是那个时代的一部分：人们渴望自由。法国大革命让整个欧洲和美洲陷入动荡之中。

对我来说，第二乐章就像一种祈祷，以多种不同的变奏呈现出来。这个乐章让你可以判断演奏它的音乐家是否理解这种音乐语言，以及他们是否能够通过演奏来表达其中的意义。在这里，需要以一种充满逗号和停顿、高潮和低谷的语言来表达。我认为所有的重复部分对于作品的整体结构都是至关重要的，这也解释了为什么我们决定在第三乐章中保留这个重要的重复部分。观众不再期望这个重复，这个“早些时候的部分”。然后，砰的一下，我又回到了那个时刻。这就像被扔回到一个早期的时刻，就像电影中的闪回一样。

今天，我已经达到了这个阶段，在这个时期的作品中，我特别强调乐谱中的每一个总休止符。我经常因为整个管弦乐队中这些休止符的长度而受到批评，但问题是，是否存在一种好的音乐，其中速度从一开始就毫不妥协地保持到最后。甚至在舞曲音乐中也不是这种情况。总会有一些东西让人联想到演讲或对话。在舞蹈中，也总会有一个回溯的动作 - 每个曾经捶过桩子的人都知道，为了这样做，你必须把木槌高高举起，而这需要一点时间。你不能只是砰地一声把它捶进去 — "砰！" — 你需要一点时间来准备。这种回撤的手势是打击力量的表现方式，换句话说，如果我必须在音乐中包含一个特别有力的打击，我总会事先略微回撤一下。古老的理论家提到过这一点，但不幸的是，它不再被教授，现在大多数音乐家都在音乐中喋喋不休，好像我们的语言中没有停顿，没有逗号。一直到贝多芬时代甚至更晚的时候，任何音乐理论中的重要章节都是“停顿”，如果我不能完全掌握这个，那么我也无法理解它，正如贝多芬本人说过，没有音乐修辞的掌握，他不能创作音乐。在这种情况下，修辞意味着什么？它的意思是：什么是上升音？重音在哪里？如果每个音都受到相同的重视，就什么都没有。对于一个真正的爵士音乐家来说，这一点是非常清楚的。 现在我经常不得不告诉歌手们，他们应该学习弗兰克·辛纳屈，因为目前他们唱的所有东西都严格地按着节拍——“按时”是最糟糕的意义上的：也就是说，就像节拍器一样。

这也意味着最后的和弦不能按照节拍器的速度演奏，包括长号、圆号和小号在内的整个铜管部分。一次又一次地是三个小节，一个音符的强音。贝多芬不可能希望这些铜管部分成为乐曲动态的一部分。他总是额外添加一个强音符号，即使他已经包含了一个强音符号，结果是一种咆哮，一种咆哮的音符。这应该震撼听众，应该抓住听众的喉咙。或者，就像E. T. A. 霍夫曼在他1810年对第五交响曲的著名评论中所说的那样："它们就像一团认为已经熄灭的火，但一次又一次地迸发出明亮的火焰舌头。"这基本上是未来的开启，我们感觉将会是光辉的未来。但这个未来究竟会如何发展，我们还不知道。

原文：

There is bound to be a feeling that something special is afoot when, after an interval of more than twenty years, a musician of the eminence of Nikolaus Harnoncourt once again confronts the challenge of fathoming Beethoven's symphonies — for the first time with his own Concentus Musicus. The following introduction consists of excerpts from an interview the conductor gave in June 2015.

In 2013 the Concentus and I performed Fidelio in the Theater an der Wien, a theatre that could be described as Beethoven's natural habitat. For us, these per-formances opened our eyes and ears and persuaded the Concentus that it was time to tackle Beethoven's symphonies. We began by performing the First and Second Symphonies before moving on to the Third and now to the Fourth and Fifth. In other words, we are slowly groping our way forward and hope that we shall then be able to perform the whole cycle in Graz.

For me, it was clear from the outset that all the symphonies must be played without any retouchings. In my seventeen years as a rank-and-file musician I never once played a work by Beethoven that hadn't been retouched in some way — not under Herbert von Karajan or Erich Kleiber or Carl Schuricht or any of the others. It was simply never done. It started with Mendelssohn and Wagner and continued Mahler, and it is still the case today that people believe that they have to correct or in some way add to Beethoven.

But Beethoven knew exactly what each instrument was capable of, what it was almost capable of and what it was incapable of doing. At the start of the Fourth Symphony, for example, the second horn plays a low D. It could be played far more easily on the bassoon, but Beethoven wasn't interested in ease or simplicity but with a specific sonority tied to the instrument in question.

Beethoven must be played on a hand horn. But this instrument has several gaps in its harmonic range, gaps that have to be filled by various tricks such as hand-stopping, and this in turn affects the sound. If Beethoven wrote in this way, it wasn't out of ignorance but was entirely deliberate, since there were few composers as familiar as he was with the possibilities inherent in the different instruments. Valve horns and valve trumpets already existed in the 1820s, not least in Vienna. Indeed, there are even people who claim that a valve horn was used for the fourth horn in the Ninth Symphony. It is recognized, therefore, that Beethoven built into his works the characteristics of the instruments of his time. These technical questions affect practically all of the wind instruments. String instruments are affected only to the extent that they produce a different sound, which was the result of their different method of construction and their use of gut strings. I can still remember this sound, as gut strings were used at the Vienna Opera as late as the 1930s.

In short, one of the reasons for revisiting these symphonies is the instruments. I have also gone back to the sources and re-examined everything. Unlike other conductors, I don't cultivate a particular repertory. For me, every performance is a premiere.

Of course, this applies to all truly great composers and, indeed, to all great artists, including poets and painters. There is no end to it all. You can never say: "Right, now I understand this piece, now I've finally made sense of it."

That's simply not possible. Ultimately, all truly great works of art will always remain a puzzle. They'll always remain inexplicable. This is because the truly great artist draws on his imagination, which is something that is not accessible to ordinary mortals. Composers like Mozart and Beethoven are playing in a league of their own, which is to say in no league at all. And this means that, as long as I am a musician, I can not repeat a performance. That's simply not possible. Others may be able to do so, but I can't. I think that the most I can hope for is to come a little closer to the mystery.

It also has to do with the question of whether it is possible to achieve your goals. I'm convinced that the only person who can achieve his goals is the one who doesn't have any. If you have a goal that you achieve, what kind of a goal is it? And what are you supposed to do for the rest of your life? And so, at best, a goal is only ever just attainable. And that in itself is a lot. And if you tackle the same goal twenty years later, then it's possible that you'll get a millimetre closer to it. That's why it will never be possible to present music definitively, you'll never achieve ultimate perfection. For me, the mere use of the word "perfection" means something is wrong, because nothing can ever be perfect.

Another important question is the one relating to tempo. Many of Beethoven's scores contain metronome markings that have been handed down from one generation to the next, but Beethoven himself did not enter them in his scores. Beethoven was deaf. Yet it was important to him that his works should be played at the right tempo. The inventor Johann Nepomuk Maelzel, who also made him his hearing aids - including a kind of cone for the piano, so that when he thumped on the keys as loudly as he could, he was able to hear a little of the sound — built a metronome for him. The few original metronomes by Maelzel that have survived are extremely accurate. It's true that people later claimed that they were inaccurate and looked for a thousand excuses, insisting that Beethoven's metronome markings are wrong. Beethoven held metronome sessions with his pupils. He would play through completed works at the piano and they adjusted the metronome accordingly. But questions remain: did Beethoven's pupils take their readings from above or below the metronome's adjustable slide? This makes a huge difference. If you look at the top edge of the slide, it indicates a much slower tempo than if you look at the bottom edge. In a number of passages, it is clear that the wrong edge of the slide was used.

And then there is another important point: Beethoven cannot have played a lot of his music in this way, since the piano's ability to repeat a note is limited. The old pianos were very smooth-running in the manner of a well-oiled motor and could repeat notes with considerable ease, so if Beethoven went beyond this limitation in a theme where such repetition is necessary, then we're forced to conclude that he can have meant only every second beat. Also, every tempo is dependent on the hall or venue. In a small room with a piano, a particular tempo may be absolutely logical and correct, but in a larger space, with a string quartet, the "same" tempo is between one and two notches slower because any given tempo seems slower on a piano than it does with a string quartet. The larger the hall and the bigger the ensemble, the slower the tempo when measured by the metronome, even though the music gives the impression that it is being played at exactly the same speed. But Beethoven also said something that is only very rarely quoted, namely, that a metronome tempo can be valid for only the first seven bars. The big question, then, is how the rest of the piece unfolds. This question is answered, indirectly, by the slow movement of the Second Symphony. We have a very detailed account of Beethoven's performance of this movement, which reveals where he became quicker and where he got slower and by how much. And when we return to the original key from the opening of the movement, we also return to the original tempo. I tried this out when we performed the Second Symphony at our first Beethoven concert. We couldn't believe it. You sense that it's completely logical and entirely natural. Before the concert I read out the relevant letter from Beethoven, because otherwise people would have said that I was simply being wilful! But it was Beethoven who was being wilful! And we are just trying to follow in his footsteps — always at the risk of misunderstanding him.

The Fourth Symphony continues to be very underrated. The First and the Second are simply different — they are the work of the young Beethoven. Starting with the "Eroica" you find the genuine, wild and eccentric Beethoven. I'm speaking now of contemporary reviews and reactions, some of which are really very harsh in the tone that they adopted. The only symphony that is said to be unlike the Third or Fifth or Seventh is the Fourth. Even at the time, it was felt that it was not so wilfully unconventional in terms of its structure nor so determined to offend its listeners' expectations — this, after all, is what Beethoven was criticized for. Thank God, I have to say. But this attitude also stems from the fact that people have never really understood this piece. It's interesting, I think, that Schumann, who lived not long afterwards, felt that the Fourth was the most significant of Beethoven's symphonies. Presumably it is simply a symphony to which Beethoven brought all of his musical knowledge and understanding. In terms of his compositional method, he could be said to have been charting his familiar course here, and one has the feeling that his inspiration was poetry, very poetic verse. I believe that the Fourth offers us an unexpectedly high number of associations and images. Here listeners will strike it lucky depending on their own understanding of art. The start of the symphony resembles the beginning of Haydn's The Creation with its depiction of Chaos, and here Beethoven prescribes a course that we need to follow as far as the final movement, which a number of commentators have likened to Smetana's Vltava — its precursor, as it were, as a great river flowing through lovely countryside, then suddenly passing through wild gorges and waterfalls. Interestingly, this comparison was made not just by one listener but by several. This was the view of highly sensitive music-lovers for whom music was a necessity. For them, it was perfectly clear that with his Fourth Symphony Beethoven was tilling a completely different field from the one found in the Third. A century later, the strange, unorthodox symphonies were regarded as the great ones, and we have long since grown used to this idea. But it's a completely different experience — to hear what you are expecting to hear. For example: "Today, I am going to hear the Fifth." I sometimes tell the audience that they simply don't know the work. And I have to tell myself, too, that it is new, even though I know it very well, having been carrying it around inside me for almost sixty years. After my first Beethoven cycle in Graz, a woman in the audience said: "That was indeed Beethoven, but it wasn't our Beethoven." The woman was right, she'd heard correctly.

In the case of the Fifth Symphony there is something grotesque about the way it has come to be regarded as the quintessential symphony. I say this because it is arguably the one non-symphony of them all. It is a symphony that starts off with no theme at all — the tatata-taa isn't a theme, after all. Now, just imagine living in Beethoven's day, and this motif hits you in the solar plexus. And, what's more, in C minor. You wonder what's going on, what's going to happen next. What can it be?

"Fate is knocking at the door" — that's so sweet! It's believed to have been Beethoven's secretary, Anton Schindler, who said this afterwards, but he said so many things that he didn't understand. You shouldn't believe every word that issues from the lips of those people who associate with men of genius. So, let's have no more talk of fate knocking on the door. If fate knocks on the door, then the house collapses. But for me, the nub of the work is the shift from C minor to C major and the fact that it starts in C minor, leaving listeners to wander around in the tragedy of the first three movements and creating a kind of development before C major suddenly bursts out of it. This in itself is mysterious and incredible. At our concerts we placed great visual emphasis on the fact that Beethoven introduces a number of new instruments in this C major section. He scores the symphony for the usual orchestral forces, but then, in the final movement, which emerges from the third, he adds three trombones, a piccolo and a contrabassoon. Exactly what kind of a piccolo he didn't say: he just expected you to know. With the exception of the contrabassoon, these are instruments associated with outdoor music. It was clear to me even as a very young man that in this symphony it is not a question of someone beating on the door from the outside but of a door being opened from the inside and allowing the occupants tokko out on to a large balcony, taking the symphony outside with them. In short, it's outdoor music. It's interesting that, at the first performance in Paris, Napoleonic soldiers who were in the audience are said to have shouted: "Vive l'Empereur!" They immediately saw this work in a political light, as an act of liberation, a great victory. To that extent I have to say that for me this is Beethoven's only political symphony. It deals with repression — it was a part of the age, of course: people felt a desire for freedom. The French Revolution had left the whole of Europe and America in turmoil.

For me, the second movement is a prayer, heard in multiple variations. And this movement allows you to see if the musicians playing it understand the language and whether they are saying anything with it. Here need is expressed in a language that includes commas and caesuras and that has highs and lows.

I am of the view that all of the repeats are essential for the work's overall structure, which explains why we decided to include the substantial repeat in the third movement. Audiences no longer expect this repeat, this "How it was earlier". And, pow! I'm back there again. It is a case of being thrown back to an earlier point, like a flashback in the cinema.

Today I have reached the stage where in works of this period I give special emphasis to every General Pause in the score. I have often been criticized for what is felt to be the excessive length of these rests in the whole orchestra, but the question is whether there is any good music in which tempi are ruthlessly maintained from first to last. This isn't even the case in dance music. There is always something that recalls a speech or a conversation. In dances, too, there is always a reaching back - everyone who has ever driven a post into the ground knows that, in order to do this, you have to raise the mallet high in the air and that this takes a little longer. You can't just bash it in — "wallop!" — but need a moment to prepare. This gesture of drawing back is an indication of the strength of the blow — in other words, if I have to include a particularly powerful blow in the music, I shall always draw back a little beforehand. The old theorists mention this, but unfortunately it is no longer taught, and most musicians now rattle through the music as if there were no caesuras in our language, no commas. Right up until Beethoven's day and even later, an important chapter in any theory of music was the "doctrine of caesuras". And if I'm not in complete command of this doctrine — and Beethoven himself said that, without a command of musical rhetoric, he could not compose music — then I cannot understand it either. What does rhetoric mean in this context? It means: what is an upbeat? Where is the stress? If every note is stressed the same, nothing emerges from it. For a true jazz musician, this is perfectly clear. Now I often have to tell singers that they should study Sinatra because at present they are singing everything strictly in time — "in time" in the worst sense: that is, like a metronome.

This also means that the final chords cannot be taken metronomically, the forte blocks with the trombones, horns and trumpets — effectively the entire brass. Time and again it is three bars, one note fortissimo. Beethoven cannot have meant these blocks to be part of the dynamics of the piece. He always added an extra fortissimo, even if he had already included a fortissimo marking, so the result is a roar, a note that roars. This should shake the listener, it should seize the listener by the throat. Or, as E. T. A. Hoffmann put it in his famous review of the Fifth in 1810: "They act like a fire that is thought to have been put out but repeatedly bursts forth again in bright tongues offlame." This is basically the opening-up of a future that we feel will be a glorious one. But how this future will actually turn out we don't yet know.