English translation of the French transcript, made with AI and not yet proofread — click a paragraph to jump to it. Show the French original
The Fifth Symphony and the two themes of sonata form 0:00 They had asked Beethoven, what does this mean? And Beethoven replied, this is how fate knocks at the door. Beethoven has the genius to create a musical universe in four movements out of nothing, ta ta ta ta ta, it's not even a song, it's not even a beautiful theme, it's not even a beautiful melody, it's nothing, it's ta ta ta ta ta. But Beethoven has the genius to organize an entire musical universe out of such a derisory little cell.
0:32 So we're just after the Mozartian turning point, that's it, we're in modernity with Beethoven. First theme, everyone knows it, tatatata. And then there's a development, a few minutes, and then, all of a sudden, there's a little pause within the same movement. A second theme begins. But what a contrast! A second theme, that's what wasn't there in the fugue. That's typical of sonata form. There are two themes, and they're in conflict. The first knocks at the door, almost aggressive, decisive. The second is more inward, more tender, more sentimental. And you find that in thousands and thousands of pieces from Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven onward. But it's especially Beethoven who will carry this genre to perfection. There are many genres, but there aren't 36 forms — form is the way of organizing musical discourse.
Four movements that count as three: intermezzo and scherzo 1:28 I'm going to draw from the chamber music genre. Within this genre, I'll stay with sonata form. What we need to remember now is how sonata form tells a story, and a more dramatic one. There are two fast movements framing a slow movement. That's the canonical form, sonata form. Except here, we're going to have four movements. So you tell me, look, you're confusing us, we need to know, is it three or four movements for sonata form? I answer you very precisely, it's three. But very early on, people felt the need to add a small intermediate section between the slow movement and the finale, to catch some fresh air and leave the audience on a relaxed note, let's say, to put it quickly. It became customary to insert a small intermediate movement that doesn't really count. So it's four that stand for three. An intermezzo, as they say in Italian. You see, intermezzo, that's exactly what it means. An interlude. Each time, there's an 'inter' in it. Between the movements, we manage to fit it in.
2:25 An interlude, an intermezzo — intermezzo is almost a pleonasm. Inter means between and mezzo in Italian means middle. You see, in both cases it's between-between, in the middle of the middle. So the intermezzo needs to have a light, relaxed quality, where the rhythmic element takes precedence over the melodic and harmonic elements. And starting with Beethoven, this minuet becomes a scherzo. Scherzo comes from the Italian verb scherzare, which means to mock, joke, to jest, to make fun of.
2:55 He keeps the rhythmic element. There's an extraordinary scherzo I recommend to definitively understand what a scherzo is, found in a symphony by Tchaikovsky — a symphony, so for a very large orchestra, four movements, and the third one is the scherzo, you understand why now, it's the second one again. But what's original about this one is that, for the first time in the history of music, it's entirely in pizzicato right up to the end. The strings go plum plum plum plum plum instead of using the bow, you see, plum plum plum plum plum, there's an electric quality running through all our movements, because there's plum plum plum plum plum, from cellos, basses, but also violins, with a dexterity that runs through the whole orchestra.
A tipsy Beethoven: we only hear what we expect 5:10 I come back to Beethoven — the Scherzo of what? Of one of his trios, he wrote quite a few piano, violin, cello trios. Here I'm applying this to Beethoven's 'Archduke' Trio. There used to be an ad for the Kenwood brand — some of you may remember hi-fi systems from back then. You'd see a photo of Beethoven looking like a real grump, hair all disheveled, with a menacing look, pointing an accusing finger at the viewer of the photo, at you and me, saying 'Kenwood, you're going to hear from me.'
5:40 I'm deliberately choosing the scherzo from this trio to show you the opposite. A playful Beethoven, a light Beethoven, almost tipsy, who begins with this theme. When you listen to it for the first time, you don't see all that. There's so much information, this music is so rich, that if you're not expecting it, you don't hear it. That's one of the great laws of music. We only hear what we expect. So each musical culture — the culture of Amerindians in Amazonia, the culture of West Africans, or the musical culture of a Chinese person with their pentatonic scale close to Manchuria — carves out certain sounds and not others from all the sounds the human ear can hear.
6:26 Since we've been used for centuries in Western music to hearing the semitone as the shortest interval, we don't hear quarter-tones and even eighth-tones, which a Chinese, Japanese, or Vietnamese person delights in. So a piece of music that may seem monotonous to us — we only hear what... In fact, they hear several sounds that we no longer hear.
7:14 Like our languages — you know well that the English don't have the U sound in their language. When they count numbers, they say 'eight,' they can't say '8' [the French sound], there's no U in English. So that means they don't hear it when we say it. We only hear what we expect, which is why I often criticize a certain common musical consumption on TV shows or Saturday night clubs, whatever — I mean, that's a bit reductive, you can hear excellent things in clubs too, after all that can happen. Well, statistically, all of that has been somewhat flattened out. The main flaw is that the musical information is so reduced that the ear ends up no longer expecting certain things, and therefore no longer hears them when they're played.
Analysis of the scherzo of the Archduke Trio: from the trilogue to the chromaticisms 7:53 That's why I allow myself to go into detail. So it's first the cello that exposes it solo. Then immediately the violin does... It responds with a different phrasing. And then afterward, it's the reverse, it's the violin that exposes it and the cello that responds.
8:27 And finally the piano brings the two previous ones into agreement. The sheer amount of construction, of thought-out ideas and information packed into a few seconds — and yet, as I was telling you, this is popular music. It's a scherzo, meaning something that's joked about, it's the intermediate movement, it's the intermezzo.
8:57 We're not in great music, in learned music, we're in the interlude, we're joking among ourselves. So what makes it nonetheless popular music and at the same time learned music? You understand why I no longer set them in opposition. It's what I just said, this kind of little detail that only a great composer can produce. He manages to present the theme first on solo cello, then on violin, then completely reversed. Then bring in the piano to bring them into agreement, and only then begin the dialogue — we should really say the trilogue — between our three companions.
9:29 So it develops, it dances up to a central passage. All of a sudden, there's an abrupt chord, it stops. And there begins exactly the opposite of everything we've just heard. We had just heard light music, light in the sense of champagne bubbles, a light Beethoven, a Beethoven who liked to say 'and I am the Bacchus who presses for mankind a wine of magnificence,' a Dionysiac Beethoven. And then, all of a sudden, the tipsy passage stops and a sequence begins that sounds like Bach to the Nth power, that is, a contrapuntal, fugued passage, extremely learned, austere, severe, with what are called chromaticisms.
10:09 Chromaticisms. Do you know what chromaticisms are? In painting it means gradations of color. Chromo comes from chrôma, that's where it comes from in Greek. These are the smallest intervals there are in music. On the piano, for example, it's the interval between a note and the one immediately adjacent to it. Juxtaposed.
10:49 A fusion of the most popular music and the most learned music. Ludwig van Beethoven, Archduke Trio, 2nd movement, Scherzo.
