Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to the Eroica Symphony
- Cambridge Companions to Music
- The Cambridge Companion to the Eroica Symphony
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Musical Examples
- Notes on Contributors
- Eroica Chronology, 1770–2020
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Context and Genesis
- Part II Analytical Approaches
- 5 Twentieth-Century Analytical Approaches to the First Movement
- 6 The Hero Who Practices Resignation: Beethoven’s Eroica as ‘Late’ Work
- 7 Registering the Eroica
- 8 After Invention: Traces and Materials in the Eroica Finale
- Part III Reception
- Further Reading
- General Index
7 - Registering the Eroica
from Part II - Analytical Approaches
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 June 2020
- The Cambridge Companion to the Eroica Symphony
- Cambridge Companions to Music
- The Cambridge Companion to the Eroica Symphony
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Musical Examples
- Notes on Contributors
- Eroica Chronology, 1770–2020
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Context and Genesis
- Part II Analytical Approaches
- 5 Twentieth-Century Analytical Approaches to the First Movement
- 6 The Hero Who Practices Resignation: Beethoven’s Eroica as ‘Late’ Work
- 7 Registering the Eroica
- 8 After Invention: Traces and Materials in the Eroica Finale
- Part III Reception
- Further Reading
- General Index
Summary
This chapter explores register in the outer movements of the Eroica Symphony. Engaging closely with Schenker’s 1930 analysis, in which the two-line register is understood as the obligate Lage ‘obligatory register’ while the three-line octave is treated as essentially decorative or reinforcing, it argues to the contrary, asserting the structural significance of the latter. By paying particular attention to Beethoven’s scoring for the flute, it develops a narrative of registral ‘failure’ in the finale that is in stark contrast to the standard ‘heroic’ readings of this work.
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- The Cambridge Companion to the Eroica Symphony , pp. 139 - 156Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020