Tape 207 - Monetary Policy, Carter Program, Energy, Business and Free Enterprise
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| ("The Creatures of Prometheus") | 0:02 | |
| ("Op.43 No.16 Finale" by Beethoven) | 0:05 | |
| (audience applauding) | 6:02 | |
| - | Strange isn't it? | 6:19 |
| The need people have to categorize works of art. | 6:20 | |
| Especially Beethoven's symphonies, | 6:24 | |
| the graceful first, the charming second, | 6:26 | |
| the faithful fifth, the choreographic seventh, and so on. | 6:29 | |
| In the case of this eighth symphony | 6:34 | |
| which I am in the process of restudying, | 6:36 | |
| the pigeon holing seems least justifiable of all. | 6:40 | |
| It is generally considered, this work, | 6:44 | |
| a light, genial work, all jokes | 6:47 | |
| and not too much substance, | 6:50 | |
| and the kind of vacation piece tossed off between | 6:52 | |
| the arduous rigors of the seventh and the ninth. | 6:55 | |
| True to some extent, | 6:59 | |
| but an attitude which I suspect | 7:01 | |
| derives mainly from the tiny but memorable second movement, | 7:03 | |
| which is the piece the audience, | 7:08 | |
| so to speak, goes out whistling. | 7:10 | |
| (whistling) | 7:13 | |
| But as I sit here pondering the symphony as a whole, | 7:19 | |
| I find rigors as arduous as you could wish for. | 7:23 | |
| In this first movement, for example, | 7:27 | |
| there is one continuous fortissimo | 7:30 | |
| with all forces in full cry | 7:32 | |
| that begins at bar 136, | 7:35 | |
| and thunders on relentlessly until bar 188, | 7:39 | |
| at which point Beethoven asks for piu forte, | 7:44 | |
| louder even than fortissimo, | 7:47 | |
| which means very loud of course, | 7:50 | |
| and two bars later, exceeds himself | 7:52 | |
| with a demand for triple forte. | 7:56 | |
| Now there exists no machine to measure these differences. | 7:59 | |
| They amount to very loud, double forte, two Fs | 8:02 | |
| which is as loud as Beethoven usually gets | 8:07 | |
| at his most dynamic, | 8:10 | |
| and then even louder, and then louder still. | 8:12 | |
| And this for a non-stop sequence of 60 bars. | 8:16 | |
| I believe someone has pointed out | 8:20 | |
| that this passage is the longest continuous fortissimo | 8:22 | |
| in all classical music. | 8:26 | |
| Some lightweight vacation piece. | 8:28 | |
| I also find that the third movement | 8:32 | |
| is almost as full of (speaking in foreign language), | 8:35 | |
| of stamping and howling accents | 8:39 | |
| as you can find in a movement of any other symphony. | 8:41 | |
| There are 27 (speaking in foreign language) | 8:45 | |
| on the first page alone of this minuet. | 8:49 | |
| And I also find that the finale is one of the most | 8:53 | |
| prolonged structures in all Beethoven, | 8:57 | |
| extremely reluctant to finish, | 9:00 | |
| having at least five discernible codas, | 9:02 | |
| each of which tops the last. | 9:06 | |
| In short, it's a weighty | 9:08 | |
| and very forceful symphony, this eighth. | 9:10 | |
| And the one from which I hope you will take away with you | 9:14 | |
| much more than the dainty metronome tune | 9:17 | |
| in the second movement. | 9:20 | |
| (string instruments tuning) | 9:26 | |
| (audience applauding) | 9:35 | |
| ("Symphony No. 8, First Movement" by Beethoven) | 10:00 |
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