Temporada 2004-2005

Unidades didácticas del Departamento pedagógico OCNE

An ONE Education Project for Primary Schools: Beethoven 2nd

Symphony

1. The project

This project uses at its starting point the Scherzo of Beethoven’s Second Symphony. The
choice of this piece is by no means coincidental. It could be argued that Beethoven was the
most progressive of all composers. He took music from the formality of the classical world
into the torment of romanticism. It is hard to believe that the 1st Symphony and the 9th are
actually the work of the same man.

The 2nd Symphony has a special place in this progression. It still belongs to the classical
world. It uses the same size orchestra, it lasts the same length, it uses the same structures
as many a symphony by Haydn or Mozart. But at the same time, it is packed full of
surprises. It jumps up and bites you just as you think you are safe. Maybe it is the last
“classical” symphony.

The scherzo is definitely central to this daring change. It has its roots in dances that had
seen little change for hundreds of years before Beethoven’s time. The crunch in
Beethoven’s 2nd Symphony is how much longer this dance structure can hold all the ideas
that are being crammed into it…

2. Some hints

The notes that follow take you through a process of creating your own scherzo based on a
few of Beethoven’s ideas. There is no absolute recipe for how to do this successfully, but
the suggestions below will give you a good place to start:

 Treat these notes only as a guide. No one will work in exactly the way that is
suggested. In the end, you will know how to work best with your group of children.
Change anything – in the end, as we shall see, it is the surprises that make the
music.
 Develop your work in small steps. You can always go faster if you wish but once
children are lost in a creative process, they tend to stay lost.
 Leave as much as possible up to the children. They have great imaginations and are
full of ideas. The crunch is to ask them for these ideas in a way that they understand.
 Work away from instruments, using body sounds and voices and later “translating”
the ideas onto instruments. This is particularly useful when pupils have little
experience of using instruments themselves.
 Listen to Beethoven. He really is quite good! However, I would suggest that it is
better for your students not to hear Beethoven’s original piece until theirs is
completed. They can not possibly imitate the original (nor would I wish them to) but
they will listen to it with very educated ears once their work is done.
Temporada 2004-2005
Unidades didácticas del Departamento pedagógico OCNE

 Do any background work you wish: the nature of the orchestra and its instruments,
Beethoven and his works, Beethoven and his place in the progression of music, the
world at the time of Beethoven (it was a fascinating place), maybe even how your
own barrio was at the start of the 19th century… Ideas for this work are not included
in these notes, but that is not to say the work would not be valuable and interesting.

3. Getting started

The first step is to make a musical “question” using your entire class. This has 3 rules.
1. The beat is ¾ i.e. 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3. You might want to try this rhythm out with
simple claps. It will not be difficult…
2. The question lasts for exactly 8 bars, that is to say 8 groups of 1 2 3. Once again, try
this out and make sure you can stop in just the right place.
3. The rhythm is crotchets all the way. In other words, there is a sound on every single
beat of the phrase and nothing off the beats.

Pretty dull isn’t it? Well so far, maybe. Now it is up to you to make your question something
special. Here are some things to try:
 Not everybody plays/claps all of the time. Keep the texture of the sound
changing.
 Use contrasts in volume to keep your audience interested.
 Most of all, surprise us. The rules are very strict and I don’t want you to break
them (yet) but how much variety can you find within them.

Now the rules for making up this musical question have been very strict. So it is up to you to
work out how to make up a second phrase that is the musical answer to this question. This
time only 1 rule: the answer must also last exactly 8 bars.

So you now have 16 bars of music. You can extend those to 32 bars in one simple step. Try
playing:
Question Answer Question Answer
There you go: 32 bars. Take the opportunity at this stage to make any adjustments that you
feel could help the opening of your piece, especially when it comes to the surprises. Rules
are there to be broken.

4. A musical development

The next stage of your piece involves re-using the ideas that you have already played in
your original phrases. Here are some Beethoven-like suggestions of how to do it.

1. Fragmentation. If something is too big, it can be clumsy to manipulate. Beethoven rarely

plays around with material that lasts more than a bar or two.

2. Repetition. If it worked once, it will probably work well again and again and again and
again.
Temporada 2004-2005
Unidades didácticas del Departamento pedagógico OCNE

3. Sequencing. This is just a slick form of repetition. The difference is that here the
fragment gets to move around in pitch: it can get higher and lower.

4. Question and Answer. You have already done this with your opening phrases. It will still
work if you do it with small fragments of phrases.

5. Pass it around. I thought of saying ‘re-orchestration’ which means the same thing. If you
have a fragment on one instrument, try the same thing on another.

6. Layering. Put together two fragments that come from different places. Not at all hard and
very exciting when it works.

Try these ideas out and see which ones you want to use in the development section of your
piece. You can bring in new musical ideas as well, but the main idea is to be concise: you
already have more than enough with the ideas I have given. And don’t forget to keep the
surprises coming, particularly when it comes to dynamics.

This new section of your piece does not need to be massive. To give you some idea, the
development section of the scherzo in Beethoven’s 2nd Symphony lasts just 22 bars.

To get a feel for your development section before you make any final adjustments to it, try
playing:

Development Question Answer

5. Putting your piece together

Now you have all that you need for your own scherzo. The final order of your piece will be:
Question Answer Question Answer
Development Question Answer
Development Question Answer

If your development section, like Beethoven’s, lasts for 22 bars, this means that your final
piece will last a total of 108 bars. At an average speed that is around 3 minutes. Not bad
when you think that it has all come from your original 8 bar question.

Listen to your piece a few times. You might want to make a recording of it so that you can
hear it without having to concentrate on playing it at the same time. At this stage, just about
anything is open to change. The only important thing is that your music is achieving what
you want it to achieve. As an example, Beethoven makes one fundamental change. After
“Development Question Answer” he adds in a new section called a coda (the Italian for
“tail”). This is a kind of 2nd development section, using the original material in a whole new
way. Beethoven’s scherzo in fact follows the pattern:
Question Answer Question Answer
Development Question Answer Coda
Development Question Answer Coda
Temporada 2004-2005
Unidades didácticas del Departamento pedagógico OCNE

I am not saying that you should follow this pattern, just that anything is allowed, so long as
you remember to keep the surprises coming.

6. If you want more…

If you have more time for this project, you might want to continue your work. For every
scherzo there is a trio. This trio does not necessarily involve 3 people but it is the name we
give to a whole new section of a piece. The trio follows exactly the same overall pattern as
the scherzo but the original question is different and is almost always a contrast to the
question in the scherzo. Of course, with this new question, how you form the answer and
how you make a development will change but the overall idea is exactly the same. If you do
make a trio, then your whole piece may look like this:

Scherzo
Question Answer Question Answer
Development Question Answer
Development Question Answer

Trio
Question Answer Question Answer
Development Question Answer
Development Question Answer

Scherzo
Question Answer
Development Question Answer

Note that the second time the scherzo section is played the material is repeated less than
the first time. In some pieces this is not the case but it does seem to give the overall piece a
better balance.

Assuming the trio has the same length as the scherzo, the total piece lasts for 272 bars and
all that from just 16 bars of ideas. That is quite an achievement.

© Mark Withers, September 2004