Festlichkeit: Expressive Qualität und historische Semantik bei Beethoven

The focus of this article on the so-called festive quality of Beethoven's music rests on two mutually related areas of interest, namely, the increasing role loudness played in nineteenth-century music and an understanding of the emotional effect music had on listeners of that era. An examination of the expressive quality and meaning of the finale of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony—a prototype of festivity—encompasses three lines of questioning: an investigation of the tradition from which such qualities stem; the consideration of texts accompanied by the same type of music (Egmont, Choral Fantasy); and a determination of the specific dramatic manifestation of this expressive quality in Beethoven's music. Finally, a socio-psychological hypothesis concerning the significance of this mode of expression is proposed.