Beethoven’s Expansion of the Symphonic Coda
Monday, July 21st, 2008This term paper was written in graduate school, though I think it may have been in an undergraduate class. I don’t quite remember at this point. The class was Music 125 at UC Riverside, and the paper is dated 12/9/1992. I could not find the title page. I’m quite certain I received an A on this one. And since this was 1992 and I had no scanner, my examples were merely copied on a copy machine and glued onto the blank spots - so I no longer have the actual music samples for those examples.
Ludwig van Beethoven contributed a wealth of innovations to the evolution of music. One such contribution was his expansion of the symphonic coda to become an integral part of the sonata-allegro movements.
Through Beethoven’s nine symphonies, one may see a definite pattern of awareness that the composer took toward the treatment of the coda. First, the coda became functional as a second development section. It also became an avenue through which Beethoven introduced new ideas. Another new function of the coda was the extension of the final cadence to a point beyond the recapitulation. This was used in some works to divert attention away from the tonic by actually modulating in the coda. Finally, the sheer size of Beethoven’s codas demonstrates a shifting of emphasis toward the end of the work.