Ludwig Van Beethoven
Sinfonia No. 7

A luminescent triumph. This is the sensation that permeates the Seventh Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven. A sensation of extreme vitality, of joy fiercely wrested from one's inner ghosts. Like those of deafness, incommunicability, solitude, perhaps. The Seventh. The most Dionysian of the Symphonies of the Beethovenian corpus, the one Richard Wagner described as "the apotheosis of dance".

Yet the Symphony opens placidly, with solemnity, almost. In the "Poco sostenuto", the orchestral "tutti" frames the winds that intone a theme of quiet and dreamy beauty. But from these winds, a single note whispered by a flute gradually emerges. A solitary note that becomes shorter, a note that fragments, reiterating itself and paving the way for a theme of aerial serenity. Thus opens the "Vivace", with the flute soaring in a heated atmosphere of luminous desire to live, a joyful openness towards the world. But pain and suffering are also an integral part of life. And the second movement, the famous "Allegretto", seems to be there precisely to remind us of this. A lugubrious movement with a march rhythm, a silent procession of ghosts. A movement that closes with a harsh dissonance, after the clarinets have cast a glimmer of hope on the muffled voice of the strings, like a trusting abandonment to the perpetuation of life. But the rhythm cannot be lost, and the music resumes its frenzy in the "Presto". A scherzo where the strings gently caress a theme of vibrant vitality, taken up by the winds, and then powerfully reiterated by the orchestral "fortissimo". And it is only with the Trio, indicated as "Molto meno presto", that the music returns to undulate in calmer waters, lulled by the soft and meditative timbre of the clarinets. The finale, "Allegro con brio", is a true bacchanal. The mass of strings boils over in an assertive and self-affirming theme of glorious vitality. A triumph of life born from toil and pain. "Because only through suffering can one achieve joy", as Ludwig wrote.