I’ve finished reading several novels I received as Christmas presents. All were enjoyable, but at least two of them seemed to run out of steam before the end.
I won’t say which they were, because it doesn’t seem fair to books which were very well written overall, but I did feel that whatever impulse had prompted the author to set to work in the first place seemed to have faded in the last quarter of the book.
Or perhaps it was me who had run out of steam and lost interest. But I don’t think so.
It reminded me of the many last movements of piano sonatas and symphonies which are mildly disappointing compared with the rest of the piece. Yes, obviously there are some terrific finales, but there are also quite a few which feel as if the composers had basically said what they wanted to say in the preceding movements and were slightly lacking in imaginative élan by the time they came to write the finale. For example, Beethoven’s ‘Archduke’ Trio is magnificent, but for me the finale does not live up to the slow movement which comes before it.
As I think I’ve mentioned in previous posts on or around this subject, the obvious solution to the problem of underwhelming last movements would be not to write a last movement, but that is mathematically unachievable. So I suppose the ideal is not to feel obliged to write several movements, but to express what you really want to express and stop there. Which explains why the piano repertoire has so many fabulous short pieces!
This rings a bell with me, Susan. I heard a great piano recital in Linz on Sunday, where the final piece was the Brahms Op. 1 sonata, which I didn’t know – or had forgotten. After the stunning scherzo I was very disappointed by the last movement, which has a lot of sound and fury but didn’t signify a lot to me. Apologies if it’s your favourite piece. Bruckner symphonies are another case in point. If you live in Linz, where everything musical revolves around Bruckner (Bruckner Orchestra, Bruckner Festival, Bruckner University where I taught) you have opportunity enough to immerse yourselves in these wonderful works. But very few of them have really convincing finales, and it often feels as though he is working too hard to produce an apotheosis. Some are monumental, but most are slightly disappointing. Perhaps the ninth finale would have been the best, but I’m quite happy with the first three movements.
Very interesting, Will, thank you! ‘Working too hard to produce an apotheosis’ is exactly right. I suppose the four-movement formula for sonatas and symphonies, which was so widely followed in the 19th century, created a problem for composers who didn’t really have the material for four movements but felt obliged to show that they could produce something on that pattern. I’ve thought of another finale which doesn’t live up to its billing … the finale of Felix Mendelssohn’s D minor piano trio. The first three movements are glorious, but I’ve always found the finale a bit disappointing.
Writing words or music I have sometimes found it a good idea to write the end first. Then all the preceding material can be planned so that it leads to that moment, rather than finding oneself high and dry and without ideas at the most crucial point. It’s never easy though and a completely satisfying finale is a hallmark of a perfect work (Jupiter symphony, Mendelssohn violin concerto). The most disappointing example I know is the Ravel G major concerto. True, it’s hard to imagine what is left to say after the slow movement, but the third is to me uninspired padding of the worst kind. Then again sometimes a last movement begins blandly (Vaughan Williams London Symphony, Elgar cello concerto) but then picks itself up magnificently for a superb climax. Vaughan Williams wrote a typically astute and witty essay on this subject called ‘The Soporific Finale….
I’m glad you mentioned the finale of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony, James – I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right: it’s a perfect finale, even more full of ideas than what has gone before.
I didn’t know about the Vaughan Williams essay, so thank you for mentioning that.
The essay is in the anthology ‘Vaughan Williams on Music’. I could email it to you if you like (I seem to have your address from when you messaged me about something)…
Thank you for the offer, James, but I was able to find the essay on Google Books. Very enjoyable to read and makes one wonder why so many composers felt obliged to construct lengthy four-movement works.
A perfect finale: the ‘Joke’ quartet. Meanwhile: Felix Weingartner (I quote from memory): “The good, childlike Anton Bruckner would also write a ninth symphony and it would also be in D minor and it would also have a choral finale, but that the Good Lord, to Whom he dedicated the work, wisely prevented him by opportunely recalling him to the Celestial Land.” That kind of thing?
I couldn’t immediately recall the finale of the Haydn ‘Joke’ Quartet, but I listened to it and remembered how surprised I was when I first heard it live (played by the Quatuor Mosaiques). Yes, a brilliant finale!
Oh wow, that Haydn ‘Joke’ Quartet is hilarious! One of my personal favourite finales is the last movement of Dvorak’s opus 97 String Quintet. I hate to say it but it’s starts off in a really banal way and it’s only near the end that you start to work out where he’s going, but then suddenly a mad hoe-down to end it all!
Yes, I love that Dvorak String Quintet finale as well!