Beethoven’s achievement was a historical equilibrium between subjective melody and objective form.

Evidence

In musical terms, that unique reconciliation which is Beethoven’s historical opportunity takes the form of a precarious equilibrium between melody and development, between a new and richer thematic expression of subjective feeling and its objective working through in the form itself, which no longer has anything of that relatively mechanical and a priori, applied execution of eighteenth-century music. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 94

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the reconciliation of subject (melody/feeling) and object (form/development) in concrete musical terms.
• XREF: connects to: Adorno treats Beethoven as the fixed point where accumulated formal possibilities culminate historically. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 93; Beethoven’s sonata form reenacts tonality as a self-evident, self-confirming law; Man is a historical bloc of subjective and material elements

Broader Connections

• Beethoven’s sonata form reenacts tonality as a self-evident, self-confirming law #corroborates (0.82)
• Man is a historical bloc of subjective and material elements #expands (0.75)