Beethoven

quote:

Originally posted by stephenjohn:
Further thoughts on whether Beethoven was liberating himself from his teachers or building upon them. Hearing echos of his predecessors in his works does not suggest any new information either way. However, hearing Beethoven-like music in the work of his predecessors suggests buliding rather that liberating.
I have been listening to Mozart's Prague symphony [the Mackerras recommended here] and wonder if I can hear a prediction of what was to come from Beethoven.

atb

SJ

when you hear echos of haydn in beethoven, it is confirming a fact of beethoven's history, that he was a student of haydn's, and, as is the normal case, it rubbed off.

looking for beethoven in mozart (or mozart in beethoven) is more difficult just listening, for me anyway, because both composers have very distinctive ideas about melody and voicing. but an inspection of a set of scores, of the right two or more pieces, would probably turn up the evidence you are looking for.

to find clear evidence of beethoven's coming in the prague, especially using only my ears, would be beyond my powers of perception.

if i were going to try that, i would pay special attention to how repeated melodic fragments and rhythms are developed in each piece.

comparing to the prague (or any other mozart for that matter), i would probably start with beethoven's 4th and 8th symphonies.

in fact, i would probably survey the piano sonatas of both composers first, before wading into the symphonies.

so ends this idle speculation :-) let us know how you get on with this.

Bought this man conducting the Berlin Philharmonic on all nine Beethoven Symphonies in a MINT boxset for a tenner, don't you love S/H vinyl especially Classical.


All I can say is they are completely different to the Mackerras box set I have, Classical and the interpretations eh!







Dean...

A friend of mine has a vinyl set by H Von K and one of the disks is of a rehearsal - absolutely fascinating. The attention to detail, the shouting, the humming. I don't even understand German
bw
SJ

the Barenboim Beethoven piano sonatas came today :-)

we spent about an hour just touching everything :-)

my wife and i have a plan for tonight. i am going to make enough expresso to keep us going until we have listened to
op. 109/100/111 twice, then listened to the master classes, then to these three one more time.

tomorrow, we will go through all the concerts in order, followed by a repeat of the master classes.

on sunday, we will cherry pick sonatas we want to hear again.

i will post when i can.

it's just like Christmas :-)

well, my left speaker died tonight.

we are continuing to listen on the right speaker.

tomorrow morning (about 10 am) i am buying a pair of martin-logans, and we'll be back om track after lunch.

quote:

Originally posted by mikeeschman:

tomorrow morning (about 10 am) i am buying a pair of martin-logans, and we'll be back om track after lunch.

You can't fool us, Mike ... you rigged that left speaker so that you could justify buying new speakers! "Gee, honey, I'll guess I'll just have to buy some new speakers." (insert emoticon here)

Best,
Fred

no, actually i think i played the thiels to death. they have done 40 to 50 hours a week of service for 12 years.

but it was nice to go buy new speakers :-)

i didn't get the martin-logans. in the end, i bought spendor S5Es'. i think they are an improvement on the thiels.

meanwhile, i haven't been able to formulate an opinion about the beethoven sonatas. every time the germ of an opinion floats through my head, a stern voice shouts SHUT UP! YOU'RE MISSING SOMETHING - PAY ATTENTION!

i just needed a break, cause my ears are tired.

talk again tomorrow :-)

the weekend didn't work out the way i planned it.

i've only heard op. 109/110/111, and the masterclass on op. 109.

but many times.

my wife coached me through the op. 109, showing me what goes on from the pianist point of view, we spent hours on this.

barenboim's thoughts on managing the meter changes in op. 109 really struck me. and i never really though about the mechanics of playing a melody over a trill in one hand before. the idea of making a distinction between recollection and remembrance in the variations of op. 109 struck me hard.

i am going to slow down and try to more fully appreciate all this music.

if i can do that with any success, maybe the string quartets will become more accessible to me. i have never been able to enjoy the quartets.

studying orchestral scores has helped me enjoy symphonic music. with my wife's help, maybe studying the sonatas will do the same.

i haven't felt my ignorance so strongly in a good while. hopefully, a little humility will be a good thing to bring to this music, along with my ears and brain.

i found a treasure at my feet, fred - i won't let it go.

Dear Mike
you and I listen to music in different ways - I can't read music nor play an instrument.

Sometimes I completely am taken over by music. If this happens when driving I have to stop the car. Music to me can be a transendental experience. Voodoo Chile does this to me and Bartok too. I could go on and on, and on.

Beethovens late quartets are absolutely wonderful to me - timeless, beautiful, complex, simple and captivating. I have been listening to them regularly for the past 8 years and found so many different experiences in them. I have recordings by the Vegh, Lindseys, and Takacs quartets. The Vegh are the best to my ears but the Takacs are highly recommended by critics. You lucky man, these quartets could send you on the journey of a lifetime.
best wishes
SJ

i have having one unexpected difficulty with the beethoven piano sonatas. i have little trouble reading orchestral scores, everything's nice and spread out on the page, seperate lines for each instrument.

occasionally i have glanced at my wife's piano music, but never with the intent of following a whole piece.

the late piano sonatas of beethoven look like someone spilled a large bottle of ink on the pages. it's quite difficult for me to follow the inner voices.

i'm hoping that this will become easier with practice.

quote:

i am going to slow down and try to more fully appreciate all this music.

This is great! I personally get very excited when someone else finds that elusive something special in music (that which is not readily apparent on the surface). Once this happens, at least for myself, I find that the music pulls you in but you will still never understand it. After lots of frustration and time then maybe a further little glimmer of hope is released to you and so on but you really begin to sense the profound power of music. A lifetime spent with this music is simply not enough. This is why Hans von Bülow described Beethoven's piano sonatas as the "New Testament" and Bach's Well Tempered Clavier as the "Old Testament" of keyboard literature. The older I get the more I understand the meaning of these words.

I'm glad you are using the scores to follow along but quite frankly, the last 3 Sonatas are a rather ambitious (or crazy!) place to start. I can't quite remember but I believe you are a wind player? Did you ever play a keyboard instrument at any level? Well you are very lucky to have a musician as a partner who can help you through this. What edition are you using? This may play a role in readability as you are correct, some pages can appear to be rather black and chock full of notes.

One suggestion I have in helping you understand Beethoven and his writing style and reading the scores better etc. is to slow right down and go back to beginning. I know it's tempting to go right to the pinnacle but spend some quality time first with Op. 49, Op. 14, or Op. 2 for example. Still difficult music to play well but much easier to follow the thoughts, ideas, lines as well as giving you some time to maybe brush up a little on the sonata form and structure period. If you do this I believe you will start to understand Beethoven on a different level. Whether the page is black with notes or just very simply written the character of Beethoven is quite evident in those two extremes. I'd also suggest his Variations and Bagatelles, too.

As for the string quartets, I urge you to give them some time as well. Everybody has a different style and preferences and every quartet has a different personality to it, like for example, if you would like to listen to something profound and sad just listen to his first string quartet, Op. 18, No 1 and especially the 2nd movement (Adagio, affetuoso ed appassionato). The themes alternate between d- and F+ and Beethoven really intended this movement to represent the tomb scene from Shakespeares "Romeo and Juliet." Wait for a dark and rainy (or snowy) evening and with your favorite port in hand listen to this with the raindrops pattering on you roof and very low light. I defy anyone who could not be moved to tears by this music.

Often, I think most of us (even those without any musical training) can intuitively understand what a composer is trying to say to us but that is like being able to understand a language but not being able to read or write; you are somewhat limited in what you can do. In Beethoven, as with most classical / romantic composer's he uses any number of methods such as key changes, rhythm, time signatures, repeated patterns, phrasing, tone, variations in loudness/softness and specific treatment of each note (staccato, sF's etc) and literal descriptions in italian (or German especially in the last Sonatas) to describe his thoughts and ideas. I know I'm generalizing a little here but it is also helpful to know (even though it may be obvious) that upward movement (especially resolving to a major key) and downward movement (especially in a minor key) typically or often represents heaven (upward) and hell (downward) and all the aspects associated with either place. It is a composers method for representing the struggle and tension we all have between good and evil or happiness and despair and so on. (For one of the most profound examples of this listen to Chausson's Concert in D+ and the 3rd movement marked Grave.) A less obvious example of this might be found in the Op. 110 piano sonata. In the score, just before the Fuga you have the Adagio ma non troppo section which essentially starts out as a recitative; it is an indication that he is advancing the dialogue to the next level and something important is coming. When you get to the tutte le corde what happens? You feel the heaviness of the repeated notes and the direction of the base starts to fill out downward. Then the solo line then comes in (Arioso dolente) and the general direction of the line is also downward (and the key is minor). It might be also helpful to know that Klagender Gesang means roughly that he is really singing (crying) out this complaint or issue he has. Literally, this is a man who is crying out to the heavens in grief and I feel in particular the subject is his loss of hearing. The anguish is clear and the struggle is that he feels he has so much more to offer. Now after the Fuga the short return of this theme. But he puts it this way now: Ermattet, klagend - which means he is still crying out but he is exhausted. The "perdendo le forze, dolente" means not be as forceful and to show that he is hurting. In the melodic right hand you will see more rests to create a more detached feeling and different rhythms. The base portion is slightly thicker and lower and he actually gets to a pianissimo at one point. After some pretty desolate chords notice the upward sweep of the single notes into the return of the fuga (compare to the indecision of the first entrance into the fuga). Also notice the upward sweep and the clear ending on the A flat major chord (the home key). Beethoven was also an eternal optimist, I guess.

One last point about Beethoven. I have all three sets of Barenboim's piano sonata recordings. They are great and like you, I find the last DVD set to be a very valuable treasure for me. Learn all you can from it but keep in mind that everyone will do things slightly differently (if they don't I guess they were just copying someone else?). Eventually you might want to then start comparing differences between some of the other great interpreters. But we'll save that topic for down the road and a different day. Right now enjoy the DVD's. Tonight I'm going to be spending more time with Op. 22. Their is a small section in the Rondo that starts at bar 72 and is only repeated then again shortly after but I simply can't get it out of my head. The energy and drive of the left hand portion just hits the mark so personally for me. I don't know why? Their is a similar gripping section in the Rondo of Op. 7 (starting at bar 62) that does the same thing to me when a play it. I just love Beethoven.....

Happy Listening,
Doug

Florestan, i am printing out your post as i write this response.

i am using the urtext edition by g. henle verlag.

i started with the last 3 piano sonatas because they have been my favorite music of all music for nearly two decades. it is not my intention to ignore any of the sonatas. i am going to back up and learn all of them in order. but first i want to focus on these last three, because i believe that they contain the elemental germ of beethoven's soul as a musician, and i am already familiar with them.

i have rudolph serkin, glenn gould, marizio pollini, claudio arrau, and josep hoffman doing these sonatas (only arrau and barenboim are a complete set and the hoffman is the moonlight and appassionata.) of these my long standing favorite is pollini doing the op. 109/110/111. the gould is an oddity that has made me laugh.

i am a trumpet player and have formal training in music theory, music history, counterpoint and orchestration.

i'll let you know how i'm getting on next weekend.

the difficulty i am having with reading the beethoven piano sonatas is slowly resolving itself. i'm still not quite used to seeing 4 or 5 notes on a single stalk, but hope that continues to improve with practice.

my wife tells me not to look at them as notes, but as intervals. i am trying hard to think that way. i'm not a pianist, so i don't equate what i read to a hand position.

it's hard work, this piano business :-)

quote:

Originally posted by mikeeschman:

it's hard work, this piano business :-)

Yes it is, Mike, but I hope at some point you're putting down the score and just letting the music take you away.

I'm certainly all for listening while following the score, but as you surely know, at essence it's an aural experience. I hope you get the full ecstasy of Barenboim's performance without beating yourself up too much trying to read.

Pleasure first, then work. Then even more pleasure later. That's my prescription.

Best,
Fred

quote:

Originally posted by fred simon:
Yes it is, Mike, but I hope at some point you're putting down the score and just letting the music take you away.

i'm using the 3 to 1 formula :

once through with a score, three times without :-)

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Schnabel recordings of the Sonatas. I'm told he wasn't perfect in technical terms, but he certainly made music.

Phil

Dear Phil,

I had this set on LP and CD between the early eighties and last year when I gave them to a forum member ...

And much pleasure they gave me, though I wish I had known the set on Hungaraton played by Annie Fischer, which would have given me even more enjoyment over the time!

I thank Todd for the advice that would eventually cause me to save up the rather high price of the Fischer set.

Price does not come into it with musicianship of the level of Fischer or Schnabel though ... only managing to afford the price!

ATB from George