Duo for Flutes in G major: Allegro and Minuet (1792)

Biamonti 32, WoO 26, Hess 17
If this score is any indication, Beethoven in Bonn was a nightowl. On the manuscript of this inventive and interesting duet, he dedicated to "friend Degenharth, 23 August 1792, 12 at night" (Contrarily, Biamonti feels that this notation doesn't fit Beethoven's character.) Later that year, Degenhart would return the favor later that year when Beethoven left for Vienna by assembling a farewell album for the young composer.
What is most interesting about this piece is the way that Beethoven is able to take the problem inherent in this ensemble: two flutes in basically the same register, and from this create an exciting and surprising sonata movement and minuet. Lively, cheerful, impressive. Degenhart must have been pleased. Recommended.

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Beethovenhaus

YouTube is awash in performances, none really stand out, though here's a rather lively version.

Piano Trio in E flat major (1785-91)

Biamonti 31, WoO 38, Grove 153
Schindler says Beethoven wrote this when he was 15 (1785), mose scholars seem to dismiss this claim, accepting instead that it dates from 1791. Scholars debate whether this was intended to be a part of Opus 1, the set of Piano Trios. It does feature some firsts: Beethoven's first Scherzo, warm and gentle if overlong, and one of Beethoven's first codas at the end of a Sonata: a sonata which is charming and light, with a few treats, one being that very coda. The Rondo, an odd mixture of the brilliant and the lyrical - a la Mozart - has some interesting moments, particularly its ending. Throughout, there are few real melodies beyond the opening and the instruments seldom get the chance to shine: the work is piano-heavy. Beyond that, there also isn't the surety in switching from one topic to another that is a feature of Mozart or later Beethoven. Rather, one feels as if the work is awash in figuration, seeming like a minor work of Clementi, one lacking in excessive ornament. I like the piece, but I can understand how it could be frustrating.
Mislabelled as WoO 39 in the Brilliant Classics set.

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Beethovenhaus

Ballet Music for Piano: "Ritterballet" (1790-1791)

Biamonti 30, Hess 89
A piano arrangement, presumably by Beethoven, of the Ritterballett (Biamonti 29) above. As one might expect, it works just fine on the piano.
Unheard Beethoven has created a midi version.

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Beethovenhaus

Ballet Music: "Ritterballet", music for a ballet of knights (1790-1791)

Biamonti 29, WoO 1, Grove 149
The Ritterballet is graced with the distinction of being first among the unassigned, WoO 1 and has thus always held a strange fascination for me. In sound and in point it is an accomplished curiousity. Apparently, Beethoven was asked to create a ballet of sorts during which various regal aristocrats would traipse around in costumes while depicting important elements of the German aristocratic life such as hunting, drinking, dancing. With its initial performance for Count Waldstein on March 6, 1791, it became perhaps the only orchestral music of Beethoven heard in Bonn. The dances are generally pleasant and are linked by a recurring "German Dance."

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Beethovenhaus

A portion of the Hunting Dance followed by the German Dance played as well as it may have been played in Bonn:

Aria in D major: "Mit Mädeln sich vertragen"; for bass & orchestra (c. 1790)

Biamonti 28, WoO 90
this second aria for bass and orchestra can actually be traced to the Geothe singspiel Claudine de Villabella in which it is sung antiphonally between Rugantino and the Vagabond chorus. The text of Beethoven's version is quite different from the version used by Reichardt. In Beethoven's version, the vagabonds have gone home, leaving a cheery bass to sing a rather solid Mozart buffa aria, compete with an onomatopoetic section based on the sound of swords clashing - kling, klang, ding, dang, and so forth. A real trick for a record needle test as it sounds very little like Beethoven.

Aria in F major: "Prüfung des Küssens"; for bass & orchestra "Meine weise Mutter spricht" (c. 1790)

Biamonti 28, WoO 89
Beethoven wrote two arias for bass ad orchestra using text from Goethe's singspiel Claudine de Villabella. The text itself was originally, it seems, part of a colaboration between Goethe and the famously pirckly composer Johann Friedrich Reichardt. Claudine itself is a work in the Sturm und Drang mode telling the story of the young Claudine and the awkward vagabond Don Pedro. Intrigue and disguises follow and eventually all end up happily ever after. A search of the libretto of the singspiel, however, does not turn up this text.

This singspiel aria for bass and orchestra gives us a sense of what Beethoven might have written if he were a completely different composer and writing buffa arias. It's a rather tame, Mozartian sentimentality buffa. Nothing gets out of control, nothing gets too exciting; the piece is over as it began.

Song in G major: "An Laura"; "Freud’ umblühe dich auf allen Wegen" (c. 1790)

Biamonti 27, WoO 112, Hess 128
Very CPE Bach, ABA: a sentimentality melody comprises the A section and an emotional outburst of recitative, the B. There is also a curious rangy piano interlude between sections. The original manuscript, discovered in 1911, was destroyed when someone, set off an incendiary device in the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn in 1960. Glauert (in the Cambridge companion to Beethoven) suggests that the melody strains against the vocal line - I would agree with this, I found it uncommonly difficult to work through.

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Beethovenhaus

Piece for Piano in C major: "Lustig - traurig" (Merry - Sad) in C & c (1790)

Biamonti 26, WoO 54
Two tiny phrases for piano. As the title suggests, one is happy one is sad. The happy is in C major and triple meter, the Sad is in C minor, still triple meter but with a more Alberti-like bass. Fodder for semiologists who seek meaning in Beethoven's key choice.
Its dating has been the subject of speculation, being put at 1790, 1798 and 1820.

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Beethovenhaus

6 Variations for Piano or Harp in F major: on a Swiss air (1790)

Biamonti 25, WoO 64, Grove 183
A comparison between this miniature set of variations and the previous entry, the Variations on Righini's "Venni, Amore" is particuarly telling. While both themes share a beginning that signals a closing, the approach to the two themes is radically different. The Righini variations take apart the theme in the manner we think of from Beethoven, the melody is lost, but the harmonic framework remains and itself becomes the subject of variation. This set of variations uses instead the shape and nearly entirety of the melody throughout, varying the setting in which it is placed. Almost Mozartean in style, it lacks any sort of surprise element. To call this tiny set of six variations on a miniscule Swiss song inconsequential would be to give it too much credit. It goes through the motions, maybe a little better than some but not many.

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Beethovenhaus

Variations for Piano: on "Venni, Amore" by Vincenzo Righini (first version) (1790)

Biamonti 24, Hess 55, (WoO 65, Grove 177)
A set of variations on the Aria "Venni, Amore" by the pedestrian composer, singer and kapellmeister, Vincenzo Righini. Beethoven performed this set, none too delicately, as his debut as a pianist in Vienna. Biamonti 24 refers to what was thought to be an original edition of the work of the same title published in 1802 (Biamonti 299). Biamonti suggests that the original edition of this work was definitive as of 1801, but then lost. The Beethovenhaus-Bonn reports that a copy of this lost original edition was found in 1984 by the duo of Sieghard Brandenburg and Martin Staehelin and further reports that this edition and the more common 1802 edition are quite similar, making this version (biamonti 24) the only version and the latter version (Biamonti 299) an unnecessary duplication.
Musically we have 24 variations in D major on a quirky nothing of a theme. Beethoven seems to be drawn to two particular aspects of this small theme: the Lebewohl to decpetive cadence opening - such that the entire work seems to be the cadential part of a period - and the clash of G-natural versus G-sharp in the final cadential figure of the theme. Throughout, Beethoven plays with a number of topics and even brings about duet-like moments, both with register and meter. Most of the variations are interesting but don't get enough time to do anything extra special, the final few are particularly nice and feature a surprise move to the Neapolitan. Worth seeking out.

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Song in E major: "Klage"; "Dein Silver schien durch Eichengrün" (1790)

Biamonti 23, WoO 113
A ballad-y song awash in sentimentality, it has a sound close to what we would expect from Schubert. Beginning in E major and ending in e minor, its B section is over a palpitating accompaniment. Rangy and oddly intriguing.

Song in G major: "Punschlied"; "Wer nicht, wenn warm von Hand zu Hand" (1789-1790)

Biamonti 22, WoO 111, Hess 126
A rather cheery little drinking song in a volkstumliche style. Only the first verse has survived. Harmonically unadventurous; perhaps good for pedagogy.

2 Sonata Movements for Piano in F major (1788 – 1790)

Biamonti 21, WoO 50, Hess 53
Written for Beethoven's friend Franz Gerhard Wegeler, Biamonti 21 consists of a brisk opening movement for piano and a fragmentary allegretto. It took me some time to get my fingers around this awkward first movement, but after doing so, it became rather fun to play. The phrases aren't what you'd expect, and the Alberti bass plays some tricks on you as well - Beethoven puts in a little countermelody at some point. The second sonata movement is a tender pastoral in 3/4. Published in the Ninth volume of the Hess addenda.

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Piece for Piano: arrangement of Chr.F.D.Schubart's "Kaplied" by Beethoven (between 1788-1790)

Biamonti 20, Hess 63
About as minor as you can get. This is a reduction and fingering of a small lied of the blasphemous Christian Firedrich Daniel Schubart. The text of the work, written while Schubart was in prison, protests the sale of German citizens to foreign armies. For Beethoven scholars, this work holds a special interest apparently because Beethoven supplied his own fingering.
The folks at Unheard Beethoven have transcribed it for midi.

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Beethovenhaus

Trio for Piano, Flute & Bassoon in G major (1786? – 1790?)

Biamonti 19, WoO 37
I guess flute, bassoon and piano trios aren't so numerous on the ground and so this may get performed quite a bit, but as they say, "To what end?" Beethoven provides us with a relatively pleasant piece, which, like an old uncle who tells a story that is just too long, old and tiring and wears out its welcome, encouraging you to hurry off somewhere even if you are enjoying it somewhat. The last movement, a theme and variations, is that way. It keeps going in relatively predictable ways. The first movement has some extension and alteration in the recap, which is worth noting. Written for the von Westerholt family in Bonn, whose members played these instruments and the bassoon part is high - often above middle C - apparently Beethoven wrote many other works for them, but they were destroyed in a fire.

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Cantata: "Kantate auf die Erhebung Leopold II zur Kaiserwürde" (1790)

Biamonti 18, WoO 88
Six months after the death of Joseph II, Beethoven was asked to compose this work on the Accession of Leopold II. The result is a rather amazing and, it seems, important work, particularly in the context of, of all things, the great Ninth Symphony. The keen listener will note several similarities: the "Sturzt neider Millionen" of the final choral exhortation, set in unision; the long held high notes in the Soprano, some imitation, but he doesn't know fugue yet, the quick string lines, all of which speak to a particular voice that is related to the voice of the composer of the Ninth.
The opening movement, is particularly interesting with its odd tempo changes leading up to the operatic moment in which the clouds part to reveal Leopold - this is something to behold: it begins like Handel’s great Zadok the Priest and then becomes something altogether different. The crazy soprano aria that reaches an almost comical level of virtuosity and with its equally comically virtuosic flute and cello parts - perhaps in reference to the Prussian rulers Frederick the Great (who played the flute) and Frederick Wilhelm (who played the cello) - Leopold and Joseph were said to be harpsichord players. All things considered, worth a listen. But again seek out Matthew Best's recording.
Recommended.

Cantata: "Trauerkantate auf den Tod Joseph II" (on the Death of Joseph II) (1790)

Biamonti 17, WoO 87
Written on the death of King Joseph, to the words of Severn Avedonk, this is something special, a rich eloquent statement. The opening chorus, which returns to close the work, is a deep ombra with long keening choral moments interspersed with individual utterances from the soloists and bold richly ornamented string lines - immediately the work takes on a high-class sheen while remaining emotional. The baritone rage aria is shockingly powerful, crass sforzandos and sharp staccatos in a rhythmically inventive setting. I'm impressed by the way that there is a "laying it out on the line" in the beginnings of these arias, it is as if the openings take the customary I-V-V-I and switch it into the world of the baroque with a statement of the idea of the aria - Joseph is dead - the voice entry then becomes part of an introduction. The soprano aria is elegant and peaceful. Some flaws perhaps, where Beethoven isn't quite sure how to develop, see for instance the line "Joseph, der vater unsterblicher thaten" in the opening chorus, in later works he would use fugal technique to ramp up the tension. But this is nitpicking, it is a remarkably successful work that deserves to be better known. Extra kudos on the recording I heard with the Corydon Singers and Orchestra under Matthew Best, which is far better than that of the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir found in the Brilliant Classics complete edition.
Recommended

Unknown Part for Cello (1788)

Biamonti 16

It is suggested that this is a cadenza from the Leopold cantata (Biamonti 18): it is nothing special, some figuration, some compound melody, an arpeggiation and a trill ending. It was probably written by Beethoven
The good folk at Unheard Beethoven have created a midi version of this fragment.

Song: "Der Arme Componist" (The Poor Composer) (1788)

Biamonti 15
A rage aria over the difficulties of composing, found in the margin of a Bonn miscellany which also includes Biamonti 16. "Each note costs me twenty sweat drops"
The good folk at Unheard Beethoven have created a midi version of the song.

Song in F minor: "Elegie auf den Tod eines Pudels"; "Stirb immerhin, es welken ja so viele der Freuden" (c. 1787)

Biamonti 14, WoO 110
A work to add to the expanding list of dog-death songs along with that very early Ives song. Works like this encourages one to review the oft-argued contention that emotion brings forth music. It is multiple verses in the minor, followed by a verse in the major. Each verse takes two stanzas of the poem and sets them as an ABA. The verse in the major is a variant of that of the minor. From this the curious musicologist could write an article on the question of Beethoven's belief in the existence of poodle heaven.

Song in C major: "Trinklied (beim Abschied zu singen)"; "Erhebt das Glas mit froher Hand" (c. 1787)

Biamonti 13, WoO 109

A charming pubtune fully in volkstumliche style. This four-square folk style would eventually lead to Ode to Joy theme of the Ninth Symphony, placing it solidly in the Trinklied camp. A chorus enters at the end of each verse to give a rousing ovation to the tenor's admonition.

Piano Quartet in C major (1785)

Biamonti 12, WoO 36, #3
I can't actually come up with very much worthwhile to say about this, the third of the WoO 36 Piano Quartets. On the whole, it has no particularly special moments,. The Adagio features a particularly beautiful melody, which unfortunately Beethoven buries in ornamentation. As a consequence, the melody never really gets the time to speak. Beethoven would return to some of these moments in his first published set of Piano Sonatas.

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Piano Quartet in D major (1785)

Biamonti 12, WoO 36, #2
I didn't find anything particularly memorable or interesting about this Piano Quartet, the second of the three WoO 36 quartets. It does have some special moments a la Schumann at the ends of some of its movements, notably the pizzicati at the end of the second movement, but that's all that stands out from the generally pedestrian. The Rondo seems more assured, but it is ridiculous to make a statement like that at this stage in the boy's career.

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Beethovenhaus

A Brief Delay

Apologies on the dearth of postings lately. I've been in the process of moving and the blog has suffered. New posts should begin appearing later in the week.

Piano Quartet in E flat major (1785)

Biamonti 12, WoO 36, #1
the Piano Quartet was not a particularly well-known genre in the early years of Beethoven's life, nor was the key of Eb-minor, owing to its difficulty for performers. Nonetheless, this didn't particularly stop Beethoven from writing this set of three early piano quartets, some say biting into the combination before even Mozart did so.
This first quartet, in two or three movement (the first leads attacca into the second), is a mixed bag. After a long and very satisfying Adagio in the singing style, a bold Allegro follows; the symphonic fragments of Hess 298 appear. Its propulsive energy is a result no doubt of its syncopated six-measure opening phrase as it is of its use of the Mannheim Rocket figuration (and what I'll call the Mannheim crash - a reverse Mannheim Rocket after the repeat sign). I'd be remiss not to add the oft-cited remark that the structure and harmonic goals of this work and the others of this collection owe a direct debt to Mozart's Sonatas for Violin and Piano; here K. 379.
The second half of this quartet - a Theme and Variations is utterly pedestrian.

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Sketch in C minor: sketch for a movement of a Symphony; unfinished (1785)

Biamonti 11; Hess 298

Beethoven was a meticulous sketch writer and filled pages and pages with often indecipherable music. Some pages he carried around with him to his death when they were sold to the publisher Artaria. One imagines that throughout his career Beethoven was looking for opportunities to clean up early works, which he had a certain fondness for, or else from a cynical perspective, cash in on his fame with pieces that could yield him a quick profit. Most composers - myself included - have piles of early sketches and pieces that they hold on to and hope to resurrect, so in this way these collections are nothing special. One of the most important sources of fragments and sketches from Beethoven's early years is what has been intriguingly refered to as the "Kafka Miscellany." There is no connection here to the writer, but rather to J.N. Kafka, a Viennese musician and collector who owned the pages for some time in the nineteenth century. The miscellany itself was published in an elegant dual volume facsimile and transcription edited by Joseph Kerman in 1973 and is currently in the possession of the British Museum.

Within this collection are numerous fragments and early drafts of known works including this: the first theme and beginning of the second theme of a first movement of a symphony. The first theme is a standard minor Mannheim Rocket (a rapid upward arpeggio) that develops somewhat, the second, a descending scale figure with Lombard snaps (the rhythm: sixteenth, dotted sixteenth or a variant): one of those things that, in good hands, could take off into something quite powerful. But here remains a tantalizing remnant.

The good folks at Unheard Beethoven have created a midi version of this.

Concerto for Piano & Orchestra in E flat major (1784)

Biamonti 10; WoO 4
Among the papers found at Beethoven's death was the manuscript for this early concerto which has been treated exhaustively in Plantinga's tome: Beethoven Concertos: History, Style, Performance. The manuscript, a piano reduction that includes indications of Tutti and Solo and certain instrumental colors, is in the hand of a copyist with certain corrections by Beethoven. From this, Willy Hess, the Swiss musicologist and composer, created a performing edition. The result is a three-movement work in a galant style, nothing particularly remarkable. The themes are not chiseled as we would expect them to be in later Beethoven, the piano lacks thematic elegance and instead is a strong representative of the arpeggio school of piano concerto writing, going so far as to avoid the "theme" in the first movement. The Rondo has a catchy tune and a sprint into the minor, but all in all the concerto is nothing special. While it seems likely that this was composed for Beethoven to play, Plantinga reports that there is no documentary evidence of this.

Song in A major: "An einen Säugling"; "Noch weisst du nicht, wes Kind du bist" (1783)

Biamonti 9; WoO 108
Like the previous song:"Schilderung eines Mädchens" this work, which translates to "To an Infant" was published as a one-off in Boßler's weekly musical magazine Blumenlese für Klavierliebhaber. Its quirky poetry relates the notion that soon each infant will realize that the woman nursing him or her is its mother; similarly, we, too, will realize the same about God. In SAT speak: infant:mother::we:God. To this odd sentiment, Beethoven writes an awkward Mozartean pastoral with a weak middle modulation in a volkstumliche - folksy - style, signalled by ubiquitous parallel thirds. The folksy style must be a conscious choice to make the music match the countryside ethos of the text: the only women nursing their own children at the time were the poor and the peasantry, certainly not the market of Boßler's magazine, intended as it was for the burgeoning middle class. That being said, I think Beethoven was too young to be making any point beyond that.
Somehow this work is not included in the Brilliant Classics edition.

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Beethovenhaus

Allegretto for Piano Trio in E flat major (1783)

Biamonti 8; Hess 48
A miniature of Beethoven's youth: a minuet with a fragment of a trio. The minuet is in a dotted military rhythm with a small dissolutionary development. Competent.

Song: "Schilderung eines Mädchens"; "Schildern, willst du Freund, soll ich dir

Biamonti 7; WoO 107
A strange little tune that almost seems a sketch for something else, all of 20 measures in a seemingly hybrid form, that amazingly, perhaps as a result of this brevity, still manages to sound so well put together. A dramatic moment at the rapid jarring diminished B is followed by an ending that seems new, yet has a closing function. Apparently it originally appeared in 1783 in Boßler's weekly musical magazine Blumenlese für Klavierliebhaber. Lockwood calls it "derivative."

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Beethovenhaus

Fugue for Organ in D major (1783)

Biamonti 6, WoO 31
It has been suggested that this minor work in D major dates from a time in Beethoven’s youth when he was applying for an organ position. Given the quality of this shockingly poor meandering "fugue" it’s likely he didn’t get the job. One senses that Beethoven knows what a fugue is supposed to do at specific times: the pedal point toward the end; the returns of the subject; the stretto to ramp up tension; the sequential episode, et al, but doesn't really know how to put them all together: the cadences aren't clear, nor elided. All in all it is simply clumsy. B-.

Rondo for Piano in A major (1783)

Biamonti 5; WoO 49
An odd curiosity that exists in some sort of limbo between rondo and variations, although it is couched within the rhetoric of rondo. Its awkwardness could be the result of the odd phrase structure set up in the opening ABA period group. The A sections: the first eight measures are a clear and well-defined parallel period, while the middle section is more curiously defined 6 measure phrases that also articulate four measure phrase groups through the return of the second half of the first period in its middle. Consequently Beethoven sets up a tension between the regularity of the opening and the irregularity of the middle. Phrases that seem to want to overflow their borders are constrained by their boundaries and others overflow them without balancing out the whole. In many of Mozart's works the phrase structures are similarly off-kilter, but the whole sounds smooth. Here the phrases are off-kilter, but the whole sounds jarring. Biamonti has little to say about this work, remarking only: "Il Manoscritto originale è perduto"

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Rondo for Piano in C major (1783)

Biamonti 4; WoO 48

A simple rondo in a solid classical, almost gallant, style. The rondo theme is a forgettable alternation of tonic tones and dominant tones articulating a a steady and predictable phrase pattern. The piece goes through the paces, it has moments in the minor and a slight, very slight development, always keeping the clear phrase divisions of the work. What is interesting is that these phrase divisions can be deceptive, in the theme the strict alternation of four bars is clear, but sometimes it is elided, othertimes it becomes 2+2+2, instead of 2+2+2+2 measures, you'll note this in the first episode. Like several other of these very early works it was published by the influential Bossler in the Blumenlese für Klavierliebhaber, or as the Bethovenhaus so lovingly translates it: “Bouquet of the Finest Flowers for Lovers of the Piano.” Bossler also was responsible for publishing and publicizing the music of Haydn, Mozart and Pleyel.

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Sonata for Piano & Violin in A major; unfinished (1783)

Biamonti 3, Hess 46

These are two fragments, one has the character of a minuet and may come from an intended minuet movement or variation movement, or perhaps even a final movement, the other perhaps episodes of a rondo. The first makes use of a canonic moments between violin and piano likely Beethoven is trying to be cute here - it bears some similarities to the “Spring” sonata. The rondo fragments move back and forth between the major and minor, I don’t get the sense that they are meant to be continuous. A recording exists on the Unheard Beethoven website.

Piano Sonata in D major: "Kurfürstensonate" (Electoral) #3 (1783)

Biamonti 2; WoO 47, #3

Throughout his career, Beethoven had a predilection for beginning works in the middle of things, establishing his opening tonality, not with a steady statement of I-IV-V-I as you might find in the opening of a Bach French Suite, but instead beginning obliquely jumping in on the V or the V of V before cadencing on the I. This technique is actually pretty well-known in the world of the Great American Songbook, look at the opening of many of the Gershwin favorites, for instance, but is not something that is generally taught in textbook beginnings. In Beethoven, the most well-known example of this is perhaps the long introduction to his First Symphony, but other examples are equally legion. These include, Beethoven’s first usage of this technique, in the first and last movements of this, the most successful of the Kurfürstensonaten. In the first movement, a jolly pastoral with a strong Mozartean cast, though still an element of pastiche, the theme begins on an upbeat, giving a sense of V-I that is very appealing. In the final, we begin in the middle of a circle of fifths sequence before cadencing on the tonic. Presumably from a semiotic standpoint Beethoven is trying to signal that we are beginning in medias res, and perhaps reflecting in the pastoral of the first movement a more heroic or classical form.
Oddly, until recently this was viewed as an anomaly, an anomaly that L. Poundie Burstein has tried to rectify with his award-winning article of 2005: The Off-Tonic Return in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58, and Other Works. In it, Burstein outlines four different normative strategies for bringing back a theme that doesn’t start on the tonic. The first movement here evidences the technique of using the end of the development as a half-cadence, while the final movement ends the development similarly but takes longer to get to the tonic.
The second movement is a series of variations on a minuet in the greater diminution style that is also appealing. All three movements are pleasurable to play, but not masterpieces in any reckoning.

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Piano Sonata in F minor: "Kurfürstensonate" (Electoral) #2 (1783)

Biamonti 2; WoO 47, #2

This second of Beethoven’s Kurfürstensonaten, or Elector Sonatas, begins with a dramatic dotted rhythm and large chords. It then moves into a pastiche of typical galant gestures; the rapid descending passagework, the Murki bass, the Mozartean tremolando closing figures. We get intimations of famous moments – consider the ascending dyads in measures 11-12 in relation to the Pathetique Sonata for instance. The Sonata form is slightly more assured, he gives us a recapitulation, but the introduction ends up serving as a retransition back to that first theme.
The second movement is more tuneful but overloaded with unfulfilling passagework. Like the WoO 47, #1, it references the material from the first movement, but ultimately I get the sense of a dice game of materials, phrases and gestures tied together with little sense for their overall meaning or any throughline.

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Beethovenhaus

Piano Sonata in E flat major: "Kurfürstensonate" (Electoral) #1 (1783)

Biamonti 2; WoO 47, #1

A simple sonatina in the Haydn mode. In his 1949 article Harmonic Aspects of Classic Form Leonard Ratner lays out the now widely accepted notion that sonata form should be as well understood in its harmonic binary-ness as it is in its bithematicism. That is to say, the notion that a Sonata has two conflicting themes or two conflicting theme-groups that reconcile in the work’s recapitulation needs to be balanced by an understanding of a larger scale harmonic progression from the tonic to the dominant and back again or its overall debt to binary form. In a typical binary form, say an Allemande from a Bach French Suite, the harmonic motion is from a tonic to a dominant with a foray into a relative minor in the first half of the B section before returning to the initial tonality. Thematically, it tends to spin out one them. In a Sonata, at its most basic level, we have the same harmonic journey, but add to it (at least) two primary themes, each in its own key. When these themes recur at the end of the work, the second has been altered to match the key of the first.
The first movement of this early sonata exists in a land somewhat in between. It maps the harmonic journey of the sonata and the second theme recurs in the tonic at the end after a developmental sequence, but the first theme only returns after the repeat, and in the dominant much like a standard work in binary form. This seems to me reminiscent of early Haydn piano sonatas, but I haven’t explored those very much. If we assume that Beethoven knew what he was doing, and I’m not certain that he did – the work seems to bear the sense of being composed left to right – we are probably seeing a transitional mid-century sonata variant akin to some of the types outlined by Rosen in his study Sonata Forms.
Moving on, the Andante demonstrates Beethoven’s lack of skill with its awkward phrase endings and the rondo is a bit more assured with its jolly head motive, but not particularly good or memorable.

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Beethovenhaus

9 Variations for Piano in C minor: on a march by Ernst Christoph Dressler (1782)

Biamonti 1; WoO 63
Variation sets of this time tend to be the dullest pieces - particularly those that follow the formula of progressive diminution - that is, adding more and more ornamentation to the melody. Eventually these Plateresque melodies fall under their own wieght into either then minor or something completely different. You find this a lot in Mozart's keyboard variations, what with their version of the theme in eighth notes and then triplets and then sixteenth notes, before the whole process begins again in the left hand. The twelve-year old Beethoven's first opus, a surprisingly engaging set of variations on a dull march by the long-forgotten composer Dressler, basically demonstrates just what exactly someone can do with the simple alternation of tonic minor and dominant major harmony. We begin very matter of factly with several variations that don't alter very much of the theme, before the fifth variation appears with its rapid broken octaves, it sort of returns to a diminuted style of variation before the final, ninth variation appears in the major and wipes all the dullness away with a touch of the odd, a strange move to the raised six. A good, if awkward, start.

IMSLP

Beethovenhaus

The Project

For about ten years on and off, I have kept a rather strict listening regimen in which I look at a new piece, with a score and recording if at all possible each morning. Originally, my goal was to acquaint myself with the major works of the Western tradition. But eventually, I began to get more comprehensive with particular composer that interested me. In time, I found that the easiest and most interesting approach was to listen to everything a particular composer wrote in the order in which it was written. In doing this, I'd be assured of looking at everything and able to gauge, on some level, a sense of the overall development of a composer's voice. In exploring the work of several composers in this manner, I've found it a helpful antidote to the overperiodization of a composer's style and a sure way to see beyond simple stereotypes of development. At the same time, on some level, it makes me a contemporary, if an omniscient contemporary, of the composer himself; at times, I put myself in the role of an imaginary teacher to that composer.

After having done this for several composers, (Schütz, Schumann, Berlioz, much of Stravinsky), I realized that I would benefit more from this activity if I kept notes about what I heard. In the case of Beethoven, I thought it might be interesting to create a blog specifically for the project.

As a route for the journey, I decided to use the most catholic of catalogues of Beethoven's work, the monumental Biamonti catalog,whose 849 numbers categorize practically every scrap of musical notation left by the composer. Thus, the project is large.

I don’t claim that these notes are authoritative, or even that they are even interesting (I have my good moments and bad moments and some pieces provoke a better reaction), but perhaps someone out there might be interested.

A note on layout. The title is the work in question with the year assigned by Biamonti - starred works are recommended; what follows is a correspondence of the Biamonti numbers with other catalogues, my comments, and links to scores and archival materials as appropriate.