Saturday, May 30, 2009

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.
IMSLP
Beethovenhaus

Friday, May 29, 2009

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.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

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."
IMSLP
Beethovenhaus

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

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-.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

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"
IMSLP
Beethovenhaus

Sunday, May 24, 2009

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.
IMSLP
Beethovenhaus

Saturday, May 23, 2009

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.

Friday, May 22, 2009

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.


IMSLP
Beethovenhaus

Thursday, May 21, 2009

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.

IMSLP
Beethovenhaus

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

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.
IMSLP
Beethovenhaus

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

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

Monday, May 18, 2009

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.