One of my favorite recordings, period, is the Charles Rosen treatments of Beethoven's late piano sonatas -- two of these pieces are mentioned in the article.
I'm not a musician, so I don't grasp it at the level of the author, but wow. They are dreamy, sublime, mesmerizing. I've been listening to them for 15 years and they are still a favorite. (Review: https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/beethoven-late-piano-son...)
Rosen's short book "Piano Notes", about the "job" of being a concert pianist, is a terrific read.
If I remember aright, it's this book that describes the nerves of the performer preparing to hit the fortissimo opening interval of the Hammerklavier sonata, knowing that half the audience is secretly hoping they'll miss.
A great article! It's particularly cool to see that despite the author's adoration for Beethoven, he still points out some of his musical weaknesses, like counterpoint (we could also add opera).
It's funny that the author chose the Hammerklavier Sonata to hold aloft, which isn't that popular even though Beethoven considered it among his best works. Reading the score for the fugue for Hammerklavier Sonata and imagining it in your head, the harmonies (especially the weird trills) are not so jarring as they come out when played on a real piano.
Similarly, the syncopated harmonic rhythm in the final movement of the last Sonata #32 (opus 111) doesn't throw you off as much when you are reading the score and have the bar lines to reinforce where the measure boundaries fall.
I speculate that if Beethoven had been able to hear those pieces played aloud, he would have made adjustments to them. I hear similar glitches in much of late Beethoven, but those two sections from those two sonatas are the ones that stay with me the most.
Schiff is also controversial on the "Moonlight"[1]
> I don't know any other piece of music that has such a thick layer of false tradition on it like this one.
As well as taking issue with the name - deriving from the poet Ludwig Rellstab which has "stuck like glue" - he notes that the manuscript for the slow first movement, adagio sostenuto (slowly and sustained), is marked alla breve[2] meaning "count two in a bar" so that each beat counts for a pair of the famous triplets[3] - effectively doubling the tempo:
> If you would play it in this tempo that is usually played [plays a bar at conventional speed] you can have breakfast and lunch and dinner and the poor pianist is still playing this first ...
Not content with this disruption of "Moonlight" convention, he relates that the manuscript writes senza sordino, instructing the player to play the whole first movement "without the dampers".
Despite the protestations of his colleagues that "you cannot do it on the modern piano":
> I beg to differ. Why can't you do it on the modern piano? Have you tried it? They said "No I haven't tried it. But you cannot do it!"
> It's an argument just not good enough. Beethoven is a great great enough composer that you have to take him very seriously. [...] He wanted a very special sound, that the harmonies swim together like in a wash and the overtones are strengthening each other.
His solution to the "modern piano" problem is simple: just partially raise the dampers by pressing the pedal down "about a third".
All this might sound like a recipe for disaster, but his interpretation sounds wonderful!
A lot more follows, and I can also recommend his "Moonlight" masterclass[4] as a demonstration of the cogency of his position on the piece.
It's for the reasons you mention, that Beethoven inadvertently created dissonances and curious harmonic choices that he's considered the original modernist composer. Personally I adore his later works for this reason - somehow, they make sense to my modern ears even though I agree with you if he had his hearing he would have corrected many sections.
Also bear in mind that Beethoven was obsessed with the idea of variation: he took a theme and knew how to run with it. So in his later years, I expect he was also open to much more experimentation. One of his great themes is in the opening of the 2nd movement of the symphony #7, which one of my favourites of all my many favourites of this exquisite human being.
Came here to recommend that book. It’s one of the best books I have read in years, and I’m not even that big of a classical music fan. Understanding the influences on him, including the Bavarian Illuminati, makes his music even more impressive.
Yup, it appears he was quite passionate about politics, which formed the crux of most of his conversations apart from music.
On a musical note (heh), it's also interesting to learn that he was one of the first people to play and compose for a proper piano. I guess that's what makes his piano works "richer" than those of the older composers (Bach notwithstanding).
There is a famous anecdote, probably apocryphal, that illustrates well his politics.
".. Goethe and Beethoven, who were together at a spa resort when they unexpectedly met a party of German royalty on the street. Goethe deferentially stood aside and removed his hat, while Beethoven kept his hat firmly on his head and plowed through the royal group, forcing them to make way—which they did, while offering the composer friendly greetings."
Beethoven also led the way in piano technology, demanding that manufacturers increase the loudness and range. He would publish music that required more and more range, which would encourage musicians to buy new pianos. As such, Beethoven had very good relations with the manufacturers who often sent him pianos to try out. Jan Swafford's book "Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph" (recommended above) has many more wonderful stories, I can't recommend it highly enough.
One of the reasons I got so much enjoyment from this book is that Swafford himself was a composer and described the works in great detail accordingly. The numerous anecdotes about Beethoven's life were fascinating of course too.
Does anyone know of similar biographies of other famous composers? Ones that tell stories of the composer's lives as well as give detailed analyses of their works?
The article picks a "strangely thrilling Beethoven’s Fifth — strange, because tiny details spring out of what sounds like a big band" recorded by Peter Eotvos.
This might also be said of the John Eliot Gardiner version[1] Performed on period instruments, which seems to expose detail, it flies through the first movement at the hard rockin' tempo of 108 bpm as per Beethoven's score - a refreshing change of pace if you're more used to lugubrious conventional performances.
> (For what it’s worth, I think the latter matched his level of inspiration but not quite his achievement, though I wouldn’t be saying that if Beethoven, like Mozart, had died at 35.)
If "achievement" is to be read as influence, that's most likely due to Beethoven's compositional process being tractable and, therefore, imitable by mid- to late-period Romantic composers (and later, 20th century composers).
A young composer can be taught to take a motive (short pattern of intervals and rhythms) and transform it to accumulate a phrase of music that is greater than the sum of its parts. If you add to that the possibility to interrupt the flow with related melodic fragments so that the melody seems to "comment" upon itself, you already have a rich set of tools from which to create a dynamic section of music. It's unlikely it will sound anything as sophisticated as what Beethoven wrote. But it will likely be coherent.
Now compare that to this:
* learn to read, remember, improvise upon, and mash up all the musics of continental Europe
* when asked to write a piece, think of the most fitting styles and textures from what you learned (and sometimes, mash them up to make new ones), improvise some new content for that, and then write it down
* if you know your musicians, tailor the music specifically to any special skills or limitations (including yourself)
* put in various types of musical jokes to amuse yourself and the performers
So suppose you are a budding composer and want to express your support for universal human solidarity. Do you chose as your model music from a composer who masterfully employs Romantic irony for the singer to interrupt the symphony that was previously in progress (Beethoven's 9th) to sing about universal brotherhood?
Or do you choose the composer who masterfully mashed up three dances in three disparate time signatures showing how three different social classes could all make merry together in agreeable harmony (Mozart's Don Giovanni)?
Keep in mind that if you choose the latter you need to conduct and cue three different groups from the orchestra so they know when to start and can remain synchronized.
Given hundreds of years the musical legacy tends toward Beethoven more than Mozart for this reason. Still, I'd bet if you measured 9th Symphony references to Mozart's Requiem, the latter wouldn't be too far behind. Heck, Mozart died after writing only eight measures of the Lacrimosa and I've heard that in at least 4 different Netflix shows this year.
It's not just the ease of imitation, it is also the inherent biases in the language. Regardless of the cleverness of mashing things up or musical jokes, there is always a degree of juvenility or frivolity to the concept itself that makes it less versatile to express certain serious ideas as straightforwardly within the wider cultural realm. The toolkit itself is limiting, and the invention less universally applicable because they are specialized clever tricks in each case. It's like the difference between Ramanujan and Einstein. Self-propagating influence is a validation of either universality or foundational depth. Now, is inimitable cleverness done 1000 times a greater achievement? I'm not sure.
The article opens by talking about the details of a bust (sculpture) of Beethoven, but oddly shows a sketch of Beethoven instead of the bust. This appears to be the item the article refers to: https://twitter.com/holysmoke/status/1148316512710737921
Grosse Fuge. This piece is 100 years ahead, and almost 200 years old today. I can't figure out how he could envision it in his time. That kind of music is more like Shostakovich than the Beethoven we know.
It's interesting that the piece that immediately came to mind for me is not mentioned here: his "Moonlight Sonata" [1]. I think this was also an immense risk at the time.
The risk payed off grandly. Moonlight Sonata could easily be a soundtrack for a 2020 movie (if everyone hadn't already known it).
It says on Wikipedia that the piece was popular already at the time, so maybe it was not such a big risk, but I have to say it sounds like (or maybe it inspired) contemporary piano music.
I'm not a musician, so I don't grasp it at the level of the author, but wow. They are dreamy, sublime, mesmerizing. I've been listening to them for 15 years and they are still a favorite. (Review: https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/beethoven-late-piano-son...)