BaL 6.07.13 - Beethoven's Piano Sonata no. 32 in C minor Op. 111

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I am also curious as to why we he would have changed his markings based upon the premiere, because he was stone deaf at that point. Why would merely watching the players cause him to make changes?

I haven't heard this story either, but watching the players physically playing might well have enabled him to appreciate the appropriateness (or otherwise) of his metronome markings. What you do at home on a sheet of manuscript paper can be very different from what you might do in performance. And we know that no-one changed his mind more than Beethoven did.

[waldo]

I got the story of Beethoven from Angus Watson's Beethoven's Chamber Music in Context. He quotes Joseph Bohm, who led a performance of Opus 127 in front Beethoven:

At the close of the last movement......there occurred a meno vivace, which seemed to me to weaken the general effect. At the rehearsal, therefore, I advised that the original tempo be maintained, which was done to the betterment of the effect. Beethoven, crouching in a corner, heard nothing, but watched with strained attention. After the last stroke of the bows he said, laconically: "Let it remain so", went to the desks and crossed out the meno vivace in all four parts.

[waldo]

Far from being "presumptuous", it seems to me to be a matter of respecting Beethoven's mastery of these sounds, (his expertise at his craft) and a realization that these sounds communicate Beethoven's ideas (as he experienced them during composition) better than instruments developed at least sixty years after he died and with timbres which he could not possibly have imagined.

The presumption, I think, comes from confining Beethoven's music to the conditions which prevailed in his lifetime.

If Beethoven was brought back from the dead, I can easily imagine him saying, "Why are you still playing my music on those awful, twangy old antiques? Do you really believe that the greatness of my music could best be served by taking it to a museum? That's one step away from kitsch......... Obviously, I sometimes wrote with these old instruments in mind, but that was because nothing else was available at the time. Do you really think you serve my so-called "intentions" by limiting me in this way? Doesn't my music outstrip its own time and transcend the banality of technology? After all, you have the notes I wrote."

etc.......

(My last word on this subject for now.)

[Sir Velo]

The presumption, I think, comes from confining Beethoven's music to the conditions which prevailed in his lifetime.

If Beethoven was brought back from the dead, I can easily imagine him saying, "Why are you still playing my music on those awful, twangy old antiques? Do you really believe that the greatness of my music could best be served by taking it to a museum? That's one step away from kitsch......... Obviously, I sometimes wrote with these old instruments in mind, but that was because nothing else was available at the time. Do you really think you serve my so-called "intentions" by limiting me in this way? Doesn't my music outstrip its own time and transcend the banality of technology? After all, you have the notes I wrote."

etc.......

(My last word on this subject for now.)

In the absence of a "like" button (why don't we have one?)

BTW, love Brautigam (and Bezuidenhout et al) so no dogmatism here!

[Roehre]

I got the story of Beethoven from Angus Watson's Beethoven's Chamber Music in Context. He quotes Joseph Bohm, who led a performance of Opus 127 in front Beethoven:

At the close of the last movement......there occurred a meno vivace, which seemed to me to weaken the general effect. At the rehearsal, therefore, I advised that the original tempo be maintained, which was done to the betterment of the effect. Beethoven, crouching in a corner, heard nothing, but watched with strained attention. After the last stroke of the bows he said, laconically: "Let it remain so", went to the desks and crossed out the meno vivace in all four parts.

In Schuppanzigh's absence it was Joseph Böhm who led the Schuppanzigh string quartet.
This story happened during the first rehearsal in preparation for the work's premiere March 6th 1825 (where it was received with a "schwacher succès d'estime" ["weak courtesy applause", Böhm's comment]).
The source is Thayer/Forbes Thayer's Life of Beethoven (1964/'67) p.941 (and therefore most likely reliable, contrary to many of the Schindler remarks regarding i.a. tempi in Beethoven works)

[ardcarp]

Lurching back to the subject of Op111, I heard the full monty on essential classics this a.m. It is a gripping performance, and indeed the Graf piano brings a new light to certain textures. But I'm not sure I could live with the sound as a 'main' version. There is a fine sound in the tenor and bass registers, but in the high treble (and especially when Beethoven is in one of his 'thick chords in the left hand and worrying a theme to death in the right with a big gap between' moods) the thinness of the tone becomes a bit tiring to the ear. The modern concert grand is indeed a wonder.

[BBMmk2]

As Waldo was saying earlier on about wether LvB would have preferred the modern grand to the technology that was available to him then? I think hew would as his development would have gone further, imo.

[Roehre]

As Waldo was saying earlier on about wether LvB would have preferred the modern grand to the technology that was available to him then? I think he would as his development would have gone further, imo.

I am convinced he would, see my Msg #177.

But on top of that, at the time of Beethoven's death the strings of the most developed and strongest sounding pianos had reached the maximum force to which the wooden frames could be exposed without collapsing. But even those instruments with 3 strings per key were unable to produce the sound Beethoven wanted/had in mind.
It's the iron/steel frame which made the great the grand piano with it's thundering sound qualities possible.
Though obviously conjectural, consequently there is little doubt Beethoven would have embraced such instruments.

[vinteuil]

Though obviously conjectural, consequently there is little doubt Beethoven would have embraced such instruments.

... and I just wonder what wonderful music he might have composed for such to-him-unknown instruments.

[visualnickmos]

After Brendel, Kempff seems to hail from another planet. The recording does the piano few favours in fortissimo, and parts of the first movement sound a bit clangorous. Kempff does not repeat the exposition. But within a few seconds of the start of the second movement, Kempff's beautiful voicing drew me in at once. His initial tempo is more flowing than Brendel's, and surprisingly he speeds up once the theme is stated. However, even the 'jazzy' variation does not sound scrambled because he knows just where and how much to vary the basic pulse. This pianist knew so many gradations of pianissimo! This account moved me a good deal more than Brendel's.

I've just listened to Kempff's (stereo) DG recording from his complete set, and it is very remarkable in that the ebb and flow is almost tantalising, and the feeling of anticipation that his playing engenders, made me feel disappointed when the music's last notes struck!

The only other recording I have of the Op111 is Kovacevich, (Philips 1973) which seems as if it's at the opposite end of the spectrum - and I don't mean that negatively. I prefer Kempff, whose piano sounds much 'fuller' compared to Stephen Kovacevich's instrument. But Kempff is hugely more engaging on every level here. I'm quite tempted by Richter and Arrau - two pianists that I particularly like. Only if I can find a bargain-bucket offering!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... and I just wonder what wonderful music he might have composed for such to-him-unknown instruments.

This is the point - throughout his career, Beethoven wrote for the instruments he knew (not "sometimes") embracing the changes that came with each development. It is unlikely that he would change the habits of a lifetime and just write the same sort of Music for an instrument with different capabilities - the klangfarbenmelodie from una corda to tutte le corde and back in bar five of the recit in Op 110 (which defeats the modern piano) for a start would have to be rewritten - and the low triads in the klagender gesang put up an octave to avoid the grumbling that the modern piano with its enhanced bass notes cannot help but produce (totally different from the gentler, softer, more consoling sounds of the pianos of the early 19th Century).

Composers don't just "write notes" - they compose sounds. Sounds that I find are integral to the Music we hear and affect how we respond to them. Change these timbres, and we change the Music: just as we change a Vermeer if we go over it in acrylics - after all, if Vermeer were brought back to life, I can well imagine him watching the restoration of one of his paintings and saying ""Why are you still looking at my works on those awful, dull old paints? Do you really believe that the greatness of my Art could best be served by taking it to a museum? That's one step away from kitsch......... Obviously, I sometimes wrote with these old paints in mind, but that was because nothing else was available at the time. Do you really think you serve my so-called "intentions" by limiting me in this way? Doesn't my Art outstrip its own time and transcend the banality of technology? After all, you have the pictures I drew."

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And we know that no-one changed his mind more than Beethoven did.

Do "we"? Not Bruckner? Not Chopin? Not your fantasy Tchaikovsky conductor?

Fidelio; the slow Movement of the Waldstein Sonata; the finale of the Bb major String Quartet. Are there any other examples of Beethoven "changing his mind" after he had completed a work? (Genuine question - not a smart-alec rhetorical: I can't think of any others.) Do you think he might have changed his mind about some aspect of Op 111?

[waldo]

I don't know of any other changes Beethoven made after completion. Whether he would have changed his mind about Op 111 - I don't know. I think that is speculating a bit too far.

Nice Vermeer analogy. But I don't think it works because in one case (Vermeer) the actual work of art is being changed and in the other (Beethoven), the same work of art is being performed in a different way. A performance is not, of course, a work of art. If we started mucking about with the score itself - well, then you would have a point. (And that doesn't mean we must slavishly abide by each and every bit of notation.......)

As I said before, I admit that his works were composed with certain instruments in mind, but I don't think that means we get closer to Beethoven by performing his music on them. I agree that we might lose certain effects which he intended to produce - and that is a loss worth considering. But then we also gain, and it is very hard to believe that Beethoven himself would have preferred us to keep to the old fortepianos. He was, as we know, extremely dissatisfied with them:

There is no doubt that so far as the manner of piano playing is concerned, the pianoforte is the least studied and developed of all instruments; one often thinks one is listening merely to a harp. (Letters of Beethoven, Beethoven to Johann Streicher, 1796.)

Then, in 1826, he said to his assistant, Karl Holz, It is and remains an inadequate instrument. He went on to imply that he would not write for the piano again because it was not yet fully developed as an instrument.

Given all that it, I think it is perverse to think that we are being faithful to his music by restricting it to an instrument he himself disliked so much.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Given all that it, I think it is perverse to think that we are being faithful to his music by restricting it to an instrument he himself disliked so much.

Well, it's obvious we're not going to reach agreement, waldo - I think it "perverse" to imagine that we're being faithful to his Music by playing it on instruments that didn't exist until eighty or even a hundred years after he died; especially as it is phenomenally so well written for the instruments that he himself knew so well. Tempi, dynamics, balance, articulation - all stunningly well taken into account and calculated by this supreme master; it does seem to me that to change these wonderful timbres is "mucking about with the score itself" - I don't share the idea that timbre is a separate thing from "the Music" just tacked on like an afterthought; unimportant, disregardable.

But, hey - it isn't a case of "either/or": performances and recordings on early 19th Century and late 20th Century abound for us to delight and revel in as we find suits our individual needs as they occur each time we wish to hear the work. We have much in common: we both believe that these are astonishing works by one of the greatest of all creative minds; we bothe respect each other's dearest responses to this body of work; and we both think we're right!

Best Wishes.

[waldo]

Well said, ferneyh. Nice to end on such a harmonious note.