Not good pieces by good composers

[antongould]

you are and always were a gentleman.......

[salymap]

Evening anton, no windbag you; your knowledge in that AA thread leaves me standing. It's a mistake to compare pianists like Chopin with purely orchestral composers IMHO.

Glad you are with us again

[Nick Armstrong]

that AA thread

A lurker, saly! A veritable lurker! I'm sure you've got more than a few clues over the months!!

We're all left standing a lot of the time - hence all the tangents and chat!

Would love to tackle a saly puzzle one day! Do pitch in... to quote Julian and Sandy:

Don't be strange! Troll in!!

[salymap]

A lurker, saly! A veritable lurker! I'm sure you've got more than a few clues over the months!!

We're all left standing a lot of the time - hence all the tangents and chat!

Would love to tackle a saly puzzle one day! Do pitch in... to quote Julian and Sandy:

Don't be strange! Troll in!!

Caliban, not me, my brain hs turned to mush these days. You wait until you're....never mind

[antongould]

Caliban, not me, my brain hs turned to mush these days. You wait until you're....never mind

If that's mush I'd like some - I'm sure you could set a fine clue or two! We will agree to differ about Chopin .........hope the snow is staying away from Sidcup.

[Ergo 125]

That's to rich an assumption of Keller's here: despite the correspondence in November 1826 (after the Ersatz-finale had been sent off to the publisher) the movements of 130 had all separately been prepared but not assembled and a separate publication then of the Grosse Fuge was an option under consideration to which Beethoven still had to give his definitive agreement - which was assumed, but not given in writing at the time of his death. Opus 130 and 133 were published as such in the first week of may 1827, some 6 weeks after Beethoven's death.

B's finances were (in his own perception, that is) in a quite dire situation, meaning the extra 15 ducats for the new finale were without doubt a very welcome extra income. Regarding his treatment of publishers: it wouldn't have been the first time that in his correspondence he wrote something else then his real intentions or the real situation. And that's an understatement. "I have got a whole new symphony in my drawers" e.g. stems from approximately the same time.....

Given these circumstances Keller should have worded his opinion here much more carefully.

There is a remarkable performance of the final version of Op 130, given after the war, in Germany, by the Busch Quartet as then constituted, which survives on the Arbiter label and can still be downloaded at Amazon as MP3. If you listen with a mind open enough to accept that you had never heard the second finale before, but with the Grosse Fuge in your head, you realise that there is no conflict of styles between the two finales, and that the second one is in many ways a commentary on the first. I seem to remember that Keller expressed, in typically paradoxical fashion, a preference for the second finale and it may well be that earlier posts (which I don't seem to be able to access) in this discussion reflected it. Until I came across this Busch performance I was inclined to dismiss Keller's view. Now I'm not so sure.