Posted on 06/26/2015 5:52:50 PM PDT by AZamericonnie
After the monumental “Kreutzer” Violin Sonata, which I featured last week, three years had gone by. It’s now 1806. Lou Beethoven, now 35, had spent these years on two main projects: the Third Symphony and an opera, “Fidelio.” He had also written a Fourth Piano Concerto which finally walked away from Mozart’s model of the concerto for Beethoven’s own unique voice.
The Third Symphony received a lot of public rehearsals in the houses of the nobility, and no one could understand it because it completely left the model of the symphony as created by Haydn and Mozart. Some called it a “fantasia” because they couldn’t perceive the structure of the piece. The public performances did poorly, but by 1806 people had heard the piece enough for opinion to change. Beethoven had set the symphony free, and people began to appreciate what he had accomplished.
There were still some prominent naysayers. Tony Salieri, once Beethoven’s teacher, thought it grotesque and believed that everything written after the Second Symphony was a waste of music paper. He transmitted that opinion to his student Schubert in later years, and it wasn’t until 1825, when Tony died, that Schubert could approach Beethoven’s music without guilt. That was one of the things that prompted the quantum leap in Schubert’s output in his last years.
I won’t go into an analysis of the piece, but I’ll provide a link to Roger Norrington’s recording. He uses period instruments and was the first conductor since Toscanini and Leibowitz to honor Beethoven’s metronome markings. At Beethoven’s posted speed of dotted half note = 60, the first movement swaggers and sweeps you away. The first two chords sound like a volley of rifle shots, and the end makes you giddy. The second movement, a funeral march at eighth note = 80, isn’t as slow and ponderous as it’s normally conducted. For those interested in hearing the symphony as Beethoven intended, here is the link:
”Fidelio” was a disaster. First came the problems with the Imperial Censor. Then came the fact that Beethoven didn’t have a sense for how musical theater should unfold. It took all of his friends an entire night to convince him to cut a third of the score. Then, on the verge of success, Lou, in his paranoia that everybody was cheating him, got into a fight with the theater manager over his percentage of the gate and locked the opera away in a desk drawer. He would not pull it out of that drawer for almost a decade.
The Fourth Piano Concerto started with the piano making the first statement, something that had never been done before. Lou used every trick he knew, from a second subject in a remote key and tonal misdirection to a wrong-key finale that finds the correct key only at the end. For a slow movement, he wrote something that sounds like a brooding recitative from an opera. I won’t go into an analysis of the concerto, but I’ll link to a performance by Mitsuko Uchida from the London Proms concert series in 2013. Uchida has only gotten better with age, and this is a deep performance.
The Third Symphony had marked the New Path he had been seeking in symphonic music as the Kreutzer Sonata had marked it for the violin sonata and the Fourth Concerto had for the piano. Now it was time for Beethoven to set the string quartet free.
Prince Razumovsky was one of the richest Russians in Vienna and a violinist of great skill. He was a professional womanizer and spent money like a drunken sailor, but he had the czar at his back, so neither was a problem. He commissioned three quartets from Beethoven and asked that Lou insert a Russian folk theme into each. These quartets step away from Haydn and Mozart, and establish Beethoven’s own unique voice in quartet writing. When Iggy Schuppanzigh and the boys premiered this quartet, Iggy told Lou at a rehearsal that the boys were having problems understanding these latest quartets. Beethoven pulled himself up to his full five-feet-six and said, “Oh, I didn’t write these quartets for you! I wrote them for a later generation!” It took a pair of brass ones to say that.
The first movement in 4/4 is marked simply “allegro.” You have the sense of walking into a room where a conversation is already going on. The second subject is in the conventional key of C Major, which by now is unusual for Beethoven. He doesn’t repeat the exposition but moves right into a development section that begins by skidding off the road. He goes through no fewer than twelve keys before settling into a fugato in E-flat minor. Lou blurs the moment of recapitulation by bringing back the first sub-theme, not the main cello theme, followed by a C Major scale that overlaps the true return of the cello theme. It’s in the coda, where the first theme returns in all its glory on the second violin over droning fifths in the bass, that there is a stable harmonic foundation.
The second movement is a sort of scherzo in B-flat, 3/8 time and sonata format, marked “allegretto vivace e sempre scherzando,” “vivacious and always playful.” This movement is so playful that few understood it at the time. In its early days, one Moscow cellist at a rehearsal threw the score on the floor and stomped on it. The basis is a bouncing rhythm on the cello and a dancing figure on the violin taken through a variety of keys and moods. This is where Beethoven broke from Haydn and showed his confidence that Iggy and the boys could handle anything he threw at them. The end is hilarious.
The slow movement is in F minor, sonata format and marked “adagio molto e mesto,” “very slow and sad.” In his sketch book, Beethoven described this movement as, “A weeping willow over my brother’s grave,” which is strange because Beethoven’s brothers were still alive. There is hopefulness amid the sadness as the melody turns to A-flat for the second subject. The development turns to D-flat for an aria that provides consolation. The recap puts everything in the correct keys, and all appears sad until...
The finale starts without pause, marked once again simply “allegro.” This is the Russian theme worked up in sonata format. A short development is based on the second subject, but in D minor. The recap begins in B-flat, the wrong key, but turns to the correct key of F. The coda is a wild race to a short adagio break that recalls the slow movement before a high-spirited finish.
Tomorrow night it’s the second quartet from this set.
Hiya M/L....right as rain now? *Hugs*
I do indeed dear...sometimes it only makes things worse! LOL
But FRiends are different. :)
I also know sometimes for me it's easier to suck it up than vocalize it...but that's just me...:)
Oh Connie, I am so sorry - I assumed you knew, 100 lashes with wet willow.
Oooo! That sounds interesting!
Hiya Janie Sue & how are you? Stateside? *Hugs*
Howdy, Mr. P! (((hugs)))
Good to see you here! :) I see you have good wallerin’ music again tonight!
?
Lots of good stuff to waller in, just made for a glass of wine.
Right after I left Boston, Mom fell again and fractured her pelvis. I am still coughing up leftover stuff but I am not sick anymore
I know you’re semi retired but still it could be ANY 3 days a week, right? Or, do they get premium pay for weekends and you don’t rate? lol
You seem to forget, I live in the conservative part of the state and we spell it California. The K is Bay Area and SoCal spelling! (YA GOT THAT? lol)
Sounds like a plan! :)
Rofl....no worries dear...normally I watch weekly but this season I’ve been too busy so have been watching them on demand.
I understand that there are two more novels yet to be written & it took 20 years to write the first 5. Perhaps it could be a while before we see another series?
My boss knows I'm whiney so he gives me weekends off and I'm only working 20 hours a week, it's a good fit for me and exercise too!
Oh, and I expect you here in EVERY FRiday Canteen, kapeesh?
Thank you kindly, Sir!
Hiya Luvie Sue! Tired of the heat yet? *Hugs*
No coming for this flag mountainlion! *Hugs*
Oh...so sorry about your Mother ML & hope she heals well!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.