Beethoven's chamber music
Sun, May 5 2013, 11:05AM
Some time ago, I think as a result of a review in the magazine, I bought "Beethoven's Chamber Music in Context" by Angus Wilson. I hadn't got very far into the first chapter when a project, which is now almost complete, presented itself to me - and I would like to share my experience of it. This, in part, for anyone who, like myself when I began it, feels the need to get better acquainted with this great music.
By the way, when only a little way into my project, I posted a plug for the book on the Linn Forum, where fairly regularly someone will express a desire to get to know classical music better. It's phrased in different ways, but it amounts to the same thing, and my own love of this music has grown via ever better audio reproduction over the years. (I don't really understand the connection, but there it is.)
The book goes chronologically through the works from the Opus 1 Piano Trios to the Opus 135 String Quartet. I needed to buy eight pieces to complete my collection and have read each chapter before playing the work (on either vinyl or digital) afterwards.
Apart from the obvious (more of which later) what Watson makes fascinating is not only the biographical context, but also the other works contemporary to each chamber piece. The relationships shown between, say, the third symphony, or in more detail, Fidelio, with chamber works of the same period of each, is so enlightening to the benefit of both - In a big way, for this reader at least.
There is much in Watson's analysis that I don't understand, and the examples of musical notation give me only a vague insight (but that's another learning project I'm on, with very slow progress, I have to say). But in the main it has been a revelation. With each piece, book at my side, the music has become more and more involving, more affecting and satisfying, each stage of the journey, through Beethoven's life, through the evolution of the form, through the feeling of profound and growing insight that it leaves.
At the present I am poised to start Chapter 27: 1825 String Quartet in B flat major, op 130. The "problem" is that the previous piece, (No.13) has involved a chapter re-read, and second listen through as a result, and an almost overwhelming desire to get deeper and deeper into that stunning musical experience before moving on.
As a slight digression but relevant to this, I am, in parallel, near the end of Trollope's "Barchester" novels and I have the same feeling of not wanting to leave that world. I feel like that about the last string quartets, so powerfully affecting near the end of a journey through the development of this towereing genius' works in this medium.
(If anyone knows of a study of the solo piano works, please let me know. The piano sonatas I know well make me want to go on a similar journey through them all! ( A much longer journey, of course.)
I thought this worth posting as a reminder that some need as well as enjoy such texts, and indeed the magazine itself, as part of a process of learning, of the development of musical appreciation. There are students of music here too.
Vic.
Sun, May 5 2013, 12:26PM
#2
RE: Beethoven's chamber music
Reading material is a necessary tool to comprehend better a composer, but repeated listening along the way makes all the difference. Particularly, listening to works being overlooked by other more well-known and celebrated ones, like the Piano Trio op.70, no.2, the Cello Sonata op.105, no.1, the Violin Sonata op.30, no.1 or the String Quartet op.18, no.2, let alone an underrated masterpiece as the String Quintet, op.29.
Beethoven's Chamber Music is a treasure to discover for more than a lifetime.
Parla
Sun, May 5 2013, 12:39PM
#3
RE: Beethoven's chamber music
Now this is what I like and appreciate about you Parla. Thank you.
So unlike your contribution elsewhere today - and the company you keep here!
If only we could both be a little more humble: I'd be near perfect, and you would be a pleasure to call friend.
What about it, eh?
Vic.
Sun, May 5 2013, 1:42PM
#4
RE: Beethoven's chamber music
Afraid I never got very far with the Barchester Chronicles either although the BBC TV dramatizations from decades ago with many star names of the period were rather good, however I digress: the most detailed descriptions of the Beethoven piano sonatas I've come accross are the notes from the original Schnabel 1930s Beethoven Sonata Society issues by Eric Blom reissued with my boxed sets of the LPs.
Welcome back Vic!
Sun, May 5 2013, 4:42PM
#5
RE: Beethoven's chamber music
Always at your disposal, Vic, if I can be of any assistance.
As for the "humility" thing, it has never been an issue in an internet forum. I would put it otherwise: let's moderate ourselves, before we post something. If it sounds still pompous, elitist, etc., simply let's let it go and try to stick to the message.
As for the "friendship" issue, we have been a sort of "old chums" (as you have called me in the "God" thread). We proved to be a bit bitter friends, afterwards, but this is a new beginning. So, let's focus on music and give you another suggestion for further listening of a neglected (or at least less performed or appreciated) but very revealing Piano Sonata by Beethoven: op.14, no.2 in G: a small but quite rewarding gem.
Parla
Sun, May 5 2013, 5:37PM
#6
RE: Beethoven's chamber music
Vic,
If you are looking for a way into Beethoven sonatas, look no further than Andras Schiff's Wigmore lectures
...
Barchester Chronicles.......I gave up after Dr Thorne, which was unbearably tedious. But I loved the first two. May have to go back to them at some point.
Thanks for the tip Jane. I listened to part of one (to see if I could get it through my system - and did) so these lectures will inform my further study. Thanks to you, and The Guardian, of course. Oh, I think I might have pressed someone's button.
I really don't understand your Trollope tedium but each to his/her own, eh? I loved Mary Thorne! And as for Lucy Robarts in the next one! Enough, enough!
Vic.
Sun, May 5 2013, 5:42PM
#7
RE: Beethoven's chamber music
let's moderate ourselves, before we post something. If it sounds still pompous, elitist, etc., simply let's let it go and try to stick to the message.
Parla
Thanks for the suggestion of the sonata Parla, I will pursue it through Jane's suggested lecture list.
As for your suggestion that either of us could sound pompous or elitist... Well, I'm lost for words. Lost for words, Parla. How about that for a first?
Vic.
Sun, May 5 2013, 6:26PM
#8
RE: Beethoven's chamber music
"Lost for words", Vic? Well, let's concentrate on Beethoven's Chamber Music. Tell us about your findings and, then, we may find the appropriate words to communicate far from any pomposity and elitism. What about that, eh?
Parla
Sun, May 5 2013, 7:25PM
#9
RE: Beethoven's chamber music
Obviously the Guardian (rather better when it was The Manchester Guardian)...
Mon, May 13 2013, 4:52AM
#10
RE: Beethoven's chamber music
Hi Vic,
Joseph Kerman at U of C Berkeley wrote a book on the Beethoven Quartets. I haven't read it but I own other Norton publications and they're superb. Anyway, I hope you're getting some enjoyment out of this.
Mon, May 13 2013, 9:58AM
#11
RE: Beethoven's chamber music
Joseph Kerman at U of C Berkeley wrote a book on the Beethoven Quartets.
Thanks G. I'll follow this up. I have one chapter to go and I am not looking forward to finishing it. No surprise endings in biographies are there? The descriptions of the Op 131 are so enlightening (to me, anyway) it made the subsequent listening session engrossing, to say the least. Op 135 in the next reading/listening session:
" ...the rest is silence. Dies."
It'll be like the silence that follows the last note of Art of Fugue. Is there ever such a sense of loss in all art?
Vic.
Mon, May 13 2013, 5:09PM
#12
RE: Beethoven's chamber music
Vic, I havn't read the Kerman book either but everything else I've read from him is superb. I'll certainly be trying it.
Indeed, getting to the end of a long and rewarding journey always has an element of sadness about it, and there is not a much more rewarding journey to be found in music than that through the late Beethoven quartets.....
Except for The Art of Fugue.
One of the most, perhaps the most beloved work of music for me. And as you say:
"...the silence that follows the last note of Art of Fugue. Is there ever such a sense of loss in all art?"
I'm always amazed that some performers omit that last unfinished fugue. The arguments against including it seem so weak, so cerebral as one listens and the B A C H motif enters and is slowly combined with the other themes, only to break off just as the main subject should enter for a last time.
Vikram Seth had it just right: it is an equal music!
Chris
PS: Of course I do remember your choice of this book long ago!
Mon, May 13 2013, 5:33PM
#13
al a
I do find more rewarding and fascinating the journey through the Late String Quartets by Beethoven, with this "difficult", almost existential and religious at the same time, question of the last movement of op.135: "Muss es sein? - Es muss sein!" Poignant, sublime, bold and utterly humane.
"The Art of Fugue", on the other hand, is a journey to the absolute infinite with an abrupt end, which sounds and feels (at least to me) as a heart attack! Terrifying!
Mon, May 13 2013, 5:43PM
#14
RE: Beethoven's chamber music
Kunts der Fuge is an interesting work. I have a string quartet version with the emerson string quartet and a piano version with aimard. Does anyone have a favourite kunst der fuge recording I wonder.
Mon, May 13 2013, 6:42PM
#15
RE: Beethoven's chamber music
I enjoy both those versions, Dr. For piano I slightly prefer Charles Rosen, and I also very much like the Keller Quartet, on ECM. I also have versions on harpsichord and organ. Too many in fact!
I see that Angela Hewitt has just been playing the work at the RFH, so I expect her recording will follow quite soon.
Parla, I loved your descriptions!
Chris
Vic,
Just had a look at that Watson book on Beethoven. Looks excellent; I will put it on my birthday list. I know many here will already be at home with Beethoven's chamber works, but I think I could probably do with some help understanding them in places......
If you are looking for a way into Beethoven sonatas, look no further than Andras Schiff's Wigmore lectures here. (Free and legal. You can download quite easily.) He spends roughly an hour on each sonata, plays large sections to illustrate his points and generally shows how the whole thing works. I can't recommend it highly enough.
Barchester Chronicles.......I gave up after Dr Thorne, which was unbearably tedious. But I loved the first two. May have to go back to them at some point.