Does anyone share this obsessive tendency?

[Rutradelusasa]

I usually get hooked up on the following:

The Flying dutchman (from the last trio from ACT 2 to the chorus duel in ACT 3),

The 7th (the moment in the 4th mov. where the basses go E-D#-E-D#...),

The Revolutionary chorus from Moussorgsky's Boris Godunov (and the WPO simply stomps you with its mighty brass),

The drum roll from the 1st mov of the 9th, and then again I repeat it several times, the whole movement, the passage, the passage, the whole movement..., when someone is about to hit me I stop it ,

The begining of Siegfried, with the nibelungen motif in the violas (or cellos ?) insisting on those Fs, then comes in the might WPO brass 8),

The Presto at the end of Fidelio (whoa!),

And of course:

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"Aaaaagnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi... PAM, PAM PA RAM PAM PAM..." (Missa Solemnis)

[Sorrano]

Originally posted by urtextmeister:
Sorrano,

I have disagree just slightly with your description of Debussy as a minimalist composer. I agree that Debussy repeated patterns of notes to create a texture and color, but I think his agenda was different from that of the early minimalists.

Not my intention to categorize Debussy as a minimalist. Rather to point out that his music contains minimalistic examples in repeated phrases with subtle variations. Debussy's impressionism is more focal.

[Michael]

A good case could be made out for Beethoven being one of the pioneers of minimalism. Take the trio of the second movement of his last quartet where the same phrase is repeated over and over again with explosive force for bars on end before it settles into the scherzo again.
I personally find this passage the most exhilerating in all of Beethoven - and that's saying something. And to think that years before I ever heard it, I read a description of it by a so-called critic who described it as "ugly" music which looked okay on paper but didn't sound quite right. He blamed this, not without sympathy, on the effects of the tragic loss of the composer's hearing! Lord save us from the "experts".

Michael

[Peter]

Originally posted by Michael:
A good case could be made out for Beethoven being one of the pioneers of minimalism. Take the trio of the second movement of his last quartet where the same phrase is repeated over and over again with explosive force for bars on end before it settles into the scherzo again.
I personally find this passage the most exhilerating in all of Beethoven - and that's saying something. And to think that years before I ever heard it, I read a description of it by a so-called critic who described it as "ugly" music which looked okay on paper but didn't sound quite right. He blamed this, not without sympathy, on the effects of the tragic loss of the composer's hearing! Lord save us from the "experts".

Michael

Yes that passage is quite incredible, wild, bizarre even!

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'Man know thyself'

[urtextmeister]

I don't think Beethoven wrote this passage in the last quartet because of deafness. First of all, I think he could hear everything like intervals, harmonies, instrumental timbre clearly in his head. Secondly, the amazing thing about passage is the structural issue. What is it doing there? It has nothing to do with hearing.

I would not hesitate to say this is ugly. Many parts of this quartet are fairly ugly or, a better word might be: crude. There are also moments of beauty and spirituality in the piece. I think Beethoven was beyond just making entertaining and pretty music at this point. He was trying to bring together irreconcilable elements and make sense of them in one piece.

Wasn't he?

[AndrewMyers]

What a horrible thought that critic has put in my head! I've always believed that the bizarreness and occasional ugliness of the late quartets was due to Beethoven's withdrawing into his own world, uninfluenced by other music and developing unique tastes. The idea that he was also losing his very ability to conceptualize music is too tragic for words ...

But then again ... one simply has to listen to the music. The idea that he composed on paper and the stuff just didn't quite turn out right in performance has to be utterly blown away by the sheer 'string quartettishness' of the music. This is not paper music at all. He obviously understood the quartet medium and its capabilities to its core - and then pushed it further. This reminds me of another thread about B's alleged lack of feeling for the piano.

I think a lot of the weirdness of the late quartets comes from the more linear approach - he was willing to let contrapuntal lines clash to create texture. Similar accusations of ugliness were levelled at Bach.

And finally any idea that B wasn't quite in control of the sounds he was composing must be refuted by listening to his very last work for string quartet - the alternative finale for the Bb quartet. This is perfectly accessible music, written to assuage publisher's fears that the Grosse Fuge on the end of op 130 would simply be too much. He was still clearly capable of writing 'normal' sounding music when he had to.

[Peter]

Originally posted by AndrewMyers:

And finally any idea that B wasn't quite in control of the sounds he was composing must be refuted by listening to his very last work for string quartet - the alternative finale for the Bb quartet. This is perfectly accessible music, written to assuage publisher's fears that the Grosse Fuge on the end of op 130 would simply be too much. He was still clearly capable of writing 'normal' sounding music when he had to.

And what could be more beautiful than the heart rending cavatina from op.130?

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'Man know thyself'

[Joy]

Originally posted by Peter:
And what could be more beautiful than the heart rending cavatina from op.130?

Absolutely!! And Beethoven thought this as well in his quote to Holz, “Never did my own music produce such an effect upon me; even now when I recall this work it still costs me a tear.”


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'Truth and beauty joined'

[AndrewMyers]

Yes, fantastic example. The op 130 cavatina has that lovely bit in the middle which is just pure violin texture.

It's almost as if some people are unwilling to accept what humanity can actually achieve - the idea of a deaf composer producing the best music ever has to be 'deconstructed' in our doubting times.

[Peter]

Originally posted by AndrewMyers:
Yes, fantastic example. The op 130 cavatina has that lovely bit in the middle which is just pure violin texture.

It's almost as if some people are unwilling to accept what humanity can actually achieve - the idea of a deaf composer producing the best music ever has to be 'deconstructed' in our doubting times.

Yes and there are other examples of sublime music in the late years to debunk the theory that Beethoven had 'lost it' - 2nd movement of Op.111, adagio of Op.127, slow movement Op.135 for example. The late quartets reveal such a wealth of invention, dance, song, fugue, modal writing, motivic writing, chorale, new ideas of modulation and cadence structure combined with a profound spirituality that show the composer at the height of his creative powers. Though these last works took years to be fully appreciated (in the 25 years after Beethoven's death there were only 7 performances of any of them in Vienna), surprisingly it was the last, Op.135 that was the least popular. The Grosse fugue was not performed in Europe for 27 years after its 1st performance.

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'Man know thyself'

[Tony John Hearne]

Originally posted by Peter:

Yes and there are other examples of sublime music in the late years to debunk the theory that Beethoven had 'lost it' - 2nd movement of Op.111, adagio of Op.127, slow movement Op.135 for example. The late quartets reveal such a wealth of invention, dance, song, fugue, modal writing, motivic writing, chorale, new ideas of modulation and cadence structure combined with a profound spirituality that show the composer at the height of his creative powers. Though these last works took years to be fully appreciated (in the 25 years after Beethoven's death there were only 7 performances of any of them in Vienna), surprisingly it was the last, Op.135 that was the least popular. The Grosse fugue was not performed in Europe for 27 years after its 1st performance.

Peter, Grosse Fugue again I will eventually be barred from this site for endless repetition but I still can't get that particular piece out of my mind, and I first heard it well over thirty years ago. I am not a musician but (hopefully) a cultured listener to all genres. That said, Grosse Fugue has always blown my socks off

PS Hot day in West Sussex today

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Love from London