On This Day!

[Joy]

In 1830 Ludwig van Beethoven's Missa Solemnis is performed in its entirety for the first time, at Warnsdorf. He began his composition with this self warning: "Once again sacrifice all trifles of social life to your art, and God above all." Schindler tells of the Master's rage and fury during the composition of the mass: "Almost obsessed, he beat out the time with his hands and feet before putting the music down on paper. This activity made the landlord giv him notice to leave the apartment. One night he returned home bareheaded, his grey hair soaked by the rain. He had not even been aware of the thunderstorm and the fact that he had lost his hat."

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'Truth and beauty joined'

[King Stephen]

Originally posted by Joy:
In 1830 Ludwig van Beethoven's Missa Solemnis is performed in its entirety for the first time, at Warnsdorf. He began his composition with this self warning: "Once again sacrifice all trifles of social life to your art, and God above all." Schindler tells of the Master's rage and fury during the composition of the mass: "Almost obsessed, he beat out the time with his hands and feet before putting the music down on paper. This activity made the landlord giv him notice to leave the apartment. One night he returned home bareheaded, his grey hair soaked by the rain. He had not even been aware of the thunderstorm and the fact that he had lost his hat."

Joy,
I love these little stories.
Thank you for the info.
Steve

[Joy]

Glad you enjoy them KS!

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'Truth and beauty joined'

[Amalie]

Originally posted by King Stephen:
Joy,
I love these little stories.
Thank you for the info.
Steve

I too love reading these little gems!

*

The 'goal' of the Mass, tonally, is G major, which for Beethoven as for Bach is the key of blessedness. It is a lower mediant to B flat; and a flat submediant to B minor, which is D major's relative.
B minor, for Beethoven as for Bach, is a key of suffering, whereby a synthesis between God's D major and Man's B flat major occurs and, 'for the time being', finds haven in G major's benediction. This can happen because of ambiguities in Beethoven's tonality. D major-minor, B minor and G major acquire modal characteristics (Dorian, Lydian, Mixolydian) which may be inherited in the mediant relationships, and which transmute the 'illusory' element in false relation int 'transcendental'. Of course Beethoven's modulatory range is wider that Bach's; in the Missa Solemnis almost every key is touched on, even if but fleetingly. None the less the scheme outlined carries the burden of the work; it is worth noting that the only other keys which have structural importance, F major and F sharp minor, also stand in mediant relatoinship to D and B flat (F sharp being enharmonically identical with G flat).

So complex a structure, on so grand a scale, combined with the elaborate interrelationships of theme, motive, rhythm and harmony which our analysis has revealed, surely argues for a compositional process beyond rational understanding.
It is interesting that Einstein, a scientist as great in his field as Beethoven in music, has maintained that 'the mystical is the sower of all true art and science. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling, is at the centre of true religiousness' (quoted by Philipp Frank).
In the light of this, Beethoven's statement that he wrote out the last three piano sonatas without pause, in between working on movements of the Missa Solemnis, does not seem totally nonsensical, though in another sense it took him a lifetime to create the sonatas.
Similarly he toiled for four years on the Mass, yet the complexities of formal evolution and the precision of experiential logic are such that one can only imagine that the actual composition was achieved in the state Beethoven called 'raptus'.
There is some evidence that this was so.
Schindler tells us that towards the end of August 1819 -

'I arrived at the master's house in Modling. It was four o'clock in the afternoon. As soon as we entered we learned that in the morning both servants had gone away, and that there had been a quarrel after midnight which had disturbed all the neighbours, because as a consequence of a long vigil both had gone to sleep and the food wich had been prepared had become unpalatable. In the living room, behind a locked door, we heard the master singing parts of the fugue of the Credo - singing, howling, stamping. After we had been listening for a long time to this most awful scene, and were about to go away, the door opened and Beethoven stood before us with distorted features, calculated to excite fear. He looked as if he had been in mortal combat with the whole army of contrapuntists, his everlasting enemies'.

*

His genius lights the way for him and often illumines him with a lightning stroke, while we sit in darkness and scarcely suspect from which side day will break. Oddly enough, Goethe, who had been a diamon himself, and who admitted in 1812, after the meeting a Teplitz, that he had never met a man or artist with more formidable inner force than Beethoven, was in old age as scared of Beethoven as he would have been of his own Faust.



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~ Unsterbliche Geliebte

[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited 06-29-2004).]

[~Immortal Beloved~]

Love reading those stories on Beethoven! I loved it a lot!

[Tony John Hearne]

Originally posted by Amalie:
I too love reading these little gems!

*

The 'goal' of the Mass, tonally, is G major, which for Beethoven as for Bach is the key of blessedness. It is a lower mediant to B flat; and a flat submediant to B minor, which is D major's relative.
B minor, for Beethoven as for Bach, is a key of suffering, whereby a synthesis between God's D major and Man's B flat major occurs and, 'for the time being', finds haven in G major's benediction. This can happen because of ambiguities in Beethoven's tonality. D major-minor, B minor and G major acquire modal characteristics (Dorian, Lydian, Mixolydian) which may be inherited in the mediant relationships, and which transmute the 'illusory' element in false relation int 'transcendental'. Of course Beethoven's modulatory range is wider that Bach's; in the Missa Solemnis almost every key is touched on, even if but fleetingly. None the less the scheme outlined carries the burden of the work; it is worth noting that the only other keys which have structural importance, F major and F sharp minor, also stand in mediant relatoinship to D and B flat (F sharp being enharmonically identical with G flat).

So complex a structure, on so grand a scale, combined with the elaborate interrelationships of theme, motive, rhythm and harmony which our analysis has revealed, surely argues for a compositional process beyond rational understanding.
It is interesting that Einstein, a scientist as great in his field as Beethoven in music, has maintained that 'the mystical is the sower of all true art and science. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling, is at the centre of true religiousness' (quoted by Philipp Frank).
In the light of this, Beethoven's statement that he wrote out the last three piano sonatas without pause, in between working on movements of the Missa Solemnis, does not seem totally nonsensical, though in another sense it took him a lifetime to create the sonatas.
Similarly he toiled for four years on the Mass, yet the complexities of formal evolution and the precision of experiential logic are such that one can only imagine that the actual composition was achieved in the state Beethoven called 'raptus'.
There is some evidence that this was so.
Schindler tells us that towards the end of August 1819 -

'I arrived at the master's house in Modling. It was four o'clock in the afternoon. As soon as we entered we learned that in the morning both servants had gone away, and that there had been a quarrel after midnight which had disturbed all the neighbours, because as a consequence of a long vigil both had gone to sleep and the food wich had been prepared had become unpalatable. In the living room, behind a locked door, we heard the master singing parts of the fugue of the Credo - singing, howling, stamping. After we had been listening for a long time to this most awful scene, and were about to go away, the door opened and Beethoven stood before us with distorted features, calculated to excite fear. He looked as if he had been in mortal combat with the whole army of contrapuntists, his everlasting enemies'.

*

His genius lights the way for him and often illumines him with a lightning stroke, while we sit in darkness and scarcely suspect from which side day will break. Oddly enough, Goethe, who had been a diamon himself, and who admitted in 1812, after the meeting a Teplitz, that he had never met a man or artist with more formidable inner force than Beethoven, was in old age as scared of Beethoven as he would have been of his own Faust.

Amalie I know that you are a professional woman living in London with a full time difficult job. Every evening I visit this wonderful web site and simply marvel at the depth of commitment, scholarship and enjoyment that you post here How on earth do you do it?!!!

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Love from London