Barrel of Laughs
A Barrel of Laughs From an Improbable Joker
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI
Published: August 8, 2004
The New York Times
BEETHOVEN was impossible to deal with. He had an aura about him, of course: the charisma of genius. So he attracted a circle of uncommonly tolerant friends. But he was obstinate, arrogant and prone to violent mood swings. One moment he would erupt with paranoid indignation at obsequious associates, greedy publishers and condescending patrons; the next, he would soften into a big mush of sentimental remorse.
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So it's not surprising that he seems to have had almost no sense of humor. True, during his days as a young hotshot composer in Vienna, before his hearing deteriorated, Beethoven could at times be playful and merry among friends. Occasionally you come across a bad pun or a salty observation in his letters. Yet for the most part, he was humorless.
So how to account for the humor that abounds in his music? Not just charm, wit and tongue-in-cheek satire but slapstick antics and utter zaniness.
The intrepid American pianist Jeffrey Swann will focus on the comic side of Beethoven's work on Friday at Bargemusic in Brooklyn. The program is part of Mr. Swann's presentation of all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas in eight programs, the last four taking place from Thursday to next Sunday.
Humor does not fit into the popular image of Beethoven the titanic symphonist, standing up to tyranny in the "Eroica" Symphony, celebrating brotherhood in the Ninth. But elements of bracing humor can be found even in those gripping works. In fact, few composers in history, not even Haydn and Rossini, had a better store of musical jokes.
Surely Beethoven's personal life, especially his chaotic youth, helps explain why he was so mistrustful, insecure and hotheaded. He was the oldest surviving child of an alcoholic and abusive father and a well-meaning but weak-willed mother. To adults the young Beethoven appeared painfully isolated and uncared for. Aside from a few stories of the young Beethoven stealing eggs from a neighbor on a dare or enjoying piggyback rides with cousins, you will probably not find him goofing off, riding horses or even playing cards.
He was short, stocky and, with his pockmarked face and unkempt appearance, unattractive. As he matured, he grew increasingly moralistic. He found Mozart's "Così Fan Tutte" shocking: a crude comedy that made light of mate-swapping.
Even before he started to go deaf, Beethoven was consumed with music. He was famous for taking long walks with a sketch pad close at hand, not even noticing the rain. Though equanimity eluded him in life, in his music he ideally balanced reason and wildness, intellect and emotion, structure and fantasy, sorrow and, yes, silliness.
On Friday, Mr. Swann will play six brilliantly silly works. My favorite, and the silliest, is the Sonata No. 16 in G, composed in 1802, when Beethoven was 31. You seldom hear this astounding piece. Perhaps performers still share the misjudgment of the scholar Eric Blom, who wrote in 1932 that of the 32 sonatas "pretty general critical agreement" deemed this one "the least representative of Beethoven's genius."
Rudolf Serkin, a pianist renowned for his artistic seriousness, certainly did not agree. Serkin played this sonata often, with an infectious sense of mischief. It begins with a stutter, a G in the right hand that anticipates by a hair the downbeat G major triad in the left. It should sound as if the pianist had fumbled the opening, unable to play the two parts in sync. Then the lingering right-hand note spirals into a downward figuration, followed by a series of noodling chords that also stutter — a quirk that runs through the work.
Then the whole business happens again, shifted down a step. Is some suspense afoot? Or is the music just following some formulaic sequence? Beethoven wants to keep you guessing. After more stuttering chords, the music breaks into a headlong rush of twisting 16th notes and nonsensical arpeggios.
At one point in the movement, the piano shifts into a minor-mode broken-chord figure in the right hand with a thumping theme in the left. It sounds like old silent-movie music for the scene in which the bad guys gallop into town. The development section pushes the stuttering-chord idea to the limit: it's like an apotheosis of stuttering chords. After an extended passage of misty textures spiked with quietly dissonant wrong notes, the silly main theme returns, sounding wonderfully fresh and clearheaded.
In the second movement, a mock-elegant Adagio in C, a simple triplet figure accompanies a decorous theme, which begins with a trill that goes on too long. As the movement evolves, the right hand elaborates the theme with outbursts of brilliant yet excessive ornamentation. It sounds at once virtuosic and idiotic.
The final movement is a deceptively graceful Rondo. For a while the music seems genuinely tender. But don't let that fool you; the sonata builds to a madcap conclusion.
If this could be called the "Stutter" Sonata, the Sonata No. 18 in E flat, which Mr. Swann will also play, might be called the "False Starts" Sonata.
The first movement begins with a quizzical descending melodic gesture, richly harmonized. A series of slightly insinuating chords follows, creeping stepwise higher as the tempo is stretched to a standstill. Have we started in the middle of the movement? The question is answered with a nonchalant up-tempo outburst, which skirts up the keyboard until the quizzical opening is repeated in a higher register.
Finally, the sonata seems to take off, with a playful and steady main theme. But don't get too settled; things keep changing.
A bumptious Allegretto comes next, then a wistful yet slyly amusing slow movement, before the hurtling finale, full of stop-and-start surprises. It would be good music for a zany crowd scene in a Marx Brothers movie except for the bouts of harmonic adventure and rhythmic intensity.
Beethoven folded his humor into architectonic musical structures, lending his silliness a colossal quality that can throw listeners off. My guess is he wanted it that way. Beethoven liked having the last laugh.
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI
Published: August 8, 2004
The New York Times
BEETHOVEN was impossible to deal with. He had an aura about him, of course: the charisma of genius. So he attracted a circle of uncommonly tolerant friends. But he was obstinate, arrogant and prone to violent mood swings. One moment he would erupt with paranoid indignation at obsequious associates, greedy publishers and condescending patrons; the next, he would soften into a big mush of sentimental remorse.
Advertisement
So it's not surprising that he seems to have had almost no sense of humor. True, during his days as a young hotshot composer in Vienna, before his hearing deteriorated, Beethoven could at times be playful and merry among friends. Occasionally you come across a bad pun or a salty observation in his letters. Yet for the most part, he was humorless.
So how to account for the humor that abounds in his music? Not just charm, wit and tongue-in-cheek satire but slapstick antics and utter zaniness.
The intrepid American pianist Jeffrey Swann will focus on the comic side of Beethoven's work on Friday at Bargemusic in Brooklyn. The program is part of Mr. Swann's presentation of all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas in eight programs, the last four taking place from Thursday to next Sunday.
Humor does not fit into the popular image of Beethoven the titanic symphonist, standing up to tyranny in the "Eroica" Symphony, celebrating brotherhood in the Ninth. But elements of bracing humor can be found even in those gripping works. In fact, few composers in history, not even Haydn and Rossini, had a better store of musical jokes.
Surely Beethoven's personal life, especially his chaotic youth, helps explain why he was so mistrustful, insecure and hotheaded. He was the oldest surviving child of an alcoholic and abusive father and a well-meaning but weak-willed mother. To adults the young Beethoven appeared painfully isolated and uncared for. Aside from a few stories of the young Beethoven stealing eggs from a neighbor on a dare or enjoying piggyback rides with cousins, you will probably not find him goofing off, riding horses or even playing cards.
He was short, stocky and, with his pockmarked face and unkempt appearance, unattractive. As he matured, he grew increasingly moralistic. He found Mozart's "Così Fan Tutte" shocking: a crude comedy that made light of mate-swapping.
Even before he started to go deaf, Beethoven was consumed with music. He was famous for taking long walks with a sketch pad close at hand, not even noticing the rain. Though equanimity eluded him in life, in his music he ideally balanced reason and wildness, intellect and emotion, structure and fantasy, sorrow and, yes, silliness.
On Friday, Mr. Swann will play six brilliantly silly works. My favorite, and the silliest, is the Sonata No. 16 in G, composed in 1802, when Beethoven was 31. You seldom hear this astounding piece. Perhaps performers still share the misjudgment of the scholar Eric Blom, who wrote in 1932 that of the 32 sonatas "pretty general critical agreement" deemed this one "the least representative of Beethoven's genius."
Rudolf Serkin, a pianist renowned for his artistic seriousness, certainly did not agree. Serkin played this sonata often, with an infectious sense of mischief. It begins with a stutter, a G in the right hand that anticipates by a hair the downbeat G major triad in the left. It should sound as if the pianist had fumbled the opening, unable to play the two parts in sync. Then the lingering right-hand note spirals into a downward figuration, followed by a series of noodling chords that also stutter — a quirk that runs through the work.
Then the whole business happens again, shifted down a step. Is some suspense afoot? Or is the music just following some formulaic sequence? Beethoven wants to keep you guessing. After more stuttering chords, the music breaks into a headlong rush of twisting 16th notes and nonsensical arpeggios.
At one point in the movement, the piano shifts into a minor-mode broken-chord figure in the right hand with a thumping theme in the left. It sounds like old silent-movie music for the scene in which the bad guys gallop into town. The development section pushes the stuttering-chord idea to the limit: it's like an apotheosis of stuttering chords. After an extended passage of misty textures spiked with quietly dissonant wrong notes, the silly main theme returns, sounding wonderfully fresh and clearheaded.
In the second movement, a mock-elegant Adagio in C, a simple triplet figure accompanies a decorous theme, which begins with a trill that goes on too long. As the movement evolves, the right hand elaborates the theme with outbursts of brilliant yet excessive ornamentation. It sounds at once virtuosic and idiotic.
The final movement is a deceptively graceful Rondo. For a while the music seems genuinely tender. But don't let that fool you; the sonata builds to a madcap conclusion.
If this could be called the "Stutter" Sonata, the Sonata No. 18 in E flat, which Mr. Swann will also play, might be called the "False Starts" Sonata.
The first movement begins with a quizzical descending melodic gesture, richly harmonized. A series of slightly insinuating chords follows, creeping stepwise higher as the tempo is stretched to a standstill. Have we started in the middle of the movement? The question is answered with a nonchalant up-tempo outburst, which skirts up the keyboard until the quizzical opening is repeated in a higher register.
Finally, the sonata seems to take off, with a playful and steady main theme. But don't get too settled; things keep changing.
A bumptious Allegretto comes next, then a wistful yet slyly amusing slow movement, before the hurtling finale, full of stop-and-start surprises. It would be good music for a zany crowd scene in a Marx Brothers movie except for the bouts of harmonic adventure and rhythmic intensity.
Beethoven folded his humor into architectonic musical structures, lending his silliness a colossal quality that can throw listeners off. My guess is he wanted it that way. Beethoven liked having the last laugh.
and no one can top that!
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