What Beethoven Books Do You Own?

[Roehre]

Do you mean William Kinderman?

No. The book I mean is:

Joseph KERMAN.
The Beethoven Quartets.
Oxford University Press, 1967 (I got the 4th impression, PB, 1978).

If you are able and like to compare the books, go to Kerman p.253-261 regarding the Heiliger Dankgesang from 132, and to pp.269-272 in the Winter/Martin Companion, and discover for yourself why I prefer the former.

But as I said before, The Beethoven Quartet Companion is nevertheless an excellent handbook on the subject.

[Zevy]

OK - I'll have to get a hold of it one day. I wish there were such a book on the Mozart quartets, although I don't think it would be similar at all.

All the best,

[Zevy]

regarding the Heiliger Dankgesang from 132

I wish I knew what a Lydian mode was. I understand the definition (major scale with a raised 4th, or 3 consecutive whole tones, etc.), but I don't hear it in Op. 132.

[Michael]

No. The book I mean is:

Joseph KERMAN.
The Beethoven Quartets.
Oxford University Press, 1967 (I got the 4th impression, PB, 1978).


.

I got that from the library a few years back and I was very strongly tempted to report it lost and pay the fine. I must purchase it legitimately one of these days.

[Zevy]

I just ordered one here. Your fault, Roehre!

You can look at the used items and order it at an even more reduced price.

[Roehre]

I just ordered one here. Your fault, Roehre!

Mea culpa

[Roehre]

Ah, but Zevy and Roehre, you a very much behind the times my dears, valuable and pertinent though Kerman is, even today! Curious?

We certainly are

[Zevy]

We certainly are

m'aussi

[Roehre]

The book I have in mind is : The String Quartets of Beethoven, edited by William Kinderman, University of Illinois Press, c2006. One of its essays concerns high-register structuring in the "Russian" quartets, an approach I would never have thought of. Well worth reading. So is the Kerman, but it is not the only "Gospel".

That one has escaped my attention (well, I have been aware of its existence -from hindsight-, but for some reason didn't add it to my list of "must haves"), but that will soon be added to my collection (with or without Mrs. Roehre agreeing ).

Is it a similar approach to the quartets as how Kinderman treated the Diabelli-Variations?

[Bonn1827]

What is the book you refer to which is about the "Diabelli Variations", please? I would like to have that one. I am in a music group which is able to borrow books from the local Conservatorium library, so would like to get it.

[Roehre]

What is the book you refer to which is about the "Diabelli Variations", please? I would like to have that one. I am in a music group which is able to borrow books from the local Conservatorium library, so would like to get it.

William Kinderman
Beethoven's Diabelli Variations
Studies in Musical Genesis and Structure
Oxford University Press
1989 (2nd corrected edition 1999)

[Bonn1827]

Thanks for that reference title. I'll certainly read it. At the moment I'm reading Royal S. Brown's "Overtones and Undertones" about film music. One particular chapter is of most interest, "Herrmann, Hitchcock, and the Music of the Irrational". A fave composer and a fave Director!

[Zevy]

No. The book I mean is:

Joseph KERMAN.
The Beethoven Quartets.
Oxford University Press, 1967 (I got the 4th impression, PB, 1978).

If you are able and like to compare the books, go to Kerman p.253-261 regarding the Heiliger Dankgesang from 132, and to pp.269-272 in the Winter/Martin Companion, and discover for yourself why I prefer the former.

But as I said before, The Beethoven Quartet Companion is nevertheless an excellent handbook on the subject.

OK - I got the Kerman book, and it is much too studious for me. Yes, it's my fault and I take the blame. I find the Winter/Martin compelation (especially the essays on each quartet) much more user-friendly. Sorry

[Bonn1827]

Yes, Philip 2nd, Brown's chapter on Herrmann analyzes the music for "Psycho", "Vertigo" and "Marnie" and talks about HOW the music actually contributes massively to the films. After the collaboration broke up - Herrmann was notoriously difficult - Hitchcock's films suffered from the lesser role of music which was patently inferior to that of Herrmann. In his analyses, Brown talks about the unresolved, hovering dominant 7ths which are a feature of the "Vertigo" score and symbolize the vertiginous trajectory of the plot. So, much used symbolically. Also, the main theme in "Vertigo" (Hitchcock's masterpiece, in my opinion) is built upon ideas found in Tristan & Isolde. Herrmann was a musical literate, ex Vienna, and so were Korngold, Rosza, well lots of them. (I'm running a film and music adult education course later this year, as film was my other major, along with Musicology.) I have a terrific recording by the LAPO and Essa-Pekka Salonnen. Did I spell these properly King Philip 2 of Spain?

[Roehre]

Also, the main theme in "Vertigo" (Hitchcock's masterpiece, in my opinion) is built upon ideas found in Tristan & Isolde. Herrmann was a musical literate, ex Vienna, and so were Korngold, Rosza, well lots of them. (I'm running a film and music adult education course later this year, as film was my other major, along with Musicology.) I have a terrific recording by the LAPO and Essa-Pekka Salonnen.

Bonn1827, you are aware of some of Herrmann's non-film-music works, as there are the quite nostalgic clarinetquintet "Souvenirs de Voyage" (1967), the string quartet "echoes" (1966) and a symphony ("no.1", 1941), all of them to some degree showing his Viennese musical roots?