John Tavener, can't quite forgive Beethoven

[Quijote]

...well, I prefer to call a spade a spade ...

Unless it is a shovel?

Ha !!

[Michael]

My father always called a spade a spade ........ until the night he fell over one .........

[Sorrano]

Philip, reread my post regarding harmonic, structural, etc. analysis as criteria to determine if one work is better than another. I posed that as a question, not as a statement. I offered those as examples to the need of criteria to determine if one work is better than another. Your responses remind me of the person who swallowed a camel, straining at a gnat. It is my opinion that the 9th Symphony is greater than the 1st. But I am not comparing Bach's counterpoint with Beethoven's nor Bartok's quartets with Beethoven's. If you want to understand what makes a work better than another you have to have a system of values with which to judge the works. In regards to my usage of the word, "quantitative" I stand (sit) corrected; I misused it. My intended word was qualitative. Sorry about that.

[PDG]

My father always called a spade a spade ........ until the night he fell over one .........

The best two balls I ever hit on a golf course was when I trod on a rake.....

[Quijote]

The best two balls I ever hit on a golf course was when I trod on a rake.....

Now then, what on earth was a 'dissolute man' doing on the golf course? And why did you choose to tread on him? Must have been a gender-obsessed fellow, at any rate! Or perhaps he was a friend of Stravinsky?

[Quijote]

Philip, reread my post regarding harmonic, structural, etc. analysis as criteria to determine if one work is better than another. I posed that as a question, not as a statement. I offered those as examples to the need of criteria to determine if one work is better than another. Your responses remind me of the person who swallowed a camel, straining at a gnat. It is my opinion that the 9th Symphony is greater than the 1st. But I am not comparing Bach's counterpoint with Beethoven's nor Bartok's quartets with Beethoven's. If you want to understand what makes a work better than another you have to have a system of values with which to judge the works. In regards to my usage of the word, "quantitative" I stand (sit) corrected; I misused it. My intended word was qualitative. Sorry about that.

You like your metaphors, don't you?! We're flogging a dead horse here, aren't we (another metaphor)? I agree (Preston falls over; Sorrano slumps at his desk; Peter grabs his spade) that we need such criteria to make comparative analyses, or even to talk intelligently about music in general, but do we need to determine 'better than'? Do we not need simply to say if the work 'works' in-and-for itself? The 'problem' in our respective positions is that I am coming at it from a semantic angle.

Let's move on. As to Bruckner, why did he choose to revise his works so often? We know from the literature that he was sensitive to criticism and agreed to changes to satisfy his 'critics' (who were also his admirers; well, some of them). But what I am unaware of is if he made changes for other reasons (structural, harmonic, aesthetic ...). Why does Robert Simpson (a leading music critic and symphonist himself) consider the finale of the 4th to be a 'failure'? And why didn't Bruckner revise that, if so?

[PDG]

Let's move on. As to Bruckner, why did he choose to revise his works so often? We know from the literature that he was sensitive to criticism and agreed to changes to satisfy his 'critics' (who were also his admirers; well, some of them). But what I am unaware of is if he made changes for other reasons (structural, harmonic, aesthetic ...).

A combination of all of the above, I suggest. Schubert left enormous amounts of music unfinished, much of it possibly for the same insecure reasons. Once a work is deemed "complete" and no one likes it, then what to do?!
Again here, Beethoven is the King. Once a work was finished, seldom was any revision deemed necessary. He even chose in later life, despite consideration, not to revise the early piano sonatas, even though the piano had undergone significant range changes. A true mark of his assured compositional and artistic control.

[Peter]

A combination of all of the above, I suggest. Schubert left enormous amounts of music unfinished, much of it possibly for the same insecure reasons. Once a work is deemed "complete" and no one likes it, then what to do?!
Again here, Beethoven is the King. Once a work was finished, seldom was any revision deemed necessary. He even chose in later life, despite consideration, not to revise the early piano sonatas, even though the piano had undergone significant range changes. A true mark of his assured compositional and artistic control.

He did often revise works after the first performance or try out - Op.18/1, the 2nd piano concerto, the Eroica symphony, the Waldstein sonata, the 8th symphony and even Fur Elise are a few that come to mind. Beethoven had the luxury that Bruckner did not of often having a private performance before going public.

[PDG]

Yes, Peter, I think the private try-out opportunities were crucial. But as you know, LvB was very single-minded and was loathe to ever change anything his peers didn't approve of (Haydn's uncertainty about the Piano Trio Op.1/3), and he certainly never crumbled under critical pressure (Grosse Fuge quartet finale, Op.130; the rewriting of Fidelio). As exampled by the Waldstein and Fidelio overtures, he substituted entire movements more than he altered their already intended structures.

The 2nd (actually the 1st) concerto and the Op.18/1 quartet were his first serious attempts within those genres so allowances must be made.

[Peter]

Yes, Peter, I think the private try-out opportunities were crucial. But as you know, LvB was very single-minded and was loathe to ever change anything his peers didn't approve of (Haydn's uncertainty about the Piano Trio Op.1/3), and he certainly never crumbled under critical pressure (Grosse Fuge quartet finale, Op.130; the rewriting of Fidelio). As exampled by the Waldstein and Fidelio overtures, he substituted entire movements more than he altered their already intended structures.

The 2nd (actually the 1st) concerto and the Op.18/1 quartet were his first serious attempts within those genres so allowances must be made.

Certainly PDG Beethoven would rarely change in response to criticism (though Leonore/Fidelio, the Waldstein and Grosse fugue are examples), but works such as the Eroica were subject to revision after their private run throughs - so he did allow his own critical judgement to sometimes make changes after a work's 'completion'. The unheard Beethoven site have different versions of several of the symphonies that show this process in Beethoven's working method
http://www.unheardbeethoven.org/sear...?instrequest=1

[PDG]

He never changed anything on a whim. These private run-throughs must have been like audible sketches to him, and he was lucky to be granted them. In the main, I think just by following the musical logic in almost all his compositions (just listen to some of those codas again!), we have to surmise that he was the most assured of artists. As Bernstein said of him: "He always knew what the next note was going to be." When the Razumovsky Quartet first saw the F major work (no.1), they laughed at the lack of a preamble to the first movement. A Beethoven joke? - No, he knew that what he had written made perfect musical sense.

[Quijote]

Revisions

PDG and Peter : no problems with your comments about LvB revising his works. For the Eroica, it is true as you both say that he made some changes after the first 'run through' at Leibkowitz's, but what I am unaware of is the exact 'nature' of those changes. Do you happen to know what they could have been, and if they were 'radical', or just more 'fine tuning', so to speak? Does Barry Cooper have anything to say about that too (given that he has expert knowledge of the sketches)?

Another speculative point : his deafness at the time of the Eroica was not total. PDG, you suggest that the 'run through' for the Eroica allowed him the luxury of making changes, and I think no composer would refuse such an opportunity before final publication. That said, do you think he would have made changes to his late-period works if he had been able to have an 'audible' (in the strict physical sense, not the inner-ear sense) run through of the late quartets / Ninth and so on?

[Sorrano]

He never changed anything on a whim. These private run-throughs must have been like audible sketches to him, and he was lucky to be granted them. In the main, I think just by following the musical logic in almost all his compositions (just listen to some of those codas again!), we have to surmise that he was the most assured of artists. As Bernstein said of him: "He always knew what the next note was going to be." When the Razumovsky Quartet first saw the F major work (no.1), they laughed at the lack of a preamble to the first movement. A Beethoven joke? - No, he knew that what he had written made perfect musical sense.

The key to this was his own self confidence in what he composed. Prior to the first hearings and performances we see through his sketchbooks the detailed labor in bringing the works to a completion. He put great care into the works and once done did not care to modify. Fidelio is an example of that reluctance; didn't he refer to Fidelio in terms of a child that had given him great pain (or something to that effect) after having to do some major modifications?

[Quijote]

The key to this was his own self confidence in what he composed. Prior to the first hearings and performances we see through his sketchbooks the detailed labor in bringing the works to a completion. He put great care into the works and once done did not care to modify. Fidelio is an example of that reluctance; didn't he refer to Fidelio in terms of a child that had given him great pain (or something to that effect) after having to do some major modifications?

Sorrano and PDG : I think the fact that LvB sketched so extensively shows that the 'logic' (as you term it, as if it was something inevitable) was not at first so evident for him. As Maynard Solomon has posited, the fact that LvB agreed to substite the 'great fugue' (in fact, a sort of 'revision') for an alternative finale in Op. 130 has important ramifications in terms of overall structure. I am not suggesting that this constitutes a sudden loss of confidence on B's behalf, but it does raise very interesting questions.

[PDG]

Another speculative point : his deafness at the time of the Eroica was not total. PDG, you suggest that the 'run through' for the Eroica allowed him the luxury of making changes, and I think no composer would refuse such an opportunity before final publication. That said, do you think he would have made changes to his late-period works if he had been able to have an 'audible' (in the strict physical sense, not the inner-ear sense) run through of the late quartets / Ninth and so on?

No, I don't think it would have made any difference had he been able to hear the late works. The reason he substituted the Great Fugue had nothing to do with being unable to hear it.