Early Philharmonic Society

[Droell]

Listening to Beethoven

People listen to Beethoven as if he merely strung together pretty notes to make exciting passages. It is as if we were to read Proust but mistake him for a comic book. Bernstein was scathing, saying that mere pretty sounds did not music make. The mature Beethoven was just as contemptuous, having made the mistake of writing lyric pieces when he was younger - the Septet, op. 20 comes immediately to mind - and seeing the results. Beethoven challenges us to think about what we are hearing. A great deal of thought went into his notes, as the sketchbooks prove.

The Eroica is unique in that it combines two completely different musical styles. The first two movements are programmatic. In them, Beethoven uses organized sound to describe concrete events, specific ideas. This is the reason why the forms he used, sonata form in the first, ABA (supposedly) for the second, are exploded. When a composer replaces musical themes with thematic motifs, he must handle them in a thematic, not musical, way. This is why supposed "new material" appears in both the development and coda sections of the first: When you bring one motif to another motif, they interact & "something new" is created. The proper place for that interaction, and its result, is the development section. This process continues in the coda, explaining its enormous length. A different organizing technique is at play in the second movement, which is why an A-B-A form wanders off into something else entirely, and with stunning results.

Beethoven, unlike Richard Strauss, was no greater than than when he balanced thematic motifs with pure music. He did not feel the need to make every note "mean something", unlike Richard Wagner. It is absurd to think the famous Funeral March was written for a young & healthy Napoleon with the best years of his life still (presumably) ahead of him. Or that that it was for Beethoven himself. (Can any one find me another example of this kind of musical ego on Beethoven's part? His "Domestic Symphony"?).

Beethoven starts the funeral march with a motif derived from watching grown men (not women) burst uncontrollably into tears. First the man sucks in his breath, and then he burst out sobbing & cannot stop. Cue up the movement. At the very first note, suck your breath in. Then burst out sobbing. You will then try to stop (sucking in a spastic breath in two sections), but burst out all over again. You will mimic the music precisely. This is how the composer worked. This is how he obtained his themes. But you will note that what Beethoven subsequently does with his hard-won theme has nothing to do with following the sobbing man around. He uses his theme in a purely musical fashion, before going on, as in the first movement, to purely descriptive music.

There is some actual person described in the second movement. That person was dead, had been dead, when Beethoven came to describe their death. The moment of death itself is at bar 209. A second death seems to follow at bar 211, when the first violins join in. (Get out your score.) Why is this not more dramatic?

Two reasons. One, at the time there were no historical parallels for this kind of musical intensity. Beethoven is making it up as he goes. Blazing a trail, as he did so often. Berlioz had Beethoven as an example, which is a hint. Secondly, Beethoven, while personally vulgar, was never musically so.

So in the Eroica's funeral march, we are looking for someone who is dead. Someone famous. Someone whose death was a shock. As much of a shock as Kennedy's death, or 9-11. Listen to the remainder of the movement, after bar 209. Find out who Marie's father was, and you will solve the mystery.

So what about Napoleon? He's there. He's the last two movements. Purely musical movements. Purely musical because Beethoven knew as much about him as America knows about Barak Obama. These two movements are written with hope. Hope for the future. The only thing Beethoven knows about Obama, I mean Bonaparte, is that he likes bees: Third movement. Work it out. For the very first time, see Beethoven at work.

Fourth movement, theme & variations, is the Life of the Hero. Does not make any difference which hero. It's the same life, one way or another. How does that life end? The hero has his great triumph, and then fades away, only to be recalled by the People themselves, because the hero, upon whom we place our hopes, never really dies, he only goes into hiding. Beethoven's famous comment, late in life, that he had already written music for the death of Napoleon, refers to the end of the 4th movement, and his eternal hope that a hero would appear. Unlike the first two movements, the Scherzo & finale of the Eroica run strictly to form. When you're writing pure music, there's no need to play with form. Beethoven never disturbs his forms unless the music demands it.

So what does that make the first movement? What does that make of the famous footsteps - and I agree there are footsteps in it - ? 1789, the French Revolution itself? Does it end with the storming of the Bastille? We can all speculate.

[Hofrat]

Droell;

You asked who was Marie Antoinette's father:

"Born at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, the Archduchess Maria Antonia was the youngest daughter of the head of the House of Habsburg Maria Theresa of Austria, and her husband the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I. Maria Antonia was described as "a small, but completely healthy Archduchess." Known at court as Madame Antoine, a French variation of her name, she was the fifteenth child born into the imperial family."

[Droell]

Droell;

You asked who was Marie Antoinette's father:

"Born at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, the Archduchess Maria Antonia was the youngest daughter of the head of the House of Habsburg Maria Theresa of Austria, and her husband the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I. Maria Antonia was described as "a small, but completely healthy Archduchess." Known at court as Madame Antoine, a French variation of her name, she was the fifteenth child born into the imperial family."

Hello Hofrat,

So what do you suppose was the reaction in Vienna when this young lady, daughter of Francis & Maria Theresa (the most powerful woman in Europe) was sent to France to marry the King of the World? Maybe a bit over the top?

What do you suppose was the Habsburg reaction when a French mob took her - and her child - and executed them? Memorable? It hit Vienna smack in the face. Vienna was her home town. Her language was their language. The brutal death of Marie was a greater shock than that of Lady Diana Spencer so many years later. Which is hard even for me to imagine.

One of the blogs I read, Sic Sempre Tyrannis, by Pat Lang, occasionally has name-that-image contests. One I remember was a painting of a young lady. There were two things striking about it. One, she was wearing a sheer top in the Empire style that exposed her breasts. And her hair was chopped straight across in the back, in the crudest way possible. I guessed it to be the work of Jacques-Louis David, painted sometime between 1800-5, and I was right. The story was that she, like many women of the period, cut her hair in memory of Marie. Whose hair, one of her personal glories, had been cut immediately prior to her execution (the guillotine demanded it). Ten years later, women who were mere children at the time cut their hair in memory, and in protest. In anger, very likely. Marie's death cast a long shadow.

Funeral marches have strict ABA forms. The two that Purcel wrote are in that form. Beethoven's funeral march sonata is in that form. Chopin's funeral march sonata is in that form (he based the sonata on Goethe's Werther, reverse the last two movements & it becomes clear). Ries, ever a copy-cat, put a funeral march in his first symphony, more or less in that same form. Mahler thought Ries had a fine idea & so put a funeral march in his first symphony, but, mindful of Ries's reputation, bravely omitted the title.

In the Eroica, Beethoven changed that. At some point he starts writing program music. There must have been a reason. From what you know of Marie's last days, of the flight from Paris, the arrest & return to captivity, can you find passages in that movement that would be descriptive?

And after bar 209. Dat.Dot.Dat.Dot. Is that the sound of Marie's head, bouncing? When the first violins join in, is that the young Dauphin's head, bouncing? Echoing? And the unrelieved, dark, foggy grayness of the very end of the movement, of the Viennese funeral she was denied, the farewell that Vienna could never give her.

Maybe you like this idea, maybe you don't, but to even consider it, to consider that Beethoven might have written a detailed description of the death of Marie Antoinette, is chilling beyond words.

And what does this tell us about Ludwig himself? That he had talents & abilities that were previously unimagined. And that there were things, ideas, knowledge, common in Vienna, that have been lost to us for many years. Yes. The Eroica is to the memory of a great man. It is also more than that.

[Peter]

Peter, it's too damn simple. Find out who her father was.

Droell with respect I'm not that ignorant of history to not know the parentage of Marie-Antoinette but I fail to see the significance of this. Now let's remain historical and point out that Louis XVI was not 'king of the world' - from the Treaty of Paris in 1763 after the 7 years war French dominance was very much in decline and Britain was the rising world power. Not that this has much relevance to your rather fanciful claims and interpretations concerning the Eroica. I agree that the funeral march itself cannot refer to Bonaparte but there are other possibilities - Bertolini (Beethoven's physician and according to your claim that all Vienna knew, one of the few men in the dark) stated that it referred to General Abercrombie who died fighting Napoleon at Alexandria or that it was prompted by rumours of Nelson's death at Aboukir. Finally though can you present your evidence to back the claim that 'all Vienna knew' Marie-Antoinette was referred to in the March?

[Droell]

Droell with respect I'm not that ignorant of history to not know the parentage of Marie-Antoinette but I fail to see the significance of this. Now let's remain historical and point out that Louis XVI was not 'king of the world' - from the Treaty of Paris in 1763 after the 7 years war French dominance was very much in decline and Britain was the rising world power. Not that this has much relevance to your rather fanciful claims and interpretations concerning the Eroica. I agree that the funeral march itself cannot refer to Bonaparte but there are other possibilities - Bertolini (Beethoven's physician and according to your claim that all Vienna knew, one of the few men in the dark) stated that it referred to General Abercrombie who died fighting Napoleon at Alexandria or that it was prompted by rumours of Nelson's death at Aboukir. Finally though can you present your evidence to back the claim that 'all Vienna knew' Marie-Antoinette was referred to in the March?

I regret that we are at odds. You are welcome to believe that 100% of history is carefully recorded in written records, that no man takes any secrets to his grave, and that music is not to be mistaken as part of the historical record.

Marie Antoinette was married to the most powerful royal house in the world. If Seize cannot carry off what Quatorze gave Quinze, that hardly means they have been eclipsed by English upstarts. England is not a continental power, the French are. At any moment they are likely to snap out of it & firm up that beachhead on the east bank of the Rhine. A well-married daughter can help avoid that problem. That the French slandered her, that she is still slandered to this day, fairly or not, cuts no ice in Vienna. Again, the parallel with Diana is a useful guide.

Beethoven is astute. He knows what he is writing. He knows that a funeral march to the late queen, to be performed in her home town, will go down exceptionally well. He does not mind if the third movement is misunderstood, or if the hero of the finale is mistaken for the French queen herself, or her mother. He has his private opinions, which he keeps to himself. He realizes that being publicly known as a Napoleon sympathizer might not go down well with the local authorities. He has contacts around Europe, and he is a native of Bonn, which owes allegiance to France, not Austria. If Napoleon were to invade & attack the city, might he not be at risk for arrest as a French spy? Spies rarely come to good ends, regardless of their skill with counterpoint.

Now you might understand the difficulty with the title page with a symphony that goes: First movement: French revolution. Second movement: Revolutionaries knock off queen. Third movement: The wise Napoleon rides to the rescue (in a swarm of bees). Fourth movement: Everybody lives happily ever after. Taken as a whole, Napoleon saves the day, but how, exactly do you put all this on the title page? Or do you?

Beethoven DOES NOT title pieces unless the performance requires it. This rule he followed strictly. The Pastorale is the Pastorale because if it was not, conductors would play it allegro con brio & ruin it. Rather than write instructions in Italian, shade it this way, not too much this, not a lot of that, on & on, he simply says, Pastorale, and we have the idea. Les Adieux is titled because the chord that starts the final movement cannot be played properly unless you know what it is. He would rather people not know what he was up to, than risk they would trivialize his music based on the title. He wants to title the Eroica to show there is hope after the horror of the Revolution, but he risks professional suicide if he does so. His supporters are all noblemen. Not man-in-the-street revolutionaries. Hence his dilemma.

A theory that describes what we seem to hear is a better theory than one that is merely abstract. I am reliably informed that every educated Roman, without exception, could read & write Etruscan. It was so common that they quite forgot to preserve any scrap of it. It is today completely lost. In every culture, there is an oral tradition, there is a written tradition. They are not identical, though there is some overlap. With skill, some parts of a lost oral tradition can be retrieved, but it cannot survive if it is shouted down by those who want scraps of paper. My apologies.

[PDG]

Yes, please, evidence. Not just hypothesis or speculation. What exactly leads you to your beliefs, other than interpretation of the music in question?
And there is no need for another long-winded swipe at us all for 'missing the obvious' of the 'damned simple', or for not immediately agreeing with you that the 9th Symphony is basically 'trash'; just please will you back up your claims with source material? Only then can we debate the issue rationally.

Another one-dimensional rant will simply take us down yet another blind alley...

[Peter]

I regret that we are at odds.

Of course we are at odds when you simply will present way out theories with no evidence and even falsification - we do have a comedy corner where perhaps you meant to post this? If you're serious, evidence please - statements such as 'the whole of Vienna knew' Marie-Antoinette was being referred to will not do without it!
Where do you get the idea that Beethoven titled Op.81a so the first chord of the finale would be understood? He wrote titles for each movement and in German. To say "rather than write instructions in Italian, shade it this way, not too much this, not a lot of that, on & on, he simply says, Pastorale, and we have the idea" is simply false - he does use Italian terms in the 6th symphony - The opening is marked Allegro ma non troppo, so no danger of brio there!

[Droell]

Yes, please, evidence. Not just hypothesis or speculation. What exactly leads you to your beliefs, other than interpretation of the music in question?
And there is no need for another long-winded swipe at us all for 'missing the obvious' of the 'damned simple', or for not immediately agreeing with you that the 9th Symphony is basically 'trash'; just please will you back up your claims with source material? Only then can we debate the issue rationally.

Another one-dimensional rant will simply take us down yet another blind alley...

I regret that for me, the music is primary. We are musicians, we can hear, we can deduce, we can draw conclusions. The sense I have of the composer comes a close second. What the music tells me must match what I know of the man who wrote it. One must illuminate the other. If not, I throw the guess out & start over. I have done this many times over the years.

As for what led me to my beliefs, in August, 1972, I had a strange experience, in which I realized that Beethoven wrote programmatic music. The essence of middle period Ludwig is that virtually every piece is programmatic. This is, in fact, what changed from first to middle period, as can be shown by close analysis of the specific compositions, sonatas especially, where he hammered it out.

I have since puzzled out a few of the programs. My belief is that a work's program is stated, quite literally, in its very opening notes. Of all his music, the program to the Eroica is one of the easier to work out. I had many of its details worked out years ago, which is why I am goading you with bees. Bees are, in fact, all that Beethoven knew of Napoleon when he set about to describe him musically in his symphony. Bees are in the Eroica, but do I have to tell you where? Is it not obvious to all who know the work? Upon only a moment's reflection?

References to specific places in a musical score are not one-dimensional. You either hear a guillotine at bar 209 (having previously heard it rumbling in the background) or you do not. You hear the head bouncing at bar 210, or you do not. You hear the son's head bouncing at 211 or you do not. This is specific. The composer has a blank sheet in front of him. He is putting specific notes upon it for specific reasons. Just as I have a blank screen in front of me, upon which I place these words. Bar 210 of the Funeral March is in no way melodically or harmonically part of the preceding music. It cannot be derived from it by any musical means. Bar 210, and the measures which follow, therefore represent something other than pure music. They are evidence the composer has lost his place and is rambling, or that he has specific ideas in mind. You decide which.

Early on it was "decided" there were "footsteps" in the first movement. I have no disagreement with this, though I am not as certain who those footsteps may belong to. I am merely expanding upon that sort of idea. I am aware that I charge in like a fool in a china shop, disturbing the peace with my silly ideas. It is, regrettably, the way I have become over the years.

The historical record is of no interest except that it supports what can be deduced from the music, and inferred from the man. (This, by the way, was Toscanini's opinion when asked why he conducted Beethoven differently from his contemporaries.) I well-know how distorted the record often is, how much it omits, how much it exaggerates.

It should be common knowledge that with figures as large as Beethoven, everyone in his circle had his own individual ax to grind. Upon his death, Schindler destroyed hundreds of documents & fabricated & falsified much else. Ries waited until the very end of his life & then gave us a fraction of what he knew and even then did not write in a straight-forward fashion. Ferdinand's statement, that, "The plainness of style will, I hope, be graciously overlooked, since hitherto I have communicated with the public only through musical compositions." (Beethoven Remembered, pg. 64) is true only so far as the public is concerned. He was, in fact, a voluminous letter writer, and from what I can infer, a rather crafty one. Many of his surviving letters have been published, but not, as yet, translated.

Which brings up the fact that even if every single scrap of paper had survived, and had been published, and was available, that even if Beethoven had written his own memoirs, or kept a journal, we would still not be free from the need to interpret the evidence in front of us. We would still not be free from the necessity to drag the music into it, one way or another.

Deductions, such as mine, tell us where to look for clues. Tell us how to read, how to think, about primary source material. This will upset many. I remember how upsetting it was, the first time I had score in front of me, to really hear, for the first time, all those funny notes in the bassoons & double-bass. I thought I knew the work (it makes no difference which), I had it memorized from first to last. But until I had the score, I knew little.

Gentlemen, the proper response, if you want to make one, is to go to the music, go to the score, and listen with my ideas in mind. And then return and write, Yes I agree, or, No, I do not, or I listened but am now confused & have questions. Or some such. Blank dismissal does not interest me. A blind alley is the proper place to be. Close your eyes, open your ears, listen, think. You owe that to the composer you admire so much.

[Droell]

Of course we are at odds when you simply will present way out theories with no evidence and even falsification - we do have a comedy corner where perhaps you meant to post this? If you're serious, evidence please - statements such as 'the whole of Vienna knew' Marie-Antoinette was being referred to will not do without it!
Where do you get the idea that Beethoven titled Op.81a so the first chord of the finale would be understood? He wrote titles for each movement and in German. To say "rather than write instructions in Italian, shade it this way, not too much this, not a lot of that, on & on, he simply says, Pastorale, and we have the idea" is simply false - he does use Italian terms in the 6th symphony - The opening is marked Allegro ma non troppo, so no danger of brio there!

Dear Peter, you are writing literally. The finale of 81a is unplayable if you do not know what it is about. Hence the requirement to title it. The second movement can be played much better than it customarily is if the player takes the time to work it out, but here, since it can be played well-enough, Beethoven does not provide specific instruction. (An endless, boring, lonely afternoon. One is sitting, staring into space. One slides into sleep & then as his head bobs, he wakes up with a start. We have all done it. Play the notes until you get this exact feel, of not being asleep, but not being quite awake either, and completely lost in any case.) This is to say that 81a is flawed, in that it requires a program. And as it did, Beethoven was fussy that it have his exact program, as I am reading Schnabel's notes in his edition of the score.

Fast but not too much so is not nearly as helpful as "pastorale". Allegro ma non troppo is a tempo. Pastorale is a feeling, an overall guide. It eliminates the possibility a conductor will make brio out of it. As they will if you let them.

But in a larger sense, I want to shock you & the board into hearing Beethoven afresh. Once upon a time, we were as excited when he published a new sonata, as we were, so many years later, when the Beatles released a new single. I want to recreate that sense of wonder, that sense of amazement.

[Droell]

On the other hand, I am working conceptually, you are not. The difference is fundamental, there is not much point in belaboring it. I bid you farewell, until the next time.

Dave

[PDG]

Did someone mention The Beatles?

[Peter]

On the other hand, I am working conceptually, you are not. The difference is fundamental, there is not much point in belaboring it. I bid you farewell, until the next time.

Dave

I would say I admire your vivid imagination and agree from an interpretive perspective one MUST have ideas other than Allegro etc... All well and good to conjure up images and in fact I encourage students to do just that. However there is a difference between saying imagine this movement is about Marie-Antoinette and saying it IS about her - statements like this must be backed by FACT not opinion. I can't agree that the finale of Op.81a is 'unplayable unless you know what it is about' - I would say it was unplayable unless you have an idea of what it is about, a subtle difference. One doesn't have to imagine the Archduke's return after the bombardment of Vienna to appreciate it because the main point is that it expresses joy and happiness. You have lost me with your Bees obsession and more clarity to statements such as "Bees are, in fact, all that Beethoven knew of Napoleon when he set about to describe him musically in his symphony" would be welcome if you are still around!

[Droell]

I would say I admire your vivid imagination and agree from an interpretive perspective one MUST have ideas other than Allegro etc... All well and good to conjure up images and in fact I encourage students to do just that. However there is a difference between saying imagine this movement is about Marie-Antoinette and saying it IS about her - statements like this must be backed by FACT not opinion. I can't agree that the finale of Op.81a is 'unplayable unless you know what it is about' - I would say it was unplayable unless you have an idea of what it is about, a subtle difference. One doesn't have to imagine the Archduke's return after the bombardment of Vienna to appreciate it because the main point is that it expresses joy and happiness. You have lost me with your Bees obsession and more clarity to statements such as "Bees are, in fact, all that Beethoven knew of Napoleon when he set about to describe him musically in his symphony" would be welcome if you are still around!

Peter, I'm not going to bother. If you want to continue, write me at dave@astroamerica.com, and before you do that, find out why Napoleon liked bees so much. Do some research. Get some facts, since you like them so much.

[Hofrat]

David;

Beethoven nicknamed another piano sonata: opus 13 in C-minor "Pathetique." Is it playable without knowing some secret program? And is there a secret program for the other 30 un-nicknamed sonatas that would make them playable?

[Droell]

David;

Beethoven nicknamed another piano sonata: opus 13 in C-minor "Pathetique." Is it playable without knowing some secret program? And is there a secret program for the other 30 un-nicknamed sonatas that would make them playable?

Dear Hofrat,

As I mentioned to Peter, I don't see the point in continuing this thread & suggest people write me directly at dave@astroamerica.com

As Alicia de la Rocha used to mention in her recitals, the Pathetique was derived from two associated piano works by Mozart. I forget which two, but you always hear them played together. One is a fugue. Beethoven essentially recomposed & popularized them. Peter wants facts, but I don't have facts. I only have what de la Rocha told us in concert in Hoch Auditorium at the University of Kansas c.1974. She played parts of Mozart & then compared it to Beethoven to make her points. It amounted to a mini-master class for the unwashed public. I was in the audience and that's the end of that story.

In the years since I have used that story to understand just what Beethoven did to change from first period to middle period, but I don't have any facts, just wild hunches & unsupported allegations, which do not belong on this board.

According to Schindler, there was a very distinct program for the sonata op. 90, but you will have to track his remark down. As I recall, Schindler said it was not unusual for Beethoven to poke fun at people in his music. Ries stated, "When he was composing, Beethoven frequently had a certain subject in mind, even though he often laughed at and inveighed against descriptive music, particularly the frivolous sort." (Beethoven Remembered, pg. 67-8)

But remember, Schindler, who was Beethoven's last secretary, made things up to suit himself, and Ries, his friend of 25 years, one-time secretary & long-time London business manager, is a fake. These were the friends he had! Peter will have to find real facts. I regret I cannot help him. I wish him luck.

Dave