What are you listening to now?

[Roehre]

Today (nearly all seasonal music ):

Bridge: The Christmas Rose

Busoni: 6 Sonatinas

Honegger: Une Cantate de Noël

Arnold: A Song of Simeon op.69

[Michael]

Got my Xmas present early .... an exercise bike! (Don't ask).
Anyway, the scherzo of Beethoven's Ninth helps keep the old pedals turning ... and there's always the slow movement.

[Roehre]

Again mostly seasonal music:

Respighi: Lauda per la Nativita del Signore (1929)

Martin: Le Mystère de la Nativité (1957/'59)

Vaughan Williams: On Christmas Night (1926)

Crumb: Black Angels (1970)

Dutilleux: Correspondances (2003)

[Sorrano]

As I've picked up Bernstein's Beethoven cycle recently I've started in on that with the first two symphonies. Thus far I am not disappointed.

[Hofrat]

Beethoven's "Eroica variations" for piano opus 35 performed by Glenn Gould.

This made me think: Who, when and where was the nickname
"Eroica" given to the opus 35 work? Beethoven used the theme in 4 works that I know of:

1. German dances (or maybe the contradances).
2. The opus 35 variations.
3. The ballet "Creatures Promethemus."
4. The 3rd symphony.

I can not see it as Beethoven's doing. He could not be thinking of the nickname to his 3rd symphony. When he started sketching that, he had "Bonaparte" on his mind for the work's title.

Anyone have any sources or ideas??

[Roehre]

Beethoven's "Eroica variations" for piano opus 35 performed by Glenn Gould.

This made me think: Who, when and where was the nickname
"Eroica" given to the opus 35 work? Beethoven used the theme in 4 works that I know of:

1. Kontratanz WoO 14 no.7
2. The opus 35 variations.
3. The ballet "Creatures Promethemus."
4. The 3rd symphony.

I can not see it as Beethoven's doing. He could not be thinking of the nickname to his 3rd symphony. When he started sketching that, he had "Bonaparte" on his mind for the work's title.

Anyone have any sources or ideas??

Hofrat,

The nickname of these variations could very well being "Prometheus-variations" as well.

"Eroica-variations" is definitely not a name used by Beethoven.
In his letter to Breitkopf und Härtel from 2nd June 1803 (Brandenburg 141) he simply calls them opus 35, all other times these variations are mentioned in his correspondence he simply refers to them as variationen.

Karl van Beethoven's letter to "Herrn Härtel" in which the (first) dedicatees of both opp.34 and 35 are named (12 febr. 1803/ Bb 127), or the correction to this letter ( 8th April 1803 / Bb 133) call opus 35 [grosse] Variationen, without any further name added.

The same applies to the letter in which Ries (as Beethoven's proxy) sends the publisher Simrock some corrections (11 dec. 1803 / Bb 173).

Please note that the Kinsky-Halm Verzeichnis doesn't mention the name at all (p.87-88) and that Theodor Frimmel's Beethoven-Handbuch (vol.II.p.360) refers to the fact that the theme stems from Prometheus and the Erocia, but doesn't call the variation-set "Eroica-variationen" either.

I cannot find a reference to Eroica-variations as such in Brahms' letters either (but I don't posses a complete edition of his), though he knew and appreciated them highly, and shaped his Händel-variationen after them.

Therefore, Hofrat, in my opinion the name has been added much later (i.e. far after B's death) and might be mainly started being used for commercial reasons - as the theme after all appears in the Eroica-symphony, but is IMO definitely not the most striking of themes within that work.


Bws,
R.

[Hofrat]

Roehre;

With regard to the "attached" name to the opus 35 variations, I concur with you. It was done much later in time much like when the publisher and music critic Ludwig Relstab dubbed Beethoven's C# piano sonata "Moonlight" in 1831. I, too, thought that "Prometheus" would be a more fitting name for the variations opus 35.

One can see how easy the name "Eroica" could slide from the symphony to the variations upon hearing the same opening gambit that Beethoven uses in both the variations and the 3rd symphony finale: Starting the pieces with the bass line. And of course many of the variations in both work are the same.

[Sorrano]

I think I prefer to refer to that theme as the Promethean Theme. It is one of my favorite themes in all of music.

[Peter]

Brahms Piano concerto no.2 with Brendel.

[Chris]

I am currently listening to the complete Bach organ works recorded by Gerhard Weinberger. Listening to some of the shorter chorale preludes this morning. Overall, I really like this set, especially his handling of the smaller-scale pieces.

[Roehre]

Yesterday I couldn't resist to take Beethoven's GratulationsMenuett (WoO 3) from the shelves, and listened to the other works on that Classico CD as well: orchestral works composed between opus 93 and 125 : Fidelio overture, Ruinen von Athen op.113, Namensfeier op.115, König Stephan opus 117, Zur Weihe des Hauses op.124, March WoO 98 as well as Cooper's Symphonic movement after sketches meant for Beethoven's 10th.

further again some seasonal music:

Alan Bush A winter Journey (1946)
Warlock Corpus Christi (1919)
Hindemith Tuttifäntchen (1922)

[Quijote]

John Dowland, Lachrimae (or rather "Seaven Teares Figured in Seaven Passionate Pauans.."), Jordi Savall, Christophe Coin et al.

[Peter]

Scriabin 'Prometheus'.

[Quijote]

Again (at Hofrat's pertinent suggestion; see passim) : Franz Clement's Violin Concerto in D major (1805). A work that has "reappeared on the radar", so to speak.

[Hofrat]

Yes, Philip, it is a great piece. I have CD with Barton as soloist. The Clement violin concerto was a great inspiration for Beethoven's violin concerto.