Beethoven's "Orpheus" concerto : Op. 58

[Bonn1827]

I'm always happy to defer to those who have greater knowledge on these matters than I!! Would love to read some of those books mentioned in other threads but am busy trying to learn German in time for January arrival in Europe!

I hope the volcanic dust clears before then!!! Otherwise, we'll be relying on Skippy to get us there...!! "What is it Skip..?"

[Bonn1827]

Phil, this very minute I have just finished watching a "Southbank Show" about Lang Lang which contained quite a lengthy discussion of the Orpheus myth in relation to Beethoven's 4th piano concerto. Conductor Christoph Eschenbach and Lang Lang discussed the extra-musical Orpheus ideas in the second movement and I must say Lang Lang played it beautifully. (I do find much of his work flashy, which is a big disappointment). So, I thought I'd let you know that what you've just read and written seems to have much currency, and I'm surprised Emmanuel Ax didn't really discuss this in his concerto series that I mentioned earlier. So, I'm sure you are on the right track with this and I'd like to read that book to which you have referred.

[Bonn1827]

Philip, I'm going to ask something controversial and, I hope, not stupid.

Like Latin, harmony is mostly a "dead" language, especially when compositions haven't "conformed" to "rules" of harmony since about WW2. Why teach it, apart from providing the tools of analysis for research and performance - or is THAT the answer?! Do you agree that traditional "harmony" is a dead language, like Latin (a tool exclusively used for research and transcription)? I'd be interested in your thoughts, as I've been listening to Messiaen's organ music and this got me thinking about Harmony as a discipline.

[Quijote]

Phil, this very minute I have just finished watching a "Southbank Show" about Lang Lang which contained quite a lengthy discussion of the Orpheus myth in relation to Beethoven's 4th piano concerto. Conductor Christoph Eschenbach and Lang Lang discussed the extra-musical Orpheus ideas in the second movement and I must say Lang Lang played it beautifully. (I do find much of his work flashy, which is a big disappointment). So, I thought I'd let you know that what you've just read and written seems to have much currency, and I'm surprised Emmanuel Ax didn't really discuss this in his concerto series that I mentioned earlier. So, I'm sure you are on the right track with this and I'd like to read that book to which you have referred.

See, Bonn, this is the Beethoven Reference Site! You read it here first, OK? Spread the word, but don't tell Skippy. (Peter, please make out that cheque to me, would you?)

[Quijote]

Philip, I'm going to ask something controversial and, I hope, not stupid.

Like Latin, harmony is mostly a "dead" language, especially when compositions haven't "conformed" to "rules" of harmony since about WW2. Why teach it, apart from providing the tools of analysis for research and performance - or is THAT the answer?! Do you agree that traditional "harmony" is a dead language, like Latin (a tool exclusively used for research and transcription)? I'd be interested in your thoughts, as I've been listening to Messiaen's organ music and this got me thinking about Harmony as a discipline.

Jeez, Bonn, you must have had some very dull harmony teachers! Nah, only partly kidding. Latin is dead I suppose, in that nobody really speaks it as common currency (apart from priests; here's a true story : some cardinals' meeting or other some years ago, the "cloaks" being from Poland, Italy, Spain, the UK, France etc., with no common language other than Latin between them; they all used it to communicate together).

The thing is, common harmonic practice is still alive and kicking today in Pop music, jazz, minimalism (Reich, Glass, Pärt et al), film and so on. It continues to be, for better or worse, the common vernacular.

[Quijote]

Yes, there has been a bifurcation in musical language since WWII (and well before, of course), but both paths continue to be well trodden.

[Bonn1827]

Bifurcation, Skip, did you hear THAT? But seriously, the same thing applied in written language and art of course, as you suggest, well before WW2. But something changed irrevocably with the rise of nihilism (in Coen Brothers' "The Big Lebowski", Walter says.."you can say what you like about the tenants of National Socialism, Dude; at least it WAS an ethos!!").

[Quijote]

Bifurcation, Skip, did you hear THAT? But seriously, the same thing applied in written language and art of course, as you suggest, well before WW2. But something changed irrevocably with the rise of nihilism (in Coen Brothers' "The Big Lebowski", Walter says.."you can say what you like about the tenants of National Socialism, Dude; at least it WAS an ethos!!").

Hah! Bifurcation does sound rather like a dirty word, doesn't it? You'll have to explain to me about Nihilism before I can comment further. Is it similar to Existentialism? I know a lot about that : wearing only black clothes, drinking expresso coffee, smoking black tobacco Gitane cigarettes, getting drunk in French bars on absinthe until late in the evening, and generally feeling alienated? Yup, that's me.

[Bonn1827]

Well I'm not sure about the fashion accessories or cultural proclivities, but Nihilism sprang out of WW2 and, very generally, is was developed in Europe in philosophical ideas through theatre and writing - leading to postmodernism, if you will. In essence Nihilism means literally "NOTHING". Harold Pinter, through his plays, explored the world where nothing has any meaning and there is no connectedness to people, and we live in a godless universe devoid of any value system. So, it is essentially a belief in NOTHING, as expressed by Pinter and Beckett more specifically. In the film "The Big Lebowski" fascist Nihilists wore those black clothes and drank coffee as you suggested, but I think the Coen Brothers' joke is a valid one. How can "nothing" mean "something"? They are brilliant, if uneven, film-makers!! If you can tolerate vast amounts of profane language I recommend "The Big Lebowski". Sense of humour mandatory. I'm over 50 years old and I find it hugely funny and very satirical, but then I've always enjoyed people and things with "edge" all my life!!

Existentialism, as espoused by Sartre and others, seems to me a rather self-centered concept as it's all about "ME" and "I", the nature of existence and "MY" relationship to that. This is very broadly putting the matter, Philip.

On second thought, you won't be able to get the English-speaking version (absolutely essential) of the film in France because they dub everything into their language. I was horrified to find this last year when in Paris and had to watch Katharine Hepburn dubbed into French. We are happy to read subtitles for European films and it seems to me the reverse should apply. Too much is lost in dubbing, which is vandalism IMO.

[Quijote]

[...] On second thought, you won't be able to get the English-speaking version (absolutely essential) of the film in France because they dub everything into their language. I was horrified to find this last year when in Paris and had to watch Katharine Hepburn dubbed into French. We are happy to read subtitles for European films and it seems to me the reverse should apply. Too much is lost in dubbing, which is vandalism IMO.

It depends on the cinema, as here in France (or at least Strasbourg!) you can easily get to see VOST films (VOST : version originale sous-titrée = film in its original language with subtitles). I'm going to check out the Coen brothers' film you recommend (DVD rental), sounds like it could be right up my street!

Do you think we should continue the Nihilist / Existentialist / bifurcation in musical language / harmony is dead theme on another thread? I'll join you there if you agree to launch it, OK? I say that only because this is the Beethoven "Orpheus Concerto" thread. No worries if not. How's Skippy? Does he wear a beret, too?

[Bonn1827]

Yes, sorry, I realized I should have been on another thread when I referred to film, so I'll move there for further thoughts on "The Big Lebowski" and our old Kommisar Rex rival, Skippy. As to the others, I'm not sure I have anything further to say re existentialism/nihilism beyond what I taught in senior syllabus in high school to my English students insofar as it informed Postmodernism.

BTW, I'm going back into my score of LvB's 4th piano concerto and taking a closer look at your ideas. More later.

[Quijote]

Yes, sorry, I realized I should have been on another thread when I referred to film, so I'll move there for further thoughts on "The Big Lebowski" and our old Kommisar Rex rival, Skippy. As to the others, I'm not sure I have anything further to say re existentialism/nihilism beyond what I taught in senior syllabus in high school to my English students insofar as it informed Postmodernism.

BTW, I'm going back into my score of LvB's 4th piano concerto and taking a closer look at your ideas. More later.

OK then. Get thee to thy score - it's all in there (well, to a point). Ah, scores, such frozen documents with secrets bursting to escape. "The primacy of the ear" is all I want to say.

[Bonn1827]

In his book, "Late Beethoven: Music, Thought, Imagination", Maynard Solomon describes music as the "hieroglyphics of the heart's language". That'll do me for a definition!!! Good book, BTW.

[Bonn1827]

Well, I've looked at the score for the past hour, accompanied by the CD of Maurizio Pollini's reading of it. The piano writing is definitely cadenza-like throughout the whole first movement, which is what Manny Ax was saying on that program. I'm not at all sure this isn't a feature of many piano concertos anyway!!

I found some interesting things in my hour's research: at bar 192 in the 1st movement there's an interesting key change in the piano - D major (the 1-V chord seems to imply a move into a cadenza) and the piano then hovers around a minor key with repeated F naturals, straight after the F#. (The light isn't working in my loungeroom so I couldn't go the piano to try and work out the new key.) There's a lot of chromaticism straight after this, and that's all I could see. The first movement contains a lot of 3rds, which I think you previously referred to.

Now, to the second movement. It seems that, though the tutti is really only played by the strings, there are two things which make it seem like a far greater force pitted against the lone piano and that is the "f" marking and the downward thrust of their notes, against the delicate, rising thrust of the piano. The so-called "Orpheus" melody - referred to by others - seems to be contained in that movement in bars (approx.) 45 to 60, and it's just so lovely right there. (Well, isn't everything Beethoven wrote just wonderful anyway!)

This has been a brushing-up exercise as it's many years since I examined a score analytically and I seem to have forgotten lots about harmony (which is just dreadful) because I've been teaching English literature for the last decade or so. What are YOUR thoughts?

[Sludlinger]

I don’t know about Orpheus as an inspiration but the entire 1st movement is distinct from the other concertos in that the piano seems a great deal to be engaged in embroidery and rather less in thematic material. This movement seems to live in a dream world of near unmeasured melismatic cascades and tumbling arpeggios and chromatic scales. Beethoven loves to interrupt measured music with the flourish (Choral Fantasy) but here it is omnipresent. In all the other concertos Beethoven ends the 2nd exposition with an intense and difficult bravura solo section driving toward the orchestral close, but in this concerto he uses a less intense but distinctive solo, using new material, followed by yet another bravura cadenza-like passage, the real climax, culminating in the effect-of-the-movement, the double trill; which I believe is introduced here for the first time. He does the double trill again in the same place in he recapitulation as the grand finger breaking, eye-popping climax. So, the measured bravura passage is replaced by the measured and unmeasured cadenza. Now, interestingly, this is ‘real’ uncompromisingly idiomatic piano music. He uses the keyboard and both hands to do what no other instrument can do, except maybe a harp – hand-fulls of tumbling notes like sparks from a stirred campfire. The climax is like a powerful dream moment that is ultimately taken over by the reality of the orchestra – time to wake up and get back to the work of the composition. The piano is the undisciplined dreamer. Maybe that’s it? The contrast is the dream world and the conscious world and the half-awakened places in-between.

If I am not mistaken, the trumpets and drums are not used in the first movement. There is that sense that the first movement is not really a hard-bitten allegro. Sublime music uses no trumpets and drums.