Rare Beethoven works revisited - WoO 33
Beethoven: Adagio assai for Musical Clock WoO 33/III (arr. organ and flute)
Please edit out the youtube link in any replies.
"These five pieces surfaced after Beethoven's death, bringing with them several very puzzling mysteries. Most challenging of them all was the instrument for which they were written. Piano, strings, harp and most other common instruments were instantly ruled out, building on the perplexing mystery and adding to the frustration. Eventually, Albert Kopfermann set forth a convincing argument that their strange scoring seemed a perfect fit for the Flötenuhr or Spielühr, a mechanical organ or clock. He observed that the notation in No. 1, in F, matched that in Mozart's K. 608 Fantasia (for Flötenuhr), the score of which Beethoven possessed. Other circumstantial factors pointed to the Flötenuhr as the instrument Beethoven designed these pieces for. None of these five pieces was published until the twentieth century, and, not surprisingly, all are rarely heard."
"While the musical clock of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries might seem like a toy to the twenty first century ear and eye, its owners -- usually members of the aristocracy -- regarded it as a quite sophisticated device, not least because it was the only way to hear music away from the concert hall and parlors. Its chime-like tones may have limited its expressive range, but composers like Beethoven took compositions for the musical clock quite seriously...They were a popular mechanical device over the past four centuries, serving as a sort of aristocratic counterpart in pre-twentieth century times to today's stereo and high-tech playback equipment."
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afw9p7SW-Lc&feature=related[/YOUTUBE]
Please edit out the youtube link in any replies.
"These five pieces surfaced after Beethoven's death, bringing with them several very puzzling mysteries. Most challenging of them all was the instrument for which they were written. Piano, strings, harp and most other common instruments were instantly ruled out, building on the perplexing mystery and adding to the frustration. Eventually, Albert Kopfermann set forth a convincing argument that their strange scoring seemed a perfect fit for the Flötenuhr or Spielühr, a mechanical organ or clock. He observed that the notation in No. 1, in F, matched that in Mozart's K. 608 Fantasia (for Flötenuhr), the score of which Beethoven possessed. Other circumstantial factors pointed to the Flötenuhr as the instrument Beethoven designed these pieces for. None of these five pieces was published until the twentieth century, and, not surprisingly, all are rarely heard."
"While the musical clock of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries might seem like a toy to the twenty first century ear and eye, its owners -- usually members of the aristocracy -- regarded it as a quite sophisticated device, not least because it was the only way to hear music away from the concert hall and parlors. Its chime-like tones may have limited its expressive range, but composers like Beethoven took compositions for the musical clock quite seriously...They were a popular mechanical device over the past four centuries, serving as a sort of aristocratic counterpart in pre-twentieth century times to today's stereo and high-tech playback equipment."
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afw9p7SW-Lc&feature=related[/YOUTUBE]
Comment