Beethoven surprises me sometimes

[Chris]

One thing that has always struck me about Beethoven's music is that the choices he made, no matter how much he actually agonized over them, always seem inevitable in the final piece. As if there were no other note that could possibly have come next. I've heard other people make this observation as well.

But sometimes Beethoven does something I don't expect at all, usually by bailing out of something early that I expect to be further explored or exploited. I remembered a prime example yesterday when I was listening to the Leonore "No. 1" overture (actually the third version composed).

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPJvApIUCw0[/YOUTUBE]

Listen to the part from 2:45-3:00. Then go back and listen to the rhythmic figure introduced at 2:51, and how it repeats itself twice for a total of three times, descending in pitch each time. Then immediately after that the figure goes back up to where it started, but it changes a bit with an extra note being added. I expect this altered figure to repeat once or twice here, but instead that's all we ever hear of it and it goes back to the original figure as a transition to a different part, which then leads right into a repeat of the entire part we just heard from 2:45-3:00.

This always surprises me. I expect that little bit to be explored more, but instead it just teases me for a second and moves on. Do you think so, or does this part have the usual Beethoven inevitability to you?

[Peter]

Gorgeous picture there Chris! I'll have to listen to that later, but yes these things seem inevitable with familiarity but when you consider what he could have done instead you realise the mark of genius - we simply take it for granted with our stale ears. Haydn of course is equally full of the unexpected.

[Peter]

Watching Eroica last night Chris made me think of your post here and what better example of when the horns come in just before the recapitulation in 1st movt? Our ears are so deaf to these things now but I always try and imagine I'm hearing a work for the first time.

[Michael]

Or the last movement of the same symphony, where a huge introductory flourish is followed by a ghost of a tune, not unlike somebody playing something with one finger on the piano!

[Delirious Lab]

Do you think so, or does this part have the usual Beethoven inevitability to you?

Both! We should not be surprised when LvB surprises us...

[Michael]

Welcome to the forum, Delirious. (Mind if I call you Del?)

[Delirious Lab]

Not at all...

[Michael]

Beethoven's penchant for surprising his listeners seems to be to be most evident in the first movement of Opus 59, No. 1 - his string quartet Eroica. In the symphony, we had the famous false entry of the horn but in the quartet the surprise is much more subtle.
The development section is just as long and varied as the one in the symphony and a couple of times Beethoven gives an indication that he is heading for the recapitulation but each time he veers off in a new direction. I think he is deliberately leading the listener up the garden path. When he finally brings in the recapitulation, he does it backwards - the right key (F major) but the wrong theme.
The same sublime "fooling around" occurs within the second movement (not least in the one-note opening theme which infuriated the cellist at the first performance).

[Quijote]

Beethoven's penchant for surprising his listeners seems to be to be most evident in the first movement of Opus 59, No. 1 - his string quartet Eroica. In the symphony, we had the famous false entry of the horn but in the quartet the surprise is much more subtle.
The development section is just as long and varied as the one in the symphony and a couple of times Beethoven gives an indication that he is heading for the recapitulation but each time he veers off in a new direction. I think he is deliberately leading the listener up the garden path. When he finally brings in the recapitulation, he does it backwards - the right key (F major) but the wrong theme.
The same sublime "fooling around" occurs within the second movement (not least in the one-note opening theme which infuriated the cellist at the first performance).

A perplexing post. It is news to me that the String Quartet Op. 59 No. 1 was called Eroica, but as Preston would say, I could be wrong. Beethoven's penchant for surprising his listeners seems to find its locus (to my own, subjective, ears) in other more obvious works : the opening of the Eroica symphony (two loud E-flat chords: Bam, Bam); the opening of the Ninth's 4th movement (the nightmare chord); the opening of the Emperor Concerto (3 big bangs separated by seemingly extemporized flourishes, and so on).
If there is any surprise in the opening of the Allegretto vivace e sempre scherzando movement you mention (to 'cellists' dismay), it is (again to my ears) rather the harmonic/tonal surprise : what key are we in? It starts in B-flat (we think), quickly modulates to the dominant (F), then (and here's the real surprise) suddenly A-flat, then abruptly in C-flat (enharmonic of B major - I see where Bruckner gets some of his ideas).
It is further debatable if the opening one-note theme is indeed a "theme" at all!

[Michael]

I think it was quite obvious that I was describing Opus 59 No. 1 as Beethovens "Eroica" for string quartet, i.e. his great leap forward in another medium.
As to the one-note opening of the "allegretto vivace e sempre scherzando", I have just watched Daniel Barenboim giving a masterclass on the Waldstein sonata which opens with a similar rhythmic pulse. Barenboim said it would be a mistake to call this an introduction.
With Beethoven, the distinctions are blurred; the opening of the quartet movement can be regarded as merely the underlying pulse of the whole movement or as a valid theme in its own right. It reappears many times in its basic form.





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[Quijote]

Thank you, Daniel.

[Johan]

The thing that strikes me often is how Beethoven manages to combine these surprises - often in form of composing a kind of interlude before coming back the the main theme - with the inevitability. This was a very difficult task, but was it to him? He is a master of tension building.

(And yes - I am back!)