Beethoven Piano Sonata Op. 111

[Humoresque]

I've been reading on another board peoples' comments about this extraordinary work, then listening to Schiff's analytical lecture (audio) from Wigmore Hall. I found some of what Schiff had to say descriptive rather than revelatory. He used all the superlatives about Beethoven, this great work and its connection to others in the same key - but I was left underwhelmed about what Beethoven's form and technique reveals to us about this sonata, Beethoven's final utterance in the genre. Nothing about his use of dissonance, just some mention of diminished 7ths - but WHAT was behind those Dim 7ths and why such a radical departure from even the few sonatas earlier (it only has 2 movements)? What, if any, is the connection with this and other very late sonatas and, say, the late string quartets? At one point he said 'using both ends of the keyboard, representing reaching for the stars and then also the depths'. This was vaguely enigmatic to me - if not actively rhetorical - because it didn't really tell me anything. Perhaps I expect too much from a program designed for more general audiences?

Anyway, on the performance side of this work, some have suggested that Brendel's Philips recording of it is the most 'intellectual'. What do you think can be meant by this? How can a piano sonata differ in interpretative attack from 'intellectual' to 'passionate' (just say)? What are the markers of difference, or are these too abstract/discrete to be easily divined?

I've come back to edit this because I realized I misled with my comments about Op. 111 having just 2 movements and that's what made it a 'radical departure'. There were, of course, other sonatas of Beethoven written with just two movements; example, 19 and 20. However, Op. 111 is unique in that Beethoven became more expansive in his conception of the sonata - 'symphonic' if you like - with each successive composition and yet, paradoxically, he chose the form of 2 movements for his last. His radical ideas had evolved through a succession of later works.

[Peter]

Yours is an interesting question, but it left me wondering if the 'form and technique' reveal anything at all beyond the academic. When we consider that even sonata form was not defined as such until after all the Classical composers were dead, it simply reveals the means of expression rather than the expression itself which should be apparent even to non-musically trained people. Yes it's possible to talk about Variation form in the last movement or Beethoven's expansive use of trills and the wide keyboard sonorities he employs - these features are common to the late works as is a greater employment of contrapuntal textures, but what strikes me most about the finale of Op.111 is a deep meditative almost transcendental experience that defies analysis.

[Humoresque]

Sonata form and technique would certainly have been profoundly understood by Beethoven and his contemporaries. He was working from earlier models, as we know, and listening yesterday to Sonatas 19 and 20, written before Beethoven turned 30, it becomes obvious they are heavily influenced by both Haydn and Mozart. In order to be able to 'interrogate' form and structure you first need to be able to understand it!!

Thinking about a literary analogy; Shakespeare, in particular, twisted and inverted language so that his poetic ideas would fit into the 'box' that is the 14-line sonnet. The results were staggering. (Other literary figures like Donne worked magnificently in that form too.) That confining 'box' became MORE explosive because of the tension created through 'limitations' of form. Beethoven understood the 'limitations' of sonata form yet worked within its conventions, challenging it from 'the inside out' as it were. This is the kind of thing Charles Rosen explores in his books.

I'm saying I'd very much like to hear a musician of the calibre of Schiff trying to grapple with some of those issues in his public lectures. People who don't understand music fairly well already usually don't listen to them anyway.

[Peter]

Sonata form and technique would certainly have been profoundly understood by Beethoven and his contemporaries. He was working from earlier models, as we know, and listening yesterday to Sonatas 19 and 20, written before Beethoven turned 30, it becomes obvious they are heavily influenced by both Haydn and Mozart. In order to be able to 'interrogate' form and structure you first need to be able to understand it!!

Thinking about a literary analogy; Shakespeare, in particular, twisted and inverted language so that his poetic ideas would fit into the 'box' that is the 14-line sonnet. The results were staggering. (Other literary figures like Donne worked magnificently in that form too.) That confining 'box' became MORE explosive because of the tension created through 'limitations' of form. Beethoven understood the 'limitations' of sonata form yet worked within its conventions, challenging it from 'the inside out' as it were. This is the kind of thing Charles Rosen explores in his books.

I'm saying I'd very much like to hear a musician of the calibre of Schiff trying to grapple with some of those issues in his public lectures. People who don't understand music fairly well already usually don't listen to them anyway.

Yes of course Beethoven studied and learnt from Haydn and Mozart - my point about Sonata form is that it was Czerny who claimed in the 1840s to be the first to define it, yet many of Mozart and Haydn and indeed Beethoven first movements do not conform to this definition. Rosen makes the point that the Romantics attempts at it were weak precisely because they did try to conform to the strict definition.

[Humoresque]

That makes Czerny wrong and the great composers right!!

[Peter]

Well yes rules are made to be broken and they certainly did that!

[Sorrano]

Well yes rules are made to be broken and they certainly did that!

I've always looked at rules as being tools (musically speaking) and sometimes the tools just don't fit the job.

[dahc]

op 111. By this time in Beethovens' life he had let go. He cared not of what others though. He had a canvas and he had a palate of colors and he painted.