Craft and Tools in Late Beethoven

[Humoresque]

I've just been watching this lecture and taking copious notes. Quite interesting discussion of HOW Beethoven constructs his first movement of Op. 110 and it actually explains a lot too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4E58y_gueo

[Peter]

I've just been watching this lecture and taking copious notes. Quite interesting discussion of HOW Beethoven constructs his first movement of Op. 110 and it actually explains a lot too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4E58y_gueo

Thanks for that - will take a look when I have some more spare time!

[Michael]

Yes - thanks also! A fascinating lecture!

[Humoresque]

Yes - thanks also! A fascinating lecture!

I enjoyed it. You can go through a score and find a lot of these things yourself but it's so much easier when somebody can demonstrate what he/she means on the keyboard. And many of the other lectures on the net about this subject, as well as sonata form etc., are part of online courses available; ergo, somewhat elementary and often not all that well presented. One man has his mobile phone go off during his own lecture from Yale!! ('There are things up with which we will not put', as Winston Churchill once said.)

I liked this lecture very much where Provost Cecil Lytle says Beethoven was very much influenced by CPE Bach and his Prussian Sonatas. I've been listening to some of those Prussian Sonatas since (and they were completely unknown to me!). Quality not so good; tut mir leid!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGnglC9DTrk

[gprengel]

This lecture was so interesting, thank you!
I saw a documentary at TV recently on Beethoven. There it was said that this sonata is the only sonata which was not official dedicated to anyone, but Beethoven actually dedicated it in his heart to his "imortal beloved", Josephine von Brunswick (1779–1821), who had died in that year !

This made me listen again to my orchestration from 2013 of that wonderful intimate masterwork: http://www.gerdprengel.de/Beeth_op110_I_orch.mp3

Gerd

[Michael]

Wonderful orchestration, Gerd!

[Michael]

Beethoven seems to have been very fond of the tune that starts in the fifth bar of the opening movement of Opus 110. He used it at least four times before that work was completed, most notably in the second movement of the Violin Sonata, Opus 30, No.3.

[gprengel]

Beethoven seems to have been very fond of the tune that starts in the fifth bar of the opening movement of Opus 110. He used it at least four times before that work was completed, most notably in the second movement of the Violin Sonata, Opus 30, No.3.

wow, I wasn't aware of the fantastic beauty of that movement of the violinsonata, you mean the passage at 9:56, Michael?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um6fiALO9pQ

What are the other 3 usages of that theme from op. 110 ?

[Michael]

wow, I wasn't aware of the fantastic beauty of that movement of the violinsonata, you mean the passage at 9:56, Michael?

What are the other 3 usages of that theme from op. 110 ?

Yes - it's the trio section of that movement. You can also hear a similar theme in the trio section of the second movement of the string quartet, Opus 18 No. 5. It's at 2.22 in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaC8AqquKTc

It's also hinted at in the opening of the third movement of the piano trio, Opus 70 No. 2.

And again in the G minor piano fantasia about 40 seconds in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr2SukqCdKs

I have a sneaking suspicion that it's also lurking somewhere in the piano sonata Opus 10 No. 1 but I'm not quite sure where. It's given me a good excuse to listen to it anyway (not that I ever need one )

Edit: Yes, it's towards the end of the first movement exposition in the C minor piano sonata.
It's a simple but very useful tune and could easily turn up in other works.


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