Beethoven for One piano, Four hands

[bak2_bay6]

I recently picked up some Beethoven piano music for one piano four hands. Does anyone know if Beethoven wrote any other Sonatas for piano duet other than the "Sonata in D Major"? It's so beautiful and such a blast to play!

Any suggestions on how to interpret this little piece? (how to conduct the interplay, etc)

------------------
"one can sing on the piano, so long as one has feeling" --Beethoven

[Rod]

Originally posted by bak2_bay6:
I recently picked up some Beethoven piano music for one piano four hands. Does anyone know if Beethoven wrote any other Sonatas for piano duet other than the "Sonata in D Major"? It's so beautiful and such a blast to play!

Any suggestions on how to interpret this little piece? (how to conduct the interplay, etc)

Try out his arrangement of the Great Fugue. That will be a blast for you!

Interpretation? Just don't let lameness creep in.



------------------
"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Leigh M]

I just bought a Volume published by Schirmer of the last four symphonies for one piano, four hands.
I'm pretty sure Beethoven didn't do the arrangements, but they are still fun to play, now I just need two more hands!

BTW Just yesterday I saw a performance of The Rite of Spring for Piano duet, here in Melbourne where I live. That music is a blast simply to witness!
leigh

[Sorrano]

Originally posted by Leigh M:
I just bought a Volume published by Schirmer of the last four symphonies for one piano, four hands.
I'm pretty sure Beethoven didn't do the arrangements, but they are still fun to play, now I just need two more hands!

BTW Just yesterday I saw a performance of The Rite of Spring for Piano duet, here in Melbourne where I live. That music is a blast simply to witness!
leigh

Yesterday I listened to an arrangement of Rimsky-Kosakov's Dance of the Tumblers for two pianos. It sounded fun to play. I think duet arrangements should be a blast to play and to listen to.

[Rod]

Of course there are also the 3 marches op45 that would be fun to play. He also wrote two early sets of variations. Look on the Compositions List page.

------------------
"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[OboeKing]

Originally posted by Leigh M:
I just bought a Volume published by Schirmer of the last four symphonies for one piano, four hands.
I'm pretty sure Beethoven didn't do the arrangements, but they are still fun to play, now I just need two more hands!
leigh

I'm sorry but I simply do not agree. I think it is totally ridiculous to even attempt to arrange such orchestral masterpieces as beethoven's last symphonies for the piano. This is for many reasons, particularly the fact that it is quite difficult to fit orchestrations for 60+ instruments into 4 hands! Many arrangements of B's symphonies for piano duet have just been sloshed into 4 staves with no regard for the physical difficulty of the notes they have just written down (for example, not many pianists could be capable of playing the 'allegro energico, sempre ben marcato' section of the ninth - the strings and bassoons go absolutely loopy and it is near impossible to relicate this on a piano without everything going to pot. I myself have performed a piano duet of the ninth, and it took me a while to get my fingers round it I can tell u!)

I personally believe that symphonies should stay just that - A work for ORCHESTRA!

Of course this is just my opinion and who am I to judge?

P.S do you think Beethoven would have approved of piano arrangements of his great orchestral works?

Regards,
Michael.

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by OboeKing:
I'm sorry but I simply do not agree. I think it is totally ridiculous to even attempt to arrange such orchestral masterpieces as beethoven's last symphonies for the piano. This is for many reasons, particularly the fact that it is quite difficult to fit orchestrations for 60+ instruments into 4 hands! Many arrangements of B's symphonies for piano duet have just been sloshed into 4 staves with no regard for the physical difficulty of the notes they have just written down (for example, not many pianists could be capable of playing the 'allegro energico, sempre ben marcato' section of the ninth - the strings and bassoons go absolutely loopy and it is near impossible to relicate this on a piano without everything going to pot. I myself have performed a piano duet of the ninth, and it took me a while to get my fingers round it I can tell u!)

I personally believe that symphonies should stay just that - A work for ORCHESTRA!

Of course this is just my opinion and who am I to judge?

P.S do you think Beethoven would have approved of piano arrangements of his great orchestral works?

Regards,
Michael.

As I've noted elsewhere on this forum, piano reductions of orchestral works were common in the nineteenth century for several reasons. The rising middle class was replacing the aristocracy as the primary patron of music. This middle class owned pianos, and one or more members of each family was a skilled player who could read and perform in the evenings when the family gathered. Concerts outside the major cities were not overly frequent. Publishers naturally wanted to sell as many copies as they could, and composers needed the income. For all these reasons numerous orchestral works were arranged for one or two pianos. Many music lovers could not have heard them at all otherwise, or perhaps once or twice in a lifetime! How would you like to have heard Beethoven's Fifth only once or twice?

It is difficult for us today, who hear whatever we want at the drop of a finger, to imagine a time so recently when these great orchestral works were unavailable, EXCEPT by piano reduction, to all but the lucky city-dweller of means.

It is also probably difficult for us to conceive the warmth and spirit of a family gathering moved almost every evening by a music recital, or by poetry or a story read out loud (perhaps the latest weekly chapter of a new novel by Dickens, Balzac, or Dostoevsky), when so many of us often spend our disconnected evenings in front of that meager substitute for the family, the TV.



[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited April 07, 2003).]

[lysander]

I cannot speak for U.S. television, but certainly in the U.K. I do not know any of my friends that either have a television or if they have one watch more than a couple of hours per week.
Television is surely the most moronic time waster yet devised.
My family and I do not have a television and never would have one.
I can only go on the schedules in the papers and what friends talk about at work.
Beethoven would surely be reduced to abject tears to see the criminal waste of time that people indulge in the west, when as you say, family gatherings listening to or playing the works of the great masters , or reading that should be the order of the day.
Slowly but surely Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is creeping upon us in Europe and America. Triviality that is preferred to serious contemplation and an insane superficiality as an escape from the big questions of exsistance, free will and destiny that Beethoven so triumphantly engaged with.

There seems to be a trend now in Britian to ditch their televisions.
Is there such a trend in America yet?

It is fantastic for families to have evenings together, to play or listen to classical music or indeed join in discussion.
Watching television (wallpaper) is sadly robbing families of quality time together.

[This message has been edited by lysander (edited April 07, 2003).]

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by lysander:

There seems to be a trend now in Britian to ditch their televisions.
Is there such a trend in America yet?

No. The new big plasma TVs are selling very well. The broadcast networks are losing share as the cable ones build it. The hottest thing of all is movies, at home or out. When we look at the superficiality of most pop music, the forbidding unapproachability of much contemporary classical music, and the absurd irrelevance of most current visual art, the good ones among the movies would seem to me to probably be the representative art of our times. But the truly good ones are rare, and the mediocrity or worse of the rest, coupled with the unswerving adulation of the public for the art form and its shallow celebrities, are discouraging.


[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited April 07, 2003).]

[Rod]

Originally posted by lysander:

I cannot speak for U.S. television, but certainly in the U.K. I do not know any of my friends that either have a television or if they have one watch more than a couple of hours per week.
Television is surely the most moronic time waster yet devised.
My family and I do not have a television and never would have one.
I can only go on the schedules in the papers and what friends talk about at work.

Well, considering you do not have a TV I would suggest you are not in the ideal position to judge the quality of the UK's television programmes!


------------------
"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Peter]

Originally posted by Rod:
Well, considering you do not have a TV I would suggest you are not in the ideal position to judge the quality of the UK's television programmes!

Not far wrong though - If I find 2 or 3 programmes a week worth watching it's been a good week! These are usually repeats though of something shown no more than 3 months ago.

------------------
'Man know thyself'

[Rod]

Originally posted by Peter:
Not far wrong though - If I find 2 or 3 programmes a week worth watching it's been a good week! These are usually repeats though of something shown no more than 3 months ago.

True, I near enough only watch the news these days, (and there's plenty of news these days!) or use it to watch the occasional video. I like the archeology stuff though. Still, even if the programmes were good chances are I'd be in a bar when they were on!

------------------
"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Peter]

Originally posted by Rod:
True, I near enough only watch the news these days, (and there's plenty of news these days!) or use it to watch the occasional video. I like the archeology stuff though. Still, even if the programmes were good chances are I'd be in a bar when they were on!

The news is quite unbearable - I listen to the headlines because I suppose one ought to know what's going on, but then I switch off and enter a better world - music!

------------------
'Man know thyself'

[Sorrano]

Originally posted by lysander:

There seems to be a trend now in Britian to ditch their televisions.
Is there such a trend in America yet?

[This message has been edited by lysander (edited April 07, 2003).]

Is there yet hope in the world that people will get away from this mindless occupation? If those that produced television programs truly had some vision they could yet make something of it that would be worthwhile. Unfortunately, here in America there is little that is worthwhile on TV and too many people are sadly addicted to it.

[Joy]

Originally posted by Peter:
The news is quite unbearable - I listen to the headlines because I suppose one ought to know what's going on, but then I switch off and enter a better world - music!

Exactly what I do! On my classical radio station they give a brief news headline on the hour and then it's back to the 'better world' much better!

Joy