December's been a crappy month for me. I'm going to postpone the second part of our Beethoven's Ninth diary until next Thursday. I thought I had time, today, to post something, though, just to keep the flame alive of DailyKos Beethoven Festival 2011 (Soon to be 2012, as well, from the looks of things, hmmm...)
[Part one of the Beethoven's Ninth series is here.]
Here's one of the safest Beethoven works I could ever post on a rainy-day schedule day like this: The famous slow movement of the Pathetique.
Beethoven Piano Sonata #8 in C minor, "The Pathetique," Opus 13, second movement, performed by Daniel Barenboim
I loves me some Daniel Barenboim.
The Pathetique slow movement is fairly simple, in ABACA form, the famous A theme being introspective but drenched in personal strength. The C section becomes anxious and edgy, making the return of the A section all the more relieving. But notice how the A theme has been changed by its journey! It has picked up some of the triplets (1-2-3, 1-2-3...) from the C section. Even here, in what is a very simple early work, there is a kind of abstract story-telling going on.
About the music of Personal Strength: Beethoven, more than any other composer before or since, had this down. Beethoven was, even at that early time, losing his hearing, and he could foresee a day that would come when he might never be able to express himself through his art. Of course, though, we know, he did. He learned to continue composing for decades after, even though deaf, only hearing the music inside his own head. Through introspection and personal strength
Another work, far less well known, that I had bookmarked. Listen to a little of this before you read further.
Variations on a theme of Dressler's, by Beethoven.
What do you think you can tell about the man who composed this music? What can you tell just from the sound of it?
As far as I can tell, this is the earliest published work of Beethoven's. He composed it when he was a child of twelve. Beethoven was a child prodigy, like Mozart, but there are major differences in the quality of their childhood experiences. Where the very young Mozart was celebrated as a phenomenon and hand-fed treats by princes and princesses, Beethoven was exploited by a violent drunken lout of a father. Whatever effect his more difficult childhood had on his later music -- we can already hear some of it forming here, I think. Unlike Mozart, Beethoven's life was a hard-fought one.
One last Youtube clip. This is one of my very favorite Beethoven pieces, and he ties into the theme of Personal Strength as the Pathetique did. The slow movement of the Beethoven Violin Concerto
The Violin Concerto in D Major by Beethoven, Opus 61, performed by Joshua Bell
A couple of quick notes about this: It's in variations on a theme form, a series of restatements of the same theme, changed each time. But Beethoven isn't content to just present a series of variations. A transformation takes place as it continues.
The theme itself, too, is one of those "Drenched in Personal Strength" themes that Beethoven excelled at. It's also notable for the beautiful chord changes in the middle, going I-VII-VI-V-I. That VII chord change in the middle, so gracefully done, is heart-breakingly beautiful.
Oh wow... I'm listening to it now, as I type. Wait for the variation that begins about 5:40 on the clip. The rest of the orchestra drops out... and it's just the violin, with only a few plucked strings in the background for accompaniment. This is intensely personal music. You can almost feel Beethoven's breath on your face.
Do me a favor and post some of your favorite Beethoven works in comments so we can pad this diary, eh? Famous or obscure, doesn't matter.
Next Thursday: The Beethoven Ninth Symphony Part 2, the scherzo movement. Or, as you may know it, the Huntley and Brinkley Report music.