Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph
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45. Solomon, Late Beethoven, 99.
46. Ibid., 101.
47. Rosen, Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas, 227.
48. After writing my own thoughts about the piece, I discover I’ve echoed or half-remembered Drake’s summation in Beethoven Sonatas, 278.
49. Czerny, Proper Performance, 9. Czerny’s lines about Beethoven being limited in his composing when he was completely deaf should be tempered by Czerny’s ambivalence toward the late music, of which he wrote, “Considering his deafness, his last works are perhaps his most admirable, but they are by no means the most worthy of emulation.”
50. Nohl, Unrequited Love, 189. I’ve substituted Thayer’s translation “he’s ashamed of me” for the incorrect translation from Nohl, “he makes me ashamed.”
51. Thayer/Forbes, 2:706.
52. Sterba and Sterba, Beethoven and His Nephew, 142–43.
53. Thayer/Forbes, 2:710–11.
54. Ibid., 2:712.
55. B. Cooper, Beethoven, 268.
56. Beethoven, Konversationshefte, 1:179.
57. Solomon, Beethoven, 374. This is part of Solomon’s elaborate thesis of a “nobility pretence” that Beethoven sustained until it was shot down by the Landrecht in the 1818 hearing.
58. Anderson, vol. 2, no. 933.
59. Kagan, Archduke Rudolph, 76–77.
60. Ibid., 106–8.
61. Anderson, vol. 2, no. 937.
62. Clive, Beethoven and His World, 198.
63. Beethoven’s February 1819 statement to the Magistrat is in Anderson, vol. 3, nos. 1374–80.
64. Hotschevar’s statement is in Sterba and Sterba, Beethoven and His Nephew, 313–19.
65. Clive, Beethoven and His World, 170–71. Remarkably, after Beethoven died, Hotschevar served for a while as Karl’s guardian.
66. Albrecht, vol. 2, no. 256.
67. Lockwood, Beethoven: Music, 403.
68. B. Cooper, Beethoven, 273–74.
69. Anderson, vol. 2, no. 950.
70. Nohl, Unrequited Love, 195–96.
71. Thayer/Forbes, 2:732.
72. Ibid., 2:726–28.
73. Knight, Beethoven, 128.
74. Ibid., 130.
75. Sterba and Sterba, Beethoven and His Nephew, 78.
76. Joseph Blöchlinger, quoted in ibid., 189.
77. Ibid., 197–98.
78. Ibid., 199.
79. Solomon, “Beethoven and His Nephew,” in Beethoven Essays, 145.
80. Wyn Jones, Life of Beethoven, 139.
81. Lockwood, Beethoven: Music, 391.
82. Drabkin, Beethoven, 12.
83. Anderson, vol. 2, no. 956.
84. Ibid., no. 955.
85. Thayer/Forbes, 2:739.
86. Anderson, vol. 2, no. 959.
87. Ibid., no. 960.
88. Ibid., no. 975.
89. Thayer/Forbes, 2:742.
90. B. Cooper, Beethoven, 276.
91. Thayer/Forbes, 2:750.
92. Ibid., 2:752.
93. Nohl, Unrequited Love, 200–201.
29. The Sky Above, the Law Within
1. B. Cooper, Beethoven, 275.
2. Kirkendale, “New Roads,” 700–701.
3. Clive, Beethoven and His World, 181–82.
4. Ibid., 37.
5. Solomon, Beethoven, 334–39.
6. B. Cooper, Beethoven, 110.
7. Albrecht, vol. 2, no. 270.
8. Solomon, Beethoven, 334.
9. Anderson, vol. 2, no. 939.
10. Ibid., no. 1019.
11. Ibid., no. 1062.
12. Comini, Changing Image, 46–47.
13. Thayer/Forbes, 2:759.
14. Knight, Beethoven, 136.
15. Albrecht, vol. 2, no. 278.
16. Ibid., no. 271.
17. Anderson, vol. 2, no. 1051.
18. Ibid., no. 1041.
19. Thayer/Forbes, 2:775.
20. Ibid., 2:777–78.
21. Solomon, Beethoven, 355.
22. Landon, Beethoven, 177–79.
23. Friedrich Rochlitz, quoted in M. Cooper, Beethoven, 47–48. Solomon (Beethoven) has cast doubt on whether Rochlitz met Beethoven as frequently as he claimed, or even at all, making Rochlitz another in the string of people who made fraudulent reports of their connection to Beethoven. Clive (Beethoven and His World), in his entry on Rochlitz, challenges Solomon’s speculation. I find Rochlitz’s observations astute and convincing in themselves—they are not a romanticized assemblage of common observations.
24. Solomon, Beethoven, 346.
25. Thayer/Forbes, 2:803.
26. Stendhal, New York Times, June 3, 2011, p. 16.
27. M. Cooper, Beethoven, 48.
28. Thayer/Forbes, 2:805.
29. Clive, Beethoven and His World, 292–93. One could argue that Beethoven’s advice to Rossini to stick to comic opera was in fact a put-down, since Beethoven did not take comic opera seriously. At the same time, however, Beethoven was certainly right that comedy was Rossini’s forte, the main thing in his work that would endure.
30. B. Cooper, Beethoven, 286.
31. Kinderman, Beethoven, 218; ibid., 279–80.
32. A look at the openings of all the movements of op. 109 shows how the themes rise from the third motif, rising and falling. For all its artless simplicity of effect, the opening theme outlines an intricate structure of voice leading in four parts.
33. The sarabande was a Baroque dance form that in Germany by the nineteenth century had become a slow, usually solemn dance in 3/4, with a characteristic emphasis, as in the op. 109 finale, on a dotted second beat.
34. Kinderman, Beethoven, 233.
35. The poet is T. S. Eliot, in The Four Quartets. The finale of the E Major Sonata ends with a descent from B to G-sharp, reversing the order of the first two notes in the piece in a cadential way—except that this cadence has the third in the soprano and moreover ends with the cadence to the tonic on the third beat. It is the gentlest, most unobtrusive ending imaginable. Of the last three sonatas, only op. 110 ends with the usual perfect authentic cadence, loud and on a downbeat.
36. The essence of the opening theme of op. 110 is two descending thirds joined by a step, C–A-flat–D-flat–B-flat—the same shape as the Fifth Symphony motif except the middle step moves hopefully upward rather than fatalistically downward. In the finale of op. 110 that down-up-down idea becomes the fugue theme. Meanwhile at the beginning the bass inverts the four-note motif, foreshadowing the inversion of the theme in the middle of the finale. Here is one of many examples in the late music in which all the lines, including the bass, tend more than ever to be contrapuntal and saturated with the leading motifs. Another steady connection of the themes in the sonata is that they involve the compass of a sixth—evolving slowly in the opening theme, more directly in the “I’m a slob” tune of the second movement. Beethoven did not throw ideas into a piece casually, even when, as here, they were quoted tunes done partly as a joke.
37. The middle of the introduction has a series of high A’s joined with ties, with an indication to change fingers. This is the Bebung effect, which is associated with the clavichord: since a key on a clavichord is directly connected to the hammer, one can press on the key to make a vibrato-like pulsation while the hammer rests on the string. A piano cannot do that. See the “Piano Forum” of Piano Street, at http://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=26006.0, for pianists’ ideas on how a player can approximate the Bebung, which was also used by Chopin. Rosen (Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas, 238) calls the Bebung in op. 110 “the representation of a cry of pain.”
38. Rosen, Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas, 240.
39. The fugue theme of op. 110 gets the usual Beethoven treatment of stretto, augmentation, and diminution. One commentator has said that older fugues might use one or two of these devices, but Beethoven rarely seems to consider a fugue complete until he has used all of them. Kinderman (Beethoven, 230) notes that the double diminution of the fugue subject from m. 165 distinctly recalls
the “I’m a slob” tune from movement 2.
40. Lockwood, Beethoven: Music, 389.
41. Nottebohm points out that the op. 111 fugue theme, remarkably enough, appears in a sketch of 1801, perhaps intended for a violin sonata.
42. The final piano sonatas complete Beethoven’s long development of the idea of a trill, from its Baroque function as a simple ornament, to a motif, to a pervasive presence that is at once a color, a texture, and an evocation of divine radiance.
43. Anderson, vol. 2, no. 1078.
44. Thayer/Forbes, 2:809.
45. Knight, Beethoven, 148.
46. Thayer/Forbes, 2:796–97.
47. B. Cooper, Beethoven, 298.
48. Albrecht, vol. 2, no. 294.
49. Anderson, vol. 2, no. 1074.
50. Albrecht, vol. 2, nos. 286, 290.
51. Anderson, vol. 2, no. 1083.
52. Thayer/Forbes, 2:813–14.
53. B. Cooper, Beethoven, 303.
54. Anderson, vol. 2, no. 1095.
55. Thayer/Forbes, 2:786; B. Cooper, Beethoven, 304.
56. Anderson, vol. 2, no. 1093.
57. Ibid., no. 1106.
58. Albrecht, vol. 2, no. 313.
59. B. Cooper, Beethoven, 303.
60. M. Cooper, Beethoven, 7.
61. Anderson, vol. 2, no. 1097. Clive (Beethoven and His World) casts some doubt on whether Sontag was one of the singers who visited Beethoven then.
62. Sachs, Ninth, 20.
63. Thayer/Forbes, 2:807.
64. Daschner, Musik für die Bühne, 224.
65. Clive, Beethoven and His World, 312.
66. Marek, Beethoven, 484.
67. Hill, Ferdinand Ries, 45.
68. Thayer/Forbes, 2:858n78.
69. Clive, Beethoven and His World, 404.
70. Anderson, vol. 2, no. 1084.
71. Ibid., no. 1086.
72. Ibid., no. 1087.
73. Albrecht, vol. 2, no. 299.
74. Kerman, Beethoven Quartets, 223–24.
75. Thayer/Forbes, 2:834.
76. Ibid., 2:811–12. Toward the end of Schröder-Devrient’s long and illustrious career she created roles in Wagner operas including Venus in Tannhäuser.
77. Senner, Critical Reception, vol. 1, nos. 54–55.
78. Thayer/Forbes, 2:838–39.
79. Anderson, vol. 3, no. 1136.
80. Thayer/Forbes, 2:827.
81. Anderson, vol. 3, nos. 1135, 1161.
82. Thayer/Forbes, 2:829.
83. Anderson, vol. 3, no. 1145.
84. Ibid., no. 1162.
85. Ibid., no. 1169.
86. Monson, “Classic-Romantic Dichotomy,” 171.
87. Thayer/Forbes, 2:842–43.
88. Solomon, Late Beethoven, 36.
89. Wyn Jones, Life of Beethoven, 165.
90. Thayer/Forbes, 2:844.
91. Gordon, “Franz Grillparzer,” 556.
92. Anderson, vol. 3, no. 1175.
93. B. Cooper, Beethoven Compendium, 29.
94. Wyn Jones, Symphony, 207.
95. M. Cooper, Beethoven, 54.
96. Anderson, vol. 3, no. 1180.
97. Kinderman, Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, 34. Kinderman notes that the plan for the variations was on a large scale from the beginning: in a conversation-book entry from 1820, Franz Oliva refers to them as “the big variations” and says, “Diabelli will pay a lot.”
98. Ibid., 85.
99. As Kinderman notes in ibid., several groupings have been proposed over the years, but he does not buy any of those theories and neither do I. My friend Andrew Rangell, who has made an outstanding recording of the Diabellis, treats each of them as a freestanding individual, except in the couple of cases where there is an attacca from one to the next. There is a quality of the mind, however, that likes to see patterns and groupings, so as listeners we tend to find questions and answers and groupings in the piece. Perhaps Beethoven understood that. But if he had wanted to group the variations, he would have done so clearly.
100. Variation I contains all twelve chromatic tones and touches briefly on G major, F major, A minor, and D minor. True, all but the D minor are already in Diabelli’s theme, but Beethoven continually expands on the theme’s collection of key allusions, and Diabelli’s theme does not contain the keys or pitches E-flat or C-sharp/D-flat.
101. Kinderman, Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, 34.
102. Ibid., 72–73.
103. Specifically, Kinderman (ibid., 118–19) compares the C-minor Variation XIV with the E-flat Minor Prelude of Bach’s WTC—the origin of what I’ve called Beethoven’s “E-flat-minor mood,” which is usually doleful.
104. The idea that much of late Beethoven is “music about music” is a point made expansively by Karl Dahlhaus in his writings on Beethoven, including Ludwig van Beethoven.
105. Kinderman (Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, 104): “Toward its close, the subject of the Diabelli Variations ceases to be merely the waltz, or even its possibilities . . . and becomes the entire musical universe as Beethoven knew it.”
106. I am echoing Kinderman in ibid., where he ends his study of the sketches citing an unused, abortive sketch of Beethoven’s with this splendid phrase: “[H]ere on the brink of eternity, the study of the genesis of the Diabelli Variations draws to a close.” As Kinderman notes, a number of the late works, including the Missa solemnis and Diabelli Variations, conclude not with resolution but rather with “a pointed pregnancy of effect.” The word pregnancy is the operative one: the works leave us not with a sense of finality but as matters to contemplate further. Two of the last three sonatas and the Diabellis all end with the third on top of the final tonic chord—not the usual perfect authentic cadence—so they subtly subvert the usual effect of an ending. The Diabellis also end on the second beat of a 3/4 bar, the weakest possible beat.
107. B. Cooper, Beethoven, 306–7.
108. Ibid., 304.
109. B. Cooper, Beethoven Compendium, 30.
110. Albrecht, vol. 2, no. 326.
111. M. Cooper, Beethoven, 53.
112. Albrecht, vol. 2, no. 327.
113. Anderson, vol. 3, no. 1231 and n4.
114. Ibid., no. 1231.
115. B. Cooper, Beethoven, 310.
116. Anderson, vol. 3, no. 1233.
117. Ibid., no. 1242.
118. B. Cooper, Beethoven, 309.
119. Thayer/Forbes, 2:861–62.
120. Ibid., 2:878.
121. Ibid., 2:882.
122. Ibid., 2:890.
123. Anderson, vol. 3, no. 1248. These inspirational words to Rudolph may be the closest Beethoven wrote in his own hand to the rhapsodic phrases attributed to him by Bettina Brentano in her letters to Goethe.
124. Ibid., no. 1257.
125. Ibid., nos. 1256, 1259.
126. M. Cooper, Beethoven, 46.
127. Thayer/Forbes, 2:896–97.
128. Ibid., 2:897–99.
129. Ibid., 2:901.
130. Ibid., 2:902.
131. Sachs, Ninth, 33.
30. Qui Venit in Nomine Domini
1. Marek, Beethoven, 594.
2. Levy, Beethoven, 124.
3. Ibid., 133.
4. Cook, Beethoven, 23.
5. Ibid., 22.
6. Some seventy years later, a singer from the chorus at the Ninth premiere told conductor Felix Weingartner, “Although Beethoven appeared to be reading along, he would continue to turn pages when the movement in question had already come to an end” (Sachs, Ninth, 22). If that was true of one or more of the movements, that means Beethoven was conducting through the music slower than the performance, much of which would also have been slower than his exaggeratedly fast metronome markings. Here is another piece of evidence that those markings are not reliable.
7. Landon, Beethoven, 182–83.
8. Ibid., 183–84.
9. Anderson, vol. 3, no. 1288.
10. Levy, Beethoven, 133–34.
11. Ibid., 138.
12. Ibid., 135–36.
13. B. Cooper, Beethoven, 318.
14. M. Cooper, Beethoven, 118–19.
15. Solomon, “Ninth Symphony,” 28.
16. M. Cooper, Beethoven, 127.
17. Drabkin, Beethoven, 21. Lockwood (Beethoven: Music, 406) speculates that Beethoven may have known the Bach B Minor Mass, but if so I don’t hear any echoes of that in the Missa solemnis—while in the Diabelli Variations there are audible echoes of the Bach Goldbergs. He did know Bach’s mass existed, because at one point he queried a publisher about it, citing the bass line of the Crucifixus. Haydn owned a copy of it and would possibly have shown it to his student Beethoven. That Haydn looked over the Bach is shown in a quotation from the Kyrie, whether intentional or not, in the development of the earlier E-flat Major Piano Sonata.
18. Drabkin, Beethoven, 14–15.
19. Lockwood (Beethoven: Music, 407) speculates that the “from the heart” inscription may have been a private one directed to Archduke Rudolph. The phrase does not appear outside the autograph manuscript. I’m more inclined to give it a broader intention, even if it did not get into the printed score.
20. Kirkendale, “New Roads,” 667.
21. As I said in the text, if the expression of the text happens to be conventional, as in ascendit, etc., Beethoven does it anyway. Species counterpoint and the whole of composing teaches the composer that he or she often needs to give up one desirable quality—say, originality—for a more important quality. Everything in music is relative. Here, for Beethoven, embodying and picturing the text override the threat of cliché.
22. The “germinal motive” F-sharp–B–A–G–F-sharp (I use the form “motif” here) was discovered and described briefly by Walter Riezler in the 1930s. It has since been generally acknowledged by scholars, though I think more tentatively than it deserves. As Drabkin notes, “Riezler’s idea of motivic unity has not been developed by any subsequent writings on the Mass” (Beethoven). I hope I’ve begun to remedy that here, though in this book I don’t have space to examine how thoroughly the motif pervades the music—especially since it subsumes the submotifs of the rising fourth, the falling third, and the G–F-sharp. It is also used in a kind of setlike rearrangement, as in the G–F-sharp–B–A that forms the eleison figure in the first movement. In D major, the primal G–F-sharp motif can function and be resolved in three ways: as the seventh of an A7–D cadence, as part of a IV–I Amen cadence, and as a 4–3 suspension over a D in the bass. Beethoven uses all those flavors of the G–F-sharp motif.