Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph
Page 126
75. Ibid.
76. Kerman, Beethoven Quartets, 322.
77. Lockwood, Beethoven, 460.
78. Kinderman, Beethoven, 304.
33. Plaudite, Amici
1. Albrecht, vol. 3, no. 419. In this letter to Hummel, Haslinger notes that his publishing partner Steiner is “elderly and also somewhat strange.”
2. B. Cooper, Beethoven Compendium, 32.
3. Lockwood, Beethoven: Music, 350.
4. Goethe, quoted in Botstein, “Patrons and Publics,” 77.
5. Lockwood, Beethoven: Music, 442.
6. Beethoven’s final appeal about the Galitzin debt was issued five days before Beethoven died.
7. Albrecht, vol. 3, no. 444.
8. Marek, Beethoven, 603–5.
9. Fiske, Beethoven’s Missa solemnis, 21.
10. Gottfried Wilhelm Fink, “Is It True That Our Music Has Declined So Far That It No Longer Can Stand Comparison with the Old and Oldest Music?,” in Senner, Critical Reception, vol. 1, no. 87.
11. M. Cooper, Beethoven, 75.
12. Thayer/Forbes, 2:956. From the relatively little J. S. Bach that Beethoven was acquainted with, it is remarkable that he understood Bach’s inexhaustible imagination.
13. New York Times and The Guardian, October 13, 2005—soon after Beethoven’s lost manuscript of the Grosse Fuge four-hand arrangement was rediscovered in, of all places, the town King of Prussia, outside Philadelphia.
14. Solomon, Beethoven, 368–69.
15. Albrecht, vol. 3, no. 433n4.
16. Sterba and Sterba, Beethoven and His Nephew, 278.
17. Thayer/Forbes, 2:994–95.
18. Sterba and Sterba, Beethoven and His Nephew, 277–79.
19. Gruneberg’s “Suicide Attempt” summarizes the “cry for help” interpretation. It points out that nearly all genuine suicide attempts succeed on the first try.
20. Sterba and Sterba, Beethoven and His Nephew, 279–84.
21. Thayer/Forbes, 2:998–1003.
22. Anderson, vol. 3, no. 1502.
23. Breuning, Memories of Beethoven, 83.
24. Thayer/Forbes, 2:1000.
25. Ibid., 2:1001–3.
26. Ibid., 2:1004.
27. Anderson, vol. 3, no. 1521.
28. Ibid., no. 1498.
29. Ratner, Beethoven String Quartets, 238.
30. When I say Beethoven invested fugue with more emotion than anybody had, that is not to say that I believe he wrote the greatest fugues. For me, Bach did. Part of the reason I say that is that Bach seems to me a born contrapuntalist in a way Beethoven never quite was, for all his labors in counterpoint. Certainly Bach wrote expressive, even tragic fugues, but it was not his style to invest them with the full Beethovenian intensity of emotion, which rose from the Classical sonata style. Meanwhile, Baroque fugues do not have the variety of keys that Beethoven’s do, which is also the influence of the sonata style.
31. As the text notes, keys like C-sharp minor are “shadowed” in strings, because they involve few open strings. The standard string keys are bright ones between one flat and three sharps, which have the most open strings. The keys of C, G, and F major contain every open string on every instrument. Even when the open strings are not used for those notes in playing, they resonate with the pitches. When the young Brahms drafted a piano trio in C-sharp minor, his violinist friend Joachim told him that was an awkward and ungrateful key for strings and he should take it down to C minor—which Brahms did, in the C Minor Piano Quartet. As I have said before, from the evidence of his first chamber opuses, I think from early on Beethoven had learned to make good use of the timbral contrast of bright and dark string keys. There is also the issue of which degrees of the scale the open strings fall on. In C-sharp minor the open strings are E and A—the mediant degrees. It’s clear in the C-sharp Minor Quartet that Beethoven was aware of this and made use of it as part of the significance especially of the notes A and D, both in the fugue and in the tonal plan of the whole quartet. The first answer in the fugue is in the subdominant partly to emphasize D, another open string. The second movement emerges from dark C-sharp minor to D major, the Neapolitan, one of the brightest string keys. Harmonic C-sharp minor also includes a B-sharp, enharmonically a C, and in the first movement Beethoven makes memorable use of the cello’s lowest note in its B-sharp incarnation. In contrast to the present, orchestral players in Beethoven’s day regularly used open strings when those pitches came up. I’ve never seen a study of whether chamber players of the time did the same, though I suspect they did and that Beethoven expected the A in the fugue theme to be an open string, likewise the D in the answer and the E at the top of the line.
32. Winter, “Plans for the Structure,” 136; Lockwood, Beethoven: Music, 471.
33. As is often noted, the configuration of the beginning, B-sharp–C-sharp, A–G-sharp, two semitones joined by a leap, is yet another version of the leading motif of the A Minor Quartet and the Grosse Fuge motif—so it is shared by three quartets. Chua (“Galitzin” Quartets, 7) relates these to the “notorious B–A–C–H motif,” which I find a bit of a stretch, though they all involve two semitones separated by some sort of leap. I also don’t see why the Bach motif is “notorious” rather than “famous.”
34. Given the importance of the subdominant in the C-sharp Quartet and the significance of D and A as N and N of V, Ratner (Beethoven String Quartets) calls the presence of the Neapolitan a “deep subdominant.”
35. Lockwood, Beethoven, 473.
36. In his “Musical Curiosities,” Beethoven editor Jonathan Del Mar traces the ponticello effect back to a few uses in Telemann and Boccherini, and in Haydn’s Symphony No. 97—the latter the most likely place Beethoven heard it.
37. The key relations in the quartet all stress subdominants in relation to C-sharp minor: F-sharp minor and the “deep subdominants” of A and D. This creates a unique tonal world, largely avoiding more dramatic and dynamic dominant relationships except within the subdominant areas. The first movement also avoids E, the relative major of C-sharp minor. E major finally turns up in the scherzo. Most of the last page of the quartet is in F-sharp minor, turning to C-sharp major only in the last six bars. To my ear, the final cadence to C-sharp is detectably compromised.
38. From Schiller’s essay “The Pathetic.”
39. Solomon, Beethoven, 370.
40. B. Cooper, Beethoven, 345–46.
41. Thayer/Forbes, 2:1002.
42. Anderson, vol. 3, no. 1533.
43. Sterba and Sterba, Beethoven and His Nephew, 293.
44. John Suchet, “Therese van Beethoven (1787–1828): Beethoven’s Sister-in-Law,” Classic FM, accessed December 20, 2013, http://www.classicfm.com/composers/beethoven/guides/therese-beethovens-sister-in-law/. The winegrowers who currently own Wasserhof have preserved Beethoven’s rooms and filled them with original or period furniture.
45. Thayer/Forbes, 2:1008–9. The translation given is Thayer’s archaic “A pretty brother, that he is!” I’ve updated it.
46. Ibid., 1007.
47. Albrecht, vol. 3, no. 446.
48. Thayer/Forbes, 2:1013.
49. Ibid., 2:1015.
50. Sterba and Sterba, Beethoven and His Nephew, 293.
51. Mai, Diagnosing Genius, 90–91.
52. The solemn incantation on the first page of the F Major becomes a more chromatic cantus firmus–like figure later in the movement. That version happens to be, yet again, the motto and leading motif that open the A Minor Quartet and the theme of the Grosse Fuge.
53. I think the E-flat in the scherzo is intentionally a non sequitur in effect, but it was elaborately foreshadowed in the coda of the first movement, which is full of out-of-key E-flats.
54. Anderson, vol. 3, no. 1538A.
55. One memorable creative use of the Muss es sein? idea in the quartet is in Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Kundera, who studied music, makes the quartet finale a motif in the book, tying its question and answer into his gra
nd theme of heaviness (the question) and lightness (the answer).
56. Another idea that the new finale takes up from earlier movements of the B-flat Quartet, mainly the first movement, is chains of thirds, which are all over the movement starting with the third-based main theme. The dashing sixteenths of the second theme recall a similar effect in the first movement, but that theme is also founded on a long train of rising thirds that climb, bar by bar: F–A / C–E–G–B-flat / D–F / A–C–E-flat–G / B-flat–D / F–A / C–E. The second phrase of sixteenths starts a new rising chain of thirds. The fortissimo climax of the coda features a sequence of triads descending by thirds in the lower voice, echoed a beat later in the upper voice. There is a worthwhile study to be done of Beethoven’s use of themes and passages based on chains of thirds, going back past the Hammerklavier and Kreutzer Sonatas all the way to the Electoral Sonata.
57. For all my fondness for the alternative finale, I am inclined to agree with Kerman, in Beethoven Quartets, who essentially finds the fugue too much and the substitute finale too little, neither entirely satisfactory. In practice I vote for the Grosse Fuge because it crowns an enigmatic work with a climactic enigma of overwhelming power. Kerman finds the B-flat Quartet, on the whole, a not entirely successful stage of a journey in some new direction that Beethoven did not live to define. I tend to agree with that, too. I wonder whether the direction may have had something to do with the “new kind of gravity” Beethoven planned for the Tenth Symphony. If the B-flat is neither my favorite Beethoven quartet nor the one I find his “greatest,” for me it is the most fascinating one. It also contains some of the most beautiful and moving music he ever wrote.
58. Yeats: “sick with desire / and fastened to a dying animal,” from “Sailing to Byzantium.”
59. Wawruch, quoted in Mai, Diagnosing Genius, 217–18.
60. Breuning, Memories of Beethoven, 101.
61. Thayer/Forbes, 2:1022–23.
62. Clive, Beethoven and His World, 19.
63. Breuning, Memories of Beethoven, 96.
64. Ibid., 95.
65. Anderson, vol. 3, no. 1542.
66. Wawruch, quoted in Mai, Diagnosing Genius, 217–19.
67. Thayer/Forbes, 2:1022–23.
68. Mai, Diagnosing Genius, 219.
69. Thayer/Forbes, 1:942.
70. Ibid., 2:1034.
71. Albrecht, vol. 3, no. 459.
72. Ibid., no. 460.
73. Thayer/Forbes, 2:1033–38.
74. Hiller account in Landon, Beethoven, 199–200.
75. Thayer/Forbes, 2:1047.
76. Albrecht, vol. 3, no. 468. Years later Schindler and Anselm Hüttenbrenner reported that Schubert visited Beethoven on his deathbed, but there is no evidence for it—or that Beethoven and Schubert ever met, though Beethoven surely knew the younger man’s reputation and had likely seen some songs.
77. Anderson, vol. 3, no. 1566.
78. Wawruch, cited in Mai, Diagnosing Genius, 220.
79. Breuning, Memories of Beethoven, 103.
80. Thayer/Forbes, 2:1049.
81. Anderson, vol. 3, no. 1570. The original of the note does not survive.
82. Albrecht, vol. 3, no. 469.
83. Breuning, Memories of Beethoven, 101–2.
84. Albrecht, vol. 3, no. 479.
85. Ibid., no. 472.
86. Breuning, Memories of Beethoven, 104.
87. Thayer/Forbes, 2:1050–51.
88. Ibid., 2:1051n61. Johann’s account of his brother dying in his arms is presumably a fabrication—there is no record that he was present.
89. I have concluded that Beethoven was a functional alcoholic, but many over the years have disputed the idea that he was so much a drinker as that. Given the primitive state of medicine in those days, no doctor’s conclusions can be fully trusted. But doctors Wawruch and Malfatti both considered Beethoven alcoholic, and Lorenz’s article “Commentary on Wawruch’s Report” concludes that alcoholic cirrhosis is a strong, if not unassailable, possibility. This is also the conclusion of several doctors cited in Mai (Diagnosing Genius, 141). Mai’s chapter 4 reviews questions concerning alcohol, hearing, and lead poisoning, and the possibility that Beethoven had inflammatory bowel disease. Not all cirrhosis is caused by alcohol. Likewise, there is a good deal of evidence for lead poisoning, but some, including Eisinger (“Was Beethoven Lead-Poisoned?”), conclude he was not afflicted with it. Like Beethoven’s deafness and every other aspect of his health, these questions likely will never be answered for certain. What I say in the text is that Beethoven may have had lead poisoning from early in life, but if that was not the cause, he had some other chronic condition that afflicted his digestive system.
90. M. Cooper, Beethoven, 439.
91. Breuning, Memories of Beethoven, 106.
92. Solomon (Beethoven, 383) says the second medallion is Antonie Brentano, his nominee for the Immortal Beloved.
93. Ibid.
94. Breuning, Memories of Beethoven, 108; Thayer/Forbes, 2:1053.
95. Thayer/Forbes, 2:1054–56.
96. Albrecht, vol. 3, no. 477.
97. Ibid., no. 491n2.
98. Breuning, Memories of Beethoven, 113–14.
99. Clive, Beethoven and His World, 20; John Suchet, “Karl van Beethoven (1806–58): Beethoven’s Nephew,” Classic FM, accessed October 23, 2013, http://www.classicfm.com/composers/beethoven/guides/karl-van-beethoven-nephew/.
100. Breuning, Memories of Beethoven, 114. Gerhard’s deploring description of Johann van Beethoven was probably inflected by Schindler, who despised Johann.
101. Clive, Beethoven and His World, 26; Albrecht, vol. 3, no. 446n4.
102. Clive, Beethoven and His World, 15–17.
103. Johann Friedrich Rochlitz, in Senner, Critical Receptions, vol. 1, no. 43.
104. Wilhelm Christian Müller, in Senner, Critical Receptions, vol. 1, no. 45.
105. Thompson, Franz Grillparzer, 86.
Index
ABA form, [>]
Adelaide (Beethoven), [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]
Albrechtsberger, Johann Georg, [>]–[>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]
Alexander I, Tsar/Tsarina, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]
Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung (AMZ/General Musical Magazine), [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>]
Amenda, Karl Friedrich
background, [>]–[>]
Beethoven and, [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
American Revolution, [>], [>], [>]
AMZ. See Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung (AMZ/General Musical Magazine)
An die ferne Geliebte/To the Distant Beloved (Beethoven), [>]–[>], [>]
Appassionata Sonata (Beethoven), [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]
Archduke Trio, [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]
Arnim, Achim von, [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
“art” definition/description, [>], [>], [>]
Artaria publishing house, [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]
Aufklärung. See Enlightenment
Austria
French occupations/book bans, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
wars with France, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
See also specific individuals
Averdonk, Johanna Helene, [>], [>]
Averdonk, Severin Anton, [>]
Bach, C. P. E., [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
Bach, J. C., [>], [>], [>]
Bach, J. S., [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
Bach, Johann Baptist (lawyer), [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]
Bagration, Katherine, Princess, [>]–[>]
“baroque” defined, [>]–[>]
Baroque period (music)
concerto-sonata form, [>]–[>]
fugue form, [>], [>]
musical form and, [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]
Battle of Vittoria (Beethoven). See Wellington’s Victory (Beethoven)
bedbugs, [>]
“Beethoven” name
origins, [>]
spelling variations, [>]
Beethoven, Anna Maria Franziska van, [>]
Beethoven, Caspar Anton Carl van
christening, [>]
description, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]
Heiligenstadt Testament/letter and, [>]–[>]
illness/death, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>]
Johanna/child and, [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>]
as Ludwig’s agent, [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]
music and, [>]
relationship with Ludwig, [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]–[>]
rheumatic fever, [>]
will, [>]–[>]
Beethoven, Cornelius van, [>]
Beethoven family
deaths of infants/children, [>], [>], [>], [>]
home locations/moves following grandfather’s death, [>]
home on Wenzelgasse, [>]
See also Fischer house/surroundings
Beethoven, Franz Georg van, [>]
Beethoven, Johann van
attempts to become Kapellmeister, [>], [>]
Beethoven’s name day, [>]
Belderbusch and, [>], [>], [>]
birth/childhood, [>]–[>]
bribes to Belderbusch, [>]–[>], [>]
Caspar Carl/music and, [>]
Christmas celebrations, [>]