CHARACTERISTIC MOODS OF BEETHOVEN.
LUDVIG VAN BEETHOVEN.
Born December 16, 1770, at Bonn.
Died March 26, 1827, in Vienna.
Beethoven was the son of a very dissipated tenor singer of the chapel
of the Elector of Cologne, and the family had been musical for several
generations. The boy learned to play the viola and violin as well as
the piano while he was still very young indeed, and by the age of
eleven was regularly engaged as viola player in the orchestra and had
gained such proficiency upon the piano that it was popularly said of
him that he could have played a good part of Bach's "Well-tempered
Clavier" by heart. While still but a lad he succeeded informally to
the post of assistant conductor of the orchestra, and it was his duty
to prepare the music for the men, making the abridgments, emendations,
and rearrangements that might be advisable to adapt old music to the
then modern orchestra. In this way he gained, no doubt, much of his
marvelous acquaintance with orchestral effect. When he was fifteen he
was regularly appointed organist to the private chapel of the Elector,
and he was left in charge of the orchestra for months together in the
absence of the head director, Neefe.
[Illustration: Ludwig van Beethoven]
He began to compose by the time he was ten, but he did not manifest any
especial precocity in this direction: his published compositions with
opus number contain only one movement, it is believed, which he wrote
before he was twenty or twenty-one years of age. After the death of
his father he was left, as he had been practically for some years
before, the responsible head of the family, with the care of his mother
and his younger brothers. He remained in Bonn, with one visit to
Vienna in 1787, until he was about twenty-two years of age, when he
left Bonn definitely and took up his abode in Vienna. Here he studied
with the best masters attainable--Haydn, then in his prime, Salieri,
and others. His first published compositions with opus numbers--three
trios--date from the Vienna time.
In Vienna he lived all the remainder of his life--about thirty-five
years. In the earlier part of this period he was considered one of the
great pianoforte virtuosi of his time; his playing was distinguished
for force, strong contrasts, musical quality, and, above all, pathetic
expression. Czerny states that it was not unusual for a company of the
Viennese aristocracy to be affected to tears by the playing of this
master. His published works were generally criticized as being too
bold and unconventional.
As Beethoven had the fortune to live to quite a good age, he gradually
established his position with regard to the earlier compositions,
inasmuch as by repeated hearings they sooner or later commended
themselves to the critics as well as to the public; but by the time
this had come to pass with the works of a certain period, he had
advanced and composed others, which now in turn succeeded to the charge
of being too advanced and forced. These in turn were later on
accepted, only to leave a still later stratum of his compositions under
the same condemnation which had been the portion of the earlier works.
Nevertheless, the want of recognition of Beethoven by his
contemporaries has been greatly overrated. He enjoyed a fairly
comfortable income, as such things went among the middle-class Viennese
of his time, and during most of his career he was esteemed to be
probably the most eminent composer living.
As compared with the works of Händel or Bach, those of Beethoven do not
make a great display in volume. Nevertheless, there are thirty-two
piano sonatas, ten violin sonatas, nine symphonies for full orchestra,
five pianoforte concertos, twenty-one sets of variations for piano
alone, sixteen string quartets, and a very large mass of chamber music
of other sorts. There are two masses, one opera, and above one hundred
songs.
* * * * *
As generally stated, the characteristic point of difference between
what we call the classical and the romantic in the art of music lies in
the feeling actuating the composer, and consequently embodied more or
less successfully in his music. In the older practice, especially that
of the Netherlandish contrapuntal composers of the sixteenth century,
the motive of composition was that of producing a musical piece more
elaborate, more imposing, or more sonorous than previous works; or,
perhaps, the more commonplace conception of producing a piece as good
as previous works. The purely musical (conceived from a technical
standpoint) remained the moving principle with the composer. With the
invention of opera, about 1597, A. D., and the active development which
followed for a century after, a new principle came into operation,
namely, the expression of dramatic contrasts and situations, and so at
length the expression of intense individuality--the working of strong
individualities under the clash of tragic situations.
Along with the invention and development of opera, during the period
here mentioned, the mastery of the violin was carried forward with
great results to the art of music. About 1685, Archangelo Corelli
published his first collection of pieces for the violin, and in these
are found what are practically about the first examples of a
well-developed lyric melody, of the kind we now mean when we speak of
"bel canto"--the type of melody made the very crux of the art of
Italian singing. This impassioned, sustained, and expressive melody
took with wonderful rapidity and was almost immediately adopted into
opera, the ideal of which in the beginning had been that of an artistic
and dramatically expressive delivery of the text. Now, melody as such
has little to do with the dramatic delivery of the text. In a
sustained melody--as in "Home, Sweet Home," to quote a simple type--it
is first of all a question of sustained sentiment; whereas in a
well-determined declamation it is first of all a matter of effective
delivery of the words and phrases from an elocutionary standpoint,
allowing the voice all the stops, interruptions, shocks, and variations
of intensity requisite for effective delivery. But by the time this
sustained melody had been introduced into high art (it seems to have
made a beginning earlier in folk-song, although we have no precise
indications upon the subject) the mere delivery of a text, somewhat
after the manner of a liturgical intoning, no longer satisfied the
demands of opera.
Music grew by what it fed upon. The violin, which Monteverde had
placed in the position of honor at the head of the orchestra in 1608,
had grown upon the ears of the people; and there was a need felt for
something more impassioned, but at the same time more distinctively
musical, than the mere declamation of the first opera, no matter how
sing-song that delivery might be made. Hence arose the aria, which
practically is a prolongation of a single moment of the dramatic
situation. The Arias, at first and for quite a long time later, had
very few words, and these were repeated over and over, as we find still
in the well-known arias from Händel's "Messiah." Thus opera came into
possession of a simple and sustained melody, patterned after the
cantilena of the violin; and it was employed for marking the successive
points of the dramatic action. That is to say, as the drama unfolded,
one new situation after another developed itself. Each new entrance of
a dramatic person made a new complication and a new situation, brought
to the attention of the hearer by means of the lines and then enforced
by the aria, which the singer of greatest momentary importance had to
sing. That these arias very soon degenerated into show pieces for
virtuoso singers was an accident due to the popularity of the operatic
stage, the development of the new art of singing, and a delight in the
human voice as a musical instrument. It has no concern with our
present subject.
Moreover, it inevitably happened that as composers multiplied and
competed for the favor of the public, they tried more and more to bring
out in their music the very innermost passions and passing feelings of
the leading individuals in the play; hence the art of expressive music
was greatly developed, and the ears of the public learned gradually to
feel after and enjoy the human heart-beat in the music. Thus music
passed beyond the stage of working for itself as a development of
musical forms or science of construction, and became more and more, in
opera, the expression of individualities and moods. At the same time
that this tendency was working for making the music more expressive,
the necessity of pleasing the public tended also in the opposite
direction of pleasing the hearer by means of agreeable combinations of
tone-colors, delightful symmetries of tone-forms, and the like. So at
the very time when composers of one class were laboring in opera for
the development of deep expression, those of another class were working
no less effectually for making the music merely shallow and pleasing.
Light operas dealing with shallow situations--comedy, farce, expressed
by means of light and pleasing music--came to occupy more and more the
operatic stage, where, after all, the question of amusement will always
prevail.
All of these different tendencies came later on to their expression in
music purely instrumental. We have seen already how Bach managed to
compose truly expressive music which, nevertheless, is first of all
strong music, yet highly humoristic and fanciful. Then Haydn and
Mozart introduced various types of pleasing and simply expressive
melody, but it is only in occasional moments that their music touches
the deeper feelings of the heart. It is music to admire for its
cleverness, to enjoy at times for its sweetness and tenderness, and its
fresh melodic symmetry; but it is only in very rare moments that the
accent of emotional individuality is given.
In Beethoven we find this quality for the first time illustrated in
instrumental music; and, along with this occasional accent of
intensity, we have also a great and inexhaustible variety of moods and
manners appertaining to the different sides of the mighty individuality
of this great tone-poet. Along with this variety of moods, which in
their inner nature must be regarded as representing different facets of
individuality, we have also in Beethoven a certain comprehensive
element. Everything that he says to us belongs somehow to a larger
whole, and that larger whole is the entire man of the composer. It is
like the conversation of some highly gifted person, which, while
lasting perhaps for only a few minutes, nevertheless affords us a
glimpse into a remarkable personality, and appears in our memory as a
chapter accidentally revealed out of the entire soul of the talker.
Hence in trying to form an idea of the individuality of Beethoven and
of the range and peculiar beauty of his music, we have to learn his
most characteristic moods in order to get the range of his genius; and
then to see how he combines these widely different moods into a
whole--as he does in his sonatas and symphonies. Accordingly, this
first program begins with several pieces, comparatively small in
compass, but directly illustrating the variety of his humoristic
tendencies. All of these little pieces, moreover, have that accent of
intense individuality mentioned above--an accent very much more
observable in Beethoven than in any of his predecessors, and surpassed
only by Schubert and Schumann later. The latter, it may be
anticipated, is the most humoristic of all composers of instrumental
music.
There are certain conditions of largeness in a piece of music intended
to say something without words, and to work up to an imposing climax,
which give it a different form from what is practicable in pieces
having a text for doing a part of the talking. In order to reach a
great effect, an instrumental music piece has to last for some time,
and to continue quite a while in the same movement, as to rate of
pulsation and frequency of measure accent. It has to work within a
single tonality--remain in one key or revolve around one key in such a
manner as to preserve its own unity as a single being. Hence arise the
long movements of the sonata and symphony. It is not possible to
arrive at similar impressions upon hearers by the use of shorter,
disjointed movements. Only by carrying a movement on for some time,
and so developing it as to impress some one idea as central, and at the
same time to arrive eventually at some kind of a climax or goal, can a
serious instrumental movement become expressive and effective.
In Mozart these long movements have nothing like the unity of those of
Beethoven. A beautiful variety prevails, and the main ideas are
repeated a sufficient number of times; but it is for beauty rather than
for completing a cycle of moods or a cycle of soul-experiences. Or if
a cycle, then a cycle of pleasant and youthful experiences. In
Beethoven this is not the case. When he is much in earnest he takes
plenty of time for saying his say, and says it so thoroughly that you
are quite sure of what he is at. This will be shown in the present
program by means of the Sonate Pathetique, and phases of the manner
will appear in all the selections.
PROGRAM.
Selections of a quasi-lyric character:
Menuetto in E-flat. Opus 31, No. 3.
Menuetto in D major. Opus 10, No. 3.
Subject from Allegretto from Sonata, opus 90. Thirty-two measures.
Andante from Sonata, opus 27, No. 1.
Formal Variations:
Andante and Variations. Sonata in G major. Opus 14, No. 2.
Andante, from Sonata Appassionata. Opus 57.
Humoristic Variations and Moods;
Theme and Variations. Opus 26.
Scherzo in C, Sonata in C. Opus 2, No. 3.
Allegretto from "Moonlight Sonata." Opus 27, No. 2.
Scherzo in A-flat, Sonata. Opus 31, No. 2.
Sonata-piece:
Allegro (first movement), from Sonata in G. Opus 14, No. 2.
Allegro (first movement), Sonata in F minor. Opus 2, No. 1.
Sonata-piece, Impassioned;
Introduction and Allegro (first movement), Sonate Pathetique.
Opus 13.
The minuet proper, in the first selection, is a simply expressive
folk-song throughout its first period. It is only at the beginning of
the second period, with the dissonant C-flat, that something different
comes to illustration. The distinction of the mood is further
illustrated in the trio which follows, where the chords by their skips
and their delightful changes afford a most agreeable and charming
contrast with the main subject. (It is upon this trio that Saint-Saëns
has written his lovely variations for two pianos, four hands.)
The minuet in D, from the very strong Sonata in D major, opus 10,
affords very strong contrasts before we pass beyond the minuet proper.
The first period (eight measures repeated) is purely lyric and very
lovely. The second period starts out with an imitative bit, quite in
the manner of fugue, one voice after another responding in a vigorous
and spirited manner. When this is completed by the delightful return
of the principal subject, we are led to a trio in the related key of G
major, which is in a totally different style. It goes like a scherzo,
and when it in turn has been completed the main minuet returns with
most agreeable effect. At the end, a short coda. Both these
selections contain much which is not purely lyric, but rather thematic.
This occurs always in the trios, and in the second period of the minuet
in D.
The next selection is the beginning of the beautiful closing movement
of the Sonata, opus 90. This movement takes the place of a slow
movement in this sonata, and it is entirely in lyric style, except
where the imperative need of relief has led to the introduction of less
connected and sustained matter. The melody itself is one of the best
of Beethoven's. The illustration comprises the first thirty-two
measures.
In the next division of selections we come upon the Beethoven faculty
of diversifying a musical theme in the form of variations. The
examples here given represent certain of the simpler phases of this
part of his art, and if the student is ambitious in this direction he
might read for himself the variations upon the waltz in C, or the
famous thirty-two variations, in which endless varieties are obtained
from a very simple theme. A still more highly developed example of
this art is found in the last sonata of all, opus 111; but these are
too difficult for our present use.
The theme and variations in C, from the Sonata in G, opus 14, are easy
and pleasing. The theme itself affords a very pretty contrast between
the staccato of the first period and the close legato of the second
period. Then the sweetness of it is relieved by the strong
syncopations which break it up, toward the end (measures 17 and 18).
The first variation has the melody in the tenor, unchanged excepting to
make it legato. The right hand deals mainly with syncopated repeated
notes.
The second variation is much more broken. The left hand plays the bass
upon the beat, while the right hand comes in with a chord containing
the melody at the half beat. The third variation brings the melody
again in the bass, with an accompaniment figure in sixteenths for the
right hand. At the end there is a lovely coda of six measures.
Throughout these variations the harmony and the melody have not been
changed. Only the place of the melody and the rhythm of the accessory
accompanying figures have been changed.
A still more remarkable illustration of this phase of the Beethoven
genius is found in the andante and variations which form the second
movement of the Sonata Appassionata, opus 57. Here the variations are
not indicated in the notation, but the player has to find them for
himself, which is easy enough, because the two periods of the theme,
each of eight measures, are exactly repeated in the following
variations.
The theme itself has a church-like character, almost "sacred." This is
due to the first harmonic step from tonic to subdominant and back
again, in the manner of the "Amen" cadence so well known in anthems.
In the second period there is an intense and almost strained expression
due to the chord of 4-2, the seventh low in the bass. The first
variation plays the melody in the same place as in the theme, and in
the same chords; but the bass enters a half beat later and holds over,
so that a restless and searching expression results. The second
variation, again, is very reposeful. The melody is only suggested in
the upper tones of the right-hand part, and the sixteenth motion is
intended to have a certain chord-like character; meanwhile the bass has
a part somewhat like a melody suitable for 'cello. The third variation
brings the melody high in the treble (later changing again to the left
hand in the middle range of the piano), while the left hand performs an
arpeggio figure in thirty-seconds. At the end a lovely coda of sixteen
measures, recalling the theme in its original form. Throughout these
variations not only is the harmony and melody of the theme never
varied, excepting in time of coming in, but the spirit of the theme is
everywhere retained. Observe that the coda is not concluded, but
interrupted by the entrance of a diminished chord, leading into the key
of F minor. In place of this chord, end with a chord of D-flat,
directly after the dominant chord preceding the diminished chord, when
the finale is not to be played.
Quite different from the foregoing are the highly humoristic variations
of the Sonata, opus 26. These, being designated in the copy, require
only mention and characterization. The theme is three periods in
length, the second opening with a syncopation. The first variation
follows the harmony of the theme, but in a broken manner, not alone in
the cutting up into sixteenth notes, but also in changes of position
upon the keyboard. This tendency to excitement continues in the second
variation, where the melody is in the bass, in octaves broken into
sixteenth notes. The third variation changes the mode to minor, and
the musical treatment contains strong syncopations, implying much
suppressed passion. The fourth variation is a scherzo, bounding from
one point of the keyboard to another, like a musical Ariel. The fifth
variation returns to the harmony and manner of the theme, but in the
first eight measures the melody is held in reserve, suggested rather
than fully brought out, in order that the complete appearance of the
melody, legato, in the ninth measure shall be more effective. The
whole closes with a beautiful coda of fifteen measures. (Count back
from the end, if you do not find it at first.)
Still more humoristic is the scherzo from the Sonata in C, opus 2, No.
3. Here the principal subject is quite in fugue style, excepting the
order of keys. In place of answering in the fifth, it answers in the
octave.
It is unnecessary to add that this is a pure fancy-piece, the
imitations being unexpected and capricious, and never for the sake of
completing a pattern or form. The trio is a complete contrast, and
very free and effective upon the keyboard. Then, after the return of
the scherzo, we have a delightful coda of twenty-three measures.
Less pronounced, but very beautiful, is the allegretto from the
so-called "Moonlight Sonata," opus 27, No. 2. This is gentle, and
designed to mediate between the intense sadness of the first movement
and the equally intense and impassioned sorrow and longing of the
finale.
The sonata-piece is one of the most serious and diversified movements
known to music, and while continuous and characterized by great unity,
it is also rather complicated. Hence it will not be properly
appreciated except by those who observe the leading ideas as they enter
and recall them when they turn up again in the course of the treatment
and development. When a sonata is written for orchestra it becomes a
symphony, in which form the different ideas are more easily followed
because they derive a certain individuality from the tone-color of the
instrument first announcing them. When an artist plays a sonata he
seeks to intensify the individuality of the leading ideas and thus aid
the hearer in recognizing and remembering them.
The first example of sonata-piece is the rather light and pleasing
allegro which begins the Sonata in G, opus 14, No. 2. The Principal
subject lasts through twenty-four measures, the Second entering in the
key of D with the beginning of the twenty-fifth measure. The
Conclusion begins with the forty-seventh measure. Counting from the
double bar, the Elaboration lasts, including the pedal point upon the
dominant which prepares for bringing back the Principal, sixty-one
measures. There the first part begins over again.
The first movement of the Sonata in F minor, opus 2, No. 1, is shorter
and the subjects less marked than in any other sonata of Beethoven. It
also has less "stuffing," the ideas following with very little passage
work between them. The Principal lasts twenty measures, the Second
beginning with the F-flat in the soprano at the end of the twentieth
measure. The Conclusion begins with the C-flat in the soprano, in
measure forty-one. The Elaboration lasts sixty-two measures.
The "Sonate Pathetique" begins with a slow introduction, lasting ten
measures of very slow time. Then enters the headlong allegro, of which
the Principal, with its retinue of modulating sequences, lasts forty
measures. The Second enters in measure forty-one, and the Conclusion
in measure seventy-nine. The Elaboration lasts sixty-two measures,
beginning with a few measures of the introduction.
Time will not be wasted if before playing each of these movements the
subjects themselves be played through separately.