Lecture notes

Topic Three: Beethoven

Outline for class 10/31

I.Approaches to the work and the life

Old approach: 3 periods

Early: to 1802 (Heiligenstadt Testament and deafness)
Middle: to c.1815 (onset of family troubles)
Late: to 1827

New approach: 4 periods, each subdivided

1. Bonn
1782-85 juvenilia
1790-92 first marturity
2. early Vienna
1793-99 assimilation of Viennese classical style
1800-02 more radical experiments
3. Middle
1803-08 “new path”; heroic
1809-12 less radical, more technical control
4. Late
1813-18 period of emotional upheaval; turn to the intimate,
1820-26 late period masterpieces

II. Beethoven, the romantic, as inheritor of

Formal style of Mozart, Haydn
Emotional world of empfindsamkeit and sturm und drang
Philosophical world of Fichte (the “ich”) and Kant (the “sublime”)

III. Pathétique sonata, op. 13

Pathos third mode of persuasion in classical rhetoric (with ethos, logos)
Early romantic aesthetic of “beautiful confusion”, opposed to total rational clarity
Piano sonatas display greater adventurousness, flexibility
Noveltiesof composiiton:
Integration of “grave” introduction into sonata form proper, and thematic transfomation
Ambiguous formal design (second group)
Coherence of mood within sonata design: sense of urgency
Recapitulation and coda as climax

IV. String Quartet Op.18 no.1 first movement

String quartet medium less familiar, stiffer, less consistent
Characteristics:
“motivic saturation” vs. radical extremes of contrast (rhythmic, hramonic, dynamic)
sudden effects of every description create consisten mood (volatile)
formal contrapuntal episode in development
ff recap of p first group – again weight toward end of movement

V. String Quartet Op.18 no.1 second movement

Significance of affettuoso and appassionato
“les derniers soupirs” – conception of Romeo and Juliet vault scene in early sketch
charges of “melodrama” and “externalized emotion”

VI. String Quartet Op.18 no.6 finale

“La Malinconia” personal significance for Beethoven
considered most original movement in Op.18, “visionary”, “prophetic”, etc.
example of second slow movement, departure from normal formal divisions
extreme weight toward end of entire work
harmonically radical