Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Beethoven improved (Mark C, stores, others interested)

.......and here's a couple more, for a full selection.....

Chris Kattan getting one:




Kid with a purposely lame line:

impeccable timing on the 2nd video. I'll have to find a sound byte for my phone and play it after a lame pick up line at a social event. That'll leave an impression.

Mark -

jscomposer, stores, carey, osk, and mark c,

You guys have seriously cracked me up! I can't quit laughing!!!

Did anyone read my response to this thread?

"Can someone identify these chords for me?" (Chopin Nocture in Eb)




I think this Beethoven thread is done for now! Except for one more thing...

Julian, I really appreciate this quote:




And daro, I really appreciate this quote:



May I please have the "last word" until I post my version of the Bagatelle?

Ha-ha!!!

It's hard to condense his essay into a forum post, but the main thrust of it can probably be summed up as:
seek out the urtext editions, the autographs, don't rely on an editor to do your homework - however, learn the rules first, learn how to play before charging straight to your own interpretations of the urtext, autographs, 'originals': that will make the exceptions you bring to the performance that much more satisfying and wonderful and generally acceptable.

I hope I didn't give the impression that Brendel is opposed to Urtext editions - he is not. He was simply reacting against their tendency to produce mindless obedience sometimes (he relates his memories of Nazi Germany and how the word Werktreue smacks of their ideology if followed blindly), and also talks about how his early playing was criticzed because it was not metronomic and predictable, but rather romanticized and a little free. He is actually a big proponent of urtext, etc.

I really can't do justice to the essay Werktreue: An Afterthought - and I hope that clears it up a little! It's available in Alfred Brendel On Music: His Collected Essays. While I don't agree with everything he writes, he is generally, in my opinion, a phenonemal writer.

Unfortunately, his later letters expressing a desire to revise all his works for a complete publication speak against this letter. Obviously, he changed his mind - which I suppose is quite human and natural. Or did Beethoven concrete his way of thinking in 1813 and never have another original thought after that?

Do you hold people to statements made 20 years ago, when they have obviously grown since that time, and see things differently?

I'm sorry - but this letter only sums up Beethoven's views on the subject in 1813, and that in a letter to one individual.

As for my point - it has been entirely: WHY not?
The only reasons given are easily put aside by pointing out the many mistakes Beethoven made in composition (so he's not perfect), his improvisations (he had no problem with altering music to a certain degree), the classical playing style of the time (it was common to alter music, produce variations, play it differently on subsequent performances).

It's the Beethoven Myth again: "Oh, his music was sublimely perfect in every way, a testament to all eternity, ever-un-changing and pure, to be worshipped on the pedestal of the gods".
I think Beethoven was GREAT - he's my favorite composer - really! But I also realize he was not a Greek God, I'm not part of a Beethoven Cult and I do feel he's approachable on more levels than simple awe and reverance. We have a different piano style today - but if you look back on the history of piano playing, you'll find very, very different treatments of composers and their works - not all of them strictly following the letter in every way.

I think they called that the Golden Days of Piano Playing.

So, that's my point, at least. I'm not just building it on "beethoven improved" - it's also built on a piano tradition and historical viewpoint that has been lost to us, apparantly.

But anyways - I'm just clarifying. I should have stuck to it when I said I was done. Everyon can carry on lighting candles to Ludwig now again!

If I remember correctly, the letter to the publisher was in response to the publisher's request that Beethoven make changes. If so, it really means that Beethoven didn't like others making changes to his works.

I also think you should give at least one quote from his letters expressing a "desire to revise all his works", so others can decide if it means the same thing to them as it does to you.

Yes, I will. I think there's a difference here between 'revising' and 'rewriting' - that might be the key: Beethoven wasn't going to just redo one of his works completely (well, except for Fidelio...), but he would revise the works to take into account the expanded keyboard, at least.
Here's the quote I have from my small edition of selected letters:

To C.F.Peters, Vienna, June 5th, 1822 - an excerpt:

"More than all this, I treasure the hope that my complete works may soon be published, for I wish to prepare such an edition in my lifetime. True, I have had several offers to this effect, but there were conditions which I could scarcely overcome and was neither able nor willing to fullfill. I could complete the whole edition in two, or possibly one or one-and-a-half years, given then necessary assistance, could entirely revise all my works and add one new work in every genre of composition, for example [lists some works]..., and for all this together I would demand ten thousand guilders in voncention coin."

He clearly states his intention to publish his complete works after revising ALL of them - "entirely revise". That's different from rewriting them, of course. Not possible to reinterpret this letter away from the obvious meaning, unless we really want to engage in some strenuous apologetics worthy of the church fathers themselves!

There's your quote - I typed it out since I don't feel like googling it. This is one of the quotes mentioned by Beethoven biographers.

Thanks.

Of course, this quote doesn't mean I think anything else you said in this thread makes sense, unless you think a composer revising his works is the same as someone else doing that. I notice you didn't respond to the first paragraph in my last post, which seems to show that Beethoven didn't want others to revise his works.

It's important to realize that the later letter does not completely contradict the earlier one.

From the 1813 letter: "...I am profoundly convinced that every change of detail changes the character of the whole."

That's the crucial part and the rest is there for context. It expresses a fundamental attitude towards the implication of changing details in his works, stated when he was 42 years old and towards the end of his middle period of composition. It is not something one would expect him to change his mind about. So in 1822 Beethoven said he was interested in revising all his works? Fine. His choice, his decision, to change his earlier works. Maybe as you speculate, in the case of his piano works this would partly be about exploiting the new and wider compass beyond 5 octaves. Maybe he felt he had enough experience by that time to see where the works could be improved in other ways too. But whatever the reasons, he would be working as he always did, crafting with great care and thought. (And if he had revised some of his works, his revisions would have the same status of, "For pete's sake, we non-Beethoven people no touchy!")

None of this is remotely the same as one of us thinking we can "do a Beethoven" with his works, when it comes to serious interpretations to play to others. Improvising is something completely different.

I don't see anyone here revering Beethoven as a God incapable of making mistakes, so your sarcastic comments look misguided to me. You keep attributing strange and extreme attitudes in those of us who simply disagree with the idea of us thinking we are in a position to "improve Beethoven". And the composer's viewpoint expressed in 1813 is definitely a cautionary flag supporting our position. (Not that such a cautionary flag "from the horse's mouth" should really be necessary. A basic knowledge of how Beethoven composed should be enough of a flag by itself.)

Exactly. And, as I said earlier, the quote from Beethoven was, to the best of my knowledge, in repsonse to a publisher who asked him to change some of the music Beethoven had submitted for publication. So I think the quote in question means Beethoven was very mad at the publisher for this request. He did not like the idea of others changing(or requesting a change in)his music.

And it was the wording that was used also, i.e., "Beethoven can definitely be improved upon." Frankly, even if someone said "Moszkowski can definitely be improved upon" I would find it arrogant unless that person was an internationally renown pianist or composer.

There was quite a lot of discussion recently on another thread about Pogorelich's "interesting" performance of Liszt's Mephisto Waltz #1. Among many oddities (grotesquely over-accented notes and a sprinkling of strange hesitations) the most striking thing was the extremely slow middle section. I had never seen the sheet music before then, so I checked it out, and I exploded with laughter when I saw Liszt's direction: "Un poco meno mosso (ma poco.)"

Liszt was obviously well aware, back around 1860, of the building trend towards indulgent, schmaltzfestlich, "I did it myyyyyyyyyyyyy waaaaaaaaaaaaayyyy (and who gives a stuff about musical balance or taste or appropriateness in the process eh)" performing habits. Those two little words in brackets speak volumes. He's warning performers not to do "golden age" in a crappy way (which a big change of tempo would certainly be, as Pogo shows), while leaving the way open for performers to do "golden age" in a good way. When I hear "golden age" recordings, I hear a very mixed bag. Some stuff is charming and great, other stuff is just awful.

I agree that value can be gained from listening to "golden age" performances and appreciating the initially surprising and individual things that can be good about them, as a window into earlier eras of musicmaking. But still, changing/adding/dropping notes from a Beethoven piano work... that's just something very, very different. As already elaborated upon in detail by some of us in this thread.

Out of curiosity, do you have examples of early recordings where performers changed, added or omitted notes in Beethoven?

......not to mention the very slow opening.

Among quite a few other things of course.

It was already off-the-charts bizarre (and frankly, disturbed) before he got to that middle section.

This thread would have been so much better with some humility in the title. Beethoven Improved ? Regardless of what you say, it sounds pretentious and shameless. And here I was reading Kissin lacked sociability ?


Piano playing is quite like translation ; there is original material you have to translate into actual playing, and you have quite a great deal of freedom in doing so.
As such, there are many schools of translations, the extremes of which are the "littérales", thoses that stick too close to the text, sounding strange and clumsy, and the "belles infidèles", those that go so far in trying to translate the intention of the author that they lose sight of what he left - the original text.

Of course there are also those that rewrite novels' endings because they prefer happy ends. Or those that ignore chapters or passages of a work because they find it boring. Children often skip descriptive passages in books, because the reading time flows slowly in those, often pausing ; some more learned adults even skip them because they're seen as the relics of another time that didn't fully understand story telling. "I mean, if those author lived today, they surely wouldn't have written such boring passages, eh ?", or so they argue.

In any case, even the most extensive researchs can almost never acertain the true intention of an author - merely guessing it is pure futility. Whatever they "really" meant, I think the least we can do is to respect their work as it was written and not tinker with them ( and please, I'm not talking about correcting editorial mistakes here.)
You're free to use them as canvas for your own compositions, that's why there are genres such as the variation ; but I'm not even sure "improving" works is even something the author themselves can do - as their outlook on life will have changed in the meantime, often giving a different meaning to the work. Sure, the work might end up "better crafted", more mature, or whatever, but it might also lose some candeur, naïveté, some youthful energy.

What you did here, from what I saw, isn't meaningful enough to be called a new work. In the end, it's really something many performers would do as they play, because it simply sounds better to their ears. They just won't yell after their recital, "hey guyz, see how I taught that Beethoven ?". I'm don't even think Horowitz advertised the Rachmaninov second sonata he played as the Horowitz-Rachmaninov sonata - and there were some huge changes !

--not meaning to be rude, but as you can guess that title has been irking me for a while and I just had to rant.
The original "Would you do it ?" title was much more interesting, as it really is a choice as a performer, rather than one as a composer, I think.

Sorry, Mostly!

It was my impetuous, warped sense of humor coming out. I realize it rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

Perhaps I should have said, "Beethoven Riffed: People Miffed!"

But look at the discussion it generated! I sure learned a lot, and am honestly thankful for all of the thought and passion that has been poured into this thread, including yours!

--Andy

And, for the record, I really like these two ideas above, especially! I started this thread after making a point in the "Would You Do It?" thread that prompted Mark C to ask [paraphrase], "Wouldn't it be neat if we had a seminar..."

Well...I was just trying to oblige!

Oh, and also for the record, to my ears, in my living room, for several instants, I truly believed that I did "improve Beethoven!" But, I said that earlier...

It's not really arrogance. It's more a response to a sense of adventure in artistic expression, which is where all of this got started... Although, I will grant you, that the title really does sound arrogant! I was hoping for "snappy!"

I wouldn't have liked that title either because that's an horrible play on word !:)

I agree on the content of the thread definitly being interesting. I just wish all those provocative titles and their real life equivalents would go away so we could live peaceful, philosophical lives, the left hand playing the Scriabin nocturne on the piano, a cup of coffee waving in the right hand as we debate from dusk till dawn. Obviously some showy virtuososies (nice pun ! or so I wished ; sosie means look-alike in english) would have trouble talking as they play, because they "emote" the music a little too deeply, though...

LOL!