Posts Tagged ‘rondo’

Opus 110

Saturday, May 30th, 2009

Here’s the May 2009 installment of my series of posts on the Beethoven Piano Sonatas.  This month is Sonata No. 31 in A-flat, Op. 110–next month will be the last month in the cycle, which means I will need a new analysis project–let me know if you want to start one with me and dialog on the compositional aspects of pieces from the standard repertoire.  I could, of course, spend another few years going back over the Beethoven Piano Sonatas, but there is so much great music out there that I’ve never even touched, that I feel like it would be better for me to move on.  So… I haven’t decided on my next project yet, but I do have some ideas… if one or more people were interested in working through some pieces with me, I would let them have some input in the decision.  I’ve considered the Mahler symphonies, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, Beethoven’s string quartets, Chopin’s Preludes… let me know what you think!

On to the piece:  A study in contrast this one, and highly indicative of the “official” traits of Beethoven’s late style as it has been taught to me.  I’ll dive right in.

The first movement, if not in textbook sonata form, at least seems to reference it.  I’m not Donald Tovey, who looked for sonata form in every piece he ever analyzed (the last movement of Schumann’s Piano Quintet is a Rondo with sonata aspects, not a straight sonata-allegro), but it seems reasonable to assert that Beethoven is working with thematic groups and a strong sense of motivic unity.  His use of core technique is somewhat fascinating, as it is built on a descending thirds sequence instead of the usual stepwise sequence.  I’m puzzled by the modulation to E major in what corresponds to the recapitulation.  This isn’t Beethoven opening up a window to another tonal world but rather knocking out a wall–a very unexpected place, although it makes sense that something different needs to happen where the exposition modulated to E-flat (the modulatory technique to E is an enharmonic respelling of a borrowed chord… IV becomes iv, which is vi in the new key; Beethoven gets out of that key by a fascinating use of common-tone technique and sequence).

To understand Beethoven’s use of sequence is often to gain understanding of his medium-scale structure (and in some cases, large scale, as in the “Spring” Sonata).  In Las Cruces last week, I spoke with Fred Bugbee about NMSU’s music theory track, and eventually the conversation came around to sequences.  One reason I’ve decided to part company with my current theory textbook, Kotska & Payne’s Tonal Harmony is that their treatment of sequences simply lacks body.  The new generation of theory textbooks is much more realistic about the use of sequence in tonal music, and, truthfully, it was teaching from Clendinning & Marvin’s The Musician’s Guide to Theory and Analysis that really got across how important sequence is.  My study of Beethoven has only reinforced that.

The second movement, Allegro molto is diminutive in proportion, but as will all Beethoven’s scherzi, I am amazed at the sheer craft involved.  Every time I make the mistake of listening to a Classical or Romantic scherzo as merely a light, intermezzo sort of movement, I tend to realize that I’m not doing it justice.  With some composers, it’s an easier mistake to make than with others.  Much of Mendelssohn’s genius seems to lie in his scherzi, for example, while Dvorak has a tendency to revert to folk dances.  Nearly every time I look closely at a scherzo, however, I see a level of compositional craft that equals the outer movements.  It is as though composers were freed from the strictures of sonata-allegro or rondo (although most rondos have wonderfully original moments) and could pull out the tricks they worked on as students–canon, invertible counterpoint, rhythmic surprises, and the works.  What fun!  Beethoven doesn’t use contrapuntal tricks, but in this tiny scherzo, he gives us the most rhythmically ingenious and formally cogent plan of the piece.  Why should this tiny movement have a coda when the first movement has none?  I suspect it is more necessary here because we have heard the A-section twice, and the listener needs to have a fuller sense of closure than a simple cadence.

I could puzzle over the last movement for quite some time.  Here is Beethoven’s late-style interest in counterpoint (the fugue, complete with a second exposition in inversion), side-by-side with harmonic innovation (a common-tone diminished-seventh chord with a modulating function), and a confusion about rhythm and key signatures that simply doesn’t make sense at this point.  To wit:  for much of the piece, the key is A-flat minor, at least until the start of the fugue, but the expected seven-flat key signature never appears.  Instead, the movement begins in B-flat minor, shifts to E major and then is written in E-flat minor.  Are these key signatures simply flags of convenience?  At the same time, Beethoven indicates “Recitative,” and breaks out of the signified meter (common time).  How free is this meter?  And how, precisely, is the performer to understand the subsequent barlines?  The “Klagender Gesang” in 12/16 meter is another puzzling aspect–it is almost as though Beethoven is writing a fantasia, a written-out improvisation, at the end of which he launches into the fantastic three-voice fugue. 

Then this full-bodied G minor and G major review of earlier material–the “Klagender Gesang” in G-minor paralleling the A-flat minor section and the fugue (in inversion) in G-major (although we get only an exposition and a long episode).  At last, the retuirn (recapitulation?) of the fugue subject in the original key–part recapitulation, part coda, really. 

One more Beethoven sonata–I look forward to Ludwig’s valedictory effort in the genre.

Opus 79

Monday, October 27th, 2008

This month, I actually had more of a chance to dig in to the sonata I’ve assigned myself.  I’m finding that the more I can do at the piano with each piece, the more I get to it… of course, we also had fall break, but the trend doesn’t bode well for Opus 106, which will be coming up in short order–March of next year.  Honestly, “Hammerklavier” has been looming on the horizon since the start of this project, but that was sort of the point all along.  I will not avoid the piece just because it is hard.

Back to the topic at hand, though, Opus 79.  What a little gem!  When I teach Forms next fall, we will be interested in this little piece.  Again, I should be reading Beethoven’s biographies along with this project, but it’s very interesting to me that just when much of his music was getting bigger he came up with these two littler sonatas.  Market forces, perhaps?

The first movement starts with a theme that feels like a rondo theme in a way, but the movement has nothing to do with that form.  If each of these sonatas is a different experiment, perhaps that is the idea in this one.  Not that it falls into the category of “sonata-rondo” like, say, the finale of the Schumann piano quintet, but more and more Beethoven seems to be trying to break out of the mold of the sonata, of writing music by formula.  I’ve always been taught that this was what Romantic composition was, but to see it in action is another thing entirely.  I think back–two years ago now!–to the Opus 2 sonatas that seem so much more “by the book,” as though Beethoven had read Caplin’s (amazing) book on Classical form.  At any rate, even though this piece is relatively small, it isn’t the same composer as those littler pieces.

The slow movement is fun, because I can nearly play it!  Again, one that will come up in Forms next year, because it is a wonderful example of a ternary form that also displays interesting motion (within the A sections) to the III chord in minor.

Then the real rondo–those triplets against the eighth-two-sixteenths are unforgettable, and I can again only admire the pianists who pull them off so smoothly.  I’ve been practicing that rhythm all month, and I hear it, but the hands don’t seem interested in playing it.  Too bad.

I’ve talked with some people in person about what set of pieces to tackle next.  Mariah Carrel-Coons, our accompanist at OPSU, jokingly suggested the Scarlatti sonatas.  More within my reach perhaps, as a pianist, but not quite what I had in mind.  Several pieces have suggested themselves to me.  The Mahler symphonies would be a heck of a trip, and I could spend two months on each, doing analysis in my spare time, as usual.  If I were to continue with Beethoven, the quartets would be the next logical direction–a section of his work largely unfamiliar to me, and a direction I would like to take as a composer.  The options are plentiful–the Ligeti Etudes for piano have been calling to me; I could take a tour through the Preludes of Chopin or Debussy, with a little less time for each piece.  Any suggestions?

Opus 78

Tuesday, September 30th, 2008

Well, the end of another month, and I didn’t spend as much time with my Beethoven sonata as I had hoped, but there were other musical experiences taking place.  My first-year theory students are through the “fundamentals” and we can now start to talk to each other about theory–today we discussed a definition of “tonal harmony.”  On September 21, the Harrington String Quartet came to OPSU and played a fantastic concert of Mozart, Mendelssohn and Shostakovich, and last Sunday was my first premiere in Oklahoma.  Add to that a couple of football games to eat up a Saturday or two, and finishing the horn and marimba piece, and it’s been a little busy.  But mostly good work, and I can’t complain.

But the Beethoven sonata–No. 24 in F# major, Opus 78.  I did get a chance to revisit it this afternoon, knowing that I would need to write tonight.  It really is a wonderful miniature among the giants that precede it.  I’m always amazed that Beethoven wasn’t stuck on one plan or another for his sonatas.  Myself, I tend toward the three-movement fast-slow-fast structure, so much so that in this horn and marimba piece I’ve just finished, I deliberately departed from that model–it begins in a quick tempo and ends slowly (I couldn’t resist the four-mallet tremolo at the low end of the instrument, pianissimo with soft mallets).  We’ll see what the player who commissioned it thinks.  So many of Beethoven’s earlier sonatas have that “standard” sonata cycle–like a little symphony for piano–he clearly got tired of being stuck with that.

Some things I need to work out.  My second-year theory students are studying modulation right now, and it strikes me that the development section of the first movement of Op. 78 begins in the parallel minor.  Should the parallel key be added to the list of “closely related keys?”  It certainly is easier to get to than any other key–no real pivot chord is required, only a dominant function that remains a dominant function.  Something to think about.  Similarly, in the rondo, Beethoven visits the key of (yes!) D# major, and along with it, D# minor.  Where Schubert or Chopin would have changed the key to Eb, Beethoven soldiers on through with six sharps–a real stretch for an ersatz pianist like myself.  More than ever I am in love with rondo form–the last movement of Brahms’ second symphony is what I think music will sound like in heaven.

So–here’s to next month–may I get to this writing earlier and have more intelligent things to say.  Op. 79, here I come!