More up to speed, perhaps.

One of the biggest issues of this ossified study of hundred-some year old music is that our university students are being taught that Beethoven, for instance, is forever… or at least his music is.  We play them wonderful excerpts recorded on Steinway 9-footers of his Sonatae, and it never occurs to the young initiates that this music invites a more curatorial perspective.  Jan Swafford at Slate has a wonderful article with sound examples of the difference a period instrument can make.  After all, Beethoven had only 5 and a half octaves, and timbres that varied widely!  No wonder he treated each hand as a different instrument — the timbral differences in the high and low ranges made them sound quite constrasting indeed.

Among the violinists was the composer Ludwig Spohr (1784-1859), who was astounded by Beethoven’s conducting style, noting how he used “all manner of singular bodily movements. As a sforzando occurred, he tore his arms, previously crossed upon his breast, with great vehemence asunder. At piano he crouched down lower and lower to show the degree of softness. If a crescendo entered he gradually rose again and at a forte jumped into the air.”

…From the website of the Northwest Sinfonietta.  I can only imagine Beethoven jumping up and down, as enthusiastic as he could be — but also as unpracticed and unstudied as an overenthusiastic college freshman (or perhaps a certain wascally wabbit? Bonus points: What is the song played by Bugs on the Sousaphone?  Answer here).  Beethoven was no “conductor” in the overly-qualified sense we are familiar with today, but he was a consummate musician.  If the orchestras of the early 1800s are anything like those of today, I imagine that his prestige as preeminent composer of the half-century made the orchestra at this particular charity concert as attentive as could be.  And the audience surely was drawn tremendously into the performance.

For more information on Symphony No.7, by the way, check out this NPR story.

Good old Ludwig van

Beethoven‘s Third Symphony, “Eroica” has quite the interesting story behind it, and is often cited as a landmark composition which separated the Classical era to the Romantic.  It expanded tremendously on the symphonic form, and was many times longer than a comparable symphony by Mozart or Haydn.  The excellent San Francisco Symphony — at Keeping Score — has a sensational Flash-based analysis of the history of the work, as well as a superb multimedia score-reading section.  Additionally, composer W. A. DeWitt of Colorado has put together a thorough measure-by-measure analysis at his dedicated website.  It’s a tad long, but very thorough, and the piano reduction is written in!  Highly recommended, most certainly!

Meantime, Chip is downstairs playing some piano –and doing pretty ridiculously well.  He’s a better sight-reader than I am I think, blast him.