# Solomon on Beethoven



## Guest (Jun 26, 2012)

I'm reading Solomon's updated bio of Beethoven and there are some extremely interesting issues which arise quite early in the book. I'll include one comment which I'd like some peoples' ideas about, please, if I could. I'm particularly interested in how we might also extrapolate this idea to the actual music of Mozart.

Beethoven's compositions (Bonn circa 1786+) "remained within the traditional patterns of musical expression. His Bonn compositions rarely penetrate the surface of the emotions, perhaps because they correspond so harmoniously with the ideal of the benevolent principality in which they were created: an untroubled aestheticism that exalted abstract beauty and found pleasure in the predictable repetition of graceful patterns and forms"(p67).

I definitely see/hear Mozart in Solomon's statement here about Beethoven. What do others think?


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

I agree with the quote up to a point. To imply that Beethoven's early compositional period rarely broke with the traditional patterns of musical expression is only true when you compare it to everything Beethoven wrote after the Heiligenstadt Testament. Certainly the early music is more traditional than Beethoven's heroic or late works but there are specific compositions where one can see Beethoven's emphasis towards expression over formal structure. Examples would include the Piano Trio Op1 #3, the G Minor Piano Sonata, and the Op 18 Quartets (especially the La Malinconia section of #6). Granted these compositions were written in the mid-1790s but are still considered early works as the "breakout" piece was the 3rd Symphony of 1804. I have a feeling that if one were to look hard enough at Beethoven's earliest work one could still find traces of musical expression that was slightly radical for the time.


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## Guest (Jun 28, 2012)

Thanks, Olias, for that response. So, you're saying we need to compare Beethoven with Beethoven? That seems valid. If you think there's bound to be something "slightly radical" there, I wonder why Solomon has made the comment so broadly and forcefully. The other thing which concerns me about Solomon's idea is "because they correspond so harmoniously with the ideal of the benevolent principality in which they were created". This implies that a musical ideal is somehow linked to the time and place rather than any extra-musical ideas connected to experience and emotion. Given Beethoven's extraordinarily dysfunctional background, even when he is still in Bonn in 1790 and dealing with an alcoholic father, I think Solomon is suggesting that Beethoven's music was still so intensely 'classical' in orientation that there was little room for the 'self' in there. And I have a problem with conceiving music as remote or separate from the 'self'.


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

True, but remember Beethoven WAS the person who brought about the concept of art music as self-expression. The whole idea behind Viennese Classicism was the cosmopolitan style of composition devoid of nationalistic identities (or at least downplayed). The tenant of the Enlightenment is "the institution that does the greatest good for the greatest number of people is good" had its musical version as "the music that appeals to the greatest number of people, provided it is well written and in good taste, is the best music."

That doesn't mean that composers COULDN'T express themselves, but it wasn't a priority. The priority was clear formal structure, clarity of melodic line, and strong emphasis on tonality through cadence. Beethoven learned these rules but then used them as a point of departure for his own style in which his use of form was contextual and therefore altered to serve his expressive needs.

Today, thanks to Beethoven's innovations, we still tend to emphasize the importance of self expression over adherence to formal guidelines. Its more complex than this but in short, prior to Beethoven, form dictates function, and after Beethoven, function dictates form.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Note that Solomon is writing about 'Beethoven in Bonn', which _Olias_ is conflating with 'Beethoven prior to 1804'. Those are really not the same subject.


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

Hilltroll72 said:


> Note that Solomon is writing about 'Beethoven in Bonn', which _Olias_ is conflating with 'Beethoven prior to 1804'. Those are really not the same subject.


True, I merely contend that Beethoven's compositions from Bonn are not 100% carbon copies of the Classical Style. While they are certainly more in the Classical style when compared to his early Viennese work (and certainly after 1804) his Bonn compositions do contain some very cleverly hidden elements of what could be called self-expression. He certainly didn't go outside the box during this period, or may not have even felt the need to do so, but some elements such as unusual harmonic progressions, rhythmic asymmetry, and pivot modulations can be found and therefore indicate (in hindsight) the compositional direction Beethoven would take.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Olias said:


> True, I merely contend that Beethoven's compositions from Bonn are not 100% carbon copies of the Classical Style. While they are certainly more in the Classical style when compared to his early Viennese work (and certainly after 1804) his Bonn compositions do contain some very cleverly hidden elements of what could be called self-expression. He certainly didn't go outside the box during this period, or may not have even felt the need to do so, but some elements such as unusual harmonic progressions, rhythmic asymmetry, and pivot modulations can be found and therefore indicate (in hindsight) the compositional direction Beethoven would take.


My musicological skill level doesn't allow me to argue with any of that. What I get from listening to music from Beethoven's Bonn period is limited to 'Some of it is pretty good, but it ain't ready for prime time.' On the other hand, Op.2/3 is; and it doesn't sound like any music composed by Mozart or Haydn.

We don't have a chair-throwing argument brewing here, _Olias_, we merely have yet another example of my limited powers of analysis.


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## Guest (Jul 4, 2012)

I think Olias has some very pertinent things to say here and I basically agree with them, EXCEPT that precious little of what Beethoven wrote in Bonn has been performed or recorded at all - so I don't see how you can compare Bonn with Vienna for Beethoven. 

The classical 'restraint' you've discussed, based on Enlightenment ideals, is built upon the ideal of pure music (from what I can tell of your discussion). It's as though emotion is deliberately excluded, and yet I wonder if it's really possible to do that at all in music. I certainly suggest Mozart's music is powerfully evocative of emotional tensions, that's for sure.


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

Given that Beethoven was still taking music lessons for some years after leaving Bonn, perhaps he didn't quite have all the necessary means at his disposal yet to fully express himself and his ideas.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

CountenanceAnglaise said:


> [...]
> The classical 'restraint' you've discussed, based on Enlightenment ideals, is built upon the ideal of pure music (from what I can tell of your discussion). It's as though emotion is deliberately excluded, and yet I wonder if it's really possible to do that at all in music. I certainly suggest Mozart's music is powerfully evocative of emotional tensions, that's for sure.


That 'classical restraint' does not, nor is it intended to, exclude emotion. The 'classical triad' is meant to be employed to help generate them - within the prevailing bounds of decorum. The sunlit emotions were given pretty much free rein; the dark emotions not so much. Mozart occasionally let his anguish get away from him; Beethoven was simply not decorous.


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

Hilltroll72 said:


> That 'classical restraint' does not, nor is it intended to, exclude emotion. The 'classical triad' is meant to be employed to help generate them - within the prevailing bounds of decorum. The sunlit emotions were given pretty much free rein; the dark emotions not so much. Mozart occasionally let his anguish get away from him; Beethoven was simply not decorous.


That's a good way of putting it, and I don't do chair throwing arguments.  Takes up way to much energy.


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## Guest (Jul 4, 2012)

Classical restraint...

...or Sturm und Drang.

(The composers we now refer to as "classical" did not use that word to describe themselves. The so-called classical era was over before that word was ever used to describe music. Besides, what we now, in 2012, perceive as "classical restraint" was not perceived as that in the "classical era." We've just become culturally acclimatised to it--and to a lot of revolutionary music that followed it as well. It happens.)


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## Guest (Jul 5, 2012)

Sturm und Drang wasn't 'classical restraint', or am I reading your incorrectly? It means 'storm and stress', which implies a lot. I'm unsure where the argument is really going with this comment.


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