# Stravinsky on Beethoven



## Jaffer (Jun 28, 2016)

Here's a question; what did Stravinsky think of Beethoven?
I know that he once called B the most overrated composer in Western music (alongside Wagner) but that later in life he grew to like and admire the late quartets and the Grosse Fuge. But this is all too brief and doesn't say much about his overall reaction to the Ludwig and the reasons for having that reaction. Anyone knows more? Links/resources would help a lot. Thanks!


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## David Phillips (Jun 26, 2017)

At a Paris dinner party in 1922 Marcel Proust tries to pay Stravinsky a compliment by comparing him to Beethoven.

‘Doubtless you admire Beethoven,’ he adds.
‘I detest Beethoven.’
‘But, cher maître, surely those late sonatas and quartets …?’
‘Worse than the others.’


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## Guest (Jul 26, 2019)

Goes to show, Stravinsky was much better at writing music than listening to music.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

_"Stravinsky was never moved by the choral finale to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which he thought a hopelessly banal tune affixed to Schiller's mighty ode of liberation and brotherhood; but the late quartets, with their sophisticated upheaval of sonata-form, seemed a mirror-image of political freedom."_
https://books.google.ca/books?id=RidJh6eQNEkC&pg=PA3


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Not sure how serious IS was there. In his later correspondence with Elliott Carter he wrote about being immersed in the late quarters and either there or in another quote praised Beethoven’s Great Fugue as his favorite piece of music


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Beethoven’s Ode to Joy was not a “tune”. It was more like the populous rousing anthem of Le Marseillaise rather than being an actual symphonic theme, so consequently it was considered vulgar or banal by some of its critics who may have never understood Beethoven’s intention to write something simple, populous, and accessible by the common man. I doubt if the hyper-critical Stravinsky considered any of this.


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## Jaffer (Jun 28, 2016)

David Phillips said:


> At a Paris dinner party in 1922 Marcel Proust tries to pay Stravinsky a compliment by comparing him to Beethoven.
> 
> 'Doubtless you admire Beethoven,' he adds.
> 'I detest Beethoven.'
> ...


In the Harvard Lectures of 1945, he calls B "admirable". Apparently loved the Grosse Fuge more than anything else and called opus 131 "perfect". Clearly, he changed his mind.


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## Littlephrase (Nov 28, 2018)

David Phillips said:


> At a Paris dinner party in 1922 Marcel Proust tries to pay Stravinsky a compliment by comparing him to Beethoven.
> 
> 'Doubtless you admire Beethoven,' he adds.
> 'I detest Beethoven.'
> ...


One of my favorite stories concerning the meeting of artists. I believe it was at the same soirée where Proust had his fruitless and banal conversation with James Joyce.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

David Phillips said:


> At a Paris dinner party in 1922 Marcel Proust tries to pay Stravinsky a compliment by comparing him to Beethoven.
> 
> 'Doubtless you admire Beethoven,' he adds.
> 'I detest Beethoven.'
> ...


I love that story. 



Littlephrase1913 said:


> One of my favorite stories concerning the meeting of artists. I believe it was at the same soirée where Proust had his fruitless and banal conversation with James Joyce.


I'd love to hear what that conversation was like. :lol:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

A facility with clever put-downs was part of the persona that Stravinsky cultivated to dissociate himself from his Russian roots and establish his credentials in the sophisticated salons of Parisian Modernism. The Gallic fine art of the exquisitely outrageous insult lived on in Pierre Boulez and even in Francophile Americans such as Virgil Thomson. It isn't surprising to find Stravinsky coming around to admitting the greatness of Beethoven, and Boulez to conducting the works of the German Romantics, once they no longer had to worry about creating images of themselves as avant garde lions.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

flamencosketches said:


> I'd love to hear what that conversation was like. :lol:


If it was fruitless and banal, there probably wasn't much there. Like the video of Andy Warhol and William Burrows, where all they do is talk about food in a very fruitless and banal way.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

David Phillips said:


> At a Paris dinner party in 1922 Marcel Proust tries to pay Stravinsky a compliment by comparing him to Beethoven.
> 
> 'Doubtless you admire Beethoven,' he adds.
> 'I detest Beethoven.'
> ...


Stravinsky's own version of this meeting from his _Conversations_ is clearly meant as a corrective. There Stravinsky says 'I talked to Proust about music and he expressed much enthusiasm for the late Beethoven quartets-enthusiasm I would have shared were it not a commonplace among the intellectuals of that time and not a musical judgement but a literary pose.'

In his _Chronicle_ Stravinsky describes how in his youth he felt smothered by being overexposed to Beethoven's works and revolted by the sentimental talk surrounding them. His dislike for Beethoven was intensified during WWI, perhaps for non-musical reasons. A few years later, however, when he was planning the composition of his _Piano Sonata_ Stravinsky replayed a number of Beethoven's sonatas to see how the great man had solved certain 'problems of form'. Stravinsky then agreed that Beethoven 'must be recognised as one of the world's greatest musical geniuses' and 'the indisputable monarch of the instrument'. Thirteen years after rebuffing Proust he now sided firmly with the angels against 'the stupidity and drivel of fools who think it up to date to giggle as they amuse themselves by running [Beethoven] down'.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Fact is, how could Stravinsky love a composer who didn't start off his most famous work with a bassoon playing in its highest register?

This is about the closest Beethoven gets to that notion:






Especially at the moment about 2 minutes and 20 seconds in.

Or, is that the flute playing the high notes?


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## staxomega (Oct 17, 2011)

I am struggling to think of any other compositions I'd rather listen to more than Beethoven's late piano sonatas and string quartets  I think I'm already up to around 40 CDs on the former and around a quarter of that on the latter.


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## Jaffer (Jun 28, 2016)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> Stravinsky's own version of this meeting from his _Conversations_ is clearly meant as a corrective. There Stravinsky says 'I talked to Proust about music and he expressed much enthusiasm for the late Beethoven quartets-enthusiasm I would have shared were it not a commonplace among the intellectuals of that time and not a musical judgement but a literary pose.'
> 
> In his _Chronicle_ Stravinsky describes how in his youth he felt smothered by being overexposed to Beethoven's works and revolted by the sentimental talk surrounding them. His dislike for Beethoven was intensified during WWI, perhaps for non-musical reasons. A few years later, however, when he was planning the composition of his _Piano Sonata_ Stravinsky replayed a number of Beethoven's sonatas to see how the great man had solved certain 'problems of form'. Stravinsky then agreed that Beethoven 'must be recognised as one of the world's greatest musical geniuses' and 'the indisputable monarch of the instrument'. Thirteen years after rebuffing Proust he now sided firmly with the angels against 'the stupidity and drivel of fools who think it up to date to giggle as they amuse themselves by running [Beethoven] down'.


Thank you so much for this wonderful response! This is exactly what I was looking for


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