# Emotionally challenged with a Beethoven rondo



## caters

I never thought this would happen but it just did. The Beethoven rondo I am referring to is the one in G major, widely known as "Rage over a Lost Penny". There is a 20 measure section starting at measure 291 where Beethoven uses pretty much just chromatic diminished sevenths with 2 measure breaks of the major scale. This is the section where I am emotionally challenged. 

When I hear A dim7 going to A# dim7, internally I'm like "I want to stop here, there's just too much tension. Why did Beethoven use chromatic diminished 7ths at forte and accent them?" I mean that A dim7 would rather go to C minor than A# dim7. And yet Beethoven does not give me the expected resolution at all until the final diminished 7th resolves to an Ab major arpeggio. I know Beethoven to use fast diminished 7ths but for 20 measures? 

And it is like in the performances, it just sounds like a decoration of G major, not very dissonant at all because it simply goes by too fast to hear it as a dissonance. Like the tempo is comparable to that of CPE Bach's Solfeggio in C minor. But when I practice that section, because I am at more of an Andante tempo right now, it sounds so dissonant, so tense, that it makes me want to stop, especially because the diminished 7ths are chromatic. Same diminished 7th over and over again like in his 5th symphony does not give me the tense to the point of stopping that I get with this rondo.

I know I have to overcome this wanting to stop as soon as I hear chromatic diminished 7ths if I am to ever get good at playing this piece. But I don't know how. I mean there is just so much dissonance with that. Not to mention that there is a part of that section where you have F7 -> AmM7 3rd inversion -> F7 -> Bbm which is very unexpected. I mean with the F7, I expect it to go to Bb major. So going to A minor is surprising but understandable because it is a mediant of the dominant. Going to the parallel minor of the tonic of that short section though, that is very surprising, And that is a chromatic mediant of the tonic of the piece. 

The C minor resolution before it seems much more understandable, much more expectant. 

But how can I overcome all this internal tension with the chromatic diminished 7ths? I mean I usually see diminished 7ths used as a pivot chord to literally any key, major or minor. So C dim7 -> Bb makes just as much sense as C dim7 -> Cm. What doesn't make sense is 1 diminished 7th leading to another diminished 7th with all the notes a half step up or down from the previous chord.


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## David Pinnegar

Would it be possible to give the Opus number?

I have been searching for ages for chromatic repetitions like this. I was playing through the sonatas and wasn't able to find the passage again. It might possibly be that Beethoven wasn't writing for equal temperament and was experimenting with the different tone colours and chord shapes that result from an unequal tuning and exploiting them.

The Wiki page for Chromatic Scale and also for Chromatism has forgotten to mention the root of the meaning of the word . . . . from the Greek - colour - and in the modern tuning we're robbed of it. It's not colour we can see but a spectrum of different sounds such as the spectrum of different colours in the rainbow.

There's a lot of research to be done in this light, forgive the pun.

Best wishes

David P


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## Luchesi

David Pinnegar said:


> Would it be possible to give the Opus number?
> 
> I have been searching for ages for chromatic repetitions like this. I was playing through the sonatas and wasn't able to find the passage again. It might possibly be that Beethoven wasn't writing for equal temperament and was experimenting with the different tone colours and chord shapes that result from an unequal tuning and exploiting them.
> 
> The Wiki page for Chromatic Scale and also for Chromatism has forgotten to mention the root of the meaning of the word . . . . from the Greek - colour - and in the modern tuning we're robbed of it. It's not colour we can see but a spectrum of different sounds such as the spectrum of different colours in the rainbow.
> 
> There's a lot of research to be done in this light, forgive the pun.
> 
> Best wishes
> 
> David P


Here's the moving score






Ludwig van Beethoven - Rage over a lost penny Op. 129 (audio + sheet music)


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## Bwv 1080

It’s an early piece and supposed to be evocative of gypsy / Hungarian music - is the harmony just trying to be colorful and ‘oriental’?


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## KenOC

Bwv 1080 said:


> It's an early piece and supposed to be evocative of gypsy / Hungarian music - is the harmony just trying to be colorful and 'oriental'?


Wiki has something interesting on this. The actual title of the piece is _Rondo alla ingharese quasi un capriccio_. Saith Wiki, "The indication _alla ingharese_ is of interest, as no such word as "ingharese" exists in standard Italian. To people of Beethoven's day, "gypsy music" and "Hungarian music" were synonymous terms. Beethoven seems to have conflated _alla zingarese_ (in the gypsy style) and _all'ongarese_ (in the Hungarian style) to come up with a unique term _alla ingharese_."


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## David Pinnegar

I've downloaded the score and am a little confused as to bar numbering so aren't entirely sure which bar you're referring to.

However, the Beethoven descriptions aren't to be dismissed and there's a potential tool for analysing Beethoven as clearly as an X-Ray into the music.

Beethoven was particular about which key he wrote. This sort of thing has been discussed on Quora and my answer there has received approvals https://www.quora.com/Why-would-a-c...ajor-instead-of-C-major/answer/David-Pinnegar which might be relevant here.

The reason for this is that although our Equal Temperament was known and used by some, the keys were literally keys to different expressions of emotion.

A key, forgive the pun, to this piece which is really effective is to employ the services of a digital piano capable of working in historical tunings or temperaments. I use a Clavinova for this purpose CLP-820. It's possible to download MIDI files from the Kunstderfuge site, and some of the midi files from old piano rolls or from some of the Midi transcribers can be rather good. So I downloaded the Beethoven Op 129 from there and listened to it first through the lens of Meantone tuning and then through Kirnberger III.

Some really interesting key derived colouration (the real meaning of "CROM"atic but forgotten linguistically) comes out in the three bars before 116 then at 166 changing to Ab major the key of putrifaction and death, a choleric trill in bar 180, then the high Eb in the treble of exasperation at 200, a really ear tweaking wierdness at 218, running out of steam in exhaustion at 234, a section at 264 and a couple of interesting sections on the penultimate page.

One really does get the full spectrum of emotions running around, getting excited (E major), getting red in the face then black with choleric rage, running out of steam exhausted, sadness, starting the search anew etc.

I don't say that such a piece was performed in Meantone, but Beethoven came from the century before when it was understood and provided a substrate to the musical language, and its effects were toned down but still apparent in other temperaments in use in the early 19th century. Hearing the effects can give enlightenment as to intended meanings of a piece like this and thereby pointers to performance. It's like putting the right developer fluid over a text with secret writing between the lines.

Best wishes

David Pinnegar


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