# piano transcriptions of beethoven



## JeffD (May 8, 2017)

Whose piano transcriptions of Beethoven's string quartets do you like / trust. I am looking to understand things deeper, and a piano score would make life easier.

I might as well ask the same questions of the Mozart and Schubert string quartets.


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

I'm sorry to be that annoying person who rejects the premise of the question, but that's exactly what I'm going to do here! :lol: I feel that it's best to study Beethoven's string quartets in their original form, instead of looking at piano transcriptions. 

The original score isn't that much harder to read than a piano score...the only potential challenges might be the alto clef (occasionally tenor clef as well) and the use of four staves instead of two. If you're willing to put up with these difficulties, the payoff is enormous! By looking at the original score, you'll be able to see the voice-leading, the contrapuntal interplay and dialogue between the four parts, the exploration of extreme registers for each of the string instruments...(here I go again, waxing rhapsodic about Ludwig...I'm so predictable!!)


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

JeffD said:


> Whose piano transcriptions of Beethoven's string quartets do you like / trust. I am looking to understand things deeper, and a piano score would make life easier.
> 
> .


I'm sure you know that Beethoven made a transcription of op 133, the Big Bad Fugue. It's really revealing because it makes the music sound more classical, at least in some performances. I haven't heard any other transcriptions from quartet to piano (I assume that op 14/1 came before the version for quartet.)


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## cimirro (Sep 6, 2016)

JeffD said:


> Whose piano transcriptions of Beethoven's string quartets do you like / trust. I am looking to understand things deeper, and a piano score would make life easier.
> 
> I might as well ask the same questions of the Mozart and Schubert string quartets.


I agree with Bettina, unless your plans are playing at the piano (because then a transcription will be better for playing)
Louis Winkler made decent transcriptions of them.


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## JeffD (May 8, 2017)

No, I can't play piano at all. My hands just don't work together separately like that. Give them each a separate job - you finger, you pick and strum - and I am good, but not this - you play from these notes - while you play from these. Ahhhh.

But I do look at and "read" many piano scores, to understand the music.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Stay away from conducting school.


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## cimirro (Sep 6, 2016)

hpowders said:


> Stay away from conducting school.


back in 2000 when studying orchestration and conducting I only used a diapason as sound reference (no instruments) and no reduction/transcriptions at all,
it was a hell in the beginning, but later it becomes a great thing that helped me a lot.
Today i'm lazy...


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

cimirro said:


> back in 2000 when studying orchestration and conducting I only used a diapason as sound reference (no instruments) and no reduction/transcriptions at all,
> it was a hell in the beginning, but later it becomes a great thing that helped me a lot.
> Today i'm lazy...


Glad to have you "hear"/"here".


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

cimirro said:


> back in 2000 when studying orchestration and conducting I only used a diapason as sound reference (no instruments) and no reduction/transcriptions at all,
> it was a hell in the beginning, but later it becomes a great thing that helped me a lot.
> Today i'm lazy...


Diapason? Had to go Google it but it still doesn't make sense to me what you did or how you used it or what you mean by it. 

I could never learn how to audiate even the simplest of melodies from sheet, but I do sometimes follow scores while listening, because they make me see just how much more is often going on in a piece than I might have noticed otherwise.


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## cimirro (Sep 6, 2016)

brianvds said:


> Diapason? Had to go Google it but it still doesn't make sense to me what you did or how you used it or what you mean by it.
> 
> I could never learn how to audiate even the simplest of melodies from sheet, but I do sometimes follow scores while listening, because they make me see just how much more is often going on in a piece than I might have noticed otherwise.


The word diapason is wrong? (English is not my first language, but i think the word is used in English, am i wrong?)
well, the diapason gives me an "A", then I have a reference note.
With this note and the knowledge of the different intervals (which came from "solfége") I can imagine the melody, harmony, etc building the music in my mind just at looking to the score.
When I started it was slow and hard, with time it becomes normal.
I think a lot of conductors probably do the same (or at least they did in the past).


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## JeffD (May 8, 2017)

A pitch pipe. And then solfege. Wow.

I could not do that.


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## JeffD (May 8, 2017)

Bettina said:


> I feel that it's best to study Beethoven's string quartets in their original form, instead of looking at piano transcriptions.
> 
> The original score isn't that much harder to read than a piano score...the only potential challenges might be the alto clef (occasionally tenor clef as well) and the use of four staves instead of two. If you're willing to put up with these difficulties, the payoff is enormous!


I am sure you are not wrong. Its only that I find a piano score easier to "figure out" for some reason. But a piano score would likely hide the "conversational" nature of string quartets, which is, especially after Haydn, most of the fun.


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## cimirro (Sep 6, 2016)

JeffD said:


> A pitch pipe. And then solfege. Wow.
> 
> I could not do that.


there is no magic nor it is necessary any special bless, 
of course you can, but probably it will be too boring to start... (it was to me)

Thanks for let me know the name "pitch pipe", so it is better than "diapason"?
in several languages diapason is the "normal"


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## JeffD (May 8, 2017)

cimirro said:


> there is no magic nor it is necessary any special bless,
> of course you can, but probably it will be too boring to start... (it was to me)
> 
> Thanks for let me know the name "pitch pipe", so it is better than "diapason"?
> in several languages diapason is the "normal"


Well part of the problem would be I am not strong with solfege. I taught myself and I don't practice enough.

Yes, pitch pipe would be the more recognized term in English.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

cimirro said:


> The word diapason is wrong? (English is not my first language, but i think the word is used in English, am i wrong?)


English isn't my first language either, so we are going to run into many misunderstandings! 

Here's Wikipedia's views on what a diapason is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diapason

I think JeffD is right: you were using a pitch pipe, which is a little thing you blow into to give you a reference note? I think they are also sometimes used for tuning.



> well, the diapason gives me an "A", then I have a reference note.
> With this note and the knowledge of the different intervals (which came from "solfége") I can imagine the melody, harmony, etc building the music in my mind just at looking to the score.
> When I started it was slow and hard, with time it becomes normal.
> I think a lot of conductors probably do the same (or at least they did in the past).


I would assume they would have to do something like that if they are not blessed with perfect pitch.



cimirro said:


> there is no magic nor it is necessary any special bless,
> of course you can, but probably it will be too boring to start... (it was to me)


I once went into this whole thing of trying to train my ears. I found I had no great difficulty in learning intervals: give me a reference note and ask me to sing a third or minor sixth or whatever above or below it, and I could do it instantly and with no trouble at all. What I could never master was working out how to instantly recognize intervals on sheet music. There doesn't seem to be any pattern there of any kind, and thus the only way to do it was to visualize a keyboard and painstakingly count the semitones. I suppose one can do it that way, but to acquire fluency would take me years and years of daily practice, and then I would still not be anywhere close to being able to read and audiate anything more than simple tunes.

And thus, to me, that ability seems almost supernatural. But perhaps music teachers know some tricks and tips of how to go about it that I just don't know about.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

JeffD said:


> Well part of the problem would be I am not strong with solfege. I taught myself and I don't practice enough.


I have never been able to work out what the point of solfege even is, let alone how to use it. When it comes to reading sheet music without an instrument, I am missing some very big chunk of a very mysterious puzzle.


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## JeffD (May 8, 2017)

Sing along (huming along deedledummdedumming along) while playing a musical instrument reading off the sheet music. It really really helps. Do that for a month and after a month you will find you can just about sight read singing. 

Build the connection one way, singing along, eyes to sound, sound to voice. The connection, once built, seems to start to work more directly, eyes to voice.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

JeffD said:


> Sing along (huming along deedledummdedumming along) while playing a musical instrument reading off the sheet music. It really really helps. Do that for a month and after a month you will find you can just about sight read singing.
> 
> Build the connection one way, singing along, eyes to sound, sound to voice. The connection, once built, seems to start to work more directly, eyes to voice.


I once tried that, for months on end, after getting the above piece of advice from someone on another board. It had no impact whatever on my ability to read music without an instrument. Perhaps I have some sort of notation dyslexia. 

I think I could possibly learn the trick if everything is in C major. But start to throw in some accidentals and/or key signatures, and I am lost.


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## JeffD (May 8, 2017)

Bettina said:


> I feel that it's best to study Beethoven's string quartets in their original form, instead of looking at piano transcriptions.


Where I got the idea is that I am listening to "The Great Courses" on the Beethoven quartets and the lecturer often gives examples of specific intervals and harmonies and motifs and themes on the piano first, and it makes it so much easier to understand what he is getting at. Then when I hear what I understand better in the full quartet its magical.


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## cimirro (Sep 6, 2016)

brianvds said:


> English isn't my first language either, so we are going to run into many misunderstandings!
> 
> Here's Wikipedia's views on what a diapason is:
> 
> ...


I just noted you gave the wikipedia link 
actually it seems the English word for what I use is "tuning fork"



JeffD said:


> Where I got the idea is that I am listening to "The Great Courses" on the Beethoven quartets and the lecturer often gives examples of specific intervals and harmonies and motifs and themes on the piano first, and it makes it so much easier to understand what he is getting at. Then when I hear what I understand better in the full quartet its magical.


Nice! So I hope the suggested transcriber would be good for you!


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

JeffD said:


> Whose piano transcriptions of Beethoven's string quartets do you like / trust. I am looking to understand things deeper, and a piano score would make life easier.
> 
> I might as well ask the same questions of the Mozart and Schubert string quartets.


https://www.amazon.com/Complete-String-Quartets-Transcribed-Four-Hand/dp/0486239756


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## JeffD (May 8, 2017)

Larkenfield said:


> https://www.amazon.com/Complete-String-Quartets-Transcribed-Four-Hand/dp/0486239756


Wow wow wow. I am going to check this out. Yea its still a system of four staffs, but it might be more accessible.


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