# What does Beethoven mean to you???



## Tarneem (Jan 3, 2022)

for me I don't consider Beethoven as a great artist, but I do view him a great statement.

he stated that talent is a gift from God, but it should be always be nurtured and the artist should spend a lot of efforts and time and work harder in order to nurture it.

he stated that no matter what obstacle you face, you *MSUT* keep going on and never distinguish the fire that is burning in your body and igniting your whole being.

he stated that humans are complicated. a monster can produce the most profound and beautiful music. so we should never hurry on the way how we judge others, and everyone deserves to has his/her full chance to live his/her life the way that suite them the most


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

One of many composers who left us with a number of beautiful works. But not more than that, not even primus inter pares. I don't see him as a role model either in any way.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

A legendary composer whose works I hardly ever listen to anymore.


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

The greatest composer that ever lived, both in terms of his output and his influence. He followed in the footsteps of Bach and Mozart. No one followed in the footsteps of Beethoven.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

A composer who had an immense influence on classical music. I seldom listen to his any of his music, though.


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## EvaBaron (Jan 3, 2022)

Suprising reaction because of your user name but from my very limited view on composers i agree


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

I think Beethoven's impact and legacy is complicated.

I love his music and do consider him "first among equals." I think he mastered many forms and genres, and put out a metric ton of great music. i think the heights of his expression equal or better the heights of most other composers.

I do also think his influence is stifling to some degree. Modern orchestras probably play too much Beethoven at the expense of other music - although that's not just Beethoven, but German Romanticism generally (which I personally love but can recognize its stifling ubiquity).

I have no opinion (or not much opinion) about him personally. I tend to divorce art from artists in my estimation.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Brahmsianhorn said:


> The greatest composer that ever lived, both in terms of his output and his influence. He followed in the footsteps of Bach and Mozart. No one followed in the footsteps of Beethoven.


Ohh please ... maybe the last 400 years, but who knows about before that? What about the famous Roman symphonist of the 3rd century AD, Flavius Maximum Vitae Compositorem? He makes Beethoven look like a rank amateur.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Tarneem said:


> for me I don't consider Beethoven as a great artist, but I do view him a great statement.
> 
> he stated that talent is a gift from God, but it should be always be nurtured and the artist should spend a lot of efforts and time and work harder in order to nurture it.
> 
> ...


For me much of Beethoven's music represents violation. I feel he is browbeating me, imposing himself on me, rather than seducing me. I feel that he's Zeus and I'm Leda. He's the Reich army and I'm little Poland, Denmark, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Yugoslavia or Greece.


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## Tarneem (Jan 3, 2022)

Brahmsianhorn said:


> The greatest composer that ever lived, both in terms of his output and his influence. He followed in the footsteps of Bach and Mozart. No one followed in the footsteps of Beethoven.


oh my God,, with these words of yours you managed to get tears fell down of my eyes


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## Tarneem (Jan 3, 2022)

Mandryka said:


> For me much of Beethoven's music represents violation. I feel he is browbeating me, imposing himself on me, rather than seducing me. I feel that he's Zeus and I'm Leda.


I always think of the 2nd movement of his 9th symphony as the anthem of Zeus


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> For me much of Beethoven's music represents violation. I feel he is browbeating me, imposing himself on me, rather than seducing me. I feel that he's Zeus and I'm Leda. He's the Reich army and I'm little Poland, Denmark, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Yugoslavia or Greece.


Strange, I don't feel Beethoven is doing anything "to" me. He is expressing himself, and I am feeling what he is expressing. He is speaking "for" me.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

Other than the respect and the innovation others ascribe to him, he does not mean much to me.

I can listen to his music and think, "yeah, I can see what others love about his music". But, it doesn't speak to me personally. 

But then, I feel much the same for all composers earlier than say, about 1920.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> For me much of Beethoven's music represents violation. I feel he is browbeating me, imposing himself on me, rather than seducing me. I feel that he's Zeus and I'm Leda. He's the Reich army and I'm little Poland, Denmark, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Yugoslavia or Greece.


Have you been too much in therapy or not enough? Or just running wild with similes?


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

The deaf dude who composed Fur Elise, Rage Over A Lost Penny, and da-da-da-daaa

/sarc

In seriousness, he composed some of the most sublime and/or heroic music in the classical canon.

I do not care much for the OP's Beethoven sayings. Sure, I agree with them, but those sayings are all but universal-- and I don't need to quote an idol on common-sense sayings.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Brahmsianhorn said:


> The greatest composer that ever lived, both in terms of his output and his influence. He followed in the footsteps of Bach and Mozart. No one followed in the footsteps of Beethoven.


Beethoven's favorite composer was Handel, probably because most of Bach's output was not known at the time.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Beethoven's music speaks to me deeply and personally. I listen to it and play it all the time. It's as profound and timeless as Shakespeare and I feel sad for those who don't get it.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Kreisler jr said:


> Have you been too much in therapy or not enough? Or just running wild with similes?


Stop trying to cancel my testimony with passive aggressive comments. This is how I feel. It may not be how you feel, so be it. .

In my opinion, the most worrying psychology would be the person who thinks that this music speaks for him






or this






Or this






Or this


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> For me much of Beethoven's music represents violation. I feel he is browbeating me, imposing himself on me, rather than seducing me. I feel that he's Zeus and I'm Leda. He's the Reich army and I'm little Poland, Denmark, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Yugoslavia or Greece.


Why Beethoven in particular? How about the Rite of Spring or Carter's Quartet No. 3?


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Kreisler jr said:


> Have you been too much in therapy or not enough? Or just running wild with similes?


That comment is uncalled for. People are allowed to recoil from Beethoven's music, you know. There is nothing wrong with disliking, say, Hammerklavier.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

The most interesting person in music -- musically and biographically.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Phil loves classical said:


> Why Beethoven in particular? How about the Rite of Spring or Carter's Quartet No. 3?


Because this is a thread specifically about Beethoven? (Not that I agree with Mandryka on Beethoven's music-- Beethoven is my favorite composer)


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Phil loves classical said:


> Why Beethoven in particular? How about the Rite of Spring or Carter's Quartet No. 3?


I think there's a lot in common between Rite of Spring and the most pounding and repetitive Beethoven, I agree. As a ballet it I think it's fine -- it has inspired some lovely dance.

I need to think about the Carter.


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> In my opinion, the most worrying psychology would be the person who thinks that this music speaks for him


This must be aimed at me, as I just made this statement a few posts ago.

Given that, I will respond with the following questions:

How do Beethoven's compositions typically end? Do you deny that there is a human journey in his symphonic narratives that are archetypal? Is there anything inherently wrong with depicting human emotion?

.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Brahmsianhorn said:


> How do Beethoven's compositions typically end? Do you deny that there is a human journey in his symphonic narratives that are archetypal?


What makes a narrative archetypical? How can instrumental music express a narrative?


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Some posts have been adjusted. Please be civil, discuss the subject, not other posters.


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## FrankinUsa (Aug 3, 2021)

Beethoven was a great composer. 
Lol…..I knew the moderator warning was coming.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Beethoven means reading some of the weirdest comments I've ever read on TC.


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## Tarneem (Jan 3, 2022)

vtpoet said:


> Beethoven means reading some of the weirdest comments on TC that I've read so far.


well,,, quarantine makes people do "weird" things looooooooool


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> What makes a narrative archetypical? How can instrumental music express a narrative?


I think there is a clear narrative in the Grosse Fuge.
Intro
Clash of themes
Peaceful interval
Premature Victory Dance
Clash of themes which tires itself out
Victory dance
False recap
Union of formerly clashing themes

That narrative is present in many fictional stories and real life situations.


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> What makes a narrative archetypical? How can instrumental music express a narrative?


What did you mean when you made the following statement:

_In my opinion, the most worrying psychology would be the person who thinks that this music speaks for him_

You were implying that there is something expressed by Beethoven's music that you find worrying, and that this extends to anyone who identifies with what is being expressed. Care to explain?


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## John Zito (Sep 11, 2021)

I certainly don't take Beethoven personally, either in the sense of feeling cudgeled by him or feeling like his music is the soundtrack to my inner life. I can enjoy his stuff very much, but selectively. I adore the _Pathétique_, _Pastoral_, and Op. 111 sonatas, the sixth symphony, the fourth piano concerto, and the slow movement of the fifth. I don't care all that much about the _Hammerklavier_ sonata, the violin concerto, the _Eroica_ symphony, or the adagio of the ninth.

Overall, I'd say he's probably correctly rated in the history of music. Sticking to the Austro-German main line, I personally value him less than Bach, Mozart, and Schubert, but more than Schumann, Haydn, and Brahms.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

The man who set music free. Who wrote that? I don't know. But it's true. He was a musical era all unto himself. Even when dead he intimidated later composers. He set the bar so high on writing symphonies that the whole genre had to be redefined for people to keep going. Like others, I don't listen to his music all that much now, but every now and then I pull out a set of symphonies or concertos and all over again marvel at his stunning, super-human prowess. When I get the opportunity to play any of the orchestral works I sit amazed at the quality of the writing and feel humbled by his extraordinary works. I had a college professor who said it best. When asked why he didn't write more music he said, "who wants to be a bad Beethoven?"


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## Chilham (Jun 18, 2020)

My favourite symphonies. But only just.

My favourite piano sonatas.

My favourite string quartets.

My favourite piano concerto.

On the flip-side, I think most of his choral music sucked.


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

^ He didn’t write much choral music, but what he did leave was certainly no match for Bach and Mozart, or even Brahms for that matter.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

To answer the OP: The heroic, overwhelming, cathartic triumph of light over darkness, of sublimity over ugliness, ecstasy over stagnation, imagination over gloom, the essence of humanity over all that threatens to erase it. An author of some of the most profound spiritual narratives ever composed, chronicling the universal human need for release of pathos and reception of truth. One of the first great Romantic artists and a pioneer of nineteenth century aesthetic attitudes. Beethoven is not my favorite composer (there are some more popular works of his that don't float my boat and occasionally I somewhat sympathize with Mandryka's attitude) but no other composer produces such unique effects on me. The late quartets and sonatas, the Diabelli Variations, the 4th and 5th piano concerti, certain movements from the symphonies and Missa Solemnis have moved me to a stunned stupor, often accompanied with tears. Several great writers have been inspired by and wrote about his music. I particularly like the following quotes:



E.M. Forster (discussing the 5th) said:


> And the goblins--they had not really been there at all? They were only the phantoms of cowardice and unbelief? One healthy human impulse would dispel them? Men like the Wilcoxes, or ex-President Roosevelt, would say yes. Beethoven knew better. The goblins really had been there. They might return--and they did. It was as if the splendour of life might boil over and waste to steam and froth. In its dissolution one heard the terrible, ominous note, and a goblin, with increased malignity, walked quietly over the universe from end to end. Panic and emptiness! Panic and emptiness! Even the flaming ramparts of the world might fall. Beethoven chose to make all right in the end. He built the ramparts up. He blew with his mouth for the second time, and again the goblins were scattered. He brought back the gusts of splendour, the heroism, the youth, the magnificence of life and of death, and, amid vast roarings of a superhuman joy, he led his Fifth Symphony to its conclusion. But the goblins were there. They could return. He had said so bravely, and that is why one can trust Beethoven when he says other things.





Sylvia Plath (describing the Grosse Fuge said:


> He could hear Beethoven:
> Black yew, white cloud,
> The horrific complications.
> Finger-traps-a tumult of keys.
> ...


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Brahmsianhorn said:


> ^ He didn't write much choral music, but what he did leave was certainly no match for Bach and Mozart, or even Brahms for that matter.


I love the Missa Solemnis.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Brahmsianhorn said:


> The greatest composer that ever lived, both in terms of his output and his influence. He followed in the footsteps of Bach and Mozart. No one followed in the footsteps of Beethoven.


Its interesting because I sometimes see people saying here that 'Bach had no followers', because his music was considered 'old fashioned'. This is often used to minimize Bach's impact on music compared to Beethoven.

However when we look closely it seems that no one really followed Beethoven either, and that Beethoven too at one time was out of fashion. So it is kind of humorous to me that Beethoven fans will then *romanticize* that notion to make it appear that Beethoven was unique in _that_ regard.

My view is that Beethoven was an important and influential composer who wrote some unique music. He was one of the greats. But simultaneously I feel he is probably the most over-hyped composer.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

When did Bach go out of style? I thought he slowly only came into style.



tdc said:


> Its interesting because I sometimes see people saying here that 'Bach had no followers', because his music was considered 'old fashioned'. This is often used to minimize Bach's impact on music compared to Beethoven.


He seems to be out of style on this forum to a degree. Everyone seems to be making threads of their favorite composers and I haven't seen as many for Bach these days. Polling only one method.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Ethereality said:


> When did Bach go out of style? I thought he slowly only came into style.
> 
> He seems to be out of style on this forum to a degree. Everyone seems to be making threads of their favorite composers and I haven't seen as many for Bach these days. Polling only one method.


To me, Bach is second to only Beethoven. I am starting to go through the 142 CD Bach Complete Edition, which arrived in the mail yesterday. So far, it has good Brandenburg Concertos and Orchestral Suites (even if some of the movements of the latter compositions are taken too fast).


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

Bach is most certainly not going out of style. The past half century has been the Bach renaissance. My personal listening favorites are Brahms and Bruckner, but I am capable of objectively recognizing the “Big 3” of Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach.

To anyone accusing those who appreciate Beethoven of having psychological issues, I think it is quite the opposite. Greatness in art is easy to appreciate if you are open and free in your mind and heart.

Thank you, Allegro con brio, for your poignant thoughts.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

He is my favorite composer and personal idol. His passionate, dynamic, powerful, lively and revolutionary music never ceases to inspire me and make my life better. He is my shelter in my dark hours as I feel safe, at home when hearing his works. In my opinion, the compositions of Beethoven overflow with dignity, nobility and positive energies, and I think that the art of sounds would have had a great vacuum had he never lived.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Mandryka said:


> For me much of Beethoven's music represents violation. I feel he is browbeating me, imposing himself on me, rather than seducing me. I feel that he's Zeus and I'm Leda. He's the Reich army and I'm little Poland, Denmark, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Yugoslavia or Greece.


I cannot tell if you are trolling :lol:

If you are, and I suspect you are, then hats off


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## christomacin (Oct 21, 2017)

Kreisler jr said:


> Have you been too much in therapy or not enough? Or just running wild with similes?


Not to mention being in major violation of Godwin's "Law'... LOL


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

I listen to it and play it all the time. Beethoven's music speaks to me personally. It's a as profound composer who struggled in lots of things, except composing.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

My experience with Beethoven is that when he gets it right he has some truly amazing moments that I love. But I also think he has moments that seem to be amateurish. He seems to be a bit all over the place to me, the music could be something genius and then something that sounds like it was written by an amateur. Maybe that's what his personality was like too.


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

I've lived with some of Beethoven's music longer than nearly any other music in the classical canon and would hate to be without it.

That said, there is other music that would be higher up my desert island list.


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## Nawdry (Dec 27, 2020)

Tarneem said:


> What does Beethoven mean to you???


Just for the record ...

I count Beethoven among the greatest and most influential artists that humanity has produced.

From my earliest involvement with classical music, various sublimely beautiful works of Beethoven have imparted, and continue to impart, a profoundly transformative effect on my life. During the relatively brief period when I'm listening to his music, it's as if the core of my being is linked to some alternative and inexplicably more significant dimension of reality. And no, I'm not smoking anything.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Turning from the personal to the technical: Beethoven was the first composer to comprehensively exploit the metaphorical exemplification of quasi-narrative patterns as a means of organizing large-scale instrumental structures.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> Turning from the personal to the technical: Beethoven was the first composer to comprehensively exploit the metaphorical exemplification of quasi-narrative patterns as a means of organizing large-scale instrumental structures.


It has been argued that the first movement of Brandenburg 5 has a narrative structure, based on a hierarchy of instruments which was accepted at the time.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

To me, Beethoven is just some great creative force, even though there is great emotion to be found in his music. Tchaikovsky likened him to God, and Mozart to Christ.


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

Beetroot farms!


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## HerbertNorman (Jan 9, 2020)

The composer Beethoven, has got a special place in my heart , as I was introduced to classical music with his work (5th piano concerto and the 5th symphony). A simply great composer which I came to love and I still like most of his music. The emotions in his music move me ...
He doesn't appear on my "playlists" as often as he used to, as I try to explore more classical music and get to know new works. But when I'm in the mood I still play Beethoven. Some of his works are timeless and will always be appreciated.

One of the most important composers in history imho


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

EdwardBast said:


> Turning from the personal to the technical: Beethoven was the first composer to comprehensively exploit the metaphorical exemplification of quasi-narrative patterns as a means of organizing large-scale instrumental structures.


Not sure I agree with this claim. But I'll need to give it some thought

Edit: you're probably right


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

There are few if any composers who lend themselves more to interpretation, as opposed to the music simply speaking for itself. Beethoven was a renowned improviser, so it makes sense that his music provides endless fodder for great performances.

Schnabel's piano sonata cycle is an apt example. There is no "correct" way. The music naturally lends itself to creative genius.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> It has been argued that the first movement of Brandenburg 5 has a narrative structure, based on a hierarchy of instruments which was accepted at the time.


Are you talking about the analysis by McClary? I've never seen her perform a competent analysis of anything. She lacks the theory chops. That one I seem to remember being particularly bad.



BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> Not sure I agree with this claim. But I'll need to give it some thought
> 
> Edit: you're probably right


I tried to exclude CPE Bach with the word comprehensive.


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## Guest (Jan 6, 2022)

Mandryka said:


> What makes a narrative archetypical? How can instrumental music express a narrative?


It is archetypical in its trajectory; beginning, middle and end - the essence of Sonata form, after all. Our brains are hardwired through cultural experience to understand this and, with music in particular, the role that keys play in those formulations. Does that mean that being educated about such things makes for a greater appreciation of the art form? Not necessarily but, as is the case with having money, it certainly doesn't hurt!!

Music is perfectly capable of expressing narrative and classical music does that extremely effectively. It's part of the first paragraph I've written here and its locus is also thematic; motivic development or thematic transformation, whatever paradigm you apply. We follow the logic of the music if we're listening to it/paying attention. The unravelling, like a cotton reel, of a theme or fragment takes us on a journey - just like most intellectual endeavours. Except that music uses scales, keys, themes, harmony, melody and rhythm to convey its ideas. And, of course, the musical cadence so closely resembles the full stop in writing that it doesn't need repeating.

I love the journey and look forward to it every time I listen.

As for Beethoven; he's the main man for me alongside JS Bach and that position hasn't changed over decades. The piano sonatas are my 'desert island' music and I couldn't imagine life without them; it would be dull, grey and without joy. Beethoven's musical thinking also appeals to my intellectual imagination and sometimes I find myself laughing like a mad relation - all these decades since day 1 - about his way of putting things together.


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## Highwayman (Jul 16, 2018)

He is like a chum, a confidant from school-times. We both went separate ways in our lives but each time we meet it is as if nothing has changed between us. Notwithstanding our disagreements, he`ll always be welcomed in our household.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Not a lot of Beethoven love in this thread. He will remain my favorite composer, although I don’t listen as much as formerly due to over familiarity. That isn’t Beethoven’s fault


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> What makes a narrative archetypical? How can instrumental music express a narrative?


There is a whole area of modern music theory known as musical narrative theory that addresses such questions. As far as I know, the term plot archetype was first used in this field by Anthony Newcomb in his article, "Once More 'Between Absolute and Program Music': Schumann's Second Symphony." _19th-Century Music_ 7 (1984): 233-50. Newcomb explains the concept well.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Triplets said:


> Not a lot of Beethoven love in this thread. He will remain my favorite composer, although I don't listen as much as formerly due to over familiarity. That isn't Beethoven's fault


Music has moved on, IMO, well beyond Beethoven - both in the Classical realm, but more importantly various forms of Popular music are culturally far more important and represent our society more so than any composer from the 18th century.

I don't see Beethoven comparable to say, Shakespeare, whose works continually to be relevant. Music is too ephemeral, too abstract, for it to have anything other than stylistic meaning. And the Classical/Early Romantic period style is very old sounding, and not relevant anymore other than as a historical artifact.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> Music has moved on, IMO, well beyond Beethoven - both in the Classical realm, but more importantly various forms of Popular music are culturally far more important and represent our society more so than any composer from the 18th century.
> 
> I don't see Beethoven comparable to say, Shakespeare, whose works continually to be relevant. Music is too ephemeral, too abstract, for it to have anything other than stylistic meaning. And the Classical/Early Romantic period style is very old sounding, and not relevant anymore other than as a historical artifact.


Correcting your unwarranted claim: "Music is too ephemeral, too abstract, for it to have anything other than stylistic meaning" for SanAntone. Just like Shakespeare, Beethoven was always irrelevant to those who don't understand his work.

(I suppose you mean the 19thc, in which nearly all of his mature music was composed.)


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## Guest (Jan 7, 2022)

Highwayman said:


> He is like a chum, a confidant from school-times. We both went separate ways in our lives but each time we meet it is as if nothing has changed between us. Notwithstanding our disagreements, he`ll always be welcomed in our household.


I love these comments!!


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## Guest (Jan 7, 2022)

EdwardBast said:


> There is a whole area of modern music theory known as musical narrative theory that addresses such questions. As far as I know, the term plot archetype was first used in this field by Anthony Newcomb in his article, "Once More 'Between Absolute and Program Music': Schumann's Second Symphony." _19th-Century Music_ 7 (1984): 233-50. Newcomb explains the concept well.


Even in banking and accountancy the term 'narration' is used; what you write in the box where the money is going and what it's for is the 'narration'.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

EdwardBast said:


> Correcting your unwarranted claim: "Music is too ephemeral, too abstract, for it to have anything other than stylistic meaning" for SanAntone. Just like Shakespeare, Beethoven was always irrelevant to those who don't understand his work.
> 
> (I suppose you mean the 19thc, in which nearly all of his mature music was composed.)


Beethoven straddled the 18th and 19th century (1770-1827) but his style is closer to the 18th, IMO, and my point was the antiquated nature of his style. There is not that much difference between the first quarter of the 19th and the last quarter of the 18th compared to the rest of the 19th century.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

Beethoven was always my favorite from the time I was a teenager in the 1980s. During my 40s i started to gravitate towards Bach as I became more religious and concerned with the great existential questions of life. Now in my 50s I'm very much caught up with the music of Mozart who I mostly avoided for many years or even decades. While Beethoven stands for heroism and Bach stands for devotion; I like Mozart just for the craftsmanship, the emotionally uncluttered ideal that it is just to create something seamless, beautiful and balanced. But even as I've branched out and changed I still find myself going back to Beethoven quite often and I'm always finding new things to enjoy in Beethoven's works even if I've heard it all many times over.

My three favorite works of classical music are Beethoven's _Symphony #6 "Pastorale"_; Wagner's _Siegfried Idyll_ and Barber's _Knoxville: Summer of 1915_; and the _Pastorale Symphony_ demonstrates that even though Beethoven was a composer of heroic, mystic, majestic, and revolutionary proportions, he also had a side to his artistic temperament that was very gentle and soothing. The first movement sounds like birds waking up in the morning. The second sounds like a gentle brook rolling through the woods. The third is a portrait of the simple life, and happy folks who live close to the earth. After a brief storm, the final movement reveals nature and all God's glory as the sun shines through the parting clouds.

Now what can be more beautiful than that?


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## Guest (Jan 7, 2022)

SanAntone said:


> Beethoven straddled the 18th and 19th century (1770-1827) but his style is closer to the 18th, IMO, and my point was the antiquated nature of his style. There is not that much difference between the first quarter of the 19th and the last quarter of the 18th compared to the rest of the 19th century.


I disagree with this view. Here's _some_ of the evidence for the Defense:


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> Beethoven straddled the 18th and 19th century (1770-1827) but his style is closer to the 18th, IMO, and my point was the antiquated nature of his style. There is not that much difference between the first quarter of the 19th and the last quarter of the 18th compared to the rest of the 19th century.


There's an enormous difference between Beethoven's mature works and the music of either the late 18thc or the rest of the 19th, elements of style no one mastered before or throughout the rest of the 19thc. But I was more focused on content than style.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

SanAntone said:


> Music has moved on, IMO, well beyond Beethoven - *both in the Classical realm, but more importantly various forms of Popular music are culturally far more important and represent our society more so than any composer from the 18th century*.
> 
> I don't see Beethoven comparable to say, Shakespeare, whose works continually to be relevant. Music is too ephemeral, too abstract, for it to have anything other than stylistic meaning. *And the Classical/Early Romantic period style is very old sounding, and not relevant anymore other than as a historical artifact.*


This is _your_ truth. A single page of a score by Beethoven or Mozart is more relevant to me today, and represents me more, than the entire output of John Cage, for example, and it has been like this for several years already.


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## FrankinUsa (Aug 3, 2021)

At the point when Classical Music attracted my interest,I went to my local library and looked for a recording. I sort of knew Beethoven 5(dah-dah-dah-dummm) but I wanted something different. So I picked out Sym 3/Eroica. It was HvK(1980s). I just blasted that out of my audio system. 30 years later Here I am. 

I AM SHOCKED AT THE NEGATIVITY TOWARDS LvB IN THIS THREAD. 
To each their own.


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## Tarneem (Jan 3, 2022)

SanAntone said:


> And the Classical/Early Romantic period style is very old sounding, and not relevant anymore other than as a historical artifact.







it's relevant..... at least for this child


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Christabel said:


> I disagree with this view. Here's _some_ of the evidence for the Defense:





EdwardBast said:


> There's an enormous difference between Beethoven's mature works and the music of either the late 18thc or the rest of the 19th, elements of style no one mastered before or throughout the rest of the 19thc. But I was more focused on content than style.





Xisten267 said:


> This is _your_ truth. A single page of a score by Beethoven or Mozart is more relevant to me today, and represents me more, than the entire output of John Cage, for example, and it has been like this for several years already.


The title of this thread is "What does Beethoven mean to you?"

I have answered the question.

I have probably a dozen complete cycles of the piano sonatas and nearly that many for the complete string quartets. I have fewer, but still multiple, sets of the symphonies. I had my Beethoven period. But he is no longer relevant to what I am looking for when I listen to music.


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## Guest (Jan 8, 2022)

SanAntone said:


> The title of this thread is "What does Beethoven mean to you?"
> 
> I have answered the question.
> 
> I have probably a dozen complete cycles of the piano sonatas and nearly that many for the complete string quartets. I have fewer, but still multiple, sets of the symphonies. I had my Beethoven period. But he is no longer relevant to what I am looking for when I listen to music.


I totally get what you're saying; I was merely addressing your comment that Beethoven was more representative of the 18th than the 19th century - which is not an emotive argument.

The way you feel about Beethoven I feel about Mozart, having lost interest in him 35 years ago. And there's such a thing as over-familiarity. We can exhaust our interests by the sheer amount of time listening, but I don't ever feel this way about Beethoven and have done since I was 17 or 18 - a loooooong time ago.

And the beauty of classical music is that we can have it all!!!


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## Guest (Jan 8, 2022)

Tarneem said:


> it's relevant..... at least for this child


Isn't he just responding to the wrong notes!!??


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Brahmsianhorn said:


> To anyone accusing those who appreciate Beethoven of having psychological issues, I think it is quite the opposite. Greatness in art is easy to appreciate if you are open and free in your mind and heart.


Give me a break. Where is this animas for Beethoven coming from?

I realize that there is a small handful of members who think Beethoven, Mozart and Bach are overrated.

There is current poll where over 1/3 of our members consider Beethoven to be the greatest symphonist.

Just because some or out members prefer Sibelius and Mahler still does not mean that they dislike Beethoven.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

SanAntone said:


> Music has moved on, IMO, well beyond Beethoven - both in the Classical realm, but more importantly various forms of Popular music are culturally far more important and represent our society more so than any composer from the 18th century.
> 
> I don't see Beethoven comparable to say, Shakespeare, whose works continually to be relevant. Music is too ephemeral, too abstract, for it to have anything other than stylistic meaning. And the Classical/Early Romantic period style is very old sounding, and not relevant anymore other than as a historical artifact.


Yes it has. It has moved past Bach, past Palestrina, past Beethoven. Who gives a crap?


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> And the Classical/Early Romantic period style is very old sounding, and not relevant anymore other than as a historical artifact.


I can say that *Shakespeare's* style is very old sounding, and not relevant anymore other than a historical artifact, but is the second part true?


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Triplets said:


> Yes it has. It has moved past Bach, past Palestrina, past Beethoven. Who gives a crap?


I wish Beethoven had access to modern medical care, so that he could have written more Late period works. In 195 years, there has been NOTHING like the Beethoven late quartets (if some contemporary composer wrote pieces like the Late Quartets, please tell me!). Music moved past the late quartets only in the sense of vitually _ignoring_ the late quartets.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

arpeggio said:


> Give me a break. Where is this animas for Beethoven coming from?
> 
> I realize that there is a small handful of members who think Beethoven, Mozart and Bach are overrated.
> 
> ...


I voted for Mahler in that poll, because I consider Beethoven and Mahler equally great symphonists, and decided to defend the second-place position I thought Mahler could get instead of having him lose to Sibelius or Bruckner. However, Beethoven also wrote concertos, and chamber music, and piano music. So overall, I consider Beethoven to be a much greater composer than Mahler. Even if I do come to prefer Mahler's Ninth over any Beethoven symphony.


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

arpeggio said:


> Give me a break. Where is this animas for Beethoven coming from?


I was directly responding to a fellow poster.

But you're right. It's a minority opinion. Better to let sleeping dogs lie.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

SanAntone said:


> Music has moved on, IMO, well beyond Beethoven - both in the Classical realm, but more importantly various forms of Popular music are culturally far more important and represent our society more so than any composer from the 18th century.
> 
> I don't see Beethoven comparable to say, Shakespeare, whose works continually to be relevant. Music is too ephemeral, too abstract, for it to have anything other than stylistic meaning. And the Classical/Early Romantic period style is very old sounding, and not relevant anymore other than as a historical artifact.


The number of fallacies in this post is impressive.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Triplets said:


> Not a lot of Beethoven love in this thread. He will remain my favorite composer, although I don't listen as much as formerly due to over familiarity. That isn't Beethoven's fault


It is all Beethoven's fault! He should have composed more in the 1813 to 1818 period-- five more symphonies ten more piano sonatas, and a cello concerto. With those under his belt, Beethoven would never get old for us!

/sarc


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Triplets said:


> Yes it has. It has moved past Bach, past Palestrina, past Beethoven. Who gives a crap?


Also past Schoenberg, Cage and others who have been dead for decades. It's a non-argument because it is applicable to every artist, even many still alive and it is completely bizarre to exclude Shakespeare from everyone else. Maybe because the Bard would hardly recognize his works today with female actors and without clowns extemporizing bawdy jokes or the audience throwing orange peels...


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

It seems some here cannot tell the difference in these two ideas

Beethoven's music is no longer relevant to my listening because his style sounds obsolete to me.

AND

Beethoven is not a great composer.

So, all you Beethoven lovers can get off your high horse and just move on. Nothing to see here. Just me answering the question of the thread.


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## christomacin (Oct 21, 2017)

EdwardBast said:


> Turning from the personal to the technical: Beethoven was the first composer to comprehensively exploit the metaphorical exemplification of quasi-narrative patterns as a means of organizing large-scale instrumental structures.


Beethoven's Ghost: "Oh, so _*that's *_what I was doing! I had to be doing that. What else could I have been doing. Just one question, chief: what was I doing again?"


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Kreisler jr said:


> Also past Schoenberg, Cage and others who have been dead for decades. It's a non-argument because it is applicable to every artist, even many still alive and it is completely bizarre to exclude Shakespeare from everyone else. Maybe because the Bard would hardly recognize his works today with female actors and without clowns extemporizing bawdy jokes or the audience throwing orange peels...


I used Shakespeare as an example of all text based works which have explicit meaning and narrative, and in the case of Shakespeare touches on major issues of the human condition in an easily understood manner. Whereas instrumental music is abstract and ephemeral with no explicit meaning or narrative both of which are speculative, if discernible at all.

And I would argue that the music of Schoenberg and Cage are closer to our era, and their music still exerts influence on composers working in the Classical music genre. No one writes serious Classical music in the style of Beethoven, however, many composers use chance operations, atonalism, and other aspects that Schoenberg and Cage developed.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Brahmsianhorn said:


> I was directly responding to a fellow poster.
> 
> But you're right. It's a minority opinion. Better to let sleeping dogs lie.


No matter how great a composer is there are always a few sourpusses out there.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

SanAntone said:


> I don't see Beethoven comparable to say, Shakespeare, whose works continually to be relevant. Music is too ephemeral, too abstract, for it to have anything other than stylistic meaning. And the Classical/Early Romantic period style is very old sounding, and not relevant anymore other than as a historical artifact.





SanAntone said:


> And I would argue that the music of Schoenberg and Cage are closer to our era, and their music still exerts influence on composers working in the Classical music genre. No one writes serious Classical music in the style of Beethoven, however, many composers use chance operations, atonalism, and other aspects that Schoenberg and Cage developed.


But Beethoven too exerts influence on composers nowadays. Yoshimatsu, for example, who wrote the _Memo Flora_ concerto, cited Beethoven as an influence, and quoted the composer of Bonn in his fifth and sixth symphonies. Two years ago, almost two hundred contemporary classical music composers were polled about who they thought the greatest composers were and the results gave us Bach, Mozart and Beethoven in the top four overall positions (together with Stravinsky), not Cage or Schoenberg, who didn't manage to be even among the top ten (see the complete resulting list *here*).

Beethoven, and Mozart, and Bach, and other famous composers of past eras, are also influential in the classical music business as a whole, because it's they who "pay the bills": the majority of the CM audiences wants to hear them, not the avant-garde composers of nowadays, and won't go to the concert halls unless _their_ music are played. Polls such as *this one*, with thousand of voters, usually still place Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, and not Cage and Schoenberg, as the best/top/favorite/etc. classical music composers.

So, Beethoven is still relevant. Very relevant.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

In the sense that his symphonies were the first really serious large scale pieces I listened to - he means a lot. The pastoral was really my gateway into the world of classical music. A walkman and one overplayed DG cassette. I suppose Beethoven's Pastoral, led me to fertile ground - so that when Mozart's musical seeds landed - they germinated and flourished in a way they probably would not have done otherwise. I feel this is true particularly as I had seen Amadeus in 1984 and been unmoved. I started on Beethoven in 1986 and the Mozart garden started to grow in 1987.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Beethoven means to me both the most versatile and most profound major composer ever to have walked this earth.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Brahmsianhorn said:


> The greatest composer that ever lived, both in terms of his output and his influence. He followed in the footsteps of Bach and Mozart. No one followed in the footsteps of Beethoven.


Yes, Beethoven is the greatest in many aspects. He was somehow influenced in his youth to further the development of the effectiveness of the music he had inherited. He worked very hard and very long under trying conditions. He thought that he was ahead of everybody else and so he could lead future composers and future audiences to what was possible. His piano sonatas and symphonies and string quartets give us this impressive development. If you listen, or better yet analyze, all those works in order you will painlessly gain an education in music. You either don't care about that - having been exposed to this concept, or more happily, it's still all waiting for you to purview, I think, for the rest of your life.

You can do this with Mozart's and Schubert's chronological works through to their late works, but with LvB it's more obvious when you're beginning this approach. But compared to Beethoven, M and S died too soon.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> Turning from the personal to the technical: Beethoven was the first composer to comprehensively exploit the metaphorical exemplification of quasi-narrative patterns as a means of organizing large-scale instrumental structures.


Yes, I suspect he got the notion from the symphonies of Mozart and Haydn, but pushed it and went beyond. It's so interesting to see how he did it with his notes and harmonies.


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

Can we address the elephant in the room?

1) Beethoven is completely alien to modern composition.

2) Beethoven is infinitely more heard and beloved today than all the modern composers put together.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Brahmsianhorn said:


> Can we address the elephant in the room?
> 
> 1) Beethoven is completely alien to modern composition.


"Beethoven" is not alien to modern composition since the skills of thematic development and large forms are not alien. My point was that whatever influence Beethoven might have on contemporary composers it is not stylistic but craft oriented.



> 2) Beethoven is infinitely more heard and beloved today than all the modern composers put together.


This is irrelevant. Beethoven is no longer heard and was never beloved by me, and probably also others whose interest does not include music from the 18th century. The fact that we are in the minority is of no concern.

And that's two elephants.


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## Guest (Jan 8, 2022)

Luchesi said:


> Yes, Beethoven is the greatest in many aspects. He was somehow influenced in his youth to further the development of the effectiveness of the music he had inherited. He worked very hard and very long under trying conditions. He thought that he was ahead of everybody else and so he could lead future composers and future audiences to what was possible. His piano sonatas and symphonies and string quartets give us this impressive development. If you listen, or better yet analyze, all those works in order you will painlessly gain an education in music. You either don't care about that - having been exposed to this concept, or more happily, it's still all waiting for you to purview, I think, for the rest of your life.
> 
> You can do this with Mozart's and Schubert's chronological works through to their late works, but with LvB it's more obvious when you're beginning this approach. But compared to Beethoven, M and S died too soon.


Compared to anybody Mozart and Schubert died much too soon!!


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## Tarneem (Jan 3, 2022)

Brahmsianhorn said:


> Can we address the elephant in the room?
> 
> 1) Beethoven is completely alien to modern composition.


may you kindly explain what you mean??? I didn't get it


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## Tarneem (Jan 3, 2022)

Mandryka said:


>


Thank you very much for introducing this performance for us. it's the best I have ever heard


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

1. I think he was a genius, and I don't use that word lightly. 

2. A core part of the classical canon (and beyond that an icon who for many represents classical as a whole).

3. Not only a musical figure but, especially through time, a political one - whether it was him evading the censors, or the appropriation of his music for many causes, good or bad, since.

As with many listeners, Beethoven's pieces where among the first I heard when getting to know classical music. Now, I'm less into the symphonies and more into his chamber music. Some have said that Op. 132 is the greatest string quartet of all time. Whatever the case, its probably his piece I listen to most often, along with the Archduke trio. I also like the concertos, and the lighter side of Beethoven (e.g. Septet and Triple Concerto). I like the Hammerklavier, too.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

When we use the word genius or talent we set up a needless separation in peoples' minds. We know what we mean, but neither word is a good term. It's all 'just' exposure and hard work and oodles of time and favorable conditions during the early years.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Luchesi said:


> When we use the word genius or talent we set up a needless separation in peoples' minds. We know what we mean, but neither word is a good term. It's all 'just' exposure and hard work and oodles of time and favorable conditions during the early years.


I find this an odd point (no offense). In the nature-vs-nurture debate, musical aptitude (along with mathematical, athletic, engineering problem solving, etc.) is very much built in -- even though they need to be developed through education and experience. With identical education and lives being equal, Ferdinand Ries could not have produced works equivalent to Beethoven's. No two people share the same temperament or creative abilities. (When Ries asked Beethoven why he made a particular chord progression change in a work-in-progress, Beethoven simply said "It's better.")


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

MarkW said:


> I find this an odd point (no offense). In the nature-vs-nurture debate, musical aptitude (along with mathematical, athletic, engineering problem solving, etc.) is very much built in -- even though they need to be developed through education and experience. With identical education and lives being equal, Ferdinand Ries could not have produced works equivalent to Beethoven's. No two people share the same temperament or creative abilities. (When Ries asked Beethoven why he made a particular chord progression change in a work-in-progress, Beethoven simply said "It's better.")


Thanks. I would think that we could test this, by finding someone who started to 'talently' (very impressively) play/compose in their mid20s. Or someone who is considered a 'genius' in any field having started in their mid20s. The brain is said to fully mature by 21 or 22.
I've heard of that pianist who started an impressive career in his mid20s, but that's the only example that comes to mind. He played while young but quit working at it for 15 years.


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## Michael122 (Sep 16, 2021)

Beethoven is my reason for becoming interested in Classical Music and playing the piano.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Xisten267 said:


> But Beethoven too exerts influence on composers nowadays. Yoshimatsu, for example, who wrote the _Memo Flora_ concerto, cited Beethoven as an influence, and quoted the composer of Bonn in his fifth and sixth symphonies. Two years ago, almost two hundred contemporary classical music composers were polled about who they thought the greatest composers were and the results gave us Bach, Mozart and Beethoven in the top four overall positions (together with Stravinsky), not Cage or Schoenberg, who didn't manage to be even among the top ten (see the complete resulting list *here*).
> 
> Beethoven, and Mozart, and Bach, and other famous composers of past eras, are also influential in the classical music business as a whole, because it's they who "pay the bills": the majority of the CM audiences wants to hear them, not the avant-garde composers of nowadays, and won't go to the concert halls unless _their_ music are played. Polls such as *this one*, with thousand of voters, usually still place Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, and not Cage and Schoenberg, as the best/top/favorite/etc. classical music composers.
> 
> So, Beethoven is still relevant. Very relevant.


Beethoven and the Beatles are still relevant because they composed very good examples to study, all coming from what they had to start with. Clever and amazing and artistic! So interesting!


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## Guest (Jan 11, 2022)

Sid James said:


> 1. I think he was a genius, and I don't use that word lightly.
> 
> 2. A core part of the classical canon (and beyond that an icon who for many represents classical as a whole).
> 
> ...


This Trio - particularly the third movement - is to die for!! This is what Beethoven is essentially about, I feel:


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Luchesi said:


> Yes, I suspect he got the notion from the symphonies of Mozart and Haydn, but pushed it and went beyond. It's so interesting to see how he did it with his notes and harmonies.


He did it primarily through thematic processes. I suspect his models at the level of themes (period, double period) were more CPE Bach than either Haydn or Mozart, and at higher structural levels, more Haydn than Mozart.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> He did it primarily through thematic processes. I suspect his models at the level of themes (period, double period) were more CPE Bach than either Haydn or Mozart, and at higher structural levels, more Haydn than Mozart.


Yes, and CPE Bach's keyboard scores always look odd to me. He was conceptualizing in his own world, I guess.

I try to keep in mind that Beethoven's mature works were 20 years or more after the mature works of Mozart and Haydn. Generally speaking, Wagner's mature works are likewise removed from Chopin's.


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## agustis (Feb 3, 2021)

My second favorite after Bach. Beethoven is actually what really truly pulled me into classical music.

One of my many, many favorites.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

ORigel said:


> The deaf dude who composed Fur Elise, Rage Over A Lost Penny, and da-da-da-daaa
> 
> /sarc
> 
> ...


How do you get do get so much praise in on line, great. Excellent.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

EdwardBast said:


> Turning from the personal to the technical: Beethoven was the first composer to comprehensively exploit the metaphorical exemplification of quasi-narrative patterns as a means of organizing large-scale instrumental structures.


I have no idea what this means but it sure sounds good so i gave it a like.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Phil loves classical said:


> To me, Beethoven is just some great creative force, even though there is great emotion to be found in his music. Tchaikovsky likened him to God, and Mozart to Christ.


Tchaikovsky likened Mozart to Christ or Mozart likened Beethoven to Christ?


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## Terrapin (Apr 15, 2011)

He's the greatest because he's unsurpassed in my favorite genres, symphonies and string quartets. And there are the great concertos, piano trios, and the violin, cello and piano sonatas. A revolutionary genius.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

SixFootScowl said:


> I have no idea what this means but it sure sounds good so i gave it a like.


I think he is referring to the instrumental music, i.e. some of the symphonies, being "programmatic". Whereas previously to tell a story, music was set to a text or told through opera/oratorio, but Beethoven told "narratives" through abstract forms that were without the use of text (purely instrumental) and with large structures (sonata forms, symphonies).


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

SixFootScowl said:


> Tchaikovsky likened Mozart to Christ or Mozart likened Beethoven to Christ?


Tchaikovsky likened Mozart to Christ. The genius of Salzburg was his favorite composer.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Torkelburger said:


> I think he is referring to the instrumental music, i.e. some of the symphonies, being "programmatic". Whereas previously to tell a story, music was set to a text or told through opera/oratorio, but Beethoven told "narratives" through abstract forms that were without the use of text (purely instrumental) and with large structures (sonata forms, symphonies).


I've thought about his post some more and I'm still debating as to whether or not I agree. I don't think I do, though Beethoven certainly developed this cause further than anyone before him.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

SixFootScowl said:


> Tchaikovsky likened Mozart to Christ or Mozart likened Beethoven to Christ?


Tchaikovsky likened Mozart to Christ and Tchaikovsky likened Beethoven to God the Father, meaning that he was comfortable with and loved Mozart but found Beethoven scary and less approachable.



SixFootScowl said:


> I have no idea what this means but it sure sounds good so i gave it a like.


It means that Beethoven was the first to systematically deploy the themes of his instrumental cycles in plot-like patterns such that their musical coherence can't be disentangled from their expressive sense


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Torkelburger said:


> I think he is referring to the instrumental music, i.e. some of the symphonies, being "programmatic". Whereas previously to tell a story, music was set to a text or told through opera/oratorio, but Beethoven told "narratives" through abstract forms that were without the use of text (purely instrumental) and with large structures (sonata forms, symphonies).


Yes, except that they don't tell specific stories. They have the shape of narratives and something like their coherence without having concrete extramusical meaning. For example, in the first movement of the Appassionata, the "Fate motive," Db-Db-Db-C, is always a disruptive force. After it first appears the immediate repetition of the opening idea is torn apart and disrupted by loud outbursts. And when the second theme is asserted in the development and coda, it is overwhelmed by the return of the Fate motive. So what we have are abstract dramatic roles. The principal theme is, by convention, the protagonist, the second theme is an unsustainable ideal, and the Fate motive is an antagonistic force that wreaks havoc on both. None of the ideas have a concrete extramusical meaning, but there is a narrative logic to how they interact and to how their long-term relationships develop.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

EdwardBast said:


> Yes, except that they don't tell specific stories. They have the shape of narratives and something like their coherence without having concrete extramusical meaning. For example, in the first movement of the Appassionata, the "Fate motive," Db-Db-Db-C, is always a disruptive force. After it first appears the immediate repetition of the opening idea is torn apart and disrupted by loud outbursts. And when the second theme is asserted in the development and coda, it is overwhelmed by the return of the Fate motive. So what we have are abstract dramatic roles. The principal theme is, by convention, the protagonist, the second theme is an unsustainable ideal, and the Fate motive is an antagonistic force that wreaks havoc on both. None of the ideas have a concrete extramusical meaning, but there is a narrative logic to how they interact and to how their long-term relationships develop.


This sounds pretty much like more Beethoven hype to me. As you say these ideas do not have 'concrete extramusical meaning', so what you are discussing has a significant degree of subjectivity. There is nothing really wrong with that, but why can we not project narratives onto earlier music as well? Do you think earlier music is just nice sounds stitched together and only Beethoven's music can be seen to express a kind of 'metaphorical narrative'?

I think Beethoven _was_ unique in how he contrasted thematic material, and probably how he unified it over larger structures, but it seems like this is being conflated with the concept of 'narrative logic', something that I feel is clearly present in earlier music. Beethoven _was_ unique in how he 'narrrated' yet so were Bach, Haydn and Mozart etc.

These 'narratives' likely related to composer's personalities, temperaments, philosophical ideas as well as ideas circulating in society at the time.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Beethoven's sense of vertical harmony leaves me underwhelmed, so his longer musical paragraphs, although groundbreaking in form, don't help in redeeming his music for me. They actually make it worse.

For me it is like listening to someone who is chatty but doesn't have anything that meaningful to say. Or someone that is telling me a boring story, but they try to spice it up by being over dramatic. 

I acknowledge his greatness, virtuosity and genius in form but that is how his music subjectively impacts me.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

It's not hype. 
It's certainly not an accident that hardly anyone of contemporaries or later generations projected (quasi)narratives into Bach, Haydn or Mozart. Another aspect is obviously that Beethoven went to untempered, even uncouth extremes in many ways, including emotional expression, compared to his predecessors which also strongly suggested extra-musical content (even if there wasn't any).

Whereas in the case of Beethoven commentators overdid it in the opposite direction, claiming poetic programmes, even specific parallels to famous dramas by Shakespeare or Goethe etc. for many of his pieces. Despite the almost complete lack of really programmatic Beethoven pieces, all the romantic "tone poets" claimed him as ancestor and inspiration. 
Sure, there were a lot of misunderstandings, maybe even wilful ones, to justify what one wanted to do anyway with a respected historic predecessor. But it's hard to deny that what Beethoven did was felt as new, unprecedented and often outrageous by the contemporaries, most certainly not just "more of the same".


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Kreisler jr said:


> It's certainly not an accident that hardly anyone of contemporaries or later generations projected (quasi)narratives into Bach, Haydn or Mozart.


I don't disagree what you say, but when it comes to topics like 'Handel vs Salieri', the views of someone like Berlioz [@] don't matter cause he was an "eccentric egomaniac", but somehow they only matter when it comes to 'Beethoven's predecessors vs Beethoven'? -just something for us to think about.
hammeredklavier: "Berlioz admired stuff like Salieri's Les Danaïdes 



 but called Handel "a tub of pork and beer". Les Danaïdes followed in the tradition of reform that Gluck had begun in the 1760s and that Salieri had emulated in his earlier opera Armida. Salieri's first French opera contained scenes of great solemnity and festivity, but overshadowing it all was darkness and revenge. The opera depicted politically motivated murder, filial duty and love in conflict, tyrannicide, and finally eternal damnation. The opera, with its dark overture, lavish choral writing, many ballet scenes, and electrifying finale depicting a glimpse of hellish torture, kept the opera on the stage in Paris for over forty years. A young Hector Berlioz recorded the deep impression this work made on him in his Mémoires."
Kreisler jr: "I find it kind of odd to even consider an excentric egomaniac like Berlioz who obviously wanted to make something really new and out-Beethoven Beethoven as arbiter of music that was mor than 50 or even 100 years old at his time. His comments are *useless* except for learning something about this particular excentric composer."
(from the thread <Classical or Baroque>)

[@]: "... Haydn and Mozart enjoyed playing with notes, but lacked poetic ideas. Their expressivity came to light only when it was aroused by words. This distinction between 'notes for notes' sake' and 'expressive' or 'poetic' music is essential for understanding Berlioz's way of thinking about music. The abstract combination of sounds, the purely 'musical' aspect of music, without forthright reference to feelings, events or images, leaves him indifferent. Thus most of the instrumental music of Mozart (and Haydn and Bach, for that matter) remains opaque to his eyes. Beethoven's instrumental works were perceived differently, because they had, at least in the Romantic conception, a 'poetic' content. ..." 
-<Mozartian Undercurrents in Berlioz: Appreciation, Resistance and Unconscious Appropriation> by Benjamin Perl https://www.academia.edu/7216838/Mo...tion_Resistance_and_Unconscious_Appropriation


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

tdc said:


> For me it is like listening to someone who is chatty but doesn't have anything that meaningful to say. Or someone that is telling me a boring story, but they try to spice it up by being over dramatic.


Beethoven's music speaks a lot to me, and I think that what he says is of utmost importance and meaning. He is never chatty: he is direct and tells us what he wants without using unnecessary material - there are no longueurs in his music. In Beethoven, every note counts, and I never cease to be amazed by the powerful sense of drama that many of his works arise, but I think that he's not over dramatic nor sentimental - he portrays in music what he feels. Intense and original expressive experiences concatenated by an impeccable sense of taste and structural unity: that's what I get from hearing the music of the genius of Bonn.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

tdc said:


> This sounds pretty much like more Beethoven hype to me. As you say these ideas do not have 'concrete extramusical meaning', so what you are discussing has a significant degree of subjectivity. There is nothing really wrong with that, *but why can we not project narratives onto earlier music as well? Do you think earlier music is just nice sounds stitched together and only Beethoven's music can be seen to express a kind of 'metaphorical narrative'?*
> 
> I think Beethoven _was_ unique in how he contrasted thematic material, and probably how he unified it over larger structures, but it seems like this is being conflated with the concept of 'narrative logic', something that I feel is clearly present in earlier music. Beethoven _was_ unique in how he 'narrrated' yet so were Bach, Haydn and Mozart etc.
> 
> These 'narratives' likely related to composer's personalities, temperaments, philosophical ideas as well as ideas circulating in society at the time.


It's not about projecting narratives. There are no actual narratives. It's using quasi-narrative designs as a means for structuring instrumental music, primarily through thematic processes.

Beethoven, as you are no doubt aware, demonstrated both an unprecedented concern with thematically unifying his sonata cycles (symphonies, sonatas, quartets, etc.) and expanding the formal designs of individual movements, especially his opening movements. To effectively do this required going beyond the formal devices of earlier music. The main organizing principle of High Classical music - Haydn, Mozart, and early (at least) Beethoven - was tonal/harmonic in nature. According to Charles Rosen and others, tonic-dominant polarity is the force underpinning the unity of movements in this style. But this force does not extend beyond the final cadences of individual movements and it loses its holding power in sprawling structures like the first movement of the Eroica. Beethoven's quest for the unity of expanded instrumental structures required new principles. He found them not in the tonal-harmonic domain, but in that of thematic processes. Beethoven did this so effectively that by the time theorists got around to codifying sonata form between 1826 and mid-century (Reicha, Marx, et alia), the "textbook" model that emerged was defined primarily as a thematic schema and only secondarily in tonal-harmonic terms.



tdc said:


> I think *Beethoven was unique in how he contrasted thematic material, and probably how he unified it over larger structures, but it seems like this is being conflated with the concept of 'narrative logic',* something that I feel is clearly present in earlier music. Beethoven _was_ unique in how he 'narrrated' yet so were Bach, Haydn and Mozart etc.


An enormous part of the literature of modern musical narrative theory, a large and active branch of the discipline for the last four or five decades, has been focused on the music of Beethoven and on explaining how he accomplished the unprecedented unity and expansion of form for which he is known. So it's not "conflating" musical narrative with "how [Beethoven] contrasted thematic material, and … how he unified it over larger structures" - quasi-narrative logic is the basis of the current state-of-the-art theoretical explanations for how Beethoven actually accomplished these ends!

Of course there were numerous isolated, ad hoc precursors to Beethoven's experiments with quasi-narrative formal logic. That's why I didn't say he was the first composer to do this, but rather the first to do it _systematically_.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

hammeredklavier said:


> -<Mozartian Undercurrents in Berlioz: Appreciation, Resistance and Unconscious Appropriation> by Benjamin Perl https://www.academia.edu/7216838/Mo...tion_Resistance_and_Unconscious_Appropriation


"When Mozart's name is mentioned in association with Beethoven, however, Berlioz no longer shrinks from differentiation of grade: clearly Beethoven is superior. Speaking of Mozart's 'Prague' Symphony (no.38, K.504), he grants it some merit, but remarks that 'it seems to us infinitely removed from Beethoven's sublimities'. Mozart is 'pleasant, gentle, graceful, witty', but Beethoven 'by his majestic stature ... arouses respect not without some element of terror'." .........
"But at times he does avow it most freely: 'There is something discouraging, even irritating about the unfailing beauty of this somewhat lengthy work, always so serene and full of self-assurance, obliging you to pay it constant homage from start to finish.' This utterance appears in a generally favourable criticism about a performance of Le Nozze di Figaro cited earlier in this article. So it is this so-called classical poise and tranquility, attributed to Mozart, that irritates him above all."


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

EdwardBast said:


> The main organizing principle of High Classical music - Haydn, Mozart, and early (at least) Beethoven - was tonal/harmonic in nature. .......... An enormous part of the literature of modern musical narrative theory, a large and active branch of the discipline for the last four or five decades, has been focused on the music of Beethoven ................... To effectively do this required going beyond the formal devices of earlier music. ....................


Actually, although I don't disagree with what you say, I'm a bit baffled every time you discuss this subject this way. I get all your argument that having coherence in form is important, and I'm not saying Beethoven wasn't great at writing his own kind of music. We can be pedantic all we want, but isn't Tdc still right in saying that _how it affects the listener_ is all subjective? If not, how can we say that Renaissance religious music with no real melody, rhythm, no tempo changes, no dynamics, no sense of contrast or narrative (I'm discussing this specifically because you and I once had an argument which era was a low/high point, and Tdc has asked in this thread "can we project narratives onto music before Beethoven as well?"), was not surpassed in expression by stuff like:

*Requiem in C Minor, MH 155 (1771)*
Requiem 1st theme & "trumpet signal": [ 0:20 ]
Requiem 2nd theme: [ 3:20 ~ 3:45 ]
Dies irae theme: [ 6:26 ~ 2:38 ]
Requiem '3rd theme': [ 7:00 ~ 7:12 ]
Lacrimosa theme: [ 11:41 ~ 11:48 ]
Dies irae theme recapitulated (within 'Dies irae' movement): [ 12:12 ~ 12:24 ]
Requiem '3rd theme' recapitulated (within 'Dies irae' movement) +
chromatic fourth theme (climbing from D to G in bass): [ 12:40 ~ 12:50 ]
Amen & Requiem '3rd theme' elaborated (coda of 'Dies irae' movement): [ 12:52 ~ 13:40 ]
Quam olim abrahae fugue: [ 16:06 ~ 17:18 ]
Quam olim abrahae fugue recapitulated (with added figures in strings): [ 18:52 ~ 20:02 ] 
Hosanna theme (Lacrimosa theme transformed/recapitulated): [ 24:23 ~ 24:30 ]
Requiem '4th theme' & "trumpet signal": [ 26:48 ; 27:56 ]
chromatic fourth theme recapitulated (climbing from G to C in soprano): [ 28:40 ~ 28:50 ]
Cum sanctis tuis fugue: [ 29:17 ~ 31:16 ]
Requiem 2nd theme recapitulated: [ 31:22 ~ 31:50 ]
Requiem 1st theme recapitulated: [ 31:58 ~ 32:30 ]
Cum sanctis tuis fugue recapitulated: [ 32:38 ~ 34:30 ]

Berlioz, on Palestrina: "It is quite possible that the musician who wrote these four-part psalms, in which there is neither melody nor rhythm, and in which the harmony is confined to perfect chords with a few suspensions, may have had some taste and a certain amount of scientific knowledge; but genius - the idea is too absurd! [...] The truth is that he could not write any other kind of music; and, far from pursuing any celestial ideal, his works contain a quantity of formulas adopted from the contrapuntists who preceded him, and of whom he is usually supposed to have been the inspired antagonist. If proof is wanted, look at his _Missa ad fugam_. How, then, do such works as these, clever though they may be as regards to their conquest of contrapuntal difficulties, contribute to the expression of religious feeling? How far are such specimens of the labor of a patient chord-manufacturer indicative of single-minded absorption in the true object of his work? In no way that I can see. The expressive accent of a musical work is not enhanced in any way by its being embodied in a perpetual canon."


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