Beethoven | Richibi's Weblog

February 13, 2018

String Quartet in B flat, Opus 55, no 3 – Haydn

“Queen Marie Antoinette of France“ (1783)

___________________

first of all, let me grievously repent an
egregious confusion I probably left
in my last diatribe, I said that the second
movement of the Opus 54, no 2 sounded
to me like a minuet, I had, through
embarrassing inattention, confused its,
however unmemorable, adagio with that
of this Opus 55, no 3, which I’d listened
to in too quick succession, driven as I
am by my thirst for epiphanies

the Opus 54, no 2 will do, but I’m not
going back for seconds, nor to the
Opus 55, no 3, though here’s where
I flaunt nevertheless Haydn, not to
mention Bach, Mozart, Beethoven,
all the way to eventually Bruckner,
Brahms, the extraordinary Richard
Wagner, passing through Schubert,
Mendelssohn, the Strausses, father
and son, and the unrelated Strauss,
Richard, another incontrovertible
giant, and I nearly left out the
unforgettable Liszt, all of them
forefathers of our present music

you might have noticed that these
are all Germanic names, obedient
to the Hapsburg empire, with
Vienna as its supreme cultural
capital, and it was that
Austro-Hungarian dynasty that
indeed nearly single-handedly
secured our Western musical
traditions

a few Italians are remembered,
from the 18th Century, Scarlatti
maybe, Boccherini, Albinoni,
but not many more

no one from France, but they were
about to have a revolution, not a
good time for creative types,
though, incidentally, Haydn was
getting Tost, to whom he was
dedicating his string quartets for
services rendered, to sell his stuff
in very Paris

then again, Marie Antoinette, I thought,
was Austrian, an even archduchess,
and would’ve loved some down-home
music at nearby Versailles

so there you are, there would’ve been
a market

the English had Handel, of course,
who was, albeit, German, getting
work where he could when you
consider his competition, he was
too solemn and plodding by half,
to my mind, for the more
effervescent, admittedly Italianate,
continentals, Italy having led the
way earlier with especially its
filigreed and unfettered operas

but here’s Haydn’s Opus 55, no 3
nevertheless, the best Europe had
to offer, socking it to them

Haydn’s having a hard time, I think,
moving from music for at court to
recital hall music, music for a much
less genteel clientele, however
socially aspiring, we still hear
minuets, and obeisances all over
the place, despite a desire to
nevertheless dazzle, impress

then again, I’m not the final word, as
my mea culpa above might express,
you’ll find what eventually turns
your own crank, floats your own
boat, as you listen

which, finally, is my greatest wish

R ! chard

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February 12, 2018

String Quartet no 42 in C major, Opus 54, no 2 – Haydn

“The Attributes of Music“ (1770)

Anne Vallayer-Coster

___________

meanwhile back at Haydn, some nearly
70 years after Bach’s Partita no 2,
Haydn’s been freed by his sponsor,
Prince Esterházy to sell his
compositions to the highest bidder,
and with the help of the Hungarian
second violinist at the Esterházy
court, finds buyers in Paris

the Opus 54 is therefore associated
with Johann Tost, as well as its
companion Opus 55, and indeed
Haydn’s later Opus 64 for string
quartet is decidedly dedicated to
him

Haydn has been released from not
only contractual obligations, it
seems apparent, in his new, more
experimental phase, but from the
constraints of, verily, courtly music,
this is not dinner music for a coterie
of aristocrats, but demands attention,
Haydn is pulling out his showstoppers,
musical eccentricities, to dazzle the
crowd, pauses in the first movement,
for instance, right off the top, for
drama, of course, and musical
tension

and the second movement sounds
a lot more like a minuet to me

later in the last movement, he
delivers a second, incongruous, I think,
adagio, unusual at this point, the
piece’s traditional cheery farewell,
interrupted by a presto, of all things,
right in the very centre of all that
solemnity, you tell me if that ultimately
works, I thought not, and it ends, on
top with of that, with a whimper

but it opens the way for tempi
prolonging the emotional impact of
the composition, six rhythms instead
of four throughout the work makes
the musical journey longer, more
probing, more episodic, more
narrative, eventually

wait till you hear what Beethoven
does with that

but meanwhile, Haydn doesn’t
disappoint, though you’ll have
heard better, I think, and will,
from him

R ! chard

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February 3, 2018

“The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross”, opus 51 – Joseph Haydn

“Crucified Christ“ (1780)

Francisco Goya

_______

Haydn’s Opus 51 was commissioned
for the Oratorio de la Santa Cueva, the
Holy Cave Oratory, in Cádiz, Spain, a
church, as the name suggests, built
partially underground, it would be
performed, the Opus 51, for the Good
Friday service of 1787, Haydn therefore
put his Opus 50 on hold, six string
quartets, to finish this ecclesiastical
work on time

what had been required was a work for
small orchestra to inform the Seven
Last Words of our Saviour on the
Cross, it would therefore have at least
segments, movements, and would be
divided by the elaboration of the
bishop upon the significance of these
individual “Words”, or, in fact,
statements, see this example

Haydn added an introduction, and a
finale in the form of an earthquake,
quite, I think, wittily and ever so
appropriately

nearly simultaneously, Haydn
composed the orchestral
arrangement for string quartet, and
later for orchestra and voice, for, in
other words, an oratorio

to my mind “The Seven Last Words
of Our Saviour on the Cross” is
Haydn’s crowning achievement, in
all of its iterations

you’ll note that there is even first of
all a title, and the title asks for
something quite specific, indeed
words, which the composer would
have to render musically, somehow,
he’d need drama, something of a
musical narrative, no minuets

all of the movements, apart from
the end ones, are variations on
slow – adagio, lento, largo, even
grave – and how do you keep an
audience, or in this case a
congregation, happy, or even
interested, with seven potentially
lugubrious adagios in a row, all
profoundly melancholy

only Shostakovich has managed
to do that since, which I’ll talk
about at some point later

Haydn also undoubtedly inspired
Beethoven here with the
consequences of so many
movements, the possibility of
extending a musical intention
into something resembling,
indeed, a book, a story, the
introduction of narrative,
essentially, into our musical
history, which is to say, music
as literature

the orchestral version of “The
Seven Last Words” is performed
here at the very Oratorio de la
Santa Cueva, the string quartet
version, played not only better
than I’ve ever heard it played
before, but better even than any
other quartet I’ve ever heard,
period, includes the commentaries
in German by an attendant prelate,
as intended in the original
composition

the movements’ “Seven Words” are
indicated in Latin, not, incidentally,
the language of “Our Saviour”, and
move from “Lord, why have you
forsaken me” to “If it is Your will,
then let it be done”

the last version presented here is
the oratorio, for orchestra and
voice

all of them, utterly inspiring

listen

R ! chard

(to be, incontrovertibly, continued,
this piece is too loaded with
substance, it is transformational)

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January 9, 2018

Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet in B♭ Major, Op. 34 – Carl Maria von Weber

Carl Maria von Weber

________

though I’d considered heading into
later string quartets, later clarinet
quintets actually, an intriguing, I
thought, divergence, it seemed a
better idea to return to the
Classical and early Romantic
Periods to find an anchor for our
formative musical idiom, again
rhythm, tonality, and recurrence

Carl Maria von Weber does an
intermediate Clarinet Quintet
between Mozart’s and Brahms’,
which is noteworthy for especially
its Classical roots than its
Romantic pretensions, I think,
Weber sounds nothing like
Beethoven, but is a nearly spitting
image of Mozart, which isn’t a bad
position at all to be in

listen for his courtliness, the staid,
though lively, musical interactions

you’ll note that the clarinet, though
to one side, takes preeminence in
this composition – it’s nearly even
a clarinet concerto – Weber called
it a Quintet for Clarinet and Strings,
a perhaps more apt appellation

appellations, incidentally, remain
the means by which we sharpen
our understanding, however
presumptuous might the term
sound, appellations, in other
words, count

though I could’ve used, I suppose,
nomenclature, or something

R ! chard

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January 7, 2018

Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115 – Johannes Brahms

“The Wanderer above a Sea of Fog“ /

“Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer“ (1818)

Caspar David Friedrich

___________

for Collin, who’ll appreciate
especially, I’m sure, the
Chopin

while I’m on the subject of clarinet quintets,
since there are so few significant ones, let
me pull Brahms’ out of my hat and celebrate
it, a worthy challenge to Mozart’s own utter
masterpiece

but over a century has gone by, it’s 1891,
Beethoven, the French Revolution, the
Romantic Era is reaching its end, ceding
to Impressionism, after the disruptions of
rampant industrialization, and its
consequent effects on the social contract

Marx has proposed a theoretical master
plan to equitably protect the rest of us
from the 1%, however too politically
fraught, eventually, such a system – see
Communism

furthermore, Darwin had suggested that
we weren’t all descended from Adam and
Eve, but from larvae, which is to say,
millennially morphed, modified, through
time, genetically, leading to festering still
ideological objections

Elizabeth Barrett Browning had written
her unadulterated love poems to her
husband, Robert, Caspar David
Friedrich had shown us his wanderer’s
back while facing the mountainous
challenges of the upcoming world,
godless now after Nietzsche, Anna
Karenina had thrown herself in front
of a train, Madame Bovary had taken
poison, and Ibsen‘s Nora had left her
husband for a fraught, if not even
dangerous, life on her own, to escape
his safe but insufferable dominance,
while Jane Eyre was finding ghosts
in her cobwebbed, and insufferable,
to my mind, though admittedly
aristocratic, attic

you’ll note the clarinet is not sitting
centre stage, but has nevertheless
a place at the table, by this time,
though not not honoured, familiar,
and is more integrated to the
conversation, the idea of democracy
has taken hold, with everyone having
an equal, and even a vociferous, say

Brahms modelled his Clarinet Quintet,
on Mozart’s, the Classical structure is
still the same, movements, tonality,
musical recurrence, all to wonderful
effect

that he would do that is not a given,
but a tribute to the power of that form,
take the waltz for instance, alive from
even before Strauss, not to mention
Chopin, to approximately the middle
of the Twentieth Century

think about it, who waltzes anymore,
though they might’ve enchanted still,
residually, the 50’s – see Patti Page,
for instance – its lustre having
dissipated, with the wind, as it were,
the gust, before us, of the unending
ages

R ! chard

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January 2, 2018

String Quartet no 1, Opus 18, no 1 – Beethoven

“Musician’s table“ (1914)

Juan Gris

_____

Beethoven’s First String Quartet came
out much around the same time as
Haydn’s Opus 76, no 1, among six of
them in his set, Beethoven also had
six in his, however junior still, first
collection, his Opus 18, Beethoven
would’ve been going on thirty, Haydn
nearly seventy, though his spirit hadn’t
in any manner flagged, listen

but their differences are evident if you
lend a thoughtful ear

the format is the same, four movements,
inarguably contrasting, with formal
adherence to Classical norms, tonality,
tempo, and return, but the style is, in
Beethoven, being overtaken by the
substance, again inarguably

at dinner together, if I may continue my
earlier allegorical conceit, by the second
movement, Beethoven has already
entered politics, essentially, religion,
these four, the players, have a bone to
pick, and their conversation gets heated,
there’s a pause, a reconciliation, before
the third movement, dessert, as it were,
which is merrier initially, but later
remains contentious, liqueurs later, in
the final movement, are still not enough
to allow for a comfortable exit, however
might’ve been the serenity of the
intoxicating sherries, cognacs

Haydn would never have done that,
having grown up in the proprieties
of the Esterházys, his aristocratic
sponsors, courtesy would’ve been
of their essence

Beethoven’s is a call to arms, a
consequence of the French
Revolution, the birth of the
Romantic Period

you can hear it in the music

R ! chard

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December 30, 2017

on string quartets – Opus 76, no 1 – Joseph Haydn

“Joseph Haydn“ (1791)

Thomas Hardy

______

to not consider other musical forms of
Shostakovich would be unfair, his
symphonies are mostly propaganda,
however often, though somewhat
culturally specific, riveting

my favourite works of his, works I
consider iconic, are mostly chamber
pieces, piano solos, string quartets

a string quartet, after a symphony, is
like sitting down to dinner with four,
at the very least, acquaintances,
rather than being a guest at a party,
the conversation is more intimate,
every person plays hir part, everyone
is heeded, if even only with courtesy,
a social, a Classical, an aristocratic,
prerequisite

movements can be compared to
courses, distinct and identifiable for
their particular culinary, musical,
propriety

later variations on this reflect the
variations in social mores, where
restaurants, the modern way of
socializing, allow for disparate
choices, often superimposed,
throughout the meal for any,
every, occasion

dim sum, tapas, celebrate this, not
unhappily

but string quartets can be tricky, I
thought I’d start from the beginning,
with some Haydn, their recognized
Father, you’ll understand when you
hear this, his Opus 76, no 1, an
outstanding string quartet to live
up to

Haydn set the standard for string
quartets when the norms of Western
music were being established, Bach
had given us the alphabet, the
well-tempered clavier, Mozart, the
grammar, the structure of music,
tempo, tonality, repetition, Beethoven
gave us the literature, the poetry, the
philosophical, the transcendent

Haydn is somewhere between these
last two, but decidedly, still, the king
of the string quartet, though Beethoven
does a good job of trying to best him,
and so does Shostakovich, you’ll have
to pick

but first, let’s start with Haydn, that’ll
be already, you’ll see, or hear, enough

later, I’ll get into it

R ! chard

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December 14, 2017

Symphony no 12 in D minor, opus 112 (The Year of 1917) – Dmitri Shostakovich

“Assault on the Kremlin in 1917“ (1951)

Konstantin Yuon

__________

the Twelfth Symphony of Shostakovich,
“The Year of 1917”, is a lot more of the
Eleventh, “The Year 1905”, both
commissioned, both celebrating
significant events of the Russian
Revolution, both therefore steeped in
references that now elude many who
aren’t Russian, and certainly those who
generations elsewhere later never lived
through these particularly local events

but the Twelfth is shorter by nearly
half, thankfully, I also found it to be
unconvincing, plastic, formulaic,
neither original, nor enthusiastic,
tedious and uninspired, musically
speaking, of course

or maybe I’m just getting cranky

also a music honouring a system that
is now defunct, debunked, discredited,
couldn’t long survive but historically
among the works of an otherwise
extraordinary composer, think of
Confederate monuments still standing
in the Southern United States, or of
those of oppressors of First Nations,
for instance, in our very own Canada,
though these might’ve been
sculpted by even Michelangelos,
an irresolvable cultural confusion,
predicament

the works are programmatic, both
have titles to indicate a particular
referent, and should be evocative
of, therefore, those situations,
music, in other words, for the
movies, but in these instances,
without the movie, I’ve talked
about that before

all the movements also have titles,
apart from the time signatures,
adagio, presto, allegro, the like,
the Eleventh, “The Palace Square”,
“The 9th of January”, “Eternal
Memory”, and “Tocsin”, a warning
bell

the Twelfth, “Revolutionary Petrograd”,
“Razliv”, “Aurora”, and “The Dawn of
Humanity”

I couldn’t help but refer to Beethoven’s
Sixth Symphony, the “Pastoral”, to
compare identical musical intentions,
his five movements are “Awakening of
cheerful feelings upon arrival in the
countryside“, “Scene by the brook“,
“Merry gathering of country folk“,
“Thunder, Storm“, and “Shepherd’s
song; cheerful and thankful feelings
after the storm“

compare the use of the flute, the
oboe, the bassoon, Beethoven isn’t
using any obbligatos yet, solos for
particular instruments, but you still
get the feeling of country folk
dancing, spring taking hold

let me point out that you’ll have to be
patient with the link to the Sixth
Symphony, it’s Japanese, I think, and
will require you to push the arrow in
the middle of the screen, then wait
out a few movie ads, which’ll nearly
confound you, but then you’ll get the
best ever Sixth Symphony I’ve ever
heard, Herbert von Karajan at the
helm of the Berliner Philharmoniker,
proving why he is still Zeus among
conductors

and his thumbs, goodness, anyone
with thumbs like that is bound to
change history

R ! chard

psst: incidentally, Yevgeny Mravinsky
was the conductor, equally
illustrious, who premiered
Shostakovich’s Twelfth in 1961,
the same conductor as in the
presentation here

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December 7, 2017

Symphony no 10 in E minor, op 93 – Dmitri Shostakovich

“Self Portrait with Stalin“ (1954)

Frida Kahlo

______

Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony was a
success from the moment I heard it,
it resolved issues for me I found
difficult in his earlier showpieces, for
that’s what symphonies are, indeed
blockbusters

from the very beginning, Shostakovich
gives a musical theme, a few notes
played by a solo oboe, an obbligato,
that is then repeated with variations by
other instruments, if not by the entire
orchestra, this is an old trick of
Beethoven

later movements do the same thing
with flute, piccolo, or bassoon
obbligati, a particular device of
Shostakovich to indicate a lone,
individual voice amidst the clamour
of military brass and proletarian
violins

but the tactic of repeating a theme,
like rhyming in poetry, gives one a
sense of position, which is lost if
there’s no reiteration, no reference
point, it’s like wandering off into a
forest instead of into a park you
could safely be enjoying, that had
trails at least to let you know you
weren’t far from civilization,
signposts pointing out directions,
whereas a forest could be a tundra,
vast for miles, one could walk for
days without being found, that’s
the role of repetition, rhyme, a
refrain, in music, getting one’s
bearings

and incidentally, one could be
walking around in circles in that
forest and atonality wouldn’t be
any help at all

the Tenth has, however, all the
guideposts throughout, one can
tell where the music ‘s going at
each and every movement, it was
like finding my way home, the, long
even at nearly an hour, soundscape
whipped by leaving me breathless,
awestruck, Shostakovich has hit
here, I thought, my big time, it took
him long enough

it was first performed just after the
death of Stalin, March, 1953, was
thus probably composed somewhat
earlier, belying the supposition that
Stalin‘s demise had affected the
spirit of his composition, which is
uncharacteristically cheery for him,
to my mind, seems to have unleashed
in him the dogs not of war and
disillusion, but of fun, something that
was happening to the entire 20th
Century, for that matter, especially
after the Second World War, even, it
appears, however grimly, in Russia,
oops, in the U.S.S.R

an aside – Mrs Premise had said of
Jean-Paul Sartre, the expositor of
Existentialism in the Twentieth Century,
implications of which he related to us,
of living in a world without God, in his
magnum opus, “Being and Nothingness“,
to her Monty Python counterpart, Mrs
Conclusion, in a hilarious skit of theirs,
that Sartre wasn’t receiving that day, he
was, according to his housekeeper,
especially moody

is he free, asks Mrs Premise, he’s been
investigating that one for years, the
woman at the door replies, the kind of
joke – in musical terminology, a scherzo –
I utterly cherish, witty, pithy, trenchant,
if you’ll pardon my giddy digression

but I sense a Russian counterpart in the
dour Shostakovich

it should be noted here, that the
orchestra in the link I provide, is
the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra
of Venezuela, a country with its
own political history of oppression,
under the direction of the deservedly
celebrated conductor, Gustavo
Dudamel, himself a Venezuelan

the struggle doesn’t stop, the oracular
hits must keep on coming, go, Gustavo
Dudamel, go, Simon Bolivar Youth
Orchestra, go, Shostakovich

R ! chard

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November 30, 2017

Shostakovich – intermission

“Five Angels Playing Musical Instruments“ (c.1487 – 1490)

Hans Memling

__________

the “Quartet for the End of Time“ by
Messiaen, which I lauded in my last
transmission, is perhaps a wonderful
place to take a break, an intermission,
from the central Shostakovich, mighty
and imperial as he is, perhaps even
overbearing, compared to the more
introspective meanderings of Messiaen,
bird calls, philosophical, if more organic
explorations, a radically different musical
reaction to the tyrannical tribulations of
Shostakovich, but not in the least less
viable, convincing, you can decide

Beethoven’s 14th String Quartet in
C# minor, here, seems an apposite
musical counterpart also, a model
for the tortured movements, implicit
in either other incendiary work

note how the several movements in
either quartet hold together neatly, like
a bespoke suit, made to order, you can
follow the line of the cut in all of its
detail, and the suit fits everywhere like,
well, a glove

there are too many extra, unnecessary
ruffles, flounces, frills, excess material
to distract from the essential garment
up until now, to my mind, in Shostakovich,
one gets lost in the kerfuffle, one drifts
away, all except for his Fifth Symphony

neither do the ebb and flow of the
movements, from largo to prestissimo
and throughout the tempo ledger, lead
to distinct, personal, statements from
the individual parts in Shostakovich,
as they do in Messiaen, Beethoven,
when they slip from one chapter to
the next

Shostakovich seems to return to, rely
on, the same, however magisterial
technique – the guy ‘s an obvious
symphonist, an orchestrator of
instruments of the very highest order
– but with the same melodic matter,
variations on a single complaint, too
often reiterated to maintain rapt
attention from start to finish, one
wanders

it might be noted that comparing
string quartets and symphonies is
like comparing apples and oranges

but listen to any Beethoven symphony
for an array of unforgettable musical
airs, dances, dirges, marches, lyrical
romps through Elysian fields, you’re
transfixed through to the very end,
always, everywhere

nevertheless there is indeed the
splendid, and thoroughly
successful Shostakovich Fifth

and alone, the first movement of his
Seventh, which I’m still singing in
the streets

to eternally validate Shostakovich as
the greatest composer of the Twentieth
Century, along with Messiaen

R ! chard

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Category: Beethoven

February 13, 2018

String Quartet in B flat, Opus 55, no 3 – Haydn

February 12, 2018

String Quartet no 42 in C major, Opus 54, no 2 – Haydn

February 3, 2018

“The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross”, opus 51 – Joseph Haydn

January 9, 2018

Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet in B♭ Major, Op. 34 – Carl Maria von Weber

January 7, 2018

Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115 – Johannes Brahms

January 2, 2018

String Quartet no 1, Opus 18, no 1 – Beethoven

December 30, 2017

on string quartets – Opus 76, no 1 – Joseph Haydn

December 14, 2017

Symphony no 12 in D minor, opus 112 (The Year of 1917) – Dmitri Shostakovich

December 7, 2017

Symphony no 10 in E minor, op 93 – Dmitri Shostakovich

November 30, 2017

Shostakovich – intermission