The Beethoven Sonatas and the Creative Experience

Kenneth O. Drake

Description

A revealing exploration of all 32 sonatas.

" . . . one of the most interesting, useful and even exciting books on the process of musical creation." —American Music Teacher

" . . . noteworthy contribution . . . with plenty of insight into interpretation . . . remarkable as an insider's account of the works in an individual perspective." —European Music Teacher

Drake groups the Beethoven piano sonatas according to their musical qualities, rather than their chronology. He explores the interpretive implications of rhythm, dynamics, slurs, harmonic effects, and melodic development and identifies specific measures where Beethoven skillfully employs these compositional devices.

Preface

1. The First Raptus, and All Subsequent Ones

*The Sounds of Involvement

2. Technique as Touch
3. Tempo and the Pacing of Musical Ideas
4. Dynamic Nuance and Musical Line
5. The Role of Silence
6. Sound as Color

*The Sonatas

7. Descriptive Music: Op.81a, Op.13
8. Motivic Development: Op.2 No.1, Op.57, Op.110
9. Quasi una Fantasia: Op.27 Nos.1 and 2, Op.26
10. Line and Space: Op. 2 No.2, Op 101
11. Movement as Energized Color: Op.53
12. The Moment of Creation: Op.28, Op.31 Nos.2 and 3
13. Facing Two Directions: Op.49 Nos.1 and 2, Op.54, Op. 78, Op. 90
14. The Enjoyment of Fluency: Op.10 Nos.2 and 3, Op. 14 No. 2, Op.22, Op.31 No.1, Op.79
15. The Cosmopolitan Impostor: Op.2 No.3, Op.14 No.1
16. Embracing the Dachstein: Op. 7, Op. 106
17. A Higher Revelation: Op.10 No.1, Op.109, Op.111
18. The Witness Tree

*Notes

Sujets

• Musical Instruments
• MUSIC
• Musical instrument
• Multiple signal classification
• Keyboard instrument
• Keyboard
• Piano

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 22 avril 1994
• Nombre de lectures: 4
• EAN13: 9780253011534
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

The Beethoven Sonatas
and the
Creative Experience
The Beethoven Sonatas
and the
Creative Experience

Kenneth Drake
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
BLOOMINGTON & INDIANAPOLIS
This book is a publication of

Indiana University Press
601 North Morton Street
Bloomington, IN 47404-3797 USA
http://www.indiana.edu/~iupress

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1994 by Kenneth Drake
Index 2000 by Kenneth Drake
First reprinted in paperback in 2000

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Drake, Kenneth, pianist.
The Beethoven sonatas and the creative experience / Kenneth Drake. p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-253-31822-X (cloth)
1. Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827. Sonatas, piano. 2. Sonatas (Piano)-Analysis, appreciation. I. Title.
MT145.B42D7 1994
786.2 183 092-dc20 93-27719
ISBN 0-253-21382-7 (paper)
2 3 4 5 6 05 04 03 02 01 00
To Eskil Randolph,
the indispensable teacher of my youth,
who knew the language of music
and taught it in so unassuming a manner.
C ONTENTS
PREFACE
I The First Raptus, and All Subsequent Ones
The Sounds of Involvement
II Technique as Touch
III Tempo and the Pacing of Musical Ideas
IV Dynamic Nuance and Musical Line
V The Role of Silence
VI Sound as Color
The Sonatas
VII Descriptive Music: Op. 81a, Op. 13
VIII Motivic Development: Op. 2 No. 1, Op. 57, Op. 110
IX Quasi una Fantasia: Op. 27 Nos. 1 and 2, Op. 26
X Line and Space: Op. 2 No. 2, Op. 101
XI Movement as Energized Color: Op. 53
XII The Moment of Creation: Op. 28, Op. 31 Nos. 2 and 3
XIII Facing Two Directions: Op. 49 Nos. 1 and 2, Op. 54, Op. 78, Op. 90
XIV The Enjoyment of Fluency: Op. 10 Nos. 2 and 3, No. 2, Op. 22, Op. 31 No. 1, Op. 79Op. 14
XV The Cosmopolitan Impostor: Op. 2 No. 3, Op. 14 No. 1
XVI Embracing the Dachstein: Op. 7, Op. 106
XVII A Higher Revelation: Op. 10 No. 1, Op. 109, Op. 111
XVIII The Witness Tree
NOTES
INDEX
Preface
It was an afternoon when Stanley Fletcher felt the need for a break before continuing teaching. We were joined by Alexander Ringer, and the conversation turned to the study of applied music. The trouble with you people, he inveighed, is that you teach skills but not what makes the music tick. No doubt Mr. Fletcher agreed in the privacy of his mind.
The desire to become a pianist is sustained by dreams, typically of study with a famous teacher, winning a competition, and playing concerts. Motivation feeds on examples of legendary performers who play throughout the world to critical acclaim -public relations phrases that never wear out however often they are run through the presses. For this, there is a science of performance to be learned in order that technique and musicianship can be reliably displayed. How else can one hope to reach the final round of the competition, or pass the DMA recital, or even one s recital approval audition? As a consequence, the loftiest model to which one is obliged to aspire becomes the flawless performance on the CD.
The years pass, and the anticipated rewards for years of study may not materialize, leaving a choice between believing in a mirage or believing that life, as Jos Ech niz reminded his students, is always more important than playing the piano. Stated another way, it is life-not the competition prize or the academic degree or rank-that lends significance to the act of making music. Whether a recital in Alice Tully Hall or an afternoon teaching privately in small-town America, the personal fulfillment of giving it away to however few or many-this love of the language of music-constitutes the real fabric of culture, and culture, we often forget, is not restricted to a geographical location but is taken by the mind wherever it goes. As I think back on those years of study with Mr. Ech niz, his attitude toward the profession permeates the basic premise of this writing, that each of us is gifted enough and capable of being the medium for the composer s thought.
Understanding the language of music is the skill for which all the musician s other skills must be cultivated. Growing older, to quote Schumann, one should converse more frequently with scores than with virtuosi. The language of a Beethoven sonata is as precise as a legal document; it should not be played without discerning its uniqueness any more than a contract should be signed without understanding every clause. To that end, the player s tools are intuition, intelligence, and reflexes that respond to shapes in the score like fingertips reading braille-all coordinated by imagination. Imagination is like an unruly student with unbounded potential, brilliant but easily bored and irregular in class attendance. Once aroused, however, it becomes a tireless detective scrutinizing the score for the clue to what makes the piece tick.
The standards of a degree program, however beneficial the intent, all too often compel conformity instead of fostering independent thought, whether or not the conclusion reached is one the teacher deems correct. Buckminster Fuller addressed the danger in becoming educated, saying that learning is not done with an injection or a pump but by working alongside a loving pioneer while he is still pioneering. Just such a pioneer, Charles Kettering, the inventor of the self-starter and the spray-lacquer finish process in the early days of the automobile, once remarked that he preferred not to work with university-trained assistants; intent upon pursuing an expected result, they frequently failed to notice the unusual along the way. The inventor, he said, may fail hundreds of times before making an important discovery, while, in our educational system, failure normally relegates one to the bottom of the heap. Like the inventor, an interpreter, instead of accepting dictated answers, deals with questions about the inner working of a piece of music, questions that probe far deeper than whether the tone is singing, the runs are clean, and the style is correct.
The present work is not an exercise in musicology or performance practice, nor does it offer measure-by-measure analysis. Instead, it is a work about meaning-a personal account of studying, teaching, and playing the Beethoven sonatas, the significance they assume in the innermost self, and, especially, the musical basis for their significance. The immediate purpose is to isolate ideas within the score and to perceive meaning in them and derive meaning from them. Meaning, the personal identification with musical symbols and relationships, is as difficult to measure as the moving air is to see. Nevertheless, like breathing, sensing meaning is divining the spirit within the music, in order to receive it into one s consciousness and be performed by it. Who has not been admonished at some point by a teacher, Don t become so involved ? To be performed by the music is to become passionately involved with the relationship between musical symbols and human reasoning, impulses, and emotions-motivated by inner necessity (to borrow a phrase from Martin Cooper).
In dealing with meaning and the language of music in any period, one should not be deterred by the fact that interpretive choices are always, to a certain extent, subjective. Although determinations of this nature in the pages that follow have been shaped by weighing the evidence, one s understanding has no sooner been formulated in the written word than it is already incomplete. At best, the discussions that are presented may be regarded as a starting point for the reader s further reflection and formation of independent judgments.
Examples that occur within a quoted passage are not given measure numbers. Also, the numbering of measures, which follows the Henle edition, begins with the first pitches and ends with the last pitches, whether or not these form a complete measure (however, an upbeat to the opening of a work is not counted). I would like to express my thanks to Christopher Preissing of cp Music Engraving for his painstaking reproduction of the musical examples.
In addition to Eskil Randolph, Jos Ech niz, and Stanley Fletcher, my gratitude is extended to many others-to Alexander Ringer and the late Hubert Kessler, whose views about music are enduringly fresh and profound; to the late Jessie Kneisel, so patient and thorough, whose teaching of German at the Eastman School of Music introduced us to literature that shaped one s outlook upon music as a life work; to Margaret Saunders Ott, whose positive attitude toward teaching celebrates the uniqueness of each human being, and who is a model each day I enter the studio; to Paul Jackson, former Dean of the College of Fine Arts at Drake University, for his insightful ideas about interpretation during our many conversations; to the many students over the years who have taught me through their problems and their insights; and to my parents, who supported my training and my subsequent work with their labor and love.

The Beethoven Sonatas
and the
Creative Experience
I The First Raptus, and All Subsequent Ones
For approximately ten years, according to Anton Schindler, Beethoven considered preparing an edition of his works in which he would have described the extramusical idea or the psychological state that had led in