Beethoven's Details
Posted: 11 Aug 2020, 19:38
As I edit Beethoven’s piano sonatas, I am constantly struck by many interesting details; so many, that it would be impossible to describe them all. But here is an example from the second movement of his Piano Sonata op. 78 that I thought worth sharing:
Beethoven, on the other hand, was not at all concerned about making X and Y match, and placed the clef change at X in the middle of the measure. Why he did so illustrates his thought process.
The music before X has worked its way down an octave from A# to A# and then splits into two lines, one maintaining the A# and the other continuing down the scale to D#: A#-G##, A#-G#, A#-F#, A#-E# in descending sixteenth-note pairs. The arrival point is X, where after the ff explosion, he flips the expected final A#-D# sixteenth note pair from an descending to a ascending direction and continues on similarly up the D# triad.
Were the treble clef to have intervened between the two measures, we would be denied this visual insight into the inner connection between the two passages. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened in the first edition and a wonderful notation was lost from the beginning.
Note Beethoven’s penmanship: clear, decisive, energetic, and artistic; just like the piece he is notating. This is often the case; stormy pieces look stormy, calm pieces look calm, etc. The guy was an open book.
The passage at Y is an exact repeat of the passage at X, and all editions that I am familiar with, including Schenker’s engrave them both as at Y, the right hand entirely in the treble clef, since the ff clearly starts a new phrase in both cases.Beethoven, on the other hand, was not at all concerned about making X and Y match, and placed the clef change at X in the middle of the measure. Why he did so illustrates his thought process.
The music before X has worked its way down an octave from A# to A# and then splits into two lines, one maintaining the A# and the other continuing down the scale to D#: A#-G##, A#-G#, A#-F#, A#-E# in descending sixteenth-note pairs. The arrival point is X, where after the ff explosion, he flips the expected final A#-D# sixteenth note pair from an descending to a ascending direction and continues on similarly up the D# triad.
Were the treble clef to have intervened between the two measures, we would be denied this visual insight into the inner connection between the two passages. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened in the first edition and a wonderful notation was lost from the beginning.
Note Beethoven’s penmanship: clear, decisive, energetic, and artistic; just like the piece he is notating. This is often the case; stormy pieces look stormy, calm pieces look calm, etc. The guy was an open book.