Beethoven Brainteaser 3

[John Ruggero]

This one can drive you crazy. Did Beethoven accidentally leave out the 2 clefs in brackets? (This is from my first real project in Dorico.)

Diabelli var 15.png (268.99 KiB) Viewed 10641 times

[John Ruggero]

Here is Beethoven's manuscript and his copyist's version. It is the same in the first edition:

op 12.15 MS.png (2.31 MiB) Viewed 10654 times

op 120.15 MS Copy.png (1.52 MiB) Viewed 10654 times

[David Ward]

No!

Looking at notes to the recent Bärenreiter edition, I see some people do believe clefs are missing. Why?

[John Ruggero]

You clearly have a strong opinion about it, David. I've always played the music as written, but then encountered this missing clef theory in researching the piece. Henle thinks they are missing. Wiener Urtext thinks not. Before we get into the why's and why not's, it would be interesting to know why you think it is correct as it stands.

Incidentally, Henle inserts the bass clef one eighth note later than shown, which I think is improbable and works against the theory. So I moved the bass clef back an eighth which to me seems more likely, if the clefs are actually missing.

[David Ward]

Firstly, there doesn't seem to be any visual reason why Beethoven might have meant to write these few bars in the treble clef. Secondly, the sudden descent to low register in the LH here, rather than a little later, seems altogether too effective to be an error, especially without any actual evidence that it is wrong.

[Anders Hedelin]

This is the actual left-hand melody in the published example, without the unnecessary clef change in m. 21 (unnecessary because the notes after it are actually lower than in the preceding measures; already this fact makes it questionable).

Diabelli 1.PNG (64.09 KiB) Viewed 10631 times

This a personal reflection, but I think the resulting descending sequence from m. 21 suffers from a certain laxity, or banality even.

Diabelli 2.PNG (151.67 KiB) Viewed 10631 times

This is the same melody as in the manuscript and first copy, but kept in the same register. Already this version makes much more sense to me than the one above. Here the two 8-measure periods are much more convincingly connected: an upwards-striving motion from F to G (with some comical quality to it if you like), which then is followed by an (equally comical) downwards-sliding descent.

Diabelli 3.PNG (151.79 KiB) Viewed 10631 times

Here, in the original (?), I find the skip from high F to low G, neglecting the proper resolution, both absurd and funny. The more funny as the G "should" be reached as a higher level, but is instead found in a very low register. In the first example above (from the published version), the skip from the leading note B to E (m. 24), is more like 'absurd and pointless', which is not half as funny.
As I said, this just my personal view. An analysis like this may be plausible but not conclusive, and in this case I think it's more of an interpretation than a proof of anything.

[John Ruggero]

To clarify, the published version is the first edition which I didn't show above. It is exactly like Beethoven's manuscript and the copy of it by his personal copyist. The engraved version at the top is a preliminary draft of an edition that I am preparing.

Firstly, there doesn't seem to be any visual reason why Beethoven might have meant to write these few bars in the treble clef.

This is the actual left-hand melody in the published example, without the unnecessary clef change in m. 21 (unnecessary because the notes after it are actually lower than in the preceding measures; already this fact makes it questionable).

I think that these points are strong evidence against the missing clef theory. One notes that Beethoven writes all of the left hand notes with stems down, which is the way he likes to write bass parts (perhaps because he is actually feeling unstated middle voices with up stems in the left hand as if this were an orchestra work.) If the lower staff changes suddenly to a treble clef, he often (but not always) changes to up stems to show that it is a higher voice in relation to the previous bass part.

However, there is one case (in the last movement of op. 57) that I once mentioned at Notat.io in which he actually twice writes a lower phrase with an octave sign right after a higher phrase at pitch, and this was not an oversight, because he actually corrected the text to do this. However, I think this would be a weak argument in this case.

It also seems improbable that Beethoven would leave out not just one clef, but two. However, when one looks at his manuscript in m. 24 it looks like he accidentally left out the measure (he may have been setting this new copy down from memory or from sketches since his first manuscript had been sent to the publisher) and had to hastily make a little room for it and squeeze it in. This makes a second missing clef a little more likely.

This a personal reflection, but I think the resulting descending sequence from m. 21 suffers from a certain laxity, or banality even.

Secondly, the sudden descent to low register in the LH here, rather than a little later, seems altogether too effective to be an error, especially without any actual evidence that it is wrong.

To play the devil's advocate, the register-articulation connection found in the two halves of the variation would parallel each other better in the missing clef theory. However, as Anders said, maybe this is too predictable and a little banal. And Beethoven hated to be banal.

While the sudden drop to G is very effective in m. 20, it does prevent a register change when the legato phrase start in m. 24. (So in playing this version, it is probably good idea to do something to make a distinct contrast between the two bass phrases, articulation alone not being quite enough to overcome the sameness of register, in my opinion.)

This is the same melody in the manuscript and first copy, but kept in the same register. Already this version makes much more sense to me than the one above. Here the two 8-measure periods are snensibly connected: an upwards-striving motion from F to G (with some comical quality to it if you like), which then is followed by an (equally comical) downwards-sliding descent.

I think that this is an excellent point and one that hadn't occurred to me.

Here, in the original (?), I find the skip from high F to low G, neglecting the proper resolution, both absurd and funny. The more funny as the G "should" be reached as a higher level, but is instead found in a very low register. In the first example above (from the published version), the skip from the leading note B to E (m. 24), is more like 'absurd and pointless', which is not half as funny.

Those with the missing clef view might say that the B resolves to an understood C and the E just appears as a bass tone, just as those with the opposite view might regard the F in m. 20 as resolving to an understood E in the following measure. And, the missing clef guys would point to that nice resolution of the F to a real E if the clefs were added.

I am hearing the low G in m. 21 (or 24) as the real bass for ms. 17-24. It is unstated in 17-20 and its sudden appearance in m. 21 (or 24) is to me part of the humor. Also part of the fun is that it comes in against a I 6/4 and alternates with a V9 in second inversion, which is somewhat ear-wrenching and like a provincial dance band gone a little wrong. Definitely not banal and very Beethovenian.

Thank you, David and Anders for your very perceptive comments.

[John Ruggero]

There is one interesting wrinkle in this controversy that appears in a copy of the Diabelli variations that Beethoven inscribed to one Wenzel Kaspar Damm.This is the copy to be seen at https://vmirror.imslp.org/files/imglnks ... Op.120.pdf
The copy resides in the Beethoven-Haus collection. There are no penciled corrections that I could find in this volume other than in Var. 15:

Pencil corrections in op. 120.15.png (1.26 MiB) Viewed 10588 times

!!! The handwriting is, however, not Beethoven's. The position of the bass clef is also strange, as if the person were uncertain as to where to put it. While mysterious, the annotations do indicate that doubt about this passage is not just recent.

[Anders Hedelin]

Two more thoughts.
Firstly: John, in many of your very instructive posts on Beethoven you have pointed out how conscious and careful he was about notation. Do you think it all likely that he would have just missed something like this - in the MS, in the first edition ? (Did he proofread the 1st ed.?)
Secondly: To go along with the "clef-change guys": the placement of the bass clef is the really tricky one. Which probably explains the vagueness of just that in the penciled correction/suggestion/question in your last example.

So, again I couldn't refrain from making a few experiments - trying at least to reason with the "clef-change guys". For the sake of clarity I've dispensed with the clefs themselves. The second one (Diabelli 5) would be Henle's, I think. The last one is my own bet FWIW. (IF assuming there should be clef changes!)

Diabelli 4.PNG (35.1 KiB) Viewed 10567 times

Diabelli 5.PNG (44.73 KiB) Viewed 10567 times

Diabelli 6.PNG (40.57 KiB) Viewed 10567 times

(Needless to say, these snippets should be read together with the right-hand notes!)

[John Ruggero]

I am glad you have enjoyed the Beethoven posts, Anders!

The Wiener Urtext notes make exactly your point. How likely is it that Beethoven would miss not just one but two clefs. Well, he was an interesting mix of unusually careful about some things and unusually careless about others. For example, I never encountered a rhythmic error in the manuscripts of his piano sonatas and very few note errors, just your standard incorrectly-assumed accidentals or a missed ledger line or two. And we know how careful he was in conceptual matters of notation. On the other hand, the beginnings and ends of his slurs can drive one to despair as an editor. I think he really didn't take some slurring very seriously and felt that it was impossible to notate. But missing two clefs? As you said, hard to believe that he would be missed them in all three extant primary sources. And since the first edition was prepared from a fourth (and possibly fifth source) that has been lost, it's even harder.

Of the three possibilities, I also considered your no. 3, which has a lot going for it. However, since I feel that there is tacet low G under ms. 17-20, entering on the neighbor-tone F# without some acknowledgement of the "preceding" G seems too audacious to me, even for Beethoven. But...

I can't accept no. 2, the Henle version, because it is so unpianistic. And Beethoven is rarely unpianistic. But it does bring in the low G and satisfies the resolution requirement in the literal sense, which those who reject the clefs don't think is necessary in a piano piece, especially one by Beethoven, who would leave out any note for the sake of spielfreude.

So I was left with no. 1. And since that one is just OK, that leads one to conclude that...