Beaming in Beethoven’s “Tempest”
Posted: 16 Sep 2021, 21:29
The primary sources for Beethoven’s three sonatas op. 31 are unlike those for his other piano sonatas. The first publisher Nägeli made a such a mess that Beethoven disowned the edition and asked Simrock to engrave a second “first” edition. Simrock’s edition is far more accurate, but modernizes the distribution of the notes on the staves, so that an editor must consult both editions to get a good idea of Beethoven’s intentions. The fact that the two editions coincide in so many ways, however, shows how closely engravers of that time tried to adhere to what they saw in the composer’s manuscripts.
The Nägeli and Simrock editions agree on the following two cases of interesting beaming from the Sonata op. 31 no. 2. In both cases, Beethoven’s beaming has been disregarded by most later editions.
Case 1: The first movement is largely occupied with a two-note slurred motive that enters in the second measure. Despite the 2/2 meter, Beethoven beams this motive in pairs of notes wherever it appears, which enhances the broken-up, feverish feeling of the motive. Whenever it is not present, Beethoven beams in fours.
Later editions, like Schenker's, ignore this and beam everything in groups of four:
Case 2: The last movement is a perpetual motion ruled by constant right-hand upbeats: weak | strong-weak,
(that is, weak- [bar line] strong-weak), against the left hand’s | strong-weak weak |. This is interrupted at times in the movement by various ingenious rhythmic devices.
At first the upbeats are beamed and slurred like this:
However, shortly before the recapitulation: Beethoven suddenly changes the beaming and slurring to negate the feeling of anacrusis at X in the following example.
Beethoven has also changed the melody so that instead of a large jump to define the first note of an anacrusis, as in the opening theme, the first sixteenth-note either stays the same as the first note in the measure (but not always in the same octave) or moves by a third so that each measure is more of a unit. (See oval at X.)
Putting this passage into its context shows Beethoven’s clever manipulations of the accentuation:
After about 70 measure of constant and hypnotic upbeats, suddenly (at V) the final right-hand strong beat is eliminated, which changes the accentuation from weak | strong-weak to | strong-weak-weak | as in the left hand.
After 10 measures, (at W) a new accentuation enters, |weak-weak-strong |, produced by the superimposed sf’s in an added upper voice. This produces three different simultaneous groupings: | strong-weak-weak | in the left hand, weak- | strong-weak in the middle voice of the right hand, and | weak-weak-strong | in the top voice.
A X we are back to | strong-weak-weak | for 25 measures, as previously discussed. (The anomalous beaming breaks at Y do not exist in Nägeli and were probably an engraving solution to crowding, since there are no corresponding breaks in the previous phrases, where up stems make it unnecessary.)
Then at Z we have a | strong-weak strong- | weak strong-weak | hemiola over two measures. The boxes show how three previous groups of two measures have been contracted into three groups of a strong-weak within two measures.
One can only wonder why editors have overruled Beethoven’s notation in both cases in this sonata; and why, once established, this tradition has become so entrenched that even some of the most current authentic editions adhere to it.
The Nägeli and Simrock editions agree on the following two cases of interesting beaming from the Sonata op. 31 no. 2. In both cases, Beethoven’s beaming has been disregarded by most later editions.
Case 1: The first movement is largely occupied with a two-note slurred motive that enters in the second measure. Despite the 2/2 meter, Beethoven beams this motive in pairs of notes wherever it appears, which enhances the broken-up, feverish feeling of the motive. Whenever it is not present, Beethoven beams in fours.
Later editions, like Schenker's, ignore this and beam everything in groups of four:
Case 2: The last movement is a perpetual motion ruled by constant right-hand upbeats: weak | strong-weak,
(that is, weak- [bar line] strong-weak), against the left hand’s | strong-weak weak |. This is interrupted at times in the movement by various ingenious rhythmic devices.
At first the upbeats are beamed and slurred like this:
However, shortly before the recapitulation: Beethoven suddenly changes the beaming and slurring to negate the feeling of anacrusis at X in the following example.
Beethoven has also changed the melody so that instead of a large jump to define the first note of an anacrusis, as in the opening theme, the first sixteenth-note either stays the same as the first note in the measure (but not always in the same octave) or moves by a third so that each measure is more of a unit. (See oval at X.)
Putting this passage into its context shows Beethoven’s clever manipulations of the accentuation:
After about 70 measure of constant and hypnotic upbeats, suddenly (at V) the final right-hand strong beat is eliminated, which changes the accentuation from weak | strong-weak to | strong-weak-weak | as in the left hand.
After 10 measures, (at W) a new accentuation enters, |weak-weak-strong |, produced by the superimposed sf’s in an added upper voice. This produces three different simultaneous groupings: | strong-weak-weak | in the left hand, weak- | strong-weak in the middle voice of the right hand, and | weak-weak-strong | in the top voice.
A X we are back to | strong-weak-weak | for 25 measures, as previously discussed. (The anomalous beaming breaks at Y do not exist in Nägeli and were probably an engraving solution to crowding, since there are no corresponding breaks in the previous phrases, where up stems make it unnecessary.)
Then at Z we have a | strong-weak strong- | weak strong-weak | hemiola over two measures. The boxes show how three previous groups of two measures have been contracted into three groups of a strong-weak within two measures.
One can only wonder why editors have overruled Beethoven’s notation in both cases in this sonata; and why, once established, this tradition has become so entrenched that even some of the most current authentic editions adhere to it.