Shiho Fukada for The New York Times
Posted on 10/13/2005 4:11:50 AM PDT by Pharmboy
Shiho Fukada for The New York Times
The recently discovered manuscript for Beethoven's "Grosse Fuge."
Heather Carbo, a matter-of-fact librarian at an evangelical seminary outside Philadelphia, was cleaning out an archival cabinet one hot afternoon in July. It was a dirty and routine job. But there, on the bottom shelf, she stumbled across what may be one of the most important musicological finds in years.
It was a working manuscript score for a piano version of Beethoven's "Grosse Fuge," a monument of classical music. And it was in the composer's own hand, according to Sotheby's auction house. The 80-page manuscript in mainly brown ink - a furious scattering of notes across the page, with many changes and cross-outs, some so deep that the paper is punctured - dates from the final months of Beethoven's life.
The score had effectively disappeared from view for 115 years, apparently never examined by scholars. It goes on display today, just for the afternoon, at the school, the Palmer Theological Seminary in Wynnewood, Pa.
"It was just sitting on that shelf," Ms. Carbo said. "I was just in a state of shock."
Like Ms. Carbo, musicologists sounded stunned when read a description of the manuscript by Sotheby's, which will auction it on Dec. 1 in London. "Wow! Oh my God!" said Lewis Lockwood, a musicology professor at Harvard University and a Beethoven biographer. "This is big. This is very big."
Indeed it is.
Any manuscript showing a composer's self-editing gives invaluable insight into his working methods, and this is a particularly rich example. Such second thoughts are particularly revealing in the case of Beethoven, who, never satisfied, honed his ideas brutally - unlike, say, Mozart, who was typically able to spill out a large score in nearly finished form.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
You have FRmail.
Words cannot describe how remarkable these pieces are, and suddenly I am in the mood to listen to them! Quite frankly, I cannot think of any works for solo violin that even approach the perfection of the Bach in terms of musical expression.
But I think I would rather listen to a concerto by Handel or Vivaldi than a Brandenburg Concerto or a Bach Cantata.
I do not listen to the Beethoven symphonies often, and perhaps that is why I still regard them as great works, especially the Third, Seventh, and Ninth. But like you, I believe his chamber music is superior.
I am certain my musical tastes will continue to evolve, so who knows what the future will bring. A few years ago I could never imagine myself liking bluegrass, but here I am.
And I do like Handel...very accomplished. A real pro. Lately I have been listening to Papa Haydn's Creation. Never cared for his orcestral stuff, but the man could write for the chorus.
bttt
The movie was terrible, but I love the soundtrack.
The B minor Mass was an important discovery for me. Several years ago I took clarinet lessons for a while. That didn't last, but my teacher made half of each lesson a music history class, which did. He emphasized the B minor mass as an important work and it turned me into a Bach admirer. I have since attended two live performances of it. Another piece that made the baroque click for me was Pergolesi's Stabat Mater. Beethoven's seventh did the same for the romantic period.
BTW, one of the mass performances was performed largely by amateur singers and and musicians and it was wonderful. My own struggles with an instrument enabled to better appreciate the work that goes into a solo performance, let alone a dauntingly ambitious project like the b minor mass
Now that's interesting. I like Haydn's choral music, but I think his symphonies are among the most unappreciated music ever written. He had a great sense of humor and spirit that was well expressed in his symphonies. I can't remember the exact piece, but I have played one of his symphonies in which the entire orchestra stops and the violin section is instructed to "tune" their G strings. This had to be a very odd sight for the audience and I wonder if this particular move was Haydn's own way of addressing a critic of a previous concert.
I think of most of these works as light and fun. Nothing more.
I find it remarkable that the full-time professional orchestras and music groups continue to perform different works week after week. One week they might play a Shostakovich symphony. The next might be a performance of the Beethoven Ninth. Community groups sometimes spend a month or two preparing for one concert. I suppose professional groups pack more rehearsal time into the week, but that makes it no less impressive to me.
We actually agree. His symphonic compositions are too simple and do not hold my interest. Since I really do not know much about music theory (I only go by what sounds good to my ear) perhaps there is something I'm missing here.
Looks like spagetti sauce.
I would imagine that you like the Brahms German Requiem, yes? That piece to me is one of those rare few that I would gladly pay to play if I had to, and not the other way around. Same can be said about the Rachmaninov Second Symphony.
Someone above said that he never knew Beethoven liked pizza.
Hilarious reply.
I have never warmed to Brahms, who seems incredibly muddy to me. IMO, he is the single most overrated composer in history. I would not be surprised if his music became very rare on the performance circuit in 10 years (save for the Academic Festival Overture, perhaps). Van Bulow did a great disservice to music when he said: "The three Bs--Bach, Beethoven and Brahms." I'm afraid Johann does not belong in the same paragraph with the other two, much less the same page.
I meant "...the same sentence" and not page. Sorry.
I'd like to plug Haydn's quartets too. (And the masses.)
That's quite a surprise to me because there is absolutely no fluff in that piece at all, but once again, the world would be pretty boring if we all liked the same things. The German Requiem is one of my personal favorites. I don't think his music will ever be taken off the performance circuit, at least not in the next hundred years. There isn't an orchestra in this country that doesn't perform the Brahms "cycle" every few years or so. The fact that very little music written for the concert hall today is inspiring or even entertaining will assure this.
Bach referred to composers who wrote at the keyboard as what translates best as Keyboard Cowboys and had nothing for contempt for them. He required all his students to prepare compositions complete at the desk before playing them.
And that was a man who could improvise a 5 part fugue at the keyboard if necessary.
So9
George Bernard Shaw agreed with you. He thought Brahms a great writer of lieder, but a failure at orchestral works.
Shaw probably wrote more as a music critic than in any other way. A complete collection of his very often poisonous reviews was published a few years ago.
So9
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