The purpose of the present study is to determine the stylistic characteristics of Beethoven's early piano trios. For the purposes of this study, the term "piano trio" is defined as any work for three instruments in which a piano participates. Of the twelve such trios written by the composer, the first six are dealt with. There is in addition a brief discussion of a trio of uncertain origin. These six piano trios were composed over a span of about ten years (1785-1795), between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five. Although there is a great deal of uncertainty as to the exact time and place of origin of these trios, the first three are generally considered to have been written in Bonn, and the last three in Vienna.

It is the purpose of this thesis to offer some pertinent information in the form of a documentary symposium and analytical study in which historical and technical matters relative to Beethoven's fugal techniques in his choral compositions will be presented. References to specific musical examples in this composer's works will be illustrated by diagrammatic and verbal analyses, and correlated with the pagination of the scores of his complete works as published by Breitkopf and Hartel.

This dissertation explores the relationship between the critique of Jena romanticism and Beethoven's "neue Manier" in the context of the material conditions that shaped European modernity around 1800. By taking as a case study the piano sonatas Op. 31, each chapter examines from a different perspective what represents a key historical moment in the genealogy of the modern notions of musical form and experience. The underlying thesis is that instrumental music was legitimized via a massive epistemic transfer of values from the domain of the literary. From its integration into the economy of the literary, instrumental music acquired an unstable epistemic condition introduced in Chapter 2 as the "materiality of the literary." The theory of romantic irony serves as a methodological point of entry to scrutinize how musical practice, literary discourse, and socio-historical transformations collided and converged to reframe aesthetic experience. Through their critique, the Jena romantics complicated the relationship between the generic and the particular and upheld the preeminence of practice over theory in the art of modernity. Tracing connections between Beethoven's music and the literary, Chapter 4 suggests a structural homology between the novel, as paradigmatic form of literary modernity, and sonata form, as the main compositional strategy of the classical style. Both forms are seen as practices driven by a principle of openness toward difference that emerges within the formation of the literary. The formal approach Beethoven initiates with the sonata forms fashioned in Op. 31 will be recast in Chapter 5 as a self-reflexive manifestation of that principle within the interpretive framework offered by romantic irony. By virtue of the formalist thought of the literary, Beethoven's instrumental forms became aesthetic symbols of the modern self.

Since the middle of the nineteenth century, accounts of Beethoven’s religious attitudes have consistently sought to separate the composer from the Catholic religion in which he was born. It is often assumed that, as a child of the Enlightenment, Beethoven cannot have felt a strong affinity for Catholic beliefs, preferring instead an idiosyncratic and unorthodox approach to religion that was suspicious of dogma and tradition. This has led, in turn, to the scholarly marginalization of his religious music, with the Missa Solemnis being the notable exception. On the one hand, Beethoven’s religious works other than the Missa have been frequently dismissed as inauthentic “occasional works” written purely for commercial reasons. On the other hand, the Missa itself, though regarded as a “true” Beethoven work, has been largely interpreted as a de-Catholicized vehicle for the expression of the composer’s untraditional religious outlook. This dissertation challenges long-accepted views of Beethoven and his religious music by demonstrating that they were more heavily influenced by Catholic theological ideas than is usually thought. I focus especially on the connection between the composer and the Bavarian Catholic theologian Johann Michael Sailer (1751-1832), the most important contemporary religious figure for understanding Beethoven’s religious attitudes. In addition, given its monumental scale and its prominence in Beethoven scholarship, I devote special attention to the Missa Solemnis, which the composer was working on at the time of his first documented contact with Sailer and his writings. However, I also investigate other evidence linking Beethoven with the Catholicism of his time: religious references in documentary sources such as Beethoven’s letters, his Tagebuch, and the Heiligenstadt Testament; religious books by theologians other than Sailer in Beethoven’s library; and the musical content of the religious works Beethoven wrote before the Missa, especially the Gellert-Lieder, Christus am Ölberge, and the Mass in C. My study shows that much previous scholarship has misinterpreted or overlooked the significance of such evidence, owing to an inadequate understanding of the complex nature of German Catholicism during Beethoven’s era. I draw on revisionist historical research showing that the Enlightenment was not, as is often believed, fundamentally opposed to traditional religious belief. Beethoven’s religious environment was, for instance, defined by a historical phenomenon that has been called the German Catholic Enlightenment, which, broadly speaking, attempted to reconcile Catholic belief with some of the liberal, progressive ideals normally associated with the Enlightenment in general. The composer appears to have been interested in several specific religious themes emblematic of this Catholic Enlightenment. At the same time, he seems also to have been attracted by some other ideas associated with the Catholic Restoration, a movement that emerged at least partly in opposition to the Catholic Enlightenment. This mixed allegiance was similar to that which characterized Sailer’s theology, and likely accounts for why he found Sailer such an appealing figure around the time he was composing the Missa Solemnis. A more complete and historically coherent understanding of Beethoven’s religious context suggests that the composer was more of a Catholic than he has so often been made out to be, albeit one who was attracted to varieties of Catholicism that have become obscured by the mists of history.

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In attempts to take a step towards illustrating Berlioz's musical aesthetic, my dissertation explores his "Critical Study" as his manifesto of the new poetic in music, which uses Beethoven's symphonies as models. First published in 1844, his "Critical Study" is a collection of individual essays on each of Beethoven's nine symphonies - the most widely known version of these essays originally published in the Revue et gazette musicale de Paris in 1837-8. This collection of essays derives from a reworking of Berlioz's earliest articles on Beethoven (1829-37), notably his reviews of a new concert series at the Societe des concerts du Conservatoire that premiered Beethoven's symphonies in Paris. Almost ten years in the making, Berlioz's "Critical Study" represents the pinnacle of his writings on Beethoven. Here he promotes Beethoven's "romantic" symphonies as models of "poetic" forms, within the context of emerging French literary Romanticism. I examined some of the key components in Beethoven's music that most occupy Berlioz as critic and, in turn, how Berlioz as composer develops these key components in his own contribution to the symphonic genre - his Romeo et Juliette (1839), composed at the peak of his Beethoven study. Ultimately, I hope to have demonstrated that the subtle mixture of the musical, the poetic, the critical pedagogical, and the cultural that intersect in Berlioz's Romeo et Juliette exemplifies the same aesthetic of the poetic that he promotes in Beethoven's symphonies. / Graduate

Scholars and performers have long wondered when and why Beethoven composed an alternative ending to his string quartet, Opus 130. The original, the Grosse Fuge, was an immense and heavy multi-sectioned fugal finale; the second was a much shorter and lighter hybrid sonata-rondo form finale. The second finale was the last substantial piece Beethoven composed and is reminiscent of earlier dance-like 2/4 Allegro finales composed by Beethoven, likely influenced by Haydn. This style is seemingly incongruous with our current understanding of Beethoven’s late style, centered around foreign harmonies and forms, with expansive thematic material. While research on this topic has been extensive, including studies in biography, source material, reception history, and harmonic and formal analysis, it has not led to a fully adequate understanding of this second finale. My study aims to provide a fresh understanding of this movement through the examination and evaluation of the later stages of its composition. The major sections of revision found in the composing score, Berlin, Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, MS Autograph 19c, and the autograph fair copy, Berlin, Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, MS Grasnick 10, are closely studied here for the first time. In order to highlight important steps in the creative process, I have selected four heavily revised areas from each of the sonata-form sections of this movement as shown in both manuscripts. My interpretation of these revisions is based on comparison to parallel sections in both manuscripts and the final version, as shown in transcriptions of these passages from the sketches along with accompanying images of the original pages. For each of these sections, I attempt to suggest the order in which Beethoven made his revisions, and I discuss their formal, thematic and harmonic implications. As a whole, these revisions reveal Beethoven’s concern for economical treatment of thematic material, especially motives from theme 1a, and a concern for playing upon the harmonic and formal expectations of his audience. The voicing of theme 2a in the exposition and recapitulation, and the voicing and texture of theme 1a in the development, the false and authentic recapitulations and the coda are analyzed in terms of momentum, sectional balance, texture, and dramatic tension. I suggest that further study of these sketches and related primary source material might help to revise our notion of Beethoven’s late style.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T20:13:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 5659.pdf: 423776 bytes, checksum: 6281b1f112277d9e670009ebce3fd8fd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-08-21 / Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos / This dissertation intends to investigate Adorno s analysis concerning Beethoven s late style in the attempt of understanding the importance delegated to this composer s works, which led Adorno to identify it with the beginning of a process that would culminate in Schoenberg. For doing that, we will use these comprised fragments in Beethoven s work: the philosophy of music, in special The Style I and II . / A presente dissertação procura investigar as análises de Adorno acerca do estilo tardio de Beethoven na tentativa de compreender a importância delegada às obras deste compositor que levaram Adorno a identificá-lo com o início de um processo que culminaria em Schoenberg. Para tanto, utilizaremos os fragmentos compreendidos na obra Beethoven: the philosophy of music, em especial The Style I e II .