L'étude présente est avant tout le résultat d'une préoccupation personnelle de longue durée, qui commence avec mes premières leçons de piano et mes tentatives de jouer la musique de Beethoven. Le désir de savoir autant que possible sur la personnalité, la vie, les événements et les situations qui ont conduit à la naissance d'une œuvre est apparu très tôt. Il est évident et simple à démontrer, par ses propres notes et les témoignages de ceux qui ont écrit sur lui depuis presque deux cents ans, que Beethoven a eu des circonstances extérieures, des événements et des occurrences sociales, même historiques, qui ont déclenché certains thèmes musicaux, auxquels son propre génie et sa sensibilité ont trouvé la forme d'expression qui nous est connue aujourd'hui. Ensuite, deuxièmement, il s'agit dans cette étude d'un engagement strictement théorique. Je souhaite exposer les liens formés le long des presque trois décennies de maladie, entre la déficience auditive et la création musicale de Beethoven. Au-delà de la situation de nature médicale qu'il a accueillie avec une explicable panique, avec un mélange d'impuissance et de dépression, qui l'ont mené au seuil du suicide, presque, environ l'année 1803, la perte de l'ouïe a ouvert un horizon agonique dans l'existence du compositeur, un horizon qui a marqué sa lutte avec le destin. Celui-ci est le thème, sa perception, qui le déterminera à assumer l'image et le rôle du Héros, du Titan tendu sous les épreuves sombres des machinations divines qu'il accueille avec courage et, des fois, même avec défi. C'est de ces tensions que jaillissent quelques-unes de ses œuvres les plus complexes, puissantes, expressives et novatrices, depuis la Symphonie no.3 et jusqu'à la 9ème, les sonates pour piano et certaines de ses compositions pour cordes. Le modèle héroïque a été sans doute salvateur, une circonstance d'émulation titanique qui a aidé Beethoven à mener si loin, dans le sens créatif, sa lourde et, en quelque sorte, ironique déficience. Il faut admettre, d'autre part, que, en dehors de ce modèle romantique de se rapporter au destin par le recours au Héros et au Titan - figures de la grandiose culture grecque classique - on a du mal à déceler la relation du compositeur avec Dieu dans le sens chrétien, sa manière d'intégrer une vision, un sens de la vie fondé sur celui-ci. Certes, Missa Solemnis en Ré majeur op.123, la Symphonie no.9 et quelques autres ouvrages ou parties d'ouvrages, entretiennent l'avis que Beethoven a composé, tout comme Bach, son modèle et maître favori, de la musique de glorification de Dieu. Et si cela est tout à fait vrai, alors notre mission de comprendre son passage par des modèles culturels et religieux si différents devient encore plus difficile. / This study is, above all, the outcome of a long-lasting personal concern that goes back to the period of my first music lessons and my attempts to play Beethoven's music on the piano. My passion for certain musical compositions, the care to interpret them in the way, with the sensitivity and in keeping with their creator's intentions might be translated as follows: 1 wish to perform as if he could hear me and could recognize himself in the music I performed. I was fi lied, at a very early age, with the desire to know as much as possible about his personality, his life, the events and the circumstances that led to the birth of his work. It is obvious and easy to prove, based on Beethoven's own notes and the testimonies of those who have written about him for nearly two hundred years, that there were external triggers, such as social and even historical events or happenings, which activated certain musical themes that his genius and sensitivity gave expression in the form known to us today. In this study, I will speak, at the appropriate time, about situations, contexts and events of this kind: family problems, like the affair involving his nephew Karl, or sentimental issues, like the "lmmortal Beloved" (Der Unsterbliche Geliebte), the drama entailed by hearing Joss, the evolution of event on the European stage during the Napoleonic and post­ Napoleonic periods, etc. Second, this study represents a strictly theoretical undertaking. I wish to present, according to my own understanding, the connections formed throughout the nearly three decades of disease between Beethoven's hearing impairment and his musical creation. Beyond the medical situation that he responded to with understandable panic, with a mixture of helplessness, tremor and depression, which brought him close to the brink of suicide in around the year 1803, the Joss of hearing opened an agonizing horizon in the composer's existence, a horizon against which he waged his battle with destiny. This is the theme, his perception, which led him to take on the image and role of a Hero, of a Titan, strained under the bleak attempts of the divine machinations that he met with courage and, sometimes, even with defiance. It was from these strains that some of his most complex, powerful, expressive and innovative works gushed forth, from his Third and Ninth Symphonies to the piano sonatas and several other compositions for strings. Beethoven was, according to Wagner's very suggestive comparison, the equivalent of Tiresias. Thus, shifting between levels of expression, he could hear pure music with an ear that was no longer disturbed or corrupted by outside sounds. The music he heard and transmitted gushed out of himself, from the depths of his being, which was marked by dignity and prophetic drama in equal measure. His internal hearing was already sensitive to the sounds of the World, to the rhythms of Phenomena, to the turmoil and syncopes of Life. Like Tiresias, Beethoven was a prophet who could hear, understand and transmit the mysterious music of the world to the future centuries. He could hear the music of paradise and convey it in the Pastoral Symphony, he could hear the sublime joy of human brotherhood and convey it at the end of the Ninth Symphony, he could hear the sounds of death and hell and convey them in the serious, funeral passages of the Eroica Symphony of the Hammerklavier Sonata. He could hear the ceaseless melody of life's flow through time, he could understand the sonata of nature, the dance of light, the verve of joy, but also the twilight, pain and night, the end. He could hear the music from which this universe of illusory, transient and capricious forms was made, this universe which we call reality. This, I believe, is the "Last" Beethoven.

No description available.

Call number: LD2668 .R4 1966 L373

In this project, frequently required double bass orchestral audition excerpts as well as their individual technical difficulties are identified. A survey of professional double bass players and teachers currently and formerly employed by major orchestras, universities, and conservatories have participated to validate the importance of four of the most frequently required orchestral excerpts: Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Mvt. 4, and Symphony No. 5, Mvt. 3; Richard Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben; and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Symphony No. 40, Mvt. 1. The survey respondents identified the primary and secondary technical concerns of each of the four excerpts. I have created technical studies, or etudes, that specifically address these difficulties and help fill a literary gap within the existing pedagogical resources for the double bass.

Dramatic, in the sense of “highly intense,” is a quality we often associate with the music of Beethoven, but no theory has attempted to define drama in any systematic manner. This study therefore explores the idea by constructing a theory that distinguishes between dramatic and non-dramatic passages. At the core of the theory is the notion that drama is the result of several types of tension occurring simultaneously. Dramatic passages have a “High” tension level, whereas non-dramatic ones have a “Low” level. Individual tension types are divided into two categories: rhetorical and syntactical. Rhetorical tension types include such features as a loud dynamic, a fast rhythm, and a thick texture, which need no musical context to be expressed. By contrast, syntactical tension types include such features as chromaticism, metric irregularity, and phrase expansion, which always require a comparison of events to be expressed. Only tension types from the same category may combine to form drama. Because this study examines the relationships between drama and sonata form, the analysis of form is a key issue that receives a separate chapter and additional thought throughout. The methodology combines aspects of William E. Caplin’s theory of formal functions and James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy’s Sonata Theory, and is applied to all of Beethoven’s first-movement sonata forms, a total of eighty-seven movements. Each formal unit is analyzed as one of six dramatic “archetypes” that describe a basic outline of High and/or Low tension levels. These archetypes constitute the dramatic structure of the piece. Percentage frequencies of the archetypes were calculated for each formal unit in the movements as a whole, and as grouped by the categories of key, mode, genre, and style period. The greatest distinctions in dramatic structure occur among the three style periods of early, middle, and late, the early works showing a sectional approach with contrasting tension between phrases and the middle to late works gradually becoming more continuous, maintaining the same tension levels between units. A concluding analysis of Beethoven’s String Trio, op. 3, demonstrates the theory’s ability to enrich the interpretation of an individual work.

Dramatic, in the sense of “highly intense,” is a quality we often associate with the music of Beethoven, but no theory has attempted to define drama in any systematic manner. This study therefore explores the idea by constructing a theory that distinguishes between dramatic and non-dramatic passages. At the core of the theory is the notion that drama is the result of several types of tension occurring simultaneously. Dramatic passages have a “High” tension level, whereas non-dramatic ones have a “Low” level. Individual tension types are divided into two categories: rhetorical and syntactical. Rhetorical tension types include such features as a loud dynamic, a fast rhythm, and a thick texture, which need no musical context to be expressed. By contrast, syntactical tension types include such features as chromaticism, metric irregularity, and phrase expansion, which always require a comparison of events to be expressed. Only tension types from the same category may combine to form drama. Because this study examines the relationships between drama and sonata form, the analysis of form is a key issue that receives a separate chapter and additional thought throughout. The methodology combines aspects of William E. Caplin’s theory of formal functions and James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy’s Sonata Theory, and is applied to all of Beethoven’s first-movement sonata forms, a total of eighty-seven movements. Each formal unit is analyzed as one of six dramatic “archetypes” that describe a basic outline of High and/or Low tension levels. These archetypes constitute the dramatic structure of the piece. Percentage frequencies of the archetypes were calculated for each formal unit in the movements as a whole, and as grouped by the categories of key, mode, genre, and style period. The greatest distinctions in dramatic structure occur among the three style periods of early, middle, and late, the early works showing a sectional approach with contrasting tension between phrases and the middle to late works gradually becoming more continuous, maintaining the same tension levels between units. A concluding analysis of Beethoven’s String Trio, op. 3, demonstrates the theory’s ability to enrich the interpretation of an individual work.

Thesis (D.M.A.)--University of Oklahoma, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references. Discography: leaf 233.

Thesis (doctoral)--University of London King's College, 1996. / BLDSC reference no.: DX197075.

The relationship between Franz Liszt and Ludwig van Beethoven has always held a special position in the biographical tradition of Liszt. Liszt claimed that he received a consecration kiss (the Weihekuss) from Beethoven when he was eleven. However, the story probably was fabricated: in other words, the personal relationship between Liszt and Beethoven was never realized and never existed. Even though Beethoven and Liszt probably have never met, the Weihekuss still served as, in Liszt's words, "the palladium of my whole career as an artist." Liszt constructed a rather complicated relationship with Beethoven around this myth. In this study, I shall examine how the Weihekuss influenced both Liszt's life and his professional development as a performer and editor. In chapter one, I will analyze Liszt's psychological state through the anecdote and further examine the impact that Beethoven had inserted on both Liszt's life and career. On becoming a concert pianist, Liszt was the first person who performed Beethoven's piano sonatas in public and eventually elevated the genre of the sonata into the concert repertory. In chapter two, through eyewitness testimonies, Liszt will be viewed in a broader cultural and historical perspective. Meanwhile, Liszt's relationship with his audiences and his marketing strategies will also be included in this discussion. Liszt's "authority" on Beethoven led him to complete an edition of Beethoven's thirty-two piano sonatas in 1857. By examining Liszt's edition, particularly those sonatas that he performed, one can get a sense of how Liszt himself may have interpreted the music. According to Liszt himself, he performed ten Beethoven piano sonatas in public. These ten sonatas will be the primary focus in chapter three. Liszt both added and omitted articulation and pedal markings, creating different emphases and lines from those present in Beethoven's original manuscripts. The edition, in a sense, is Liszt's final tribute to Beethoven, but also reveals his constant disappointment in never having met the composer. To edit the sonatas was, for Liszt, a way to communicate with Beethoven spiritually, if not personally.

<p>Fanny Hensel wrote much of Felix Mendelssohn's music. Or so goes the popular misconception. It is true that Felix did publish six of his sister's Lieder under his own name, in his Op. 8 and Op. 9, but there is no evidence that anything else he published was actually by Fanny. The perpetuation of this idea is by no means new to our century; even during her lifetime, Fanny received letters alluding to the possibility that some of her music was masquerading as Felix's. But how could this supposition even be possible?</p><p>Complicating our reception of Hensel's works and our knowledge of her influence over him, and perpetuating our misconception (and perhaps hopes) that some of Felix's music was by Fanny was the unavailability of her music to the general public. For most of the twentieth century, she was known mostly by her eleven published opera (five of which were released posthumously). Before she was able to plan and accomplish any sort of systematic publication of her works, she died suddenly, at the age of 41, leaving behind upwards of 450 unrevised, unpublished works.</p><p>Clearly, we need to reconsider the term "Mendelssohnian," and bring Hensel to the foreground as an equal partner in forming the Mendelssohns' common style. I examine the roots of the "Mendelssohnian" style in their parallel musical educations, their shared enthusiasm for the music of Bach, and their simultaneous collision with Beethoven's music (and the diverse ways each responded to his influence). I explore in detail the relationship between Fanny, Felix, and her fiancé Wilhelm Hensel through the methodology of kinship studies, to contextualize what some have viewed as a quasi-incestuous sibling relationship within the norms for sibling communication in the nineteenth century. Finally, I discuss how deeply their separation after 1829 affected both Fanny and Felix, and how Fanny negotiated her changing life roles and ambitions as a composer and performer.</p><p>One work that Fanny never released, and, indeed, one work that has remained a mystery, is the Ostersonate (Easter Sonata). Believed lost since it was first mentioned in correspondence in 1829, the sonata resurfaced in the twentieth century, when it was recorded and attributed to Felix, and then disappeared again without a trace. In the absence of any identifiable manuscript, it had been impossible to definitively challenge this attribution. My research represents a major breakthrough: I traced the manuscript to a private owner and positively identified it as the work of Fanny Mendelssohn.</p><p>Lurking behind the popular misconception is a broader truth: Fanny Hensel can be heard in much of Felix Mendelssohn's music. In other words, what audiences have recognized as Felix Mendelssohn's music for nearly two hundred years would not have existed as such without the influence of Fanny Hensel. This idea in itself is hardly new, but by revising this line of reasoning, we see that it is equally possible that much of Fanny Hensel can be heard in Felix Mendelssohn's music. In the end, neither composer could have existed as we know them today without the other, and their shared musical style stands as a lasting testament to their shared identity as Mendelssohns.</p> / Dissertation