Invention and innovation in chamber works by Beethoven and Brahms

Abstract

What English speakers typically refer to as the Diabelli Variations were in fact designated by Beethoven as ‘Veränderungen’, a choice made too by Bach for his ‘Goldberg’ set. This is a subtle detail, perhaps, but an important one. The connotations of ‘Veränderungen’ are far more wide ranging than the more common term ‘Variationen’: the former suggests process far more than product. It is this implied spirit of continual experimentation, transformation and renewal that forms a thread from Bach to the chamber music of Beethoven and Brahms. In the works of both later composers can be seen a searching out of thematic, harmonic and formal possibilities—something of a reimagined ‘ricercare’ principle—and a playing with, sometimes even thematization of, historical tropes. In the sonatas and chamber works discussed below, we see that pervasive spirit of innovation and development, whether in the youthful Beethoven’s explosive arrival on the piano trio scene or in Brahms’s passionate grappling with history in his first cello sonata. Many of the recordings that follow are the culmination of years of research into performance practice, but ultimately, the most rewarding are those in which the same spirit of constant invention is kept alive.