Beethoven's String Research Articles

Harmonic structures of Beethoven quartets: a complex network approach

We propose a complex network approach to the harmonic structure underpinning western tonal music. From a database of Beethoven's string quartets, we construct a directed network whose nodes are musical chords and edges connect chords following each other. We show that the network is scale-free and has specific properties when ranking algorithms are applied. We explore its community structure and its musical interpretation, and propose statistical measures stemming from network theory allowing to distinguish stylistically between periods of composition. Our work opens the way to a network approach of structural properties of tonal harmony.

THE SHAKESPEARE CONNECTION: BEETHOVEN'S STRING QUARTET OP. 18 NO. 1 AND THE VIENNA HAUSTHEATER

ABSTRACTThe ‘Amenda anecdote’ from 1856 associates the second movement of Beethoven's String Quartet Op. 18 No. 1 (Adagio affettuoso ed appassionato) with the vault scene of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Sketchbook jottings by Beethoven from 1799, in French, confirm that such a link really existed. The question of what incited him to represent in his music elements of Shakepeare has not been settled to any satisfaction. It seems unlikely that Beethoven read a French version of the play. Nor can a public theatrical or operatic staging have been the stimulus, for the original vault scene was not allowed to be performed by the authorities. This study approaches the Shakespeare connection from the perspective of a cultural practice that has received limited attention in the literature, that of Viennese Haustheater. A performance of the vault scene in this context, it is argued, informed Beethoven's quartet movement. The most crucial piece of evidence are the memoirs of Caroline Pichler, which mention a tableau given at her parents’ house at the end of eighteenth century. One of the claims of the study is that Beethoven's Shakespeare connection was a one-time digression from normal practice, and that it is thus hazardous to draw this particular event into a wider hermeneutic debate.

TREATMENT OF RECAPITULATION OF THE FIRST MOVEMENTS IN THE SONATA FORM OF BEETHOVEN’S STRING QUARTETS OP. 18

The paper focuses on the function of recapitulation in the sonata form relying on the example of the first movements of Beethoven's string quartets Op. 18 No. 1–6. With regard to the fact that recapitulation is commonly described as a restatement of the exposition with tonal alterations of the second theme and the closing section, analytical deliberations most often do not go beyond recording such alterations. However, some analysis point to the new role of the recapitulation exactly on account of the essence of the undertaken alterations, i.e. on account of the idea that the composer wants to accomplish at the level of sonata form through recapitulation. The research is conceived as a continuation of the previous studies (Zdravić Mihailović 2006, 2007a, 2007b, 2015a, 2015b). These studies focused on the genre of string quartet of Franz Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, where recapitulation was proven to be a remarkable phenomenon as its role was not merely to restate the exposition’s content with the usual tonal alterations. On the contrary, it can be a place of a new treatment of the sections of the exposition, and gives it some completely specific features.

Beethoven's String Quintet in C major, Op. 29, and Brahms's String Sextets: A Wallflower Blooms

Beethoven's String Quintet, Op. 29, has been described as a ‘wallflower’ work that, without enough suitors, remains on the sidelines of the string chamber music repertoire. But in the nineteenth century it had a prominent champion, Joseph Joachim, whose performances of the quintet must have attracted the attention of his close friend, Johannes Brahms. The opening theme of Brahms's String Sextet, Op. 18, is clearly reminiscent of the beginning of Beethoven's quintet. Evidence from Donald Francis Tovey's recollections of Joachim, Joachim's correspondence with the Brahms biographer Max Kalbeck, and the manuscript of Op. 18 shows that Joachim influenced an important revision that aligns the beginning of Brahms's sextet closely with the opening of Beethoven's Op. 29 also in terms of texture and formal design.The striking tremolo opening and virtuosic scale passages in the finale of Beethoven's quintet prefigure similar elements in the last movement of Brahms's Op. 36 sextet. But the deeper relationship between these movements lies in certain shared formal elements: a common emphasis on sound, texture and sharp contrasts between agitato and pastoral elements as defining features of the overall form – and several distinctive similarities of contrapuntal strategy, form and tonal design between the substantial fugatos that dominate the development sections of both movements.It is often observed that Brahms wrote chamber works in pairs. Scholars have often posited that his two string sextets form such a pair, but the separation of four years in their inceptions and his extensive use of Baroque-style materials composed in the 1850s in the later sextet have made this argument tenuous. It now emerges that an unusual pairing feature of Brahms's string sextets is that both works respond to Beethoven's ‘wallflower’ masterpiece.

Art Forms Emerging: An Approach to Evaluative Diversity in Art

ABSTRACTArtworks are rationally evaluable and comparable within their art form, but not from outside. Beethoven's string quartets cannot be evaluated against works of Hindustani music. This is the problem of evaluative diversity: local commensurability, global indeterminacy. This article sketches an approach to the problem based on novel conceptions of aesthetic pleasure and cultural learning, and on the Darwinian Principle of Divergence as applied to cultural evolution.

Rondo⇒Sonata Conversion: The Finale of Beethoven's String Quartet in C Minor, Op. 18 No. 4

Rondo⇒Sonata Conversion: The Finale of Beethoven's String Quartet in C Minor, Op. 18 No. 4

The Role of Beethoven's ‘la gaiete’ Movement in the Creation of his Quartet Op. 127

Several writers, beginning with Gustav Nottebohm, have made mention of a movement entitled ‘la gaiete’ that was at one stage intended for Beethoven's String Quartet in E-flat, Op. 127, but none of them have previously given a full account of this movement. It appears in several sketch sources, notably Artaria 206 (currently in Kraków), and although it was not incorporated into the final version of the quartet, it played an important role in shaping the slow movement of the work. It also had an indirect influence on the coda of the finale. Its precise function in the creation of the quartet becomes much clearer through a detailed study of Beethoven's sketches, which are scattered in many different sources and appear in four formats that run concurrently, making assessment of them difficult. Examining the sketches for the movement also throws light on the chronological relationship between the various sketch sources. Contrary to some accounts, the movement appears never to have been part of a planned six-movement scheme for the work – a scheme that was extremely fleeting and only one of many possibilities for the work's structure.

Canon-Fodders: Parody of Learned Style in Beethoven

Since the appearnce of Ratner's studies on topics and their significance in the classical style (Classic Music: Expression, Form and Style, 1980), accounts of the topic of the learned or strict style have become common in the literature. However, a specific variant of this topic—the parody of learned style—has scarcely been discussed, yet it is common enough to demand a detailed study and, arguably, to be recognized as a distinct subtopic. Given the established role of contrapuntal procedures as markers of learned style in the classical style, Beethoven often introduces them only to be used as grounds for comic or ironic manipulation. While parodies of counterpoint grew more frequent in Beethoven's quartets, he most likely emulated Haydn's use of this type of parody. Uncovering the types of irony embedded in Beethoven's string quartets offers a glimpse into the artist's mind, setting aright what was previously often considered “bad” writing and thus allowing new insights and interpretations of one aspect of his musical style. An earlier, shorter version of this article appeared in 2012 and is here excerpted by permission of the Publishers from “Parody of Learned Style,” in Music Semiotics: A Network of Significations, ed. Esti Sheinberg (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 225–237, Copyright © 2012.

The Distant Pianissimo: The Revision of Beethoven's String Quartet, Op. 18, No. 2, Finale

Beethoven's revision in 1800 of his String Quartet, Op. 18, no. 2, Finale, offers us a window into his rethinking of the boundaries of musical distance for this movement during a critical period of his development. Beethoven focused his changes on the pianissimo passages, and aligned this dynamic with the movement's most extreme harmonic progressions and surprising aspects of its musical form. He also introduced various revisions to assure that the more radical, distant material in the pianissimo sections remained, not just anchored to the rest of the movement, but central to its drama.

Looking for the "Harp" quartet: an investigation into musical beauty

This book is a philosophical tour through the experience of beauty: what it is, and how the composer, performer, and listener all contribute. It explores -- with insight, patience, and humor -- profound issues at the essence of our experience. A student performance of Beethoven's String Quartet No. 10 in E-Flat Major, known as the Harp, serves as a point of departure and a recurring theme. For the layperson the core of the book is five dialogues between Icarus, an inquiring student intensely concerned with fulfilling his highest potential as a musician, and Daedalus, a curmudgeonly, iconoclastic teacher who guides Icarus's search. Three technical articles, geared to the music professional and academic, treat the issues in greater depth. Supplementary online audio files and musical examples. Markand Thakar is Charles A. & Carolyn M. Russell Music Director, Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra; music director, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra; principal conductor, Duluth Festival Opera; and codirector of the graduate conducting program, Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University.

Performance History and Beethoven's String Quartets: Setting the Record Crooked

A discographical study of Beethoven's string quartets gives rise to numerous counter examples to the normalizing trends that scholars of recording history have emphasized in the past. Innovation and variability of interpretation are central to the practice of performing these works in the recording age. Recordings of Beethoven's early, middle, and late quartets offer qualitative and quantitative evidence that spans an eighty-year history. Perhaps surprisingly, homogeneity and restraint are often found in historically informed Beethoven performance. In general, though, the various “voices” of mainstream string quartets have increasingly opened, rather than closed, these works' hermeneutic windows.

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The String Quartets of Beethoven (review)

The String Quartets of Beethoven. Edited by William Kinderman. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. [360 p. ISBN 0-252-03036-2. $75.] Music examples, index, bibliography. No group of compositions occupies a more central position in chamber music than string quartets, yet the meaning of these works continues to stimulate debate. (p. [1]). Thus begins William Kinderman's introduction to this remarkable group of essays. Covering the entire range of canon, this book includes eleven essays written by ten recognized scholars in the fields of musicology and music theory. Many of the papers were originally read at the conference Beethoven's String Quartets: A Classic or Modernistic Legacy? held at the University of Victoria, British Columbia in March 2000. The paper by Lewis Lockwood was originally presented at a symposium and the Creative Process held at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, May 2003. The conference papers have been revised for publication. Using a variety of research methodologies, these essays present a microcosm of the current state of research not only on the quartets, but all of works. Moving chronologically through the quartets, these essays reveal a wide variety of critical approaches and means of musical analysis. This is not, however, a volume for the reader unfamiliar with the quartets. The title may suggest an introduction and survey similar to the monographs by Daniel Gregory Mason or Joseph Kerman, but this is, rather, a scholarly conversation on various aspects of these compositions. Prior familiarity with the quartets is a definite prerequisite. Kinderman's introduction not only opens the volume, setting the stage for the following essays, but also presents an eloquent reception history of the quartets. This introduction gives brief background information on each opus, and also discusses how the reception and understanding of these works has evolved and changed through time. Kinderman also contributed both the opening and closing essays. In the first, Transformational Processes in Op. 18 Quartets, Kinderman examines how Beethoven devised transformational passages in some movements of the quartets wherein the strongest contrasts coexist with a high degree of integration (p. 14). This study is closely allied with Kinderman's previous examination of the same phenomenon in Sonata, op. 110 (Beethoven Forum 1 [1992]: 111-45). The concluding essay, Beethoven's Last Quartets: Threshold to a Fourth Creative Period? addresses the coexistence in late quartets music of both linear and nonlinear time. Discussing each of the quartets individually from both historical and analytical perspectives, Kinderman reaches the conclusion that the priority Beethoven granted to the imagination here comes to fulfillment in a manner that twists our expectations of the genre even more than earlier works while advancing his art toward new creative perspectives (p. 317). The only essay to examine all of the quartets is Harald Krebs' Dissonance and Metrical Revision in Quartets. Krebs examines various sketches of the quartets to demonstrate that Beethoven consciously developed metrical dissonances or conflicts within the quartets and rightfully suggests that this conscious effort should be examined in additional completed works and sketches. The remaining essays each focus on one aspect of an opus. Malcolm Miller examines the relation between registerial structure and unique use of the sonata principle in the op. 59 quartets. Lewis Lockwood studies the sketches for the Harp quartet op. 74 to demonstrate that knowledge of the compositional process can provide insight into puzzling aspects of a work while possibly raising additional new questions that might not occur in only studying the finished composition. Nicholas Marston explores the possibilities of a relationship between opus 74 and Haydn's string op. …

Recomposition and Retransition in Beethoven's String Quintet, op. 4

ABSTRACT In revising his Wind Octet, op. 103, into his String Quintet, op. 4, Beethoven substantially altered the retransition to the main thematic return in each of the movements. The various retransitions of op. 4 are refashioned so as to become points of structural focus as well as of poetic expression. Throughout his career, Beethoven would continue to revisit strategies seen in op. 4's revised retransitions, including not only their specific aspects (such as the use of E♭/E♮ conflicts as a means of problematizing a return to the main key) but also more generally through his highlighting of the contrast between control and disruption at these critical formal junctures. Accordingly, the revised re-transitions of op. 4 suggest a new stage in the development not only of Beethoven's compositional technique but also of his artistic outlook.

Interpreting musical gestures, topics, and tropes: Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert

Acknowledgments Introduction Part I. Markedness, Topics, and Tropes 1. Semiotic Grounding in Markedness and Style: Interpreting a Style Type in the Opening of Beethoven's Ghost Trio, Op. 70, no. 1 2. Expressive Doubling, Topics, Tropes, and Shifts in Level of Discourse: Interpreting the Third Movement of Beethoven's String Quartet in B Major, Op. 130 3. From Topic to Premise and Mode: The Pastoral in Schubert's Piano Sonata in G Major, D. 894 4. The Troping of Topics, Genres, and Forms: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler Part II. Musical Gesture Introduction to Part II 5. Foundational Principles of Human Gesture 6. Toward a Theory of Musical Gesture 7. Stylistic Types and Strategic Functions of Gestures 8. Thematic Gesture in Schubert: The Piano Sonatas in A Major, D. 959, and A Minor, D. 784 9. Thematic Gesture in Beethoven: Sonata for Piano and Cello in C Major, Op. 102, no. 1 10. Gestural Troping and Agency Conclusion to Part II Part III. Continuity and Discontinuity Introduction to Part III 11. From Gestural Continuity to Continuity as Premise 12. Discontinuity and Beyond Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index of Names and Works Index of Concepts

Sincerely Dancing: Bill T. Jones's Sleight-of-Hand

On a rainy night in January 2002, I took a train uptown to meet a friend outside Lincoln Center. After a strange autumn, when no performance seemed as compelling as the dramas unfolding on New York City streets, the theatres were suddenly full again and it was with a certain amount of relief that a crowd gathered to see the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in concert with the Chamber Music Society. Previews in the Village Voice and the New York Times had been clear about what we would see: after years of anger and politics, wrote one journalist, Jones was reported to be searching [...] for beauty (in Perron 2002:B6; see also Jowitt 2002, and Greskovic 2002). These words became a road map to understanding Jones's new work, repeated in various publications and ostensibly taken at face value. Yet, who would argue that earlier and controversial works like Last Supper at Uncle Tom's Cabin or Still/ Here were not beautiful? Nevertheless, his often-quoted perspective became the reigning lens through which to approach the new material. Arguably the most articulate choreographer of this generation, Jones wields the English language as fiercely as he does dance and gesture. His words have come to us in the countless interviews, lectures, and published writings he has offered over a career spanning 25 years, as well as in his consistent use of text in his performances. Fueled in part by the necessity of response to the critical reaction his work has compelled; in part by his interest and immersion in performance art as distinct from dance; and in part by a unique commitment to grappling with the history of the body and to dancing the discourses of power as they play out in America, Jones talks. And, in each instance, these words constitute an equally significant performance field forJones. Yet, for viewers, they have posed an enormous challenge to move with facility between the familiar and presumedly legible realm of spoken language and the more enigmatic realm of the moving, dancing body. In the case of the Lincoln Center performance, what did we see? The night began with Verbum, a beautiful if banal dance set to Beethoven's String Quartet in F Major, Opus 135. Eight dancers performed idiosyncratic gestures alongside the classic extensions, leaps, and falls of a ballet/modern hybrid. Dressed in silver, they moved through and around a silver set designed by Bjorn Amelan, which consisted of three large cutouts that appeared alternately as portals or ciphers, hearts or women's genitalia. The dancing was lovely, and abstract. There was a renewed engagement with contact improv, a foundational technique forJones from his college

Beethoven's Opus 131 and the Uncanny

A new reading of the finale of Beethoven's String Quartet in C# Minor, op. 131, taking as point of departure the theme in "doublet" form introduced in mm. 22-29. This theme recalls (or retrieves) the fugue subject of the first movement in peculiar ways, analyzed here in perhaps painstaking detail. Over the course of the movement the peculiarities dissipate; the theme recurs in different forms until, in a beautiful passage near the end, it seems less uncanny than reconciliatory, an authentic return at the end of the quartet to the ethos of the great fugue that began it. Meanwhile as the doublet theme develops and grows more expressive, the finale's "heroic" first theme decays. Yet the finale is the only movement in op. 131 to follow sonata-like procedures, strikingly evocative of the "Burnham canon" of middle-period works. Sonata-form narrative is undercut here by a counter-narrative tracing the transformations of the doublet theme, suggesting an overall cyclic rather than teleological dynamic. For Adorno, critique of the heroic ideal was at the heart of Beethoven's late style. Although Adorno did not think so, critique is more explicit in the finale of op. 131 than in many other late works, it is suggested, and more vivid, because the heroic accents of the symphonic style are evoked so deliberately within the movement itself.

Topic in Music: An Empirical Study of Memorability, Openness, and Emotion in Mozart's String Quintet in C Major and Beethoven's String Quartet in A Minor

This study examines possible parallels between large-scale organization in music and discourse structure. Two experiments examine the psychological reality of topics in the first movements of W. A. Mozart's String Quintet No. 3 in C major, K. 515, and L. van Beethoven's String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Op. 132. Listeners made real-time judgments on three continuous scales: memorability, openness, and amount of emotion. All three kinds of judgments could be accounted for by the topics identified in these pieces by Agawu (1991) independently of the listeners' musical training. The results showed hierarchies of topics. However, these differed for the three tasks and for the two pieces. The topics in the Mozart piece appear to function as a way of establishing the musical form, whereas the topics in the Beethoven piece are more strongly associated with emotional content.

Beethoven's So-Called Leibquartett, Op. 130: A Case of Mistaken Identity

Research Article| July 01 1998 Beethoven's So-Called Leibquartett, Op. 130: A Case of Mistaken Identity Theodore Albrecht Theodore Albrecht Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Journal of Musicology (1998) 16 (3): 410–419. https://doi.org/10.2307/763999 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Theodore Albrecht; Beethoven's So-Called Leibquartett, Op. 130: A Case of Mistaken Identity. Journal of Musicology 1 July 1998; 16 (3): 410–419. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/763999 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentJournal of Musicology Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1998 Regents of the University of California Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

BEETHOVEN'S STRING QUARTET IN E FLAT OP. 127: A STUDY OF THE FIRST PERFORMANCES

'FEW WERE moved; it was a weak succis d'estime. With these words, the violinist Joseph Bohm described the premiere of Beethoven's String Quartet in E flat Op. 127. Indeed, of the incongruities between original and present-day receptions of Beethoven's music, few are as striking as in the case of this quartet. This work, today referred to as 'of all Beethoven's works his crowning monument to lyricism',2 was generally viewed as incomprehensible by its first performers and listeners. In the brief review for the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, the critic admitted: 'opinions were divided on this matter [Op. 127], this writer not excepted, because it was understood and completely comprehended by the very few'.3 The traditional explanation for the failure to appreciate this work can be summarized as follows: there was scarcely enough rehearsal time for such a difficult work; and at the premiere, Ignaz Schuppanzighthe leader of the quartet-played particularly badly. However, subsequent performances led by Joseph B6hm and Joseph Mayseder, which were more carefully prepared, won widespread approval for the quartet.4 The foregoing interpretation of the events, while partly true, paints an incomplete picture of the first performances and raises more questions than it answers. For example: what were the other quartets in the repertory of the Schuppanzigh Quartet at this time, and were there any of comparable difficulty to Op. 127? How much rehearsal time was usually allocated to new quartets? What was wrong with the way Schuppanzigh played, and were there any who believed that he had played well? How much rehearsal time did the B6hm and Mayseder Quartets have, and were their performances also problematic? Who was providing Beethoven, at this time either nearly or completely deaf, with information on the quality of the performances? Finally, and perhaps most important: what were the specific difficulties that the original performers (see Table I) faced in interpreting this work?