The Nature of Genius: Beethoven and the Sonata Form
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- Опубликовано: 25 авг 2024
- Cecil Lytle, Professor of Music and Provost, explores Beethoven’s use of the sonata - his development and early influences. He also performs Beethoven’s first sonata for piano. [1/1997] [Show ID: 1297 ]
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This discussion and performance is a treasure. Thank you professor Lytle.
Excellent presentation on this very great composer. Thank you for sharing, Professor Lytle.
Professor Lytle is great- his demonstration and description of sonata form is easily understood by the beginner!
I love how this guy intrigued a younger audience. I hope these kids grew up to play beethoven or at least have a life experience of beethoven in their lives in some form or fashion.
Imagine hearing Beethoven play his music in person. What an experience that would be.
great talk, very interesting,thanks for the upload.
Good lecture, but a really excellent performance as well
Beautiful Sonata Playing from the heart. Explanations so clear and informative.
Excellent lecture; terrific performance; I love the way the most salient points were made, bu not to overload us with information. Interesting that as I was listening to this lecture, Fundamentals of Musical Composition by Arnold Schoenverg arrived through the post. This book is very detailed, and, without some of the lectures on youtube, might be very intimidating.
This is a completely brilliant, thanks for sharing it.
How are you?
Great lecturer, thanks very much. Fascinating. Beethoven's piano sonatas can be a bit heavy to find an entry level.
This man is truly informed … amazing talk
Music is above any words. Any interpretation from the formal composition rules is fine but the feelings we receive , the sort of ecstasy that is impossible to describe.
Thanks so much Cecil..👏Great analysis and demo and also clarifications..👌I am amazed in your lecture thru' this video..👍Thank you again..🙏Warm cheers..😊God bless..🙏🎶
Great lecture, thanks for this.
Wonderful! Thanks for this great lecture.
Great speaker!
Excellent lecture void of any pomp (I read all the comments).
Great presentation
Information overload, love it!
Beethoven forever
gotta say, though, despite some slight inaccuracies like that, this guy is an incredible pianist and musician.
I liked the question and answer about using period instrument performances.
I think he meant to say "4 voice counterpoint", and accidentally said "4th species counterpoint", because "4th Species counterpoint" is "Ligature" counterpoint, in which you use resolutions, such as 4-3, etc., and is in a ratio of 2:1 generally, etc., and can be in 2 to as many voices as you like, although 2,3, and 4 voices are common. I also think he may have meant to say 4 voice counterpoint, because he explained 4 voice counterpoint, not 4th species. Great lecture, and lots of good info! :)
Beethoven was, is and will always be the best. His music transcended time because he wrote about the human condition. Other great classical composers were heroic, but all heroes have flaws. That's the tragedy in the hero, Beethoven was not heroic he was voice from eternity, that said "yea are gods".
I agree. His music kept me alive. I would have ended things long ago if I wasn't able to see life through the lens of his music. Now I'm writing my first book about freewill.
Very well said!
I like Prof Lytle. He also had another documentary about Liszt which was also great. And he was a great jazz player as well.
How I love playing this first sonata! One of my favorites. But I think on it in a much slower tempo, to create tension, just like the 5th simphony: if played too fast, the tension stalls, and become just a run to the end of the music.
Isn't the 5th meant to be played at a fast tempo? 108 if I recall.
How could killing the energy of the piece possibly add more tension? Beethoven WANTED the 5th to be played at a breakneck speed. Slowing it down does nothing but reduce its tension.
OK, 5th was not a good example... Yes, it's 108, Michael - good memory!
Maybe the 9th's first movement would be a better example to my point: some sheet has the suggestion of 88bpm. But if you listen to Barenboin's interpretation, he varies the tempo a lot! Sometimes, the tempo is down to 68 bpm.
It's a personal vision, but I think if you play a intense and strong and FORTE piece in a slightly slow tempo, using well pontuacted pauses and nuances, you increase it's power, magnificence and grandiosity. Like an afirmation, a titan speaking. There are styles and styles of playing, but speed is not the only way to create tension and energy, in my personal opinion. Schiff makes that a lot of times on Beethoven's sonatas, too.
That's the beauty of classical music: same pieces get dozens of new interpretations all the time!
@@paulogazola I think you make excellent points about speed. If played too slowly, the piece starts falling apart - its cohesive glue starts dissolving. And if played too fast the message of the piece can be stripped right out of it. But yes, playing at a slightly slower speed than expected can increase the power of the piece in the hands of a really good pianist. It can make the grand grander and the important more emphatic. By the way, I love both Stephen Kovacavich and Boris Giltburg on this piece. Check out Boris Giltburg's "Behind the Notes" series on all the Beethoven sonatas.
a performance to die for....or die from.
The only thing I missed in this talk was that he didn't mention how influenced by MOZART Beethoven was in his early period. If you look at the 1st motif of his Op2 #1 , 1st mvt, it is almost exactly the same as the motif for the Mozart #21 piano concerto. Beethoven used a lot of Mozart's motifs, and if you listen to Mozart's sonata in C minor for piano, you'll hear a lot of similarities with Beethoven's Op2 #1.` The weird thing is, I never hear any musicologists classical professor types bring this up! They invariably skate right over Mozart and compare Beethoven to Haydn, or Clementi or Bach---they act like Beethoven came up with all of these ideas without mozart's help, when in fact, he was probably Mozarts greatest student, despite them never actually meeting/studying together in person.
Thanks for uploading. This documentary states Beethoven as dying on March 27th. Every history book I have read says March 26th. As for his hearing I thought I remembered Beethoven speaking of it in his letters before he was 30 but I'd have to check on the date.
nice performance of beethoven
I would have to disagree with the idea that playing on period instruments doesn't affect performance practice and other things. There is a lot of criticism, including by Bernstein, that his orchestrations are not great because there's instruments sticking out everywhere. If it's played on period instruments it is very well balanced. So it does well to pay attention to the timbre and tone of what he was using as his paint for his painting at the time.
I have often referred to Mozart,Bach and Beethoven as prophets, especially to Muslims. The same moniker to Lincoln, Jefferson, and Washington. I specifically add “ peace upon him.”
A magnicent lecture/recital.
Nice to hear.
Explanation is one thing, interpretation is a completely different thing.
Talking about "influences"...Salieri (who was one of Beethoven's master?), Cherubini?? Clementi??? Not a single mention and he brought up CPE Bach!!
And Neefe.
This is not revisionism. The style of counterpoint as exemplified by JS Bach was a different kettle of fish altogether from the style as exemplified by Palestrina. All Palestrina's music was essentially confined to the use of triads in either root position or 1st inversion without the use of a single dissonance. Writing such great music within these great constraints testifies to his great genius. Bach's counterpoint (widely known as harmonic or 18th Century style counterpoint) is replete with dissonance, inversions at the octave, tenth, twelfth and other intervals. This is the style of counterpoint which was adopted and incorporated into the music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, (one of the finest examples written by Mozart in the final movement of symphony 41) certainly not Palestrina's. On the subject of sonata form, you are absolutely wrong. The great composers of the Classical period clearly followed prescribed forms in their sonata movements. What is often called first movement form is a developmental form which, though allows for variation in the order and content of it's elements, must always and always does, without exception in the works of the classical composers, recapitulate all transposed subjects in the tonic key. The other forms within these sonatas (minuet and trio, scherzo, rondo, grand rondo and slow movement form etc) are all additive forms which all follow even stricter rules. I would recommend you study the great book 'Sonata Forms' by Charles Rosen to educate yourself on this subject.
I tend to think of it as Modal, and Tonal counterpoint. Palestrina would be modal, where as 18th century counterpoint, became more tonal, and also focusing more on the progression,etc.,
Ouch. 6:09: "If there's a counterpoint composition in what's called 'fourth species', that essentially means there are four voices, four violins, perhaps, or four oboes, perhaps, that follow one another. Voice one will take up the melody. Voice two will follow that, voice three, and so on." This attempted definition of fourth species counterpoint happens to be dead wrong. The true definition of species counterpoint has nothing whatsoever to do with how many voices there are, and, in any case, classifying counterpoint into species is strictly a pedagogical device for pedagogical purposes. First species counter point is note-against-note, that is, lines in rhythmic unison, so to speak. Second species counterpoint is two-notes-(or, in triple time, three notes)-against one. Third species counterpoint is four-notes-against-one. Fourth species counterpoint is continuously syncopated, that is, one line is rhythmically displaced in respect to the other. Fifth species is counterpoint is called "florid", meaning it's a combination of the other species. Where there are more than two voices (or lines), one pair may be in a different species relation from another pair. Whether this lecture is replete with other comparable solecisms I can't say. I stopped listening.
Very interesting remark. One little comment. The use of the higher species does not require a canonic approach. My apologies if this not what you intended to say.
Hahahahaahahahaha. I made an almost identical comment just now. Less backstory though and some generalization.
Thanks because was perplexed by that statement, but it's been a while... there is a great gulf between this sort of academic pianist and the real artist. His F minor is rather too clean and well squared, but sadly lacking a rounder, deeper passion of that work... his playing thus sounds dry and risk free. The slow movement sounds like a march rather than something romantic and flowing from the heart... and as for the great op 111... it is never explained how exactly he was connecting it with the op 2#1, so it seems superfluous if not pretentious to even connect the two opus numbers. He didn't even mention that the 111 is the only Beethoven Sonata with only 2 movements... It would make more sense to compare Opus 2#1 with opus 2#2 as Beethoven does a modulation in #2 (first movement) which was very revolutionary for it's time... which is important because Beethoven was politically a revolutionary and this sentiment was very much the subtle message in much of his music (getting rather obvious in the 3rd symphony with many quotes from popular french revolutionary songs expressing "liberty")
Frankly this is a charming talk for lay people who are learning about Beethoven for the first time, but rather simplistic if not naive for those of us who have read Sir Donald Francis Tovey and such and play some of the sonatas. Professor Lytle misses on such questions as period pianos. Beethoven, like Bach (or even Frank Zappa) loved to have access to the most modern developments concerning the musical tools of his time... and indeed forced a few innovations to be made to accommodate some of his works ; thus indeed Beethoven would be pleased with the sound of his work on modern pianos. The real interest for using period pianos is really just to get an idea of the tools and sound available in those days and the effect that had on what was written as composers such as Beethoven challenged those tools to the peak of their potentials... it's a little different however if we were talking Brandenberg Concertos by Bach.
As for racism (as some people call below here)... not at all. Beethoven himself certainly had some african blood... and was called by many of his friends "the little moor". It's not the issue here. Not every one can be Glen Gould or Arthur Rubinstein... and it's a wonderful thing that black people do interest themselves in and learn to love classical music just as we white folks love jazz and so on... this is partly what culture is for ! That via our differences, we all no less learn to be human !
None of the subsequent words are anchored on that error. (That horrifically incorrect error, might I add!) I think it's worth watching the rest.
lol that was bad, I wonder if he meant to say 4 VOICE counterpoint instead? Or maybe, he never studied, counterpoint, I wonder if he know's now? He know's so much about other aspect's of music/theory, that I'd be surprised if he didn't know it then, maybe just a (BAD) slip up?
Just listening to the start, I don't think anyone should be deified.
But yeah, as a teacher, and someone with training in species cpt, I felt compelled to address that- lol!
7:53 ff-- "... Beethoven starts to inculcate into his music..." "Inculcate into"? I think not! Maybe "incorporate."
Two Bad Asses on display here.
One bad ass performing the works of another bad ass.
Um tesouro de 57:19 para iluminar nosso dia!
It should be clarified here that there are two kinds of counterpoint in the "common practice period." The first is modal counterpoint" used by Palestrina, Gibbons, etc. and secondly, harmonic counterpoint used by Handel, Bach etc. They are quite different.
You mean "tonal counterpoint" not "harmonic counterpoint", yes? You may be thinking of Seth Monahan's method of "harmonic counterpoint", right?
The 'ten' symphonies ??
Gordon Stainforth the tenth is a fragment
He perhaps was thinking of the few scraps of notes to a very unfinished 10th left incomplete at Beethoven's death.
@16:05 Dont think LvB was rationally aware > Mmm better do it like this < playing it than notating it ..
For him it felt right so must be good..
-- His inspiration? A small tunnel granting access to this: Auto creative something, that just happens .. !
Ludwig, hours and hours behind a keyboard practice. Bach, Mozart etc.Forgotten etudes & million finger exercises. Surly than you would start improvisations, self jamming with some great chords.
Just F'n around, filling in time. Over time it creates the synapsis with as result the:
DON'T THINK ...BRAIN RUN HANDS ...
-- My thought .. Composers just don't know what will happen next second .. Instinct ??
-- They know it will happen, but no clue as to what will come out ??
What is the piece at the beginning?
Jean Reotutar Opening of symphony 9
Possibly, but I think either
1) he was just trying to keep things simple for the large audience (after all, explaining more detail would create QUITE a tangent)
or
2) it was just one of those silly things that pops out of our mouths from time to time. A "brain fart"- I say stupid things all the time, esp. when I'm nervous and/or doing public speaking like this.
That's my theory, anyway.
Was it professor Lytle giving this explanation, sorry if the spelling, was wrong ?
Did he just say that 4th species has 4voices and is imitative? (6:15)
WHAAAT?!!!
BZZZZ!!! Wrong!
species cntrpnt (in the Fuxian sense, anyway) has nothing to do with the number of voices-4th species is note against a rhythmically off-set note (suspension.)
Where does he teach?
4th species is not 4 voices!
lol! Yeah- those happen. Beethoven started a 10th but never finished it.
BLACK AND WHITE SHOULD EXIST TOGETHER ,
LIKE THE KEYS ON PIANO !
WHITE HARMONISE
WITH BLACK-KEYED GUYS'!
BLACK AND WHITE PLAYING FOREVER ;
TOGETHER ! .....
by :ed..deevy
@freeqwerqwer "A black man in a professor shoe?"
What rock have u been living under?
@composerdoh yea it had to be a brain fart cuz he said 10 symphonies... im preeeettyy sure beethoven composed 9 buut iuno i gues i could be wrong>?
This is a very late response, but Beethoven began his Tenth Symphony before his death and never finished it. However, he left a lot of material behind for the symphony, so Barry Cooper was able to arrange the first movement of Beethoven's symphony pretty faithfully. It isn't a full symphony since it's only one movement, but I'd say it's substantive enough to call it Beethoven's Tenth.
Why?
great talk and all but I feel like he hits the keys with waaaay too much force generally... maybe its cause its a bosendorfer so hes overcompensating or something, but still
@IGHON uh...Bach?
Really enjoyed it, but He performs Beethoven like a ragtime. I mean the rhythms are so even, the piece loses it’s weight and depth imho...
Yes. I agree about his playing - especially "loses it's weight and depth.:
10 symphonies?
Oh. An unfinished 10th one. I forgot about that. My bad.
The Battle symphony is sometimes included also known as Wellingtons Victory
The performance is excellent.This would have been a master class if you included the sheet music with the chords and modulations .Check out the moonlight or Pathetic sonata David B Thomas composer youtube and you 'll experience a real master class in analysis,however, thank you for uploading this.
he didnt talk much about op111 ;_;
sounds like the guy has never learned a thing about counterpoint..
GAAH
stupid wiikipedia! told me beethovens DOB was dec 14
ahha anyways its still one day from my bday(dec 15) aaha
i love beethoven. if i were to be a composer, id be beethoven... althought he was a grumpy deaf man... meh pure genius is worht it
BLACK AND WHITE
Boring lecturer. Google Andras Schiff and listen to his lectures instead.
I am not a fan of the historical revisionism here. Contrapuntal technique is not "the tradition of Bach", it is what Monteverdi called "The antique style" 100 years before Bach. It was antique when some would say Palestrina perfected it a generation before that. The deliberate opposition and juxtaposition between "Prima Prattica" and "Secunda Prattica" is something that was first employed by Palestrina for political reason of the counter-reformation. Before that it mostly described the difference between secular and religious music, and after that almost every composer made use of the difference effectively to a greater or lesser extent.
Similarly "Sonata form" was not a "thing" until decades after Beethoven's death. It was literally a concept which was invented to described commonalities in technique of writing movement featuring a certain type of rhetorical structure. Beethoven wrote exactly nothing in Sonata form and he certainly did not advance it. It only appears that way when viewing music through the the peculiarly warped lens that sees classical tradition as extending roughly from 1700-1900 with the First Viennese School at the apogee.
***** That's the kind of answers that clarify things. Well done.It doesn't matter the name you give to things. You can label anything as you want. The most is the content that makes things what they are.
***** I don't see how Beethoven could be said to advance the Sonata form, that is anachronistic reasoning.
You could say the same of Telemann advancing the form of the Fantasia, which is simply wrong. He wrote Fantasias in a peculiar but consistent way which no one afterwards exactly emulated, exactly like Beethoven's Sonatas, Bach's Fugues or Handel's Oratorios. Almost every composer of note does this with a form or forms they take a liking to.
It's not about the name, its about the fact that "Sonata form" implies an independent existence for something which has none. It is simply a post-hoc explanation of consistencies in Classical style.
I think you will find that Palestrina was a far greater influence on contrapuntal tuition than Bach was. Sure, Mozart would have played and studied Bach, but he was also taught from Fux's "Gradus ad Parnassum" by his father, that volume of course being derived directly from Palestrina practice in Bach's time.
***** Mozart studied Palestrina through Fux while he was young, a time when the elder Bach's influence was at a low ebb. J.C. Bach had a big influence on classical style, C.P.E less so, but J.S. had almost none, he was old-fashioned even in his own time. The few attempts by J.S. to write in the new style are not very effective. Mozart studied the elder Bach only much later in his career.
Just to clarify: "Sonata form" refers to the form of movements, not pieces, but I guess you know that, it just seemed that you implied otherwise by: "it is an explanation for the form of sonata pieces", which it of course is nothing of the sort.
The Romantic movement is characterized by breaking the rules imposed by the Classical predecessors as codified by the Romantics themselves. They weren't particularly good historians in that time. The weaker ones, like Czerny, tried to emulate, but these types are almost never regarded as great works.
I'm not saying Beethoven wasn't important, but Sonata form itself is nothing more than a fetishized rhetorical gesture, even if one that is more effective than most.
As a rule, the better composers didn't allow macro-forms to dictate their composition, but would sometimes use it as a template, almost like using a square frame for a picture.
The reason why the great composers seem to "develop" forms which are rarely if ever taken up by subsequent composers in the developed form is because these composers allow the internal logic of the music itself to dictate the shape of the frame. But you need a frame one way or another, and square ones are both traditional and effective for most things and using a standard frame is often helpful.
Beethoven was a very importnant composer. He had a pivotal function in musical history. Every teacher and student have to face him.
4th species is suspension. Plus he doesn't quite have a British accent so his usage of the word "idear" is not merited. And for those two reasons, I'm out.
Where is opus 111? It is regrettable that racisme is on this page too. Beethoven himselve was anything but a racist. He composed the Kreuzer Sonata for a black violist named George Greenpol Bridgetower. OK, they had an argument, but not about race, but about a woman. That's why Beethoven changed his dedication to Rudolph Kreuzer, who did not even liked the violin sonata and never played it. But I think unless his value, this interesting lecture is also a bit outdated. Especially about opus 111 and the influence of Albrechtsberger. I also miss the influence of Beethovens favorite composer G.F. Haendel and the often overlooked, but very importnant influence of the composers of the French Revolution like Gretry and Gossec. But Beethovens studies for the Missa Solemnis led him directly to Palestrina.
It's the other way around.
Maybe a little more music and a little less talking would’ve been better
It’s a lecture
Clearly a fool in your shoes!
He was not God!
No but to me something very close to divinity
louise van Hoven
To me Hiromi is divine :)
Andrew Piatek
She is an excelent pianoplayer. I have been watching her playing the Pathetique.But I don't like it at all! Beethovens music is excellent the way he wrote it and ment to be the way it is written. In my opinion one has to leave the great composers alone and compose your own music! Anyway I cannot enjoy this fusion. But if you can it's o.k. for you!
I agree, I haven't even listened to Hiromi's Pathetique. The second movement is kind of pop classical anyway :) Maybe if she played Appassionata, maybe I'd listen :) Hiromi's latest album Alive is very good, though. Not really fusion. Combination of classical, jazz, and prog rock maybe. Not really a specific genre. Hiromi is her own genre on her own right :) As far as sonatas go, there's nothing that beats Mozart ones, Beethoven one's, and the two Chopin ones which I find especially amazing.
Mozart`s piano sonatas are not the best work. There are a few first rate ones, but many workaday. Haydn`s late sonatas are the fathers of Beethoven first scores in that form, with the last one in Eb being the model for things to come from Beethoven.
A black man in a professor shoe?
@gariadara , well, excuse my startled comment. A black man teaching rag or jazz music is alright but when it comes to a black man and Beethoven, well, they just don't make good bedfellows.
........but then someone said, a longtime ago, that Beethoven was black so I guess I should have picked on it, huh?
What about "very talented" instead of "very excellent" -- which is gramatically incorrect -- or "very smart", which Beethoven certainly was not. An exceptionally talented musician with a melodic musical fantasy which sprung from the meanders of his troubled mind, a mastery of polyphony and orchestration grafted on a bold temperament and unflinching willpower, but a pretty ordinary man, otherwise.
Curatica C ..So you met him then hmmm? Found out he was pretty " ordinary " then? Ah..I see. Well if LVB was ordinary, then what are you then? Not much I'll guess.
Curatica C, it's hard to imagine a stupider statement about Beethoven.