A Chamber Full of Beethoven
This morning, as I sat nursing a cup of coffee and procrastinating starting work, a sudden Beethoven-related thought appeared: are there arrangements of his symphonies for string quartet? The answer is: sort of.
Theses ones aren’t for quartet, but quintet. I discovered these via this thread, which contains a wealth of information about chamber arrangements of Beethoven’s works.
It turns out that in the days before CDs and MP3s and 8-tracks, chamber arrangements were the shit. Apparently, music publishers in the 1800s were limited to selling only a certain number of copies of a hot new symphony. However, they could get around this by publishing versions arranged for smaller groups of instruments instead. This had the added bonus that the public were probably more interested in the chamber arrangements, because they could play them when their friends were over (unless you happened to be friends with a full symphony orchestra). This resulted in lots of subpar, unauthorized arrangements of famous pieces (and a few good ones, too).
From liner notes reference in the thread above:
… The present recording of two well-known works by Beethoven affords an example of … [a] practice that was once very common: that of transcribing large-scale orchestral works for chamber resources. This was a popular practice during the Classical era, when successful new symphonies or concertos were offered for sale by publishers in all manner of additional arrangements suitable for performance within a domestic setting, not only in the form of piano reductions, but also in transcriptions ranging from duets to septets and even nonets. Most of these arrangements were the work not of the composers themselves but of arrangers who specialized in this task. But in the case of Beethoven’s Symphony no. 2 in D major op. 36 we have an “authentic” arangement that Beethoven himself prepared soon after the first performance of the symphony in 1803. Whereas the majority of these transcriptions were intended on the whole to insure a wider and quicker distribution of the music, the chamber version of the Fourth Piano Concerto in G major op. 58 that was recently rediscovered and reconstructed by Hans-Werner Kuthen seems to have been intended primarily for the private use of Prince Lobowitz, one of Beethoven’s music-loving patrons in whose town mansion the concerto had first been heard in its original orchestral version in March 1807. Beethoven was involved in this transcription too. Although he entrusted a tried-and-tested acquaintance, the court violinist Franz Alexander Possinger, with the task of reducing the orchestral lines to five-part strings (two violins, two violas and cello), he himself reworked the piano part and in the outer movements alone changed more than eighty passages in order to bring it into line with the new sororities, while at the same time considerably increasing the virtuoso demands on the soloist….
Which is describing this CD
Phew. That’s a lot of information.
I;m not sure how much I like the versions in the youtube videos above. The phrasing feels a bit too over-Romanticcy. I do really like the Liszt piano transcriptions
What do you think?
Free classical music! (if you’re in school…)
If you are in one of those fine institutes of learning known as “a university” then you might already have access to bazillions of online classical music recordings. Naturally I only worked this out in the last half-year (please please please oh god) of my PhD. You can check it out by going to your library website and finding the database section. Have a nose around in there for classical music related stuff. I found out we have the entire Naxos music library!
(W)Here I’ve Been
10 states, 6 days, ~2000 miles of driving:
Biggest surprise: The landscape in South Dakota is like a cross between Yorkshire and Scotland, not jagged and full of fear like I imagined it to be.
Biggest disappointment: Phoenix; hot and gross and pockmarked with interstate.
ADHD+Opera
In our modern age, everything is available in snack form. The internet has drained our attention spans. Any wall of text longer than a couple of paragraphs is a challenge that needs to be planned, and packed, and mapped out well in advance. We’ve moved from writing letters, to phonecalls, to emails, to instant messenging. The quicker and less the investment of time, the better. The most recent methods of communicating don’t even leave the briefness up to us, text messaging and Twitter both have abbreviation built in, and we love it. The lack of freedom is a feature.
Not that that’s a bad thing. When I was a kid we’d sometimes get to go into work with our parents. In the morning, before we all packed into the little VW Polo (that’s one size down from the Golf, for the US readers) my sister and I would raid the big box of Legos that lived under the bed. We’d each put together a 10 or 20 piece model and take it in with us. Then we’d spend the whole day taking apart and rebuilding them, trying to make as many different things out of those handful of pieces as possible. In a way it was more exciting to be limited to just those pieces, than to have the run of the huge box at home. That’s when I first understood the adage “necessity is the mother of invention”.
Now here’s your chance to be a mother…. of invention… of Opera… on Twitter. The idea is to describe the entire plot of an opera in 160 characters. The outcome is you can win fabulous prizes. Examples from last year:
- @leboyfriend – There was a young lady called Fricka Who . . . who . . . *snore* ‘Wake up — it’s over.’ It’s good, I just wish it were quicka. [The Ring]
- @wordsmusic – Here’s my castle. Are you afraid? No, I’m going to open all those damn doors! Are you afraid? No, let me in! Who’s that? Oh shit. [Bluebeard]
- @musicbizkid – Let me get this straight: unfathomable treasure if I betroth my loopy daughter to a ghost? Deal. She’ll meet you by the fjord. [The Flying Dutchman]
- @DrGeoduck – Who wants to live forever? Me! No, wait, i changed my mind. *dies* [The Makropolus Case]
- @voxdixit – Monk: Repent, courtesan! (Meditation) Courtesan: Okay! Monk: Wait, there is no God after all! Courtesan: Too late, I’m dead! [Thais]
Interest piqued? Full details on Miss. M’s site, here.
Temper Tantrum
Does arguing the finer points of tuning systems get you in a bit of a bother? Do perfect fifths make you need to loosen up your collar? If so, I recommend a cold shower, and a trip to Slate to read this article on temperament, though possibly not in that order.