Beethoven’s Awesome Music

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I wish I had the vocabulary to explain why Beethoven’s music sounds so grand, but I don’t!

In my opinion Bach’s music is very grand indeed, and just serious enough to have a certain weight. However, it is that weight that bothers some people. (Long ago I learned to ignore troublesomeness of the weight of Bach’s music, and actually glory in it. My Uncle sent me a tiny little long-playing record of the A minor organ fugue, played by E. Power Biggs, and I was completely sold.) Handel wrote grand music too; for example the Music for the Royal Fireworks.

But Beethoven’s music sounds just right for great formal occasions. (I say this so often that some of you are sure to be tired of that opinion by now, and I apologize.)

One example is the the Violin Concerto. The opening moments just make you want to stand up and cheer, though the notes are actually quite unremarkable. Here’s Joshua Bell playing the first movement.  (A slightly more lyrical interpretation by Arabella Steinbacher.)

But this is not as characteristically Beethovenian as his piano concertos. Here is Mitsuko Uchida playing the opening movement of the Concerto No. 4 in G major, probably one of the most noble movements ever written by Beethoven. Mitsuko Uchida is getting to be one of my favorite pianists for orchestral works.

This instinct for bold, masculine statements could come out of the circumstances in which Beethoven found himself. Mozart and Haydn, his great predecessors, were both beholden to patrons, wealthy aristocrats who had them on retainer, or indeed hired them as members of their households. In Haydn's case, it worked out well: Duke Esterhazy was a benevolent and appreciative employer. In Mozart's case, it did not work out well, since Mozart was more in tune with the young folks of the times, and strained against the discipline imposed by Bishop Colloredo of Salzburg, who thought it best to keep Mozart on a very short leash.

Beethoven abandoned the idea of a patron. He earned his meager living by giving music lessons, and public subscription performances, which worked a little better for him than they did for Mozart. The whole problem had to do with how seriously composers were taken by the Middle Class. Beethoven must have felt (and his letters probably bear out this surmise) that a peddler of pretty tunes could never command the respect of society; he had to be big and bold and impressive. But he had to do so without sacrificing musicality. In the piano concertos, particularly, he had to come across as bold, commanding, manly, in complete control. In my mind, Beethoven's piano concertos are the essence of classical masculinity: assertive and bold, with tender moments. (Mozart was largely similar, but Beethoven out-Mozart-ed Mozart.)

The great piece of sacred music Beethoven wrote --or at least one of them-- is the little-performed Missa Solemnis. I feel it has been very influential, because at least one major work has been greatly influenced by it, namely Brahm’s Ein Deutsche Requiem. (Readers who might not have seen much of Leonard Bernstein: this is your chance. Berstein may not have been the world’s greatest conductor, but he was an incredible musician, and in highly emotionally intense works like Mahler’s symphonies, and this Mass of Beethoven’s, he was well able to inspire choirs and orchestras to do better than their best.)

The symphonies, of course, are well known, and I have written about them before. They all have their moments of nobility, but there is so much else in them, that it is difficult to point out a particular movement and say: this one is full of noble sentiment from beginning to end.

For anyone studying Beethoven, I have to suggest the early symphonies. If you love Mozart, the early Beethoven is almost better than Mozart, thought that sounds almost like blasphemy! Symphony No. 1 in C major is truly a jewel, and so is No. 2.

I’d like to insert a reference to one of my favorite movements from the piano sonatas, namely the second movement of the Moonlight.  The first movement is so well known that hardly any attention is given to the lovely second movement, so full of cleverness and humor.  Here is a performance by a pianist I have never heard of before: Neil Rutman.



Incidentally, this clip illustrates how difficult it is to record piano music. When I play this on my small office system there is a lot of distortion at a reasonable volume level. Still, one has to admit that it is a good performance.

Here's Wilhelm Kempff playing the same movement.

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