Restlessness: or Beethoven, Gould and Opus 126
Restlessness!
Probably the things that connect Beethoven's life with a common thread can be many, but surely restlessness has an absolutely central role in the composer's entire life, from his early years in Bonn until his death on March 26, 1826.
Restlessness towards his family - I always wonder why, in 1803, he had only the portrait of his grandfather Ludvig senior, whom he had just met, sent to Vienna (who died in 1773), and not also that of his "beloved mother"! - for whom he always had to take responsibility. Restlessness towards his Bonn; too narrow for his ambitions and to which he never returned. Restlessness towards his teachers, whom he felt were limited. Restlessness towards the nobility, from whom, however, he could not do without in order to live. Restlessness towards the bourgeoisie: "plebeian mass". Restlessness towards an ungrateful fate that he would have wanted to "take by the neck". Restlessness towards women, from whom, however, he could not do without...! A life constantly accompanied by the most ungrateful dualism: Necessity and Free Will, which always conditioned him.
But the two forms of restlessness of interest here were musical ones.
The first was towards the sonata form, with which he waged a very hard struggle from his earliest works and which led to extreme consequences – that of no return - with his final Piano Sonatas, and in particular with Opus 111—the one about which Thomas Mann said in his "Doktor Faustus": "(...) here the sonata ended, here it had fulfilled its mission, touched the goal beyond which it was impossible to go, here it annulled itself and took its leave (...) a farewell as great as the entire composition, the farewell of the Sonata."
The second musical restlessness of Beethoven was... towards Beethoven himself.
Let's think about it for a moment; this was not always the attitude the composer had toward his music: has the feeling of not yet having completed his task of "living for my art" existed since the time of the "Heiligenstadt Testament"? And therefore, does this not translate into a restlessness towards what he had already composed and a duty to always go further?
It is in this context of the discussion that the series of "Bagatelles Opus 126," which the giant from Bonn composed between the end of 1823 and February 1824 on the soil of Vienna, should be inserted. In fact, it was in letter no. 1783 of February 24, 1824, that Beethoven named them for the first time, requesting their publication from the publisher Heinrich Albert Probst in Leipzig.
These Bagatelles are Beethoven's last piano work – apart from some sketches that remained so – and it is important to ask why, after the great previous Sonatas, the composer only wrote these which, without a doubt, as he himself wrote in his letter 1901 of November 23, 1824, are: "(...) small pieces for solo piano, some of which are very elaborate and certainly the best I have written in this genre".
Surely, precisely for the reason cited by Thomas Mann, it was impossible for Beethoven to go beyond the Sonatas; thus, only the possibility remained to create these small, gigantic jewels. Jewels that were part of his final compositional season, when, in an impulse of restlessness, "(...) in the contemplative stasis of the combinatorial play of counterpoint of the last Sonatas (or the last Quartets); in that contestation of the dramatic linearity of musical discourse that the Variations always were for him" (Guido Salvetti), he turned to them.
For the first time – as was the case for the series of Lieder "" (An die ferne Geliebte) Opus 98 of 1816 – Beethoven assigned a cyclical series to these Bagatelles which, as happened with his entire late production, were misunderstood in his time. However, they were well understood by Robert Schumann; let us think only of the series "" and "". Refined pages, of a dazzling visionary quality, are united by the reasoned programming of tonalities: G+ lyrical, in the "Andante con moto compiacevole" of the first; G- in the sharp "Allegro" of the second; Eb+ in the "Andante cantabile e grazioso" of the third, where a first part of choral writing is followed by a sort of very ornamental variation; B- in the "Presto" of the fourth, determined but softened by an episode in musette form; G+ in the fifth "Quasi allegretto," intrinsic with sweet delicacy; Eb+, finally, in the sixth "Presto – Andante amabile e con moto," where after a very brief and whimsical "Presto," there is an "Andante" rich in expressive contrasts.
In the discourse concerning the "Bagatelles Opus 126" and that relating to restlessness, the figure of Glenn Gould fits in fully.
Glenn Gould was a great pianist who, it is said, was either loved to madness or [was]"},
Absolutely Glenn Gould. I think that even if one does not agree, one cannot deny his absolute genius in interpreting, first and foremost, the music of his favorite Johann Sebastian Bach, but also in general all the music he approached.
Glenn Gould's relationship with Mozart's music was anything but positive, and many wish it had been the same with Beethoven.
I think instead, as Guido Salvetti states: «(...) Between the two, relationships were tense: Glenn Gould did not forgive Beethoven for being Beethoven and, as such, for having written the exact opposite of that music "without beginning and without end, without true tensions and true resolutions" that Gould dreamed of. On the contrary, Beethoven was the champion of the very idea of "beginning," even as the genesis of the Cosmos from Chaos, and of "end" as a utopian message of the victory of Reason; and the tension-resolution play is the only possible path, for Beethoven, that can guarantee the relationship between art and life, between the artist and humanity.
Glenn Gould, hearing these things, is suffering: for him music must not be this entanglement—for him spurious to the point of indecency—of sound and ideology. And Beethoven, more than anyone, needs help to redeem himself: Beethoven needs Gould, and Gould in helping him, is well aware of performing a gesture of love (...)»."
Love and intolerance were thus what drove Gould to interpret Beethoven, that same love and intolerance that Beethoven had for himself.
This is why the Bagatelles, these jewels that certainly did not have the "claim" to fulfill an ideal, that had no beginning and no end, were preferred by Gould "as a sign of a different Beethoven."
And so let us compare these Bagatelles in the hands of pianists like
and
in the hands of
. In the first, the dilation of duration is already impressive, more than a minute in Gould's compared to Pollini's. But then, listening to it! Does it not seem more like being in the presence of a Bachian prelude rather than a Beethovenian bagatelle? Genius from my point of view!
Contrary to the first, the second in Gould becomes very fast compared to Pollini, granting him that lost minute, and the central moment of tenderness has almost entirely disappeared.
With the third, Gould slows down the tempos again compared to Pollini. But it is the ornamentations that are significantly enriched by an incomparable pianistic touch.
Dilation also in the fourth, where one returns to a marked and compact interpretation like in the second and, as always, not attentive to softenings.
The fifth, which has the delicate movements of a barcarolle, is followed by Gould in an extraordinary way in its abstract dissolution, which leads it to lose the connotation of song and dance.
The sixth, the most visionary of all six bagatelles, in its internal continuous laceration, in its hanging between the popular and the sublime, finds in Gould a cold and perfect performer; perhaps in this one, the Canadian pianist feels most at ease: nothing has been traced, the goal has not been marked.
Intolerance!
Yes, there are many reasons that lead me to love Beethoven above any other composer: the intolerance that so much in common with me is one of them.
Ps: the interpretations by Pollini and Gould are behind their names, just click there.
