That somewhat military imprint

Besides, mine is a love-hate relationship with Beethoven, I told you right away how it would end...

Rotore wrote:

I imagined that, albeit gently, I would take some beatings

To be honest, it doesn't bother me; on the contrary, I like it... ...also because Beethoven knows how to use it perfectly, in my very modest opinion.

It surprises me that no one - but especially Rotore! - has mentioned Piano Concerto No. 3 and 5.

(If you notice, all the odd-numbered Piano Concertos and almost all the odd-numbered Symphonies have something martial about them!)

P.S.: The next time I read "marcistico" instead of "marziale", I'm calling the "Grammar Police" and having you arrested!

Ismaele wrote:

I am surprised that no one - but especially Rotore! - has mentioned Piano Concerto No. 3 and 5.

Hmm... Rotore spoke exactly about the concerto in C minor instead...

Ismaele wrote:

Honestly, it doesn't bother me; on the contrary, I like it... ...also because Beethoven knows how to use it perfectly, in my very modest opinion.

Not to persist, but whether one likes it or not... your writing confirms that it exists. It's not that I am exactly a visionary, eh

Rotore wrote:

Not to persist, but whether one likes it or not... your writing confirms that it exists. It's not that I am exactly a visionary, eh

Not to persist, but nobody denied it and you certainly didn't discover it yourself, eh!

I asked you to clarify what you are referring to regarding "those rhythms" and the martial element, and you haven't done so yet. We knew very well that Beethoven uses it - in fact: I spoke to you about two pieces where the "military" element is very evident and, parenthetically, in one of the two, namely Egmont, it is used precisely to "translate" the exultation after a victory, so just think about it... and these are two pieces where, as you said, this element remains "fairly hidden". So, I repeat, I would like to understand what it is about Beethovenian language that you don't like, perhaps expressed in a way that allows us to discuss it. So far you have said little and poorly, and it's like when you hear someone talking about Verdi and say "I don't like him because it's all zum pa pa". Do you understand? What do you say to someone like that?

OrlandiArmando wrote:

Red-Black White in the background and light blue.... personally I like it because it is very, very blue-circled, and I am a Sampdorian; furthermore, I appreciate the suggestion, which is very timely. I am not convinced about the bold text; it seems like a small attack on Rotore, who instead reaches results that are perhaps biased due to partial listening, in no case shareable, but always very polite and within the lines. I respect him very much.

Hi Armando, how are you?

Compliments on all your work, which is wonderful. I don't know if you recognized me, but I am that Daniele who was already a member of your old forums.

I am sorry about the bold text, which actually happened on its own and not intentionally. I didn't think it could give rise to interpretations of this kind, and I apologize to Rotore if he understood it that way.

Hello dear Daniele!

What a pleasure to have you with me again! Of course, I am not the landlord, but neither a simple tenant.... Let's just say I am.... On "loan for use"! The choice to have a forum like this was an excellent idea by a friend of the forum, whom I keep hidden out of fairness, but whom I can never thank enough. Many of us are from the old forum, and I do not despair that even the latest members will join. I watch over the form, it's true. But this is to preserve that atmosphere of frank serenity that has been created in the section. But they argue, you know? Oh, how they argue. As Tex says, there are "fine minds" here and I say it without irony, rather, with admiration. The topics are often very varied and interesting. Thank you for the compliments on my work. In fact, I am at.... 34.5% of the journey. I will never finish, I have come to terms with it by now. But it is beautiful to have embarked on this journey with you, dear friends.

A hug,

For me, if there is one thing that really irritates me about Beethoven, it's when he "gets stuck" on a diminished seventh and turns it over and over as if it were the eighth wonder of the world ... a bit like Debussy with the whole-tone scale.

Rotore wrote:

What do you think about the fact that Beethoven's works often suffer from these somewhat march-like rhythms? Let's say... military?

A personal thing of mine, which has been quite evident to my nerves for a while now. I wouldn't want to be branded a heretic, but I am also interested in the opinion of even the most die-hard Beethoven lovers.

The issue you raise in critical terms is, in reality, very significant of Beethoven's way of composing, especially in the so-called "Heroic Period," which essentially begins around the time of the Heiligenstadt Testament and ended after the Congress of Vienna. It is always important to—and particularly in Beethoven's case—contextualize (I will never tire of using this verb) the historical and psychological period to understand his choices. In fact, it was after the depressive crisis that brought him to the brink of suicide, caused in large part by the full realization of the irreversibility of the illness that rendered him completely deaf 14 years later, and also at the end of his love affair with Giulietta Guicciardi, that the creative process fully began—which also goes by the name of "second style," though—pay attention to this as well because it is always important to keep in mind—it began its first maturation as early as the first works in the catalogue and still had repercussions in the late style.

Substantially, Beethoven worked on form—the sonata inherited from Haydn and Mozart, engaging in a struggle with it that led his final Sonatas and Quartets toward his—almost—dissolution. Most famous on this subject is that passage from Thomas Mann's "Doktor Faustus" where the reason why Beethoven did not include a third movement in Opus 111 is discussed: « (...) A third movement? A new recapitulation (...) after this farewell? A return (...) after this parting? Impossible. Everything was done: in the second movement, in this enormous movement, the sonata had reached its end, the end without return. And when he said "the sonata," he was not only alluding to that specific sonata in C minor, but meant the sonata in general as a traditional artistic form; here the sonata ended, here it had fulfilled its mission, having touched the goal beyond which it was impossible to go, here it nullified itself and took its leave (...) a farewell as great as the entire composition, the parting from the Sonata. (...) »

The principle that guided Beethoven's compositional spirit is defined as "opposing principles," as it is characterized by a continuous alternation of dramatic contrasts: to various themes and various phrases, others of a contrary nature respond; to a passage having a certain rhythm, another with a different rhythm responds. This conception, Beethoven derived from the philosophy of Kant, and precisely from the "Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science" where the philosopher spoke of the force of attraction and repulsion as the original impulse of matter. The composer wrote in one of his Conversation Books: « In the soul as in the physical world, two forces act, both equally great, equally simple, derived from the same general principle: the force of attraction and that of repulsion. »

With increasing deafness, Beethoven relied more and more on the written word to communicate. Visitors coming to see him were invited to write while—almost always, obviously—the composer responded orally. These writings have remained to us, unfortunately, only in part, because of the four hundred Conversation Books—which date back to the last 10 years of the life of the Genius of Bonn—only 137 remain, due to that wretch Schindler who burned the rest.

Luigi Magnani, a great Beethoven scholar, in his book "Beethoven nei suoi quaderni di conversazione" (Beethoven in his Conversation Books) published by Einaudi, conducted a truly fascinating and engaging analysis that highlighted Beethoven's thought in an absolutely excellent manner. « "The themes are now felt as ideas, expressions precisely of the conflict that agitates the human soul between matter and spirit, between the world and the subjective I." Thus Beethoven himself expresses it, and in the Conversation Books he defines the bithematic dialectic of the sonata form: the first theme is understood as a "principle of opposition" and the second as a "supplicating principle." In a Goethian sense, the first is the "masculine" element that asserts itself as rhythmic-melodic and tonal energy (that is, as the choice and imposition of a certain tonality); the second, the "feminine" element, is characterized by an indeterminate melodic-harmonic flow, totally vague and modulating (tending, that is, toward other tonalities). From this dialectical opposition between the two theme-ideas, in continuous becoming, arises the living principle: it leads back to that concept of the living unity which, precisely in those years Hegel..."

it proceeded dialectically, developing upon Kant's principle of antinomies.

Beethoven seems to record, with impressive force, this new conception of the world that German culture and philosophy were elaborating at the beginning of the century. It is thus understood how the normative schema of the tripartite two-theme sonata form is subjected to a new structural function, because it is filled with ideological contents that tend to expand each time, in the anxiety of a discourse that wants to be as compact as possible, in the clarity of form, as a direct emanation of the artist's inner life. (...) themes are now felt as ideas, precisely expressions of the conflict that agitates the human soul between matter and spirit, between the world and the subjective ego, between sense and reason.». The musicologist Eduardo Rescigno adds: « It is this form that reflects the conception of the homo novus, of that individualism that succeeded the collapse of the old social classes, conferring awareness even to those who until then had had to settle for reflected truths, experienced by others: it is this form, based on a thematic dualism, that becomes the expression of a dialectical activity, logical and innate to the human spirit. (…) the sonata form is so congenial to Beethoven that he assimilates its dualism by turning it toward attitudes of serenity and tension, with all the consequent derivations and nuances (the masculine and feminine themes, for example) to the point that his entire spirit identifies in the plasticity of the two themes (…) If in Haydn and Mozart the so-called “development” of the sonata form had a connotation of an elaborative function of the two presented themes, in Beethoven it became conflict. Variation was no longer just such but became a true metamorphosis. Music went from being intuitive to being thought out. Beethoven introduced associative ideas that, as such, completely disrupted the themes, shattering them, thereby conferring identity even to the smallest musical cells of those pieces. If before Beethoven the themes and their relative variations unfolded as a sort of “perpetual motion” – as Giulio Confalonieri defined them – which ended with the end of the piece, Beethoven projected the virtuality of every theme outward as if a sort of centrifugal force acted upon them, which eliminated the poorest parts, reforged them, constantly seeking to confer upon his works a personal history that would allow them to live an autonomous story. »

And even the greatest living Spanish philosopher Eugenio Trias, analogously to Rescigno, writes on this subject in his book “Il canto delle sirene” (The Song of the Sirens), Tropea publisher: « (,,,) The sharp contrast between the first theme, imposing and virile, and the second theme, feminine and cantabile, one in the tonic register, in major, and the other in the dominant, in minor, constitutes moreover a novum, insofar as it plays on the level of expressive dramatization, while involving all the resources of tonal contrast and the subtle hierarchies between intervals. (...) In Beethoven, thematic and melodic expressiveness is given by the catchy and concise character of his themes and motifs; the composer inherits this characteristic from Haydn, but with him it becomes an innocuous and even infantile element that contrasts with the skillful (contrapuntal) and dramatic (intensely expressive) writing he can achieve in the development section, provoking wonder in the listener.

The oppositions, antagonisms, and dramatic contradictions of the themes in Beethoven are supported by harmonic counterpositions and calculated tonal contrasts that dynamic factors amplify to paroxysm.

In this way, a great expressiveness is obtained, which joins with the most refined sensibility. One witnesses the birth of a martial theme with a great dynamic drive that leads to an airy and cantabile tranquility, creating a great contrast between epic themes that recall the rhythm of a march and arias with sentimental tones: this creates a kind of harmony of opposites between Mars and Venus, between heroic reason and the Pascalian raison du cœur, between practical, assertive, and virile intelligence, and emotional (sensitive, evocative, and nostalgic) intelligence. »