DAILY DOSE of BEETHOVEN!
We initiated this series by discussing the composer's most beloved pieces, starting with Für Elise.
Next, we introduce the C-Minor Series as a scientific investigation, passed down from composer to composer over generations. Today we return to his most beloved works, with the first movement of what is sometimes misnamed the "Moonlight Sonata."
This is one of the works that Kobe Bryant truly loved. Why? For one, the overall spirit of Beethoven. On January 27, 2020, Tuba Minimum reported that Kobe talked about the struggle he went through in his career after a number of bad injuries, where he was fighting against his body's limitations to put it together for one last run at a title...He said he thought about Beethoven, who probably was not supposed to write a Ninth Symphony while legally deaf, but he did it anyway. ..." If he can overcome his body to do that, I can overcome my body to do this." Kobe even said that he planned out basketball games according to the rhythm of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony
The opening movement of Beethoven's Sonata #14 is unique. Almost all sonatas begin with a fast movement, not a slow one, marked quasi una fantasia (like an improvisation). Beethoven gives what seem to be impossible indications, sempre pianissimo (always as quiet as possible), and senza sordini (always keep the sustain pedal down.) Are these indications to be taken literally though, or as metaphor? Interpretations are greatly varied, and even some great musicians, whom we admire, such as Andras Schiff, might take these indications on the too literal side. How do they explain dynamic gradations clearly marked by the composer, if it is always as quiet as possible? The movement is fairly easy technically, but it introduces a new difficulty for performers in its transition from conceptualization to performance. One also needs to have a concept of the entire three-movement sonata, to comprehend it properly.
The movement is a sort of funeral march. As Mr. Schiff indicated in his lecture, a librarian in Vienna once showed pianist Edwin Fischer how Beethoven had taken a passage from Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, where the Commendatore, is slain by a lecherous count while defending his daughter from him; and transcribed it into the key of this movement, thus indicating that scene's importance in the generation of the sonata.
We include that short scene with the score. Go to 3:50 in the video, where it is marked Andante, and that begins the scene, as the Commendatore sings "I feel my soul leaving" (in Italian). You can see the triplet patterns that open the sonata.
That is a useful insight, but Beethoven would never just make a literal translation of situation. It is a sort of funeral march, but at the same time a new beginning. As Pierre Beaudry framed it:
“...the piano...must express the dynamic tension between the fear of individual death and the yearning for participation in the immortality of mankind’s future. This is the paradoxical tension that must be maintained throughout the piece, and the musician must make the keyboard sing accordingly.”
The sonata was published in 1802, the same year as the 32-year old Beethoven wrote a private letter, known as The Heiligenstadt Testament, to his brother, in which he confessed the contemplation of suicide, because of his growing, incurable deafness, and wrote that only his dedication to his art kept him going. He said:
"I shall seize fate by the throat; it shall certainly never wholly overcome me."
From the Heiligenstadt Testament:
“O ye men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthropic, how greatly do ye wrong me, you do not know the secret causes... from childhood my heart and mind were disposed to the gentle feelings of good will... but reflect now that for six years I have been... compelled to face the prospect of a lasting malady...I was compelled early to isolate myself, to live in loneliness... it was impossible for me to say to men speak louder, shout, for I am deaf. Ah how could I possibly admit such an infirmity, in the one sense which should have been more perfect in me than in others, a sense which I once possessed in highest perfection, a perfection such as few surely in my profession enjoy or have enjoyed - O, I cannot do it, therefore forgive me when you see me draw back when I would gladly mingle with you... I must live like an exile...”
With this sonata, Beethoven dedicated himself to his art at an even higher level. He was learning how to compose entirely in his mind, without being able to hear the results. The movement may be a "farewell to the senses", but Beethoven was also thinking about others, who could hear. And, the appeal of sound was now different. It was, ironically, more precise, subtle, and nuanced than ever, but spoke more directly to the mind.
That is difficult to capture, and we at the Foundation have no preferred rendition, so we offer a decent one, not the fastest version, and certainly not the slowest. We invite you to submit your own preferred versions, with reasons why.