Musik & Ästhetik, 2005, Jg. 9, Ausgabe 34

The Late Beethoven is the Classical Beethoven. Allegory and Symbol as Forms of Musical Meaning

While musicology has already engaged with different historical aesthetics it has however – taking the incommensurability of the musical as its basic assumption – almost entirely ignored the poetics and poetological discussions in neighbouring art forms. Yet the controversy about the matter of allegory which was so important for literature and also visual art in Goethe´s day would be a useful point of departure in determining the Classical and the Romantic in music. As was ultimately the case in the Middle Ages Romantic allegory is the representation of something unrepresentable. In sharp distinction to such transcendence Goethe defines the classical work of art as a symbol an autonomous whole that nonetheless constantly encourages new interpretation. While Schubert´s works can easily be read as Romantic allegories Beethoven´s middle period shows allegorical traits in the pejorative sense spoken of by Goethe with reference to Schiller. In his efforts to achieve clarity and effect Beethoven makes the character of the works so unambiguous that it approaches conceptual art. It is no coincidence that musicological hermeneutics which knows allegory only as the sensual representation of previous ideas has shown a particular interest in Beethoven´s middle period. Only in Beethoven´s late works can one identify symbols in the classical sense. This retrieval of the classical however is accompanied by a fundamental change that one can admittedly find foreshadowed in Mozart and Haydn. The ›beautiful‹ organisation of the whole from independent parts is replaced by connecting diverse elements in diverse ways. The unity of the work as in Romantic allegory thus becomes something unattainable which however – in contrast to Romantic allegory – is not to be sought in some vanishing point in the beyond but rather as Goethe demands in the phenomena themselves.

Can there be a late work within the early?

The author examines one of the least-known of Beethoven´s piano sonatas the Sonata in E flat major op. 27 no.1 considering to what degree characteristics that T.W. Adorno ascribes to the late works in his Beethoven fragments are already largely present or manifest in earlier stages of development in this sonata. This entails firstly a close description of the sonata´s formal particularity as compared to the supposedly existent three or four-movement norm as well as the fantasy elements and secondly a connecting of central concepts from Adorno´s interpretation of the late works – such as the ›shrinking of the adagio‹ ›functional changes in ornamentation‹ or ›convention‹ – to the actual score. The author reaches the conclusion that Adorno´s understanding of Beethoven´s late works is based on a highly teleological view and that taking this work from his ›first‹ compositional period as exemplary one can already find numerous important elements – or at least first steps towards these – that come to particular prominence in the final groups of works.

Alla danza tedesca. On the Fourth Movement of the String Quartet op. 130

In the fourth movement of his String Quartet op.130 Beethoven thematicises the Romantic topos of folkish simplicity in an ironically-distanced manner. The movement´s heading already shows a double remove from the ›German dance‹. Though harmless and pleasant at first glance closer inspection of this movement reveals a peculiar ambiguity: on the one hand conventional schemes are fulfilled with almost exaggerated clarity but on the other hand counteracted through deconstructive methods such as parametric dissociation symmetrical mirrors or permutation. Beethoven performs a balancing act by attempting to achieve progressiveness complexity conventionality and simplicity at the same time.

The Other Beethoven. Gateways to the Late Style

In this article the author wishes to show that the consolidation of the ›heroic‹ image of Beethoven since the mid-19th century has resulted in the exclusion of certain genres that were themselves no more uncommon in their time than others precisely at the moment when the comfortable but ultimately meaningless category of ›period style‹ came about. Attempting to overcome conventional patterns of perception and avoid premature judgements that ignore the historical context are preconditions for a more comprehensive understanding of those ›other‹ classical composers Haydn Mozart and Beethoven.

A Lost Registral Sound. Beethoven´s Imitation of the Aeolian Harp

Contemporary pedal markings are bound up in the time during which they are written: technically but also in terms of their intention. The technical side of the sound does not always correspond to the imagined side. It is contingent on the composer´s knowledge of contemporary practicability. In this respect Beethoven showed not only his hunger for innovation but in fact collaborated in an almost experimental scientific way with the inventors of new instruments seeking to realise ideal and preconceived sounds. A single sheet with Beethoven´s quotations offers an insight into the sounds he had imagined on the piano. Beethoven succeeds in imitating the register of the Aeolian harp whose characteristics had first appeared in the opening movement of the Moonlight Sonata but then also in the slow movements of his piano concerti and sonatas. This sound can be produced more readily – in purely technical terms – on modern instruments but aesthetically it is now hardly palatable. Its realisation should nonetheless form the intentional basis for an interpretation on today´s grand pianos.

The Chosen One. On the occasion of November 30th 2004

The essay attempts a »physiognomy « of that »tremendous musician« (Michael Gielen) Wilhelm Furtwängler. Beginning with his elitist German Conservative socialisation the author examines his fluctuation between opposition and collaboration between 1933 and 1945 largely avoiding the muchdiscussed question of a possible emigration as well as his almost fundamentalist distance from technical pragmatisation professionalism etc. – extending to the level of his conducting style. The ›urgent constancy‹ of his music-making more rousing than dictating in nature was not least a result of his creative recompositional ambition something close to what later came to be known as »deconstruction«. This shows Furtwängler on the one hand as a brother of Mahler yet on the other hand as a contemporary of the great fundamental concepts of such thinkers of his day as Karl Barth Ernst Bloch Martin Heidegger or Franz Rosenzweig. This demands particular emphasis in the face of the oft-invoked »belated Romantic« and untimely character as whom Furtwängler the theorist viewed himself.