Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph (151 page)

Over the centuries, Beethoven and Shakespeare were both elevated to classics, to virtual clichés, but both of them are too wild and strong to be bound in those chains. In the end they both went out with comedy, knowing that comedy is as deep as anything, that art is at the same time vaporous play and transcendent metaphor. “
Faust
,” Goethe said of his ultimate work, “is a very serious joke.” These artists conjure worlds, and all of us can find a place in those worlds.

In looking back through the course of Beethoven's life as a man, what may be most astonishing about him is that he survived the burden of being Beethoven. So much weighed on him: so much music roiled inside, so much rage, so much delusion, so much anguish physical and mental. No wonder his time called him superhuman. But the truer and sadder reality is that Beethoven lived to the ultimate capacities of being human, and he encompassed that in his art. As one of the defining figures of a revolutionary age, he witnessed and spoke for all of us a new vision of what it means to be human.

Beethoven's Musical Forms

 

Neither in Beethoven's day nor before did composers commonly set out on a piece without having in mind some traditional model of how its keys and melodic themes were going to be laid out. In modern parlance these models are all tidily labeled, the names including sonata form, sonata-rondo form, concerto-sonata form, theme and variations, ABA form, minuet-scherzo form, fugue and its derivations, canon, and so on. Some of these labels were known to Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven (such as “fugue”), some were not (such as “sonata form”).

That musical models were elaborately described by later-eighteenth-century theorists was due in part to the influence of the age of reason, which was given to rationalizations and classifications. By the later part of the century, understanding and mastering the various formal models was part of the job of every composer, and being able to understand and recognize them part of the skill of musical cognoscenti. For the purposes of this book, it will be useful to examine the main forms Beethoven composed with refer-ence to.

 

SONATA FORM

 

This is the layout used for most first movements of multimovement instrumental works, sometimes for finales, now and then for slow movements, and for freestanding pieces such as overtures. What composers of Beethoven's day probably had in mind was an outline something like this:

 

 

The Roman numerals refer to keys. I is the home key of the movement, called the
tonic
. V is the key of the fifth degree of that scale, called the
dominant
. For example, if the first theme and home key of a movement are in C major, the second-theme section will be in G major or in any case a new key. That first part of the movement is usually repeated.

In the middle section, the indication X should be read as “a collection of keys at will,” in the course of what amounts to an as-if improvisation on the melodic themes of the first part. Eventually the tonic returns, and all the material of the movement is resolved into it. The modern terms for these sections are, for the first section,
exposition
, with its two theme sections; for the X section,
development;
and for the return of the opening key and material, the
recapitulation
, with its two theme sections now in the tonic key.

So the basic sections of a sonata-form movement are exposition, development, and recapitulation. The movement may be preceded by an
introduction
, usually slower than the rest of the piece. There may be an ending section, called the
coda
. Beethoven had his own terms for these sections: “first part” for the exposition,
Durchführung
(“working out”) for the development, and
da capo
for the recapitulation. His term for the whole development and recapitulation section was “second part.” When Beethoven created a movement in sonata form, he composed with reference to that outline.

Classical forms are all intensely concerned with keys and patterns of keys—that is the fundamental aspect of the forms. The essential practice in a sonata-form exposition is to move away from the tonic to a new key, which creates a sense of harmonic departure and therefore harmonic tension. That large harmonic move creates an exposition of two large parts called the first- and second-theme sections. In earlier Haydn, the musical themes associated with the two key areas were often closely related. In later Haydn and in Mozart and Beethoven, the exposition's two key areas are pointed up by different and contrasting themes (which are still subtly related). In order to create still more tension, the development often involves a number of keys, and an improvisatory atmosphere of searching and fragmentation and often drama, using material from the exposition (though sometimes a new theme turns up in the development). The idea of the recapitulation is to resolve the tension by returning everything to the home key, the tonic.

Most often in composing a piece, Beethoven first settled on its key. Then he found
das Thema
, the all-important opening theme that sets the mood, the leading motifs from which other themes will be made, and the general direction of the whole piece. Then he worked out the first-movement exposition, then the development, then the recapitulation and perhaps coda, then went on to the other movements in order. Often he sketched ahead, but still he tended to work out pieces one section and one movement at a time.

The formal outline we call sonata form is quite general and flexible, and it was treated with endless variety by composers. The handling of the form was adapted to the demands of the idea and material at hand. There may be subthemes within the first- and second-theme sections. Often the second key area is not the dominant but a more colorful substitute for it—the specific key is not as important as the idea of moving away from the home key to somewhere else. Some developments have a welter of keys, some relatively few. Some developments are dynamic and tumultuous, others calm. Sometimes the retransition to the recapitulation is dramatic, sometimes the moment of recapitulation is slipped into or even obscured. Rarely is the whole recapitulation actually in the tonic/home key; usually there is some amount of
modulation
(change of key) for the sake of harmonic variety. Codas can be omitted, can be short, or (as sometimes in Beethoven) can be multipart sections in their own right, as long as the other sections.

Haydn and Mozart were usually interested in making their forms clear to the ears of the cognoscenti; here and there, Beethoven deliberately obscured or subverted formal outlines for expressive reasons. In any case, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven saw form as part of the expressive character of a piece: tumultuous or comic moods might warp the form in dramatic ways.

In many respects the essence of sonata form was a way of managing and controlling new kinds of
contrast
. Individual movements in the earlier Baroque period of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were largely based on a single melodic theme and a single emotional tone. Composers of the Classical era were interested in contrasting themes, contrasting emotions, rhythmic shifts of gear, sometimes violent changes of mood and direction. Beethoven stayed true to the traditional principles of sonata form throughout his life, but he pushed contrasts and disjunctions to a degree that bewildered many in his time.

Sonata form is the most complex and most flexible of traditional formal outlines. Composers made use of it well into the twentieth century. Often in Beethoven's era it was compared to the form of essays, sermons, stories, and dramas. It joined the idea of a clear presentation of ideas—the more or less predictable two theme sections of the exposition and recapitulation—to the unpredictable and quasi-­improvisatory quality of the development. In the Romantic period of the nineteenth century, partly because of these connections to other artistic genres, sonata form and instrumental music in general came to be seen as subsuming literature, drama, poetry, even philosophy. That nineteenth-century exaltation of instrumental music started, above all, with Beethoven.

After Beethoven's day, theorists including Adolph Marx classified and categorized sonata form in a way that tended to freeze it into its simplest outline; often, nineteenth-century composers who used the form failed to understand the freedom with which earlier masters treated it. Some composers, above all Richard Wagner, decreed the old forms dead and buried. One of those who did understand their vitality and flexibility, and handled the traditional forms entirely creatively, was Johannes Brahms.

 

SONATA-RONDO FORM

 

The model of sonata form was so powerful to the eighteenth-century Classical period that its principles tended to invade other existing forms. The old idea of a
rondo
was a piece that went around and around a central theme, usually diagrammed ABACADA and so on: the A section being the main theme in the home key, the other sections containing contrasting ideas usually in new keys. The later eighteenth century integrated that model with sonata form, creating a hybrid we call
sonata-rondo
. One common outline for it is ABACABA. The A section functions like the first theme of a sonata form; the B section is like the second theme in a new key; the A comes back in the home key; the C section is like a development; the A returns like a recapitulation; and the rest of the piece is in the tonic key.

Again, composers handled this model with great freedom. The second A section was often shortened. The C section might be a new and contrasting idea (a “real” C section), a development of the A and B material, or a combination of the two. What happened after the C section was highly variable. Since a sonata-rondo movement was often lively, fast, sometimes comic, it was one of the common outlines for the finale of a multimovement work.

 

CONCERTO-SONATA FORM

 

In the Baroque period, the outline of a concerto movement was simple: a full-orchestra theme (called the
tutti
), a solo section with orchestral accompaniment, another orchestral interlude, another solo section, and so on as long as the composer liked: tutti, solo, tutti, solo, tutti, solo, etc. Once again, in the Classical period, sonata form invaded this model, creating a more complex hybrid involving a
double exposition
. In a Classical concerto, first the orchestra alone lays out the basic thematic material of the movement, as in a sonata-form exposition; then a variant of that exposition repeats, now with the soloist added, in alternating sections of tutti and solo. Then, again as in sonata form, there is a development section, recapitulation, and perhaps coda. The solo may introduce themes of its own. In any case, there is a constant sense of dialogue and interplay between solo and orchestra.

 

THEME AND VARIATIONS

 

This is a formal outline that can be used for a slow movement or a finale, even (though rarely) for a first movement. It can also be a freestanding piece, like Beethoven's
Diabelli
Variations. First there is a theme, a short piece either original or borrowed (such as a popular dance or opera tune). Then there is a series of variations that transform that theme.
What
is varied varies. The variations can be based on the melody, the harmony, the bass line, or a combination of these approaches.
Double variations
have two alternating themes, usually treated in alternation. The general idea is to take a piece of material, the theme, and make it into new and contrasting segments of music. Meanwhile there will be an overall shape imposed on the whole of the variations, often involving a gradually faster tempo.

 

ABA FORM

 

This is a simple outline often used for slow movements: A, a theme section perhaps with subthemes; B, a more or less contrasting middle section in a new key or keys; and a return to A in the tonic key, often ornamented or otherwise varied. Other versions of it might be ABABA or the like, and there may be a coda.

 

MINUET-SCHERZO FORM

 

Classical-era pieces tended to have a minuet movement, a kind of abstraction of the old three-beat popular dance. Most often this was the third of a four-movement piece, sometimes the second movement. One basic formal model was a large three-part form enclosing two smaller three-part forms: ABA minuet section; another ABA called the
trio
, usually lighter in texture; then a repeat of the minuet. So the large form is minuet–trio–minuet. Again, this general outline was varied at will.

The
scherzo
, a word meaning “joke,” was an invention of Haydn. It speeds up the tempo of a minuet to make a new kind of racing, often high-spirited movement—the three-beat meter and formal outline being the same as the minuet, only the tempo faster and the mood lighter. Beethoven wrote many movements in scherzo form and fast tempo that were serious or even tragic, so he did not call those scherzos. He also wrote what amount to scherzos in two-beat meter.