The Masters and their Music

VAN BEE

ber 16, 17

26, 1827,

proficiency upon the piano that it was popularly said of him that he could have played a good part of Bach's "Well-tempered Clavier" by heart. While still but a lad he succeeded informally to the post of assistant conductor of the orchestra, and it was his duty to prepare the music for the men, making the abridgments, emendations, and rearrangements that m

van B

ter the death of his father he was left, as he had been practically for some years before, the responsible head of the family, with the care of his mother and his younger brothers. He remained in Bonn, with one visit to Vienna in 1787, until he was about twenty-t

s time; his playing was distinguished for force, strong contrasts, musical quality, and, above all, pathetic expression. Czerny states that it was not unusual for a comp

emselves to the critics as well as to the public; but by the time this had come to pass with the works of a certain period, he had advanced and composed others, which now in turn succeeded to the charge

He enjoyed a fairly comfortable income, as such things went among the middle-class Viennese of his

ano sonatas, ten violin sonatas, nine symphonies for full orchestra, five pianoforte concertos, twenty-one sets of variations for piano alone

century, the motive of composition was that of producing a musical piece more elaborate, more imposing, or more sonorous than previous works; or, perhaps, the more commonplace conception of producing a piece as good as previous works. The purely musical (conceived from a technical standpoint) remained the moving principle with the composer.

sustained, and expressive melody took with wonderful rapidity and was almost immediately adopted into opera, the ideal of which in the beginning had been that of an artistic and dramatically expressive delivery of the text. Now, melody as such has little to do with the dramatic delivery of the text. In a sustained melody-as in "Home, Sweet Home," to quote a simple type-it is first of all a question of sustained sentiment; whereas in a well-determined declamation it is first of all a matter of ef

Arias, at first and for quite a long time later, had very few words, and these were repeated over and over, as we find still in the well-known arias from H?ndel's "Messiah." Thus opera came into possession of a simple and sustained melody, patterned after the cantilena of the violin; and it was employed for marking the successive points of the dramatic action. That is to say, as the drama unfolded, one new situation after another developed itself. Each new entrance of a dramatic pe

f working for itself as a development of musical forms or science of construction, and became more and more, in opera, the expression of individualities and moods. At the same time that this tendency was working for making the music more expressive, the necessity of pleasing the public tended also in the opposite direction of pleasing the hearer by means of agreeable combinations of tone-colors, delightful symmetries of tone-forms, and the

c, yet highly humoristic and fanciful. Then Haydn and Mozart introduced various types of pleasing and simply expressive melody, but it is only in occasional moments that their music touches the deeper feelings of the h

et. Along with this variety of moods, which in their inner nature must be regarded as representing different facets of individuality, we have also in Beethoven a certain comprehensive element. Everything that he says to us belongs somehow to a larger whole, and that larger whole is the entire

o a whole-as he does in his sonatas and symphonies. Accordingly, this first program begins with several pieces, comparatively small in compass, but directly illustrating the variety of his humoristic tendencies. All of these little pieces, moreover, have that accent of

e, and to continue quite a while in the same movement, as to rate of pulsation and frequency of measure accent. It has to work within a single tonality-remain in one key or revolve around one key in such a manner as to preserve its own unity as a single being. Hence arise the long movements of the sonata and symphony. It is not possible t

leting a cycle of moods or a cycle of soul-experiences. Or if a cycle, then a cycle of pleasant and youthful experiences. In Beethoven this is not the case. When he is much in earnest he takes plenty of time for say

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Sonata Appassi

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Variations

Sonata in C.

Moonlight Sonata.

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t, that something different comes to illustration. The distinction of the mood is further illustrated in the trio which follows, where the chords by their skips and their delightf

manner of fugue, one voice after another responding in a vigorous and spirited manner. When this is completed by the delightful return of the principal subject, we are led to a trio in the related key of G major, which is in a totally different style. It goes like a scherzo,

ment in this sonata, and it is entirely in lyric style, except where the imperative need of relief has led to the introduction of less con

of this part of his art, and if the student is ambitious in this direction he might read for himself the variations upon the waltz in C, or the famous thirty-two variations, in which endless

first period and the close legato of the second period. Then the sweetness of it is relieved by the strong syncopations which break it up, toward the end (measur

third variation brings the melody again in the bass, with an accompaniment figure in sixteenths for the right hand. At the end there is a lovely coda of six measures. Thro

vement of the Sonata Appassionata, opus 57. Here the variations are not indicated in the notation, but the player has to find them for him

xpression results. The second variation, again, is very reposeful. The melody is only suggested in the upper tones of the right-hand part, and the sixteenth motion is intended to have a certain chord-like character; meanwhile the bass has a part somewhat like a melody suitable for 'cello. The third variation brings the melody high in the treble (later changing again to the left hand in the middle range of the piano), while the left hand performs an arpeggio figure in thirty-seconds. At the end a lovely coda of

position upon the keyboard. This tendency to excitement continues in the second variation, where the melody is in the bass, in octaves broken into sixteenth notes. The third variation changes the mode to minor, and the musical treatment contains strong syncopations, implying much suppressed passion. The fourth variation is a scherzo, bounding from one point of the keyboard to another, like a musical

. Here the principal subject is quite in fugue style, excepting the orde

never for the sake of completing a pattern or form. The trio is a complete contrast, and very free and effecti

," opus 27, No. 2. This is gentle, and designed to mediate between the intense sadness of t

leading ideas as they enter and recall them when they turn up again in the course of the treatment and development. When a sonata is written for orchestra it becomes a symphony, in which form the different ideas are more easily followed because t

ures, the Second entering in the key of D with the beginning of the twenty-fifth measure. The Conclusion begins with the forty-seventh measure. Counting from the double bar,

tuffing," the ideas following with very little passage work between them. The Principal lasts twenty measures, the Second beginning with the F-flat in the sop

of which the Principal, with its retinue of modulating sequences, lasts forty measures. The Second enters in measure forty-one, and

ng each of these movements the subjects