Correcting Small Errors in Beethoven's Piano Sonatas

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John Ruggero
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Re: Correcting Small Errors in Beethoven's Piano Sonatas

Post by John Ruggero »

I am glad you are getting into this, Anders, because I think you will find yourself very much at home. Schenker thought like a musician, not a theorist. He spent his life trying to express what he was hearing in great music first in words and then by means of symbols, and it is best to travel the path with him to completely understand what he was doing. Fortunately (for me) almost all of his works are now in English. The scholars who have done the translations have added much helpful additional information in footnotes, so even fluent German readers would profit from them.

The musical examples in the German version of Der Freie Satz match the English text exactly. They didn't re-engrave the examples, but simply translated the small bits of German text into English.

Der Freie Satx is a summation of his life's work and contains only musical snippets to illustrate his basic ideas. One must read his other works to get a complete picture of what he accomplished. HIs early book on Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is a good place to start since it is entirely in words and one immediately grasps the depth of his musical insight; then the Harmony and Counterpoint books. Das Meisterwerk in der Musik comtains some of his best mature analyses of complete works, the complete analysis of the Symphony no. 3 being possibly his greatest. There is an excellent introduction to his work by Oswald Jonas. And I am reading a more recent book by Carl Schacter called The Art of Tonal Analysis, a transcription of a lecture series that is a complete delight.

PS I forgot 5 Graphic Music Analyses, which I think you know well.
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Vaughan
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Re: Correcting Small Errors in Beethoven's Piano Sonatas

Post by Vaughan »

Just curious: do you attach any significance to the different slur endpoints in the two iterations of the same material? I'm referring to the slur over the first two triplets containing the b dim7.
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John Ruggero
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Re: Correcting Small Errors in Beethoven's Piano Sonatas

Post by John Ruggero »

This kind of inconsistency is the result of Beethoven's occasional carelessness regarding slur endings in the manuscripts. Sometimes crowding or correcting is to blame. It was not that he didn't care where slurs end; on the contrary, he was very concerned about it. He was just a little too expressive with some and often draws them a little too long. But there are also cases where he is impatient, thinks it is obvious and draws them too short. In cases where the the slur ending is critical and not obvious, he was extremely precise and brings the ending right down to the note head.

This kind of inconsistency cries out for regularization, because the context shows clearly that there is an error. The engravers of the first editions sometimes adhere slavishly to what they saw or thought they saw in Beethoven's manuscripts. They often appear afraid to use good musical judgement, as in the matter of "progressive correction". This is actually good for someone editing the sonatas, because it gives one a better idea of the lost manuscripts. It was not good for the first editions. Their fear was probably justified, given Beethoven's fierce negative reaction to changes made in many of his first editions.
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