Beethoven Brainteaser 3
Posted: 30 Aug 2023, 22:35
This one can drive you crazy. Did Beethoven accidentally leave out the 2 clefs in brackets? (This is from my first real project in Dorico.)
David Ward wrote: ↑31 Aug 2023, 16:06 Firstly, there doesn't seem to be any visual reason why Beethoven might have meant to write these few bars in the treble clef.
I think that these points are strong evidence against the missing clef theory. One notes that Beethoven writes all of the left hand notes with stems down, which is the way he likes to write bass parts (perhaps because he is actually feeling unstated middle voices with up stems in the left hand as if this were an orchestra work.) If the lower staff changes suddenly to a treble clef, he often (but not always) changes to up stems to show that it is a higher voice in relation to the previous bass part.Anders Hedelin wrote: ↑31 Aug 2023, 16:27 This is the actual left-hand melody in the published example, without the unnecessary clef change in m. 21 (unnecessary because the notes after it are actually lower than in the preceding measures; already this fact makes it questionable).
Anders Hedelin wrote: ↑31 Aug 2023, 16:27 This a personal reflection, but I think the resulting descending sequence from m. 21 suffers from a certain laxity, or banality even.
To play the devil's advocate, the register-articulation connection found in the two halves of the variation would parallel each other better in the missing clef theory. However, as Anders said, maybe this is too predictable and a little banal. And Beethoven hated to be banal.David Ward wrote: ↑31 Aug 2023, 16:06 Secondly, the sudden descent to low register in the LH here, rather than a little later, seems altogether too effective to be an error, especially without any actual evidence that it is wrong.
I think that this is an excellent point and one that hadn't occurred to me.Anders Hedelin wrote: ↑31 Aug 2023, 16:27 This is the same melody in the manuscript and first copy, but kept in the same register. Already this version makes much more sense to me than the one above. Here the two 8-measure periods are snensibly connected: an upwards-striving motion from F to G (with some comical quality to it if you like), which then is followed by an (equally comical) downwards-sliding descent.
Those with the missing clef view might say that the B resolves to an understood C and the E just appears as a bass tone, just as those with the opposite view might regard the F in m. 20 as resolving to an understood E in the following measure. And, the missing clef guys would point to that nice resolution of the F to a real E if the clefs were added.Anders Hedelin wrote: ↑31 Aug 2023, 16:27
Here, in the original (?), I find the skip from high F to low G, neglecting the proper resolution, both absurd and funny. The more funny as the G "should" be reached as a higher level, but is instead found in a very low register. In the first example above (from the published version), the skip from the leading note B to E (m. 24), is more like 'absurd and pointless', which is not half as funny.