Some Slurs in the “Appassionata”
Posted: 24 Sep 2021, 02:40
After many years of misinterpreting a passage in the first movement of Beethoven’s Sonata op. 57, suddenly “the scales fell from my eyes”… or rather the scale has moved down into the bass part where it belongs.
Let me explain. While proofreading against Beethoven’s manuscript, I noticed the interesting position of four left hand slurs in the closing section of the exposition and wondered why he wrote them exclusively under the staff so that some are on the stem side of the notes. (I am also supplying the 1st edition for clarity, although they placed the final slur on the note head side.) Beethoven seems to have preferred to place slurs on the note head side, particularly for melodies, even when there are multiple voices in one staff. But he certainly didn’t do it all the time. There are many examples where he places slurs both above and below the two staves independent of stem direction. Yet this passage intrigued me because there is such a strong tendency to bring out the upper notes of the left hand in this passage. Wouldn’t it have caused him him to place the slurs above the notes?
And when the passage recurs in the recapitulation, it is the same: the slurs are all below the lower staff.
It got me thinking.
I have always found the sfp markings in this passage to be peculiar and unconvincing. They coincide with where he suddenly adds a third voice to produce an ugly dissonance. And the added note makes it harder to bring out the tenor melody. Is this sfp a shocking syncopation that should affect all the voices, or does it apply to one?
Then the light dawned. Perhaps the bass is the principal voice, not the tenor. and everything else is accompaniment. The added E flat is the root of the chord needed for the three full cadences. What an interesting texture, with all of the accompaniment above the main melody. Were this orchestrated, the horns would probably reinforce the V-I cadences with some “horn fifths” to produce an emphasis, and there would be a real bass voice below the melody as it descends through three octaves. The sfp may have been intended to convey a pianistic equivalent of such an orchestration.
I listened to quite a few performances by well-known pianists. Arrau, Barenboim, Richter, Perahia, etc. All of them did what I have always done, bring out the tenor voice and place a meaningless and ugly accent on the sfp chord. And all because of the modernization of these slurs as seen in the Schenker edition above. Then I played the passage bringing out the bass voice strongly against the rest and placing a mild emphasis on the B flat over the V chord. How could it be otherwise!
Let me explain. While proofreading against Beethoven’s manuscript, I noticed the interesting position of four left hand slurs in the closing section of the exposition and wondered why he wrote them exclusively under the staff so that some are on the stem side of the notes. (I am also supplying the 1st edition for clarity, although they placed the final slur on the note head side.) Beethoven seems to have preferred to place slurs on the note head side, particularly for melodies, even when there are multiple voices in one staff. But he certainly didn’t do it all the time. There are many examples where he places slurs both above and below the two staves independent of stem direction. Yet this passage intrigued me because there is such a strong tendency to bring out the upper notes of the left hand in this passage. Wouldn’t it have caused him him to place the slurs above the notes?
And when the passage recurs in the recapitulation, it is the same: the slurs are all below the lower staff.
It got me thinking.
I have always found the sfp markings in this passage to be peculiar and unconvincing. They coincide with where he suddenly adds a third voice to produce an ugly dissonance. And the added note makes it harder to bring out the tenor melody. Is this sfp a shocking syncopation that should affect all the voices, or does it apply to one?
Then the light dawned. Perhaps the bass is the principal voice, not the tenor. and everything else is accompaniment. The added E flat is the root of the chord needed for the three full cadences. What an interesting texture, with all of the accompaniment above the main melody. Were this orchestrated, the horns would probably reinforce the V-I cadences with some “horn fifths” to produce an emphasis, and there would be a real bass voice below the melody as it descends through three octaves. The sfp may have been intended to convey a pianistic equivalent of such an orchestration.
I listened to quite a few performances by well-known pianists. Arrau, Barenboim, Richter, Perahia, etc. All of them did what I have always done, bring out the tenor voice and place a meaningless and ugly accent on the sfp chord. And all because of the modernization of these slurs as seen in the Schenker edition above. Then I played the passage bringing out the bass voice strongly against the rest and placing a mild emphasis on the B flat over the V chord. How could it be otherwise!