{"id":13142,"date":"2014-01-08T18:31:44","date_gmt":"2014-01-09T02:31:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/?p=13142"},"modified":"2014-01-11T17:46:13","modified_gmt":"2014-01-12T01:46:13","slug":"beethoven-the-humorist-or-humorless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2014\/01\/08\/beethoven-the-humorist-or-humorless\/","title":{"rendered":"beethoven the humorist, or humorless?"},"content":{"rendered":"

You’ll get to decide for yourself into which camp Beethoven falls at our upcoming Oregon Symphony concerts this weekend. The concerts are billed as Emanuel Ax Plays Bach & Strauss<\/em>, but they could have just as easily been entitled Beethoven: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly<\/em>. Well, actually, since we’re not playing Wellington’s Victory<\/em>, there is no ‘bad’, per se, but there is plenty of good, and a bit of ugly. I’ll explain.<\/p>\n

\"Beethoven<\/a><\/p>\n

The program opens with Beethoven’s great Op. 133 Grosse Fuge (or Great Fugue). It has a unique history in terms of its original version for string quartet. The movement was placed as the sixth and final movement of his B-flat major Op. 130 Quartet. In the quartet, the fugue comes right on the heels of one of his most serene and sublime slow movements, the celebrated Cavatina<\/em>. It is a long, loud, and almost discordant movement, and it came at the close of a quartet that already was pushing the boundaries of what a 19th century audience could digest, even in avante garde<\/em> chamber music. So, at the request of his publisher, Beethoven removed the fugue from the quartet, giving it a separate opus number, and the composed an alternate finale (which would be his last completed work for string quartet) that would be a bit more palatable for the amateur musicians who were largely floating the music publishing business at the time. It was a shame that this had to happen, some would say a travesty. It is a huge and confounding movement, but it is an apt counterweight and summing up of the five movements that have preceded it. However, both versions remain, and while it is most common for string quartets to play the movement at the end of the Op. 130 quartet as originally intended, some do still play the alternate movement, and some do the piece on its own as Op. 133. In my string quartet, the Arnica Quartet<\/a>, we have done all three options at one time or another.<\/p>\n

In any event, this Great Fugue<\/em> is Beethoven at his most serious and uncompromising, and it retains its ability to inspire fear in performers and audiences alike. And what bookends this Beethoven at the close of the concert? His lightest and humor-infused Symphony No. 8. It is Beethoven at his most Haydnesque. He nudges and winks at the audience with his uneven phrases, light and almost frothy orchestrations, and his take on the new infernal machine of the 19th century: the metronome. It’s a masterful bit of programming on the part of Carlos Kalmar, and makes for a very interesting and enjoyable concert to play. Likewise, the two concerti that Emanuel Ax plays in the middle of the program – Bach’s D minor and Strauss’ Burleske<\/em>\u00a0 – are opposites of a sort, too. The Bach is all High Baroque rigor and intellectual showmanship, while the Strauss is a confection designed for enjoyment and sonic beauty above all else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You’ll get to decide for yourself into which camp Beethoven falls at our upcoming Oregon Symphony concerts this weekend. The concerts are billed as Emanuel Ax Plays Bach & Strauss, but they could have just as easily been entitled Beethoven: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Well, actually, since we’re not playing Wellington’s Victory, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3484,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-concert-preview","category-the-orchestra-world"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-3pY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5513,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/11\/01\/grosse-fugue\/","url_meta":{"origin":13142,"position":0},"title":"grosse fugue","author":"Charles Noble","date":"November 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The Arnica Quartet is going to tackle Beethoven's Grosse Fugue this season, and I was made aware of two cool youtube clips concerning this greatest and wildest of late Beethoven quartet movements.\u00a0 The first (thanks to Elaine Fine at\u00a0Musical Assumptions) is a visual representation of the fugue: The second is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6076,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/03\/28\/loves-labours\/","url_meta":{"origin":13142,"position":1},"title":"love’s labours","author":"Charles Noble","date":"March 28, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Phew. This weekend is over. It seemed, on Thursday afternoon, that Monday would never, ever come. It's been such a busy time for me over this past week, especially considering that it was the spring break week for the Oregon Symphony. But, as time during the season is relatively\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "chamber music"","block_context":{"text":"chamber music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/chamber-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/violaheader-400x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":76,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2006\/09\/13\/its-almost-quartet-season-again\/","url_meta":{"origin":13142,"position":2},"title":"it’s almost quartet season again…","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 13, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"We just had an Arnica Quartet dinner meeting the other night to nail down a couple of concert dates and also our repertoire for the coming season. We've got two concerts lined up so far for the Fall, the first a noon concert at Pacific University on October 3rd, where\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"oregon\"","block_context":{"text":"oregon","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/tag\/oregon\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20622,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2020\/12\/17\/happy-birthday-lvb\/","url_meta":{"origin":13142,"position":3},"title":"happy birthday, lvb!","author":"Charles Noble","date":"December 17, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"250 years ago today, Ludwig van Beethoven was baptized in Bonn, Germany. His birth date is agreed to have been December 16th, 1770. That's one of my excuses for being a day late. The other is that I've been working on my new project and things just got out of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/external-content.duckduckgo.com_.jpg?fit=269%2C409&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7361,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/02\/29\/beethoven-a-metaphysical-presence\/","url_meta":{"origin":13142,"position":4},"title":"beethoven, a metaphysical presence","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 29, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been playing in string quartets for almost all of my adult life. I did the desultory dabbling that one often does as a high school student, and I wish that I'd been more serious about chamber music back then. When college came, so came the chamber music in earnest.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "chamber music"","block_context":{"text":"chamber music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/chamber-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/haydn-mozart-beeth.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/haydn-mozart-beeth.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/haydn-mozart-beeth.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5622,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/12\/08\/back-in-the-saddle\/","url_meta":{"origin":13142,"position":5},"title":"back in the saddle","author":"Charles Noble","date":"December 8, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Playing anything after a long period of absence is difficult, but it's my opinion that chamber music - especially the string quartet - is the most difficult to come back to and do well.\u00a0 There are just so many variables among the four instruments, as well as the sheer breadth\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/arnicaquartet2-photo_credit-martha_warrington-819x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13142\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}