{"id":7423,"date":"2012-03-15T20:08:17","date_gmt":"2012-03-16T03:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/?p=7423"},"modified":"2013-02-07T21:05:22","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T05:05:22","slug":"beethovens-unisons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/03\/15\/beethovens-unisons\/","title":{"rendered":"beethoven&#8217;s unisons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was recently reading the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/writings\" target=\"_blank\">wonderful exchange<\/a>\u00a0(scroll down to the Dec. 6 entry) between pianist <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/www.jonathanbiss.com\" target=\"_blank\">Jonathan Biss<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=19&amp;Itemid=1\" target=\"_blank\">Brentano Quartet<\/a> violist <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=4-misha-amory-article&amp;catid=2-indbios-category&amp;Itemid=6\" target=\"_blank\">Misha Amory<\/a> about the similarities between the late piano sonatas and string quartets of Ludwig van Beethoven when I came across one of those ideas that I&#8217;d never thought about on a conscious level before. Some of Beethoven&#8217;s most profound transitions take place in unison passages (where all of the instruments play the same pitch). The amazing transition to the beklemmt section of the Cavatina of his string quartet Op. 130 is a prime example.<\/p>\n<p>You can hear the big moment about 4:10 into this clip featuring the inimitable Guarneri Quartet:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/oO1ianfHOyk\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It got me to thinking, what exactly is so right about using a unison in these sorts of situations? I think that it boils down to the fact that in the harmonic language of Beethoven&#8217;s time, there were a usual way that chords would resolve &#8211; even if they resolved unexpectedly, that was, in some sense, to be expected. The composer could either meet or defy expectations. When the ear is presented with a unison, the harmonic possibilities are quite simply completely open. And, much like the pedal point in a Bach organ prelude and fugue, or in the score to a horror movie, the unison focuses our attention to a very fine point &#8211; there&#8217;s only one pitch to listen to, and our brain very badly wants to know what is going to happen next. It&#8217;s classic literary practice &#8211; set up expectations, toy with your audience, make them watch your left hand when you get ready to produce the dove from the right hand. One more reason that Beethoven is such a genius.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was recently reading the wonderful exchange\u00a0(scroll down to the Dec. 6 entry) between pianist Jonathan Biss and Brentano Quartet violist Misha Amory about the similarities between the late piano sonatas and string quartets of Ludwig van Beethoven when I came across one of those ideas that I&#8217;d never thought about on a conscious level [&hellip;]<\/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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[148,136,167,1027,503],"tags":[501,2985,2986,2987,2939],"class_list":["post-7423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appreciations","category-chamber-music","category-composition","category-piano-music","category-string-quartet","tag-beethoven","tag-jonathan-biss","tag-misha-amory","tag-piano-sonatas","tag-string-quartets"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-1VJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7667,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/06\/16\/beethoven-love\/","url_meta":{"origin":7423,"position":0},"title":"beethoven love","author":"Charles Noble","date":"June 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a brief post (unfinished) about Beethoven's Op. 127 string quartet, which I performed last night in the debut performance of the Bainbridge Quartet. It's really always an adventure to play any Beethoven quartet. It doesn't matter if it's an early, middle, or late period quartet. Beethoven demands the ultimate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;chamber music&quot;","block_context":{"text":"chamber music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/chamber-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7361,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/02\/29\/beethoven-a-metaphysical-presence\/","url_meta":{"origin":7423,"position":1},"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 &quot;chamber music&quot;","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":7423,"position":2},"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 &quot;appreciation&quot;","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":[]},{"id":7305,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/02\/13\/goddesses-remixed\/","url_meta":{"origin":7423,"position":3},"title":"goddesses, remixed","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 13, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I hate going to concerts. I love going to concerts. Perhaps I was required to read too much Kant and Hegel in my undergraduate senior thesis class. I've got a nice, ripe dualism in my psyche. It's a common dilemma to most performing musicians. We have a night off, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;appreciation&quot;","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\/2012\/02\/mousai-300x243.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5779,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/02\/09\/a-premiere-in-seattle\/","url_meta":{"origin":7423,"position":4},"title":"a premiere in seattle","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 9, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"On Tuesday night I had the great pleasure to hear the premiere of a new string quartet written by my long time friend Daniel Ott. \u00a0I've known Dan since he was in high school (then a french horn player in my former youth orchestra in Tacoma). \u00a0Now, he's on the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;appreciation&quot;","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\/2011\/02\/chiara4534-412-400x264.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13973,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2016\/01\/13\/days-of-future-past\/","url_meta":{"origin":7423,"position":5},"title":"days of future past","author":"Charles Noble","date":"January 13, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"We're almost halfway through January 2016, and I haven't managed to do a 'best of 2015' or 'looking forward to 2016' post. There aren't any compelling reasons why, aside from being pretty darn busy with musical activities for the past four months or so. So, without any further ado (I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;chamber music&quot;","block_context":{"text":"chamber music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/chamber-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7423","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=7423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}