Rethinking Für Elise

Daniel and Isabel dive into two piano repertoire staples, Beethoven's Für Elise and Bach's C Major Prelude from The Well Tempered Clavier. They also touch on Beethoven's piano concerto no. 3, Beethoven's "Pathetique" Sonata, and Wagner's Tristan and Isolde.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Today we begin with a piece I believe you will recognize. Stop there for now.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

So that's not the whole piece. There's a whole other section. No, no, no. There's that I couldn't even sing to you. Like I know that part. We'll get to it. When the kids when the kids learn that, because that's a piece that you often learn as a you know intermediate beginner pianist, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:04

There's actually an abridged version that is essentially the part I just played.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

That's what I was gonna ask.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

And nothing more. And a lot of times that's that's the version that people learn, like growing up or learning the piano, because it's it's such a popular and recognizable tune. And we can talk a little bit about maybe why that is. Well, it's like stood the test of time in this weird way. Um part of it may even be like the m mystery around the historical context of it, which I don't know a lot about. Um, but I know it was right, believe and what I heard and what I've read so far is that you know it was for this girl. Either Therese or Teresa or Elise.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Beethoven wrote it by Beethoven wrote it Beethoven. This is by Beethoven.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

This is for Elise. And it wasn't published a lot after his death, and um so it wasn't it wasn't a piece that he necessarily I don't know, wanted out there in public, but it was a piece that he wrote privately for probably a student.

SPEAKER_02 2:07

It's so funny when we find works of art or music and by dead artists and are like, oh, they never showed the well how thank God we found this. Meanwhile, it's like there's a reason they bury it. Yeah, totally probably never dared to well discovered.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

It's like, yeah, discovered in his drawer in a file that says, please do not show this to the world. This is private. This is my own personal love letter to this 17-year-old girl that I was kind of in love with. And it's like, wow.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

We must show this Beethoven's other 17-year-olds shall learn this piece now.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Yeah, he's like great. I wonder he would I wonder what he would think about. I wonder what he would even think of if he knew how popular for Elise was.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

Well, how would he feel if not only it's unearthed, but it's being played mostly by beginner pianists super unmusically. Yeah. Because how like when you learned it, you probably played it more like, you know. How old were you when you learned it?

SPEAKER_00 3:08

I don't even know. Actually. Let's see, I was I think I might have been like I might be wrong, but I might have been eight when I learned kind of the at least the abridged. Maybe I tried to learn the whole thing. I think I tried to learn the whole thing for real, like the actual for at least. And my teacher was like, I don't think you're ready. And I think I did it. I think I was so determined just to I was inspired, you know. Um, but I when you're young, you don't you don't understand especially how long phrases need to be, and you don't know you don't understand the context for a phrase or for a gesture.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

You think of music vertically, not like linear.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Yeah, it's very hard uh when you're young to develop a sense for the l the melodic line and where the music is going. Um you're just trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. So here it's like you're counting for one thing. One, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three. And you gotta keep that in your head. Maybe you throw a metronome on. So there's just the practicality of like putting the music together in this fundamental way between the hands. And yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

How many recitals have we heard like a kid play it just like that? You know?

SPEAKER_00 4:36

And like that's good. If you're getting the notes, if you're getting the rhythm, those are the things you want to focus on when you're young. You're building a foundation of technique.

SPEAKER_02 4:45

But what's funny to think that this was this piece that allegedly Beethoven wrote for someone he was so in love with, and now it's just being used in this very academic way by like little kids. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Yeah, it's very odd. That would be very disorienting for him if you were to hear that.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

Yeah. But how you what like just imagine if you wrote some like love letter to some woman, you were, you know, like it just my love for you is as vast as well. Like, and then like kids are learning it, and it's like how to learn English. Like, you know what I mean? And they're just like reciting it very robotically.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

That is uh total deconstruction of your love.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Um well, we're gonna try to infuse it with that with his original kind of love and expression. Because actually, I do think that a piece like this is a good symbol for first of all, why Beethoven is seen as much as a romantic composer or more as than as a classical composer.

unknown 5:47

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Um, and not only because, oh, you're such a revolutionary and a revolutionized form, and all this. This isn't like a crazy form, this piece. I mean, it's sort of a rondo form, A, B, A, C, A. Um, and it's in the style of like a bagatelle, which is just a kind of improvisational, small little piece that um floats between characters and doesn't have a really strict suck structure. But this does happen to be in rondo form, which this theme I mean is basically this theme just keeps coming back. It starts, it moves off in another direction, and it returns to this theme. It just keeps returning to that rondo me is like a a round, it's like a circle.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

A B A C is that what rondo is again?

SPEAKER_00 6:28

A B A C A. You gotta come back at the end.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

Right. So A section, B section, back to A section, back to the second one. Back to the A section.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Back to the A section. Okay. So you're kind of like always returning home to this structural point um that you really that we all recognize and feel comfortable in. It's a it's a little like a pop song that has a chorus. You're you're always coming back to that.

SPEAKER_02 6:52

Totally.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Okay. I thought you were gonna call me out. But that's right. What would there be to call you out on that? I don't know. I just I I you know, you know me. I don't know a lot about pop music. Um, what's the B section of this?

SPEAKER_02 7:06

Is it or is that part of the A section? Is that like that's all A.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

That's all A. When you know you've gone to a different section is really when you enter a new key. Okay. So I like to think about form more in terms of harmony or keys than in melodic material. And that that's when you really know, like, okay. You're still an A minor, you're still an A minor. And now I mean, we've entered a bright new key of F major, yeah. Exactly. Um that would be the B section. Yeah. But these pieces are, I mean, as I'm introducing you to this, these new sections for the first time, I I guess you haven't heard this. It's crazy. But it sounds like vaguely familiar, but I wouldn't have gone to my head, I wouldn't have been able to be like, this is the B section. Well, it's worth like revisiting, I think, these pieces that we learn when we're young. Um, not only because, oh well, it's not just the abridged version, it's the full work, and this piece is actually kind of interesting and profound. I'll play more of the piece for you in a little bit, but the C major prelude of Bach is another great example of a piece that we learn when we are young. I mean, for the most part.

SPEAKER_02 8:34

It's technically simple.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

It's technically not one of Bach's most difficult, it's not like a fugue. Right. I mean, and you're all kind of in all the music is like in one hand position for the most part. You don't have to do any crazy leaps. But how it actually travels from one key to another is really beautiful. Like how we're we're kind of modulating already through a sequence of keys here. Down the piano. We're modulating to G major, which is now where we started. Here, this is G major. We started up here, and now we're here, and like this journey, this harmonic journey is gonna continue. But if you don't feel those harmonies, which you don't quite understand when you're younger, then you kind of tend to play it like this. Almost like a pointalistic painting instead of these broader brush strokes.

SPEAKER_02 9:39

And since the harmony is broken, the chords are broken, if you're playing it so vertically, you're mi you're actually missing the harmony. Because you're just thinking of the individual notes.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Exactly. If these were chords, by the way, now we're back at C major, just an octave lower, so it's different. Feels different to us. But if we're this would be a different piece if I just broke the chords like this. But instead, she forces us to feel the resonance of each harmony by arpeggiating it. And tell the story of each harmony. Now we think the piece is gonna end. And it doesn't. But there's some light, there's some hope here in C major. We're stuck on this G pedal point of the bass for so long. That now surely the piece is definitely gonna end here. And he doesn't. Secondary dominant. And then one more dissonance in the left hand. I love that major seventh. This is one big to some degree, this is one big like 35 or 36 bar phrase that if you understand in a mature way the story of the harmony and the structure, that will very much affect your interpretation. If you don't know that, then there's just there's just more curiosity to be had. And and there's I mean it's endless with Bach.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

Well, this piece especially, it's like the melody is the harmony, is the melody. Like it's incredibly efficient. It's uh similar. I mean, it it sort of predates a lot of like minimalist music that comes later, um, where it's just uh sort of the har the harmony in this consistent rhythm.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

You know, it's just it's like yeah, it's a harmony something like minimalism is like it's harm harmonically simple and texturally repetitive. So like the you need, like you said, the repetitive rhythm or that that motor is part of what is triggering our brain to feel a kind of expectation. So that if and when the music does change, it's incredibly shocking to our not just our frontal lobe, but like our body. Um because we're lulled into this oneness of harmony and texture that just is continuing, continuing. And then that shift is like whoa, it's like taking a cold plunge for the ears all of a sudden. Um you mentioned melody and harmony being kind of like intertwined in Bach, and I think a lot of times it is with Beethoven too. He's not always known as a melodicist, like he doesn't have beautiful sh kind of Chopin-esque melodies a lot of the time. No, Beethoven.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

Oh, okay. Because I was gonna say, I I don't think do Baroque composers generally have that.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

I mean, well, opera was invented, I believe, in the Baroque period, you know, maybe composers like Monteverdi.

SPEAKER_02 13:09

But it hadn't moved to the instrumental yet. That style had sort of stayed maybe in the opera. I'm I'm not asking, I don't know for sure.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Well, I mean, and I could be look, I could be totally off, but I when I think about um for example, so some of the preludes to me of Bach are very vocal. Um again, I uh a Bach historian or a historical performance person might be like, that's not a that's not an aria, that's an overture, you idiot. Whatever, I don't know. But to me, this kind of thing. This is the E flat minor prelude. You know, has like a vocal quality, you know, that that uh reminds me of Baroque operas. Yeah. So and and yeah, maybe the dotted rhythm implies something else, but you're right, there are yeah. I mean, and Bach had, I mean, you know, I don't know, the mass. I mean, he has obviously all so much of his stuff is choral music. I mean, chorals are you're right, like maybe making sure not to think that always bleeds into the instrumental music, but I think he's actually always thinking in some way vocally, even if it is a translation to instrumental music. Like the voices of fugues are voices. You know, they're not like purely instrumental techniques, it is like something that one could sing. And and a soprano could sing, and then an alto could sing, and then a tanner could sing and a bass could sing, and it could work out somehow. Um anyway, getting back to the furlise, you mentioned this uh that's a really cool idea of blending like the melodic with the harmonic or the where it's like, all right, is that the melody? I mean it's more instrumental, you know, it's kind of allowing the fingers to do something playful, not like the voice necessarily. I don't think of this immediately as a vocal line, and yet how he lingers with this pickup is I think pretty romantic and pretty like individualistic and expressive, kind of in a vocal way. So this pickup thing becomes really important in the romantic era where like like Schumann Trameri or I mean it happens in Chopin all the time too. But that first note, you can linger on it. In fact, you should. You shouldn't just play it bluntly into the downbeat because a lot of the expression in romantic music is in the lingering, it's in the expectation and the tension between it's like desire. The distance that you have when you desire something between what uh you desiring and the object of your desire. That distance is powerful and creates emotion.

SPEAKER_02 16:35

It's a depiction of desire, this lingering.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

I think so. Yeah. Yeah. And so how do you bring that out? In things like pickups, where it's not it doesn't mean that.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

What do you mean by pickup for for our listeners?

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Oh, okay. So in music you have like the downbeat of the measure, which or the beginning of a piece that starts on beat one of the measure. Yeah. Um, like you know, if you're like, okay, I'm gonna start a piece. You know, it's like Beethoven's emperor concerto, it just starts, you know what I mean? Or uh let's say the entrance of Beethoven's third piano concerto, when the piano enters, it enters like this. So those scales upward are a kind of pickup.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

We don't know that until you continue playing though, because it could be but yeah, I guess so to the ear.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

So it goes, it ends up being so we recognize that okay, one, done.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

So the pickup refers to a note starting in the middle of the previous measure. Yeah. Even though the previous measure doesn't exist except with that pickup. Totally.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

This is one of those like music notation is not perfect. Let's relax. They're just trying their best, you know. But they want the strong feeling to be at to be the result of or at the end of that pickup. Right. So here it's like one. You know, it's it's not like one. Like those are the the endpoints of those little gestures are the stronger beats, and these little things are the pickup. At least that's how I think about it in my mind. Whatever that means to you, whatever those gestures mean to you. And a lot of times it's just one note, you know, like in the shuman I played earlier. It just kind of needs to signify like something that's leading. And then I don't know, that just makes us have a different feeling when the piece starts. And Fur Elise starts, I think, with this, even though it's a it's kind of a measure, it's 1.333 measures. We got two notes and a 3-8 bar, and then a whole 3-8 bar. Uh so we got three point four beats out of six beats. Is that right? Hold on. What am I what am I doing? Two three eight bars is six beats, and we have one, two, three, four beats of those six beats.

SPEAKER_02 19:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

But it's all leading, doesn't matter, it's all leading to the left hand down beat, the A. So I think that is all a pickup to the real beginning of the piece, which is that. More pickup. And then that's a pickup into. Now we're just kind of floating pickup-ish stuff. You can do this as long as he wants to keep us hanging. Is that there isn't a formata note here or anything? I made that up. I just added. Do people people don't do that, right? No, no, no. I I don't know. I don't do that. Only when I'm trying to explain pickups, right? So this we need I think it's important to to conceptually feel it that way. Right. That it's not this thing like, alright, here we go, the start of the piece. You know, but rather think of it as a heartfelt longing. And then this is the beginning of the piece for real. And by the way, not that complicated and not that melodic, just one five-one when the piece actually starts.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

These simpler pieces are harder, one, harder in a way. One because they're so simple, so you have to not just fall into kind of playing them in a sort of boring style, but also if you have learned them when you were younger, going back to them, you might play them with some older habits that you've since gotten rid of. Like when I tell an older joke of mine, it has the delivery style of like a less funny or or less developed comedian. Whereas my newer jokes are in a newer style. And it's so do you feel like when you come back to a piece like this that you're at all fighting like old bad habits?

SPEAKER_00 21:15

I would say mostly it's physical and technical habits. But those affect the interpretation. Exactly. So like yes, I I will especially I will especially look, I'm me, right? And I've and I've let's say I've practiced my timing on this stuff like a lot because I'm practicing the piece, practicing the piece, learning the piece. It is extremely easy to just fall into that groove of like, I know this works. This is how I feel about the piece. I'm just gonna get up there and do my thing that I know works. Um but to some degree to try to change that is also artificial. It's like I am me. It like I I'm not a different soul who feels things differently. So to break out of those patterns, I think all you can really do is take a lot of time away from a piece after you've learned it, and then just trust that when you come back you see things differently. Like the way I do with her release now. I I see it completely differently, and I might try new things because I've it's almost like probably the same as reading a book that you've read ten years ago and then you you say, Oh my god, I really love this book. Let me pick it back up again and read it, you probably read it with a totally different perspective.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

Right. But the difference is you're not making the book happen at well, in a way you are in your imagination. You're interpreting it. You are interpreting it. But with music, the only way it exists is if someone is like if you're playing it, I'm not or if you're listening to it, that's different. But in terms of like someone who plays music coming back to the piece, even if you might hear it and interpret it differently, your physicality might still retain some of this old something. Although I do think the best, like you said, taking a break, the best way to break bad habits is to take a long break, come back, feel out of shape, but then when you rebuild, you rebuild without the bad habits.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

Yeah. I think you're right. I mean, I I think I'm right. We're both right. Whoever's right. I forgot if that was your point or mine, but yeah, whatever. Um yeah, I think allowing yourself to be open when you return is the most important thing. Yeah. And forcing yourself to like, hey, look, maybe that means I gotta change my fingering. Because a lot of fingering choices are end up being musical. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:43

So uh all my fingering choices are I mean, a lot of them are also efficiency, but there's sometimes two fingerings that are just as efficient, but it's just a tone. Do I want to play this in third position on the D string or in first position on the A string? Yeah. Because it's in a we have warmer tone on the D string.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

I think for strings it's even more obvious and important. For pianists, we have to be reminded and taught like, hey, you might need it, might not be convenient, but you may want to change your fingering there in order to give it emphasis in a way that it wouldn't have if you just used your fourth finger for convenience. Like I know it's harder to let me switch to three and switch to two, but especially in classical period music, you might get a more natural. I mean, I don't know. Here's a probably a bad example, but in all these figures, you know, if you want to give off, let's say I want to really bring out the two-note slurness of those of those gestures. Like that.

SPEAKER_02 24:46

Um maybe I wouldn't just uh you were playing you were alternating.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Can we see your hands in this shot? Maybe, yeah. So what Beethoven writes here is and then right hand, left hand. Oh, he writes that in. Right hand, left hand. So he's actually forcing you to do a more a more musically interesting or like evocative or rhetorical gesture. He doesn't say left hand, right hand, left hand, right hand. He just puts in the base clef, he says, play this in trouble clef with your left hand.

SPEAKER_02 25:26

Oh, he just puts it in a different hand. Puts it in a different hand.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

At least in this edition, it would just be. I think this is a baron rider. I think this is legit. So you're trading hands. Would it be easier to just do this? Of course. But then it's not forcing you to re-articulate, have that like sighing gesture over and over and over, like you're longing, longing, longing, longing until you're ready to come back. So that's an that actually is automatically a I mean, that's a built-in example of how a composer might force the pianist to approach things more musically rather than just uh conveniently, let's say. Let me play for you this second section. Yeah, this F major section, which is uh total change of scenery, the B the B section. So after we end the first modulation. Now you can hear him tr starting to get back. And now we're back. I kind of milked that. I wouldn't normally take that much time, but I wanted to show you the transition going into the back into the A section.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

Right. And this That's an Aria right there.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

Yeah, that's more of a song, a song like uh character, because we have just an accompaniment, right, that you wouldn't have in any kind of song, and then the melody. Yeah, it's lighter, the F major quality gives it a character of like kind of buoyancy and sweetness. Um very different than kind of a moody A minor. So and he just straight up increases like the the uh what do you call it? The the the quickness, the he it's it feels like the tempo increases because the notes are shorter, right? So he's got 30-second notes here, and this is like Haydnes-esque. I mean, you would find this in in music by Haydn Mozart. It's very ornamental, like scales and this kind of figuration are just filling things in. So we have that song. But then something very instrumental. It's kind of just like circling around its tail. You know, it's just kind of like wee! It's not really doing anything just like profound.

SPEAKER_02 28:33

How he's feeling like a crazy little kid circling his tail, being so in love with this girl.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

That's the joy that he feels looking at a 17-year-old girl that he's teaching.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

How old was he though? We have to specify.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

I'm I'm just gonna, based on no knowledge or context, I'm gonna say 50.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

Which makes the age of 17 significant. Yeah. Like if he was 20, yeah, you're like, we just look into it.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

Back then, you know, times were different. You know. Yeah. But I I at least one of the stories I heard that was that the the family banned him from coming back to teach her.

SPEAKER_02 29:15

Right. We don't have a primary source.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

We have no primary sources on this. I really look forward to uh people writing in saying correcting me Beethoven scholars everywhere. Uh some the great great grandmother of Elise uh writing in. How dare you this hearsay? Yeah. She was 34 at the time. Anyway, um full of glee, which Beethoven rarely feels, right? Uh and then How deaf was he at this point?

SPEAKER_02 29:49

Do we know?

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Oh, if he's I mean, if he's in his forties or fifties, he's almost completely he's completely deaf.

SPEAKER_02 29:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

He's deaf.

SPEAKER_02 29:57

Um But when we say completely deaf, did he go do we know if he could still ever hear anything? Like it was just very muted or distorted, or was he My under So I go down again?

SPEAKER_00 30:09

I'm not a historian. I don't I don't really know. You don't know. You can just say you don't know. I don't know. I think my understanding was that he was completely deaf. I mean that he went completely deaf. I mean, he was trying in every which way to like hear sound. He was making contraptions against the piano to make hear the vibrations of the things he played. I mean, that's not someone who can hear a little bit. Right, right, right. That's someone who is like, I'm desperate to be able to hear pitches. Right. And I can't. Yeah. Um, and somehow he still figured it out. He still wrote this beautiful piece. So then we make our way back to the A section with these overlapping hands. And by the way, maybe this is a kind of romantic gesture, just this tender, the tender feeling of needing to overlap your hands. Now we're back in the pocket. Still in the A section. Now we might end the piece here. That would make it a ternary form, ABA, but instead. We get what we call the pedal point in the base. This A. Pedal Point. Interesting harmonic move here. And then a little kind of code of an A minor. I can get us back to the A section. It's a little virtuosic transition. It's part of what makes us a bagatelle. It's kind of improvisatory.

SPEAKER_02 32:25

You said it's a bagatelle?

SPEAKER_00 32:27

Simple as that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

What's a bagatelle? Can bagatels also be rondos?

SPEAKER_00 32:33

Yes. I think I think bagatelles are generally either in ternary or rondo form. Ternary is just A B A. It's like super simple.

SPEAKER_02 32:41

Rondo's A B A C A.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

Yeah. A B A C A. A B A. Yeah. I always have to count it out. Like, yeah. There are five sections in there. Um but just kind of a small improvisatory piece that is uh a little more casual in in character and can kind of float from one style to another, you know, between the sections. And you know, I think this that little move he does toward the end. That's the first time he really besides those 30 second notes, really changes the rhythm. I mean we feel the triplets, which is kind of a big change after this dramatic pause. That's is that is that also the only time he really has silence in the piece? It's kind of a perpetual motion piece, you know?

SPEAKER_02 33:33

Yeah, it really like just keeps sort of loop, it could loop that first section forever.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

Forever. That's part of I think what makes it captivating is like perpetual motion. Beethoven loves to do that. And then he has these silences and then building a chromatic scale, especially in the classical period, but also the romantic era, is an excuse for a composer to be like just throw the form out the window for a sec, and let's find a way to get us back to you know uh the rondo to I mean to the A. To the A section. He does that in in the I I mentioned the C minor uh piano concerto number three. He does that everywhere there to get back to this.

SPEAKER_02 34:26

He goes like, you know, it's like woo! You just wanted to show off there.

SPEAKER_00 34:38

See, that's not hard. That's it's one of those things that looks hard and it looks hard, and once you learn how to play a chromatic scale, I know you can just do it.

SPEAKER_02 34:46

Same on string. It sounds really impressive, but it's just sort of like a pattern once you learn the pattern.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

Yeah, once you learn the pattern, it's there. Yeah. But you can do that, and I think that's why composers use it. It's a virtuosic like trick. Yeah. You know, Liszt does that all the time. All kinds of there are all kinds of ways you can kind of like kind of dis like magically distract people before coming back to something they recognize. So you're getting that expectation and then fulfillment. Um but yeah, that's that's the for at least in its entirety, which is a little more complicated, a little more sophisticated than just the abridged version. Um and I think it does like i it's classical in because it does also change uh characters so much. Uh, you know, something like the Chopin Nocturne that I played in another episode. That's basically it focuses on one mood. You know, the character pieces in the romantic era really focus on one central mood. And and Beethoven will largely do that too in some of his uh more intense movements. Think about Moonlight Sonata. The first movement is all one one vibe, one mood. He's not letting you out of it really.

SPEAKER_02 36:04

Also used in film a lot of the time, which I again, these these pieces with ha that have like one mood are so appealing. Yeah. In the uh previous episode, if in case people aren't familiar, we talked about that.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

Yeah, because there's something that people can just la uh there's there's something that people can understand and identify with. It's not these pieces don't have to be a full story in themselves. Right. They're just a color. They can be a color. Yeah, they can be a color, especially in the romantic period. It's like, let's get into a mood. Not you know, I'm not trying to entertain you in the way that like Mozart is constantly changing characters, minor, major. Hey, what if I did this? What if I got this reaction from my audience? The C section. Beethoven doesn't care.

SPEAKER_02 36:54

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

I mean, but in fur at least, he's still attached to that classical genre in the way that it switches back and forth so so you know, drastically, I think.

SPEAKER_02 37:08

In the way it switches back and forth, and also the style of definitely the A section sounds more classical. It's really not until the C section that sounds like really to me Beethoven, you know, that pedal. This thing. Yeah. That's like, oh, this is Beethoven.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

Yeah. Because Beethoven's all about tension, right? So if you have this in the base.

SPEAKER_02 37:32

It reminds me of what's the pieces?

SPEAKER_00 37:36

Oh, uh, pathetique. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

I don't know if it would evokes that. It's actually It's giving pathetique.

SPEAKER_00 37:43

It's giving pathetique vibes. Um, yeah, how does it after that big yeah, after that section, then we get when the piece finally starts, it goes like oh my god, it's really hard actually. I don't really play this. But yeah, that's the idea. It's like has this kind of like Beethovinian rumble.

SPEAKER_02 38:15

Beethoven rumble. That's a good band name.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

Copyright that. Um and by the way, that that those pedal points happen to happen in development sections, in these long s sections in the middle of the piece of tension, and so that you can spill in back to the recap or the the music that we're really familiar with from the opening. Right. So Beethoven's a master at that. He's a master at elongating that sense of tension like a romantic composer would. I mean you know, if we're talking about it it's hard not to mention like Wagner and Tristan and Isolda when you're talking about romanticism, even though that comes much later, because it's a good representation of what it means to truly prolong tension in music.

SPEAKER_02 39:09

You can have romanticism or classical aspects in your music, even if you're not a classical or a romantic period composer.

SPEAKER_00 39:18

Very good point. Yeah. That's what I was gonna do. That's a clip.

SPEAKER_02 39:24

Just knock over the whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 39:26

Yeah. You're allowed to do whatever you want here as well. That um it it is like we we get stuck in these boundaries. Yeah. Uh of like Bach died in 1750, so there's no more Baroque anything after that. Or, you know, whatever. We tend to conveniently label the different eras because it's easy for our brains to understand, but there's so much overlap going on all the time. Um that the opening of Tristan. I mean, okay, so pick up. And you think, oh, maybe this is the start of something, but it just kind of dies away unresolved. This is a seventh chord, and then try again, a little higher. Just another seventh chord. We're still not getting anywhere. Even higher. Just an act of higher. No harmony at all anymore, just unisance. And then an eruption. Okay, so we think we may have resolved somewhere, but it's really the start of something. And then, you know, I mean, it just every cadence leads to just another question, leads to just another question, and you're just constantly in this state of longing. And that's that's what the music is trying to do. That's the extreme of like where Beethoven. It's kind of like if you can trace you know from something like Bach to Beethoven to Wagner, Beethoven is in that middle ground where he's starting to stretch material and prolong that sense of tension in a way that ends up being central to romantic expression.

SPEAKER_02 42:06

I have such trouble with Wagner emotionally affecting me because he's doing so much in such a quick amount of time. It's almost like I I think the more familiar you are with it, the better. But for me, it's like it keeps changing too quickly. Like we land on something and then we go somewhere else. And I think that's sort of the intended feeling. But for me, it's like I don't get that satisfaction that I get from other composers that are a little uh less ambitious in their like uh the speed of their harmonic rhythm. Is that yeah, does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 42:44

Maybe part of it too is that you get satisfaction out of form and structure. Um how you know Wagner is tearing that apart. Like he's he's forcing you in some ways, that music is like what this is gonna be maybe too much to say, but like that s more superficial thing of like what's on the surface of longing and desire becomes what's under the microscope. So that like that feeling that pickup the feeling of a pickup is now the whole substance of the music. Right. Or the the whole expression where it's like to constantly be in this state, which is like bro, you know, it's not it's not really that realistic.

SPEAKER_02 43:35

Well, it goes along with his the Gesamtkunstwerk uh idea, which is you know every aspect beautiful pronunciation. Oh thank you. Gesamtkunst Burk means like the combining of the I don't know the direct translation, but the idea is every aspect of the opera, the costume, the set, the the music, every aspect is supposed to be that art in its highest. form. Yeah. The com like the highest com combination of all the arts, which is a lovely idea, and maybe it's great, but also there comes a point where it can just all be too much for like the br the human brain to appreciate. Yeah. Like I can't take in how beautiful the music and also say, and the costume design. Yeah. There's sort of only room for like a couple things in there at once. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

Yeah. It's not a very humble way of composing. It's kind of like a maximal way of composing.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

It's very maximal.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

Yeah. Um whereas I mean I tend to yeah I gravitate toward composers like Schubert who um like invite the expression invite you to meet the expression rather than blast the expression into your guts which is another way to go where it's like force it down. Uh which can be Beethoven sometimes. I mean no doubt no doubt Beethoven can do that. But I mean we were talking about pathatique right so he'll do that but then he'll compose something like this the second movement you know literally one of the most peaceful songs you know and deep such a beautiful phrase and not not really forcing you to not forcing you to uh it's not it's not preaching you at you it's just inviting you to relax in and then the second iteration is just the same thing but an octave higher and with a bass and texture that's a little bit more rich. So you know when he chooses to be or like the slow movements of his concertos or something he can go to a really personal and vulnerable and sacred place um that isn't trying to do anything at all. Right. It's that's the paradox to me of Beethoven is he's so full of uh he's so full of a need a lot of the time to either prove or early Beethoven maybe prove himself or or to like uh like rip the music out of his soul and throw it onto this piece of paper in the in the only way he knows how. And then other times he's in this deeply contemplative mode where he's you know not requiring anything from us or the music. He's just allowing it to be I think it's that part that Schubert especially grabs onto and takes uh in his own style like for a lot of his music where his songs are so patient and and allow the music to unfold really organically really really um beautifully it's it's the contrast though in Beethoven that he does have all this like tension building and searching and and then he throws you something like this.

SPEAKER_02 47:36

Yeah and it's the contrast there that makes it even more impactful in that moment.

SPEAKER_00 47:41

It's like such a such a surrender momentary surrender and then there's this one passing tone or note in it that's so gorgeous just da da da just that like so uh yeah that I don't know it's just yeah right right if if I took that out let's see what it would sound like so it still works it still works but but it's the yeah the fact it it's the si one of the simple facts that that is the seventh of the chord which is the most tense you know interval between the root and the seventh and it it gives this feeling of desire that wants to lead somewhere and indeed it does it leads it resolves properly down into the beginning of the next phrase um it also lines up with did you ever take Philip Lasser's um class at Juilliard?

SPEAKER_02 48:56

I did the Lasyrian theory of melodic compensation where if you like skip if if you go to a theory I think it's his his own theory and um you have to like somehow get to that note that's in between the two notes at some point it will resolve yeah it will and so that's because it's ba da and then so eventually we just went right we need to get to the D flat uh you know this is the note that's missing in the scale. Right if I'm like yeah then so and and if it's open it doesn't sound like like it sounds like a weird modern piece if you this could be like Debbie whatever unless we have that yes ah it's fulfilled yeah and it's like the Bach where and then back like we need that satisfaction of returning. It's such a good theory because it in all like acclaimed music that we play and study in in at least before a certain time period I I haven't really I don't remember what how it goes for later music like Debusier but it it really does happen that way. It happens you're like oh and there's there's the missing note.

SPEAKER_00 50:17

There's something like maybe naturally in the body that's unresolved if we don't fulfill um I don't know the harmony inside that is that is left open. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:31

Anyway anyway the harmony inside this I think it was the essay he he wrote is the spiraling tapestry by Philip Lasser. Is that what it's called? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:40

Wow that's a beautiful that's a poetic title. Yeah anyway. Check it out.

SPEAKER_02 50:45

Well I love how we went I feel like this is a good spot to end because we went from like the simplest we went from the Bach prelude and like fur lease to Tristan and he's told one small leap yeah well I mean it's all related. It's all connected it's all connected somehow over spiral tapestry we're trying to figure it out guys.

SPEAKER_00 51:09

Yeah I don't know whoever will yeah probably not but I don't think we're meant to if we did what would we do? We wouldn't have a podcast anymore that's for sure well thank well anyway thank you for listening and we'll see you at the next one.

SPEAKER_02 51:26

See you next time