>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
>> Good afternoon.
Welcome everyone.
I'm Susan Vita, Chief of the Music Division, and I am pleased
to welcome you to the Library of Congress
and to the Coolidge Auditorium.
This lecture recital is the fourth in a series co-sponsored
by the Library of Congress and the American Musicological Society.
And this is a special lecture demonstration indeed.
We've been privileged to hear talks by scholars who have included
as part of their programs performances demonstrating the
fruits of their research.
Two such previous lectures, for example, dealt with holdings
in the collections of Irving Berlin and Leonard Bernstein.
Today's program is truly noteworthy, though,
because it considers the performance practice of one
of our most valuable treasures, Holograph Score of Ludwig --
I can't talk today, I'm sorry [laughter] --
Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonata Opus 109.
I hope all of you had a chance to see it before you came in.
Based on the studies of the manuscript, our lecturer,
Professor William Meredith, Director of the Ira F. Brilliant Center
for Beethoven Studies, will explain what Beethoven tells pianists not
to do.
We will then be treated to a performance of the sonata
by pianist Shin Hwang, playing a fortepiano provided especially
for this recital by Malcolm Bilson.
Wait until you hear this fortepiano.
For our part, in addition to providing the Coolidge auditorium,
our most venerable performance venue, we offer an exhibit
in the Coolidge foyer, the Holograph Score itself,
under the curation of Ray White.
This event promises to be a truly engaging one which, as always,
we hope will inspire current and future scholars
to consider the many holdings in the music division.
As always the lecture will be available as a webcast
on the Library of Congress's website.
So look for it there.
Before we hear our program, however, it is my pleasure
to introduce Professor Anne Walters Robinson,
Claire Dux Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Music
at the University of Chicago and President
of the American Musicological Society.
[ Applause ]
>> The AMS remains enormously grateful to the Library of Congress
and its Music Division for facilitating the search
of our scholars and for offering us the opportunity
to discuss the results of our work with the public.
Our program today will shed light on a masterpiece of European music,
the manuscript of which resides here in our own Library of Congress.
And it is my great pleasure to introduce a music historian
and two expert performers on the fortepiano,
who will bring both the history and the sound of the stunning sonata,
Opus 109 of Beethoven's to life.
Williams Meredith is director of the Ira F. Brilliant Center
for Beethoven Studies and Professor at the School of Music and Dance
at San Jose State University.
At the Brilliant Center he co-directs the invaluable database
called the Beethoven Gateway, which includes more
than 18,000 bibliographic entries.
He's co-editor of the series entitled, The Critical Reception
of Beethoven's Music by His German Contemporaries,
editor of the award-winning Beethoven journal,
the only regularly appearing periodical
on Beethoven's scholarship events.
And editor of The Monograph Series called North American
Beethoven Studies.
Professor Meredith is himself the author of many studies on Beethoven,
touching from everything from the composers work habits
and improvisational techniques to his portraits
and most famously the two fragments of his skull that surfaced in 2005.
Bill's interest in Beethoven's Sonata Opus 109 is
very longstanding.
It was the subject of his doctoral dissertation which he completed
at the University of North Carolina in 1985.
Although unable to perform the entire sonata for us today owing
to a hand injury the incomparable Malcolm Bilson is with us
and will respond to questions later and demonstrate a few things
about the fortepiano, which he has kindly brought with him.
Professor Bilson has enjoyed an extensive career that as a soloist
and chamber player and is largely responsible
for restoring the fortepiano to the concert stage.
He's a member of the music department faculty at Cornell
and an adjunct member at Eastman School of Music.
Professor Bilson has given us many new recordings written --
of music written for fortepiano including the three most important
complete cycles of piano works of Mozart,
as well as sonatas by Schubert and Heiden.
And in 1994 Professor Bilson and six
of his former artist pupils presented the 32 piano sonatas
of Beethoven in New York City.
The first time ever that these works had been heard
as a cycle on period instruments.
He offers annual summer fortepiano workshops
in the United States and Europe.
And here to perform Beethoven's Opus 109 for us is Shin Hwang.
Mr. Hwang is currently pursuing a dual Master's Degree
in Piano Performance and Fortepiano at the University of Michigan.
He made his public debut as a pianist
with Beethoven's third Piano Concerto
and he has also performed extensively
on the harpsichord and the fortepiano.
He is receiving wide acclaim for his playing,
most recently garnering third prize
in the Westfield International Fortepiano Competition.
As they begin their lecture demonstration entitled
"What the Autograph Can Tell Us, Beethoven's Sonata
in E Major Opus 109," please join me in welcoming Williams Meredith,
Malcolm Wilson, and Shin Hwang.
[ Applause ]
>> Thank you very much for those introductions.
I should explain that Malcolm and Shin will both be demonstrating
and I asked Malcolm to talk --
I will ask Malcolm to talk about a couple of spots
where he has his own expertise.
So you will get to hear Malcolm play, as well.
But I am greatly in their debt, as I joked with Malcolm in an email.
Musicology without music is just ology, and [laughter].
It's not as much fun as musicology.
Without a doubt one of the treasures of the enormous autograph collection
of the Library of Congress is the manuscript
of Beethoven's Late Piano Sonata in E Major Opus 109.
Setting aside his status as a treasure, however,
the manuscript warrants careful investigation
and our listening attention today for the record
of its compositional history embedded
on the pages of the manuscript.
Anyone with even a casual acquaintance
with Beethoven's manuscripts, however,
knows that they are notorious for being illegible.
Indeed Beethoven is the bad boy
of all classical composers in this regard.
Fortunately for our purposes, however,
the autograph of Opus 109 is relatively easy to decipher.
On a Beethovenian scale of one to 10, one being pretty clean
to 10 being a royal mess, this autograph is a mere two or a three.
Though my grade may surprise you when you see some of the pages.
It's actually a very good thing it's as clean as it is since, believe it
or not, Beethoven sent the autograph in the mail to Berlin
to have a copy prepared that is unfortunately lost,
that was used to make the first edition of the sonata.
That is another copy that survives in Vienna that was made
for Beethoven's Arch Duke Rudolph.
Arch Rudolph always wanted to get his own personal hand-written copy
of Beethoven's music before they were published.
But that one doesn't have anything to do
with publication of the piece itself.
Now as you go out and look at the autograph
after today's talk you'll see that there are lots of marginalia marks,
which prove to us that, believe it or not,
the [inaudible] was sent back to Beethoven in the mail in Vienna
and he used it to proofread the first edition.
And the first copy he got very confusing
but he did his best, let's just say that.
As it turns out, however, we musicians
and scholars should be grateful
for whatever illegibility exists not just because it seems
to record the steamy heat of compositional inspiration.
But rather because it demonstrates
that Beethoven often prematurely began writing
out what became the final score.
The number of compositional decisions made
when the single staff sketches of piano music were fleshed
out to two staves can be astonishing to observe at times.
Proving that the work did not exist in Beethoven's mind
in a neat complete form a la Mozart when he began the work
of writing out the autograph.
Indeed as he once noted in a letter to his friend Carl Holtz,
if a manuscript of a work was lost and he had to write it again,
the work would be lost and not the original version.
Carefully examining the work's creation, including trying
to peer underneath some of those corrections,
forces us to reinterpret what we think Beethoven was trying
to express.
The point of such an intellectual and musical venture is not
to turn the study of music into music pathology,
but to see the sketching autograph studies are ultimately most
informative for what they tell us about meaning
and thus the interpretation of that meaning in the hands of performers.
This afternoon I'd like to speak briefly
about three details of the Autograph.
One if philosophical, one is philosophical and practical,
and one is purely practical.
Since philosophy can be the most taxing of these things,
I'll start there even if it puts us at the beginning
of the Third Movement with its two different titles.
And if you'll look up on the, at slide number one.
This is the manuscript, and it's the beginning of the Third Movement.
All right.
As you can see the first title of the Third Movement
on the Autograph is given in the top it Italian,
which is the usual language of classical music.
And underneath it is the second title is written in German.
The Italian title is written in pencil first
and it was later re-written in ink.
The German title does not appear
to have first been written in pencil, just in ink.
So, what do they mean?
The Italian title means moderately slow
in a very seeming and expressive manner.
The German title, however, says song with heartfelt feeling.
The word song, gesang, also appears in Beethoven's sketches
for the Third Movement of the sonata in page 65
of the Archery of 195 sketchbook.
Let me get that slide up.
Now this is a terrible slide for you to look at.
So, look at the webcast version.
On the fourth line down, two-thirds of the way
over to the right there's the word "gesang".
So I was happy to find the word again in the sketches
because it helps us tell
that Beethoven kept thinking of it that way.
This is another place from the sketches
that I thought I would share with you.
Beethoven doesn't often write the Italian movement titles.
This is a sketch for the theme of the last movement.
And you can see that Beethoven wrote "con molto sentimento espressivo"
in a very feeling or sentimental manner, also expressively.
So this time it's a little bit closer to the German version.
Now the copyist who made the copy
for Arch Duke Rudolph was very careful.
He copied exactly what he saw in the page.
He didn't edit it whatsoever.
So you can see that this is the corrected copy score
that still survives in Vienna.
It's the beginning of the third movement and it says
"Gesang", song with inner feeling.
All right.
However, when we get to the first edition, and I asked Ray White
if he'd bring it for you to see, Beethoven's gesang had changed into
"gesangvoll", which means songfully, normally it's translated that way.
Which is much more like molto cantabili.
Two questions come to mind when I first saw this
or I noticed it on the first edition.
Did Beethoven authorize the change?
Was he the one that changed it from gesang to gesangvoll?
And does the change from gesang to gesangvoll matter?
Who cares?
The answer to the first question is unknown.
So Beethoven on occasion would refer to -- on occasion to linguists.
For example, Beethoven decided wrongly
that the piano had been invented by Germans
and it should have a German title.
And there are some very, very funny letters where Beethoven tries
out different German titles.
He says, "But it really should be handed
to a linguists to decide this."
This is why one of the sonatas called the Hammerklavier
because he wanted the late sonatas to be called with a German name.
In fact, the first page of the manuscript
of Opus 109 says Sonata for the Hammerklavier.
So the answer to the second question, why does it matter
if it's gesang of gesangvoll, gets to the heart
of my philosophical question.
In its magisterial book on the Beethoven String Quartet
from 1966 Joseph Kerman wrote about one of the most important features
of Beethoven's late music.
He called it the New Vocal Impulse.
In his usual evocative prose Joe Kerman wrote,
"An equally strong public impulse accompanies the private one.
A striking new directness of emotional appeal.
A determination to touch common mankind as nakedly as possible.
Never in the past has Beethoven reached so urgently for immediacy.
There is something very moving about the spectacle of this composer.
Having reached heights of subtlety in the pure manipulation
of tone materials, battering at the communications barrier
with every weapon on his knowledge.
The great exemplar of his drive is the Night's Symphony.
As Wagner never tired of driving home, the Night's Symphony brings
to the orchestra words, poetry and the human voice,
in an effort to make instrumental music more articulate."
Writing about the [inaudible] symbols
and the string quartets Kerman continued,
"A string quartet is not some exhibitionistic creature
as a choral symphony.
Nonetheless the five quartets and the great few which occupy the end
of Beethoven's composing life after the Night's Symphony are drenched
in evocations of the human voice.
The evocations mean to sing or to speak instantly to the heart
like the songs imagined by Beethoven's poet at the climax
of An die ferne Geliebte."
And this is the words from the song.
"What I from my whole heart artlessly have sounded only aware
of its longings."
Joe Kerman goes on to say, "In the last period the illusion
of art concealing art, of communication without the adornments
of art, is among Beethoven's very particular studies.
One is carried away astonished and ravished
by the sheer songfulness of the lay quartets.
By recitative and aria, [inaudible], him, hunter dance,
theme and variations, lyricism and all its manifestations."
And that's the end of this wonderful quote.
Kerman's point about the sheer songfulness is
so brilliantly expressed, must, I argue,
be extended backwards before the Night's Symphony
to at least the sonata we were talking about today.
As well as to the last two sonatas.
Opus 109 as you have seen has a song.
Opus 110 has a famous lamenting song.
And Opus 111 has an arietta.
All of these literally are songs without words.
That famous romantic genre of Mendelson and his friends.
Given the importance of song in the late works we may wish to return
to the title to the last --
we may wish to return the title of the last movement
to Beethoven's original German for that reason alone.
However, there's another reason.
One that is related to the same song cycle Joe Kerman mentioned above,
[inaudible] ferne Geliebte, To the Distant Beloved.
The second praise of the variation theme of Opus 109 is
in almost exact transposed form of a phrase in the song.
The words in this phrase are,
"And a loving heart attains what a loving heart has consecrated."
So there's the first edition of the phrase that we're talking about,
and it's the quote, [foreign language], part of the phrase.
And so here is the phrase in the piano sonata.
You can see it in the melody when you go back, and it matches
that first phrase in the song cycle which has the words,
"And a loving heart attains."
The song is set in E-flat major.
The sonata is in E major.
Both of these keys make sense in terms of the meanings of the words.
"To the distant beloved, ultimately speaks about unfulfilled love."
And thus uses what Beethoven scholar Carl Ellison has recently proven is
the third meaning of E flat major during the classical period.
It was used for unhappy love, sleep music, night music, darkness.
E major, according to Elli's research was used
in two different ways during the classical period.
The first uses were wild, fiery, brilliantly, passionate music.
The second was for love, sometimes hopeless, sometimes tender.
Given the [inaudible] in German titles of the third movement
of Opus 109, Beethoven must have been using E Major
in its second meaning, hopeless but tender love.
In fact, if Beethoven had been a country singer Hopeless Love would
probably have been his national nickname.
Especially given the inevitable failure of his love affair
with Josephina Brunsvik when he was in mid-30's and the failure
of the immortal beloved love affair of 1812,
which seems to have ended his hopes for romantic love on this earth.
Since the song's [inaudible] it's widely believed
by Beethoven scholars to have been composed with the Immortal Beloved
in mind, and since it is widely agreed by most Beethoven scholars
that the phrase in Opus 109 is related to the Immortal Beloved,
the gesang of Opus 109 is assuredly a song that is related to love
that is unattained on this earth.
Given that historical background.
Let me return to the Autograph of Opus 109
and its simple German word gesang.
Though it was changed to songfully on the first edition,
perhaps by the publisher, the word is an early signpost towards
that impulse to evoke the human voice in the next two piano sonatas,
the Night's Symphony and the Last Quartet.
Gesang also points us towards the sonata's meaning.
The last movement is intimately connected
to that ultimate consecration of love he eludes
to in the An die ferne Geliebte, and specifically to the words
"And a loving heart attains."
The last variation in particular of the sonata depicts
to my ears the fulfillment of that attainment
in these fantastically difficult measures,
which emphasize the An die ferne Geliebte phrase
in the highest register of the piano,
which Beethoven often reserves for depictions of heavenly, immortal,
or transcendental events.
So I'm going to ask Shin to play this extremely difficult passage
for you, and I should probably keep saying
that it's difficult [laughter].
[ Playing Piano ]
Thank you.
It's fun to see up here and watch because it's almost
at the end of the keyboard.
Those high notes are, there are very few notes left.
There's four more notes that's you could possibly use.
Thus the original autographs, the original notations
on autographs can both open doors for listeners
on how we might understand pieces as we hear them.
And also inform [inaudible] about what they're supposed
to be communicating to us.
My second example has to do with other details of the manuscript.
I'd like to focus on something
that Beethoven originally wrote and then crossed out.
With the help of Malcolm Bilson --
I'm going to ask them to switch seats for a moment --
we'll demonstrate how what Beethoven wrote affects every performance
of this sonata we'll ever hear.
The first example concerns the connection between the ethereal end
of the first movement of the sonata
and the beginning of the second movement.
When Beethoven first wrote out the ending
of the first movement he wrote the pedal marking on the first feet
of the next to last measure.
And the pedal marking you can see at the beginning
of the measure is actually on the first feet of the measure.
And he wrote at the -- afterwards, he wrote his normal squiggly lines.
So if you look up here it's this thing that looks like this.
All right, so he wrote that to indicate, and that's the sign
to indicate the end of a movement.
However, he immediately grabbed a piece of cloth,
blotted out the sign, so that it hardly disappeared.
You can still see it underneath it, and he wrote a double bar sign,
which is normally used not to show the break
between two different sections, not two different movements.
And then finally, and I'll show you this in a minute, on the beginning
of the next measure he wrote the lift for the pedal mark.
Now the lifts for pedal marks are O signs.
Okay?
Now I might point out that this is very interesting
because as I discovered when I was writing my dissertation,
this first movement of this piano sonata was originally written
to be part of a piano forte method.
It was not written to be part of a sonata.
And one of Beethoven's friends writes in the conversation book,
"Why don't you use the new little piece for the sonata?"
So that was the inspiration for it.
This is the beginning of the second movement and you can see the O sign
to indicate lift to the pedal.
Now, Beethoven also originally wrote three or four words
after the end of the first movement.
Let me go back so you can see them.
So do you see after the end
of the first movement there's a nice scrawl passage?
All right.
So he rubbed three or four words underneath there before he send the
manuscript to the publisher.
And there is the blown-up version of it.
Okay. Even looking at this photograph
of the autograph it is clear that the letters t-a-c-c-a are
on the first line, and the words "il presto" appear
on the second line underneath all of the swirls.
When you look at the manuscript in person, you can do it afterwards
because I asked Ray White to open it to this very page, it's quite clear
that the first letter in the word is capital letter A. Strongly
suggestion that the phrase was Attaca subito il presto.
All right, attack the presto right away.
This is indeed how Beethoven scholar Barry Cooper interpreted the words
in the notes to his recent edition of the piano sonata.
Such an interpretation is certainly supported
by similar words written into other autographs.
My first example comes from the end
of the first movement of the Moonlight sonata.
So here's the Moonlight sonata and you can see in faint ink,
which means it was added at a different time
that when he wrote out the notes, attaca.
And then here's an example from the Apassionata sonata.
Now, Beethoven was not a good speller in any language.
[Laughter] So musicians out there don't adopt this spelling please.
But he does normally spell [inaudible] with one or two T's.
Okay? Now if we cut the world Attaca from the autograph
of the Moonlight sonata, the one on this one, and we overlay it
on Opus 109 you'll see that it's almost a perfect fit.
So that's pasting it in on top of the Opus 109 autograph.
It fits together really well.
So, with a little detective work we know
that Beethoven's original direction tells the pianist to either,
and there's two different meanings for attaca
in 19th century music dictionaries.
The first definition is begin the next movement
without a pause after the fermata .
The second definition is to only have a short pause.
Okay? After he crossed off the attaca however,
Beethoven did not cross of the lift pedal mark on the downbeat
of the next movement, as mentioned earlier.
So this is the end of the first movement in the autograph
and the beginning of the second movement
and you can see the O is not crossed off.
The copyist who made the copy
for Arch Duke Rudolph did exactly what he was supposed to do,
he copied the manuscript.
So here's the beginning of the second movement
in this copyist manuscript, there's the O. However,
the first edition doesn't have a lift pedal mark.
And it's not in many modern editions, actually.
Whether the pedal lift should be there or not, however,
is unclear in the sources.
Especially because there's two important sources that are lost.
Now they may be still surviving somewhere.
If you know where they are come tell me afterwards.
The first one is the copy that was made in Berlin
and then there's a first edition that has Beethoven's markings on it.
Now, on the Beethoven's Center we have an original 1823
Broadwood piano.
I was curious how long has the low chord,
the low chord that ends the first movement, how long does it last
on a piano with Beethoven's time.
So on our, there's two perspectives.
One is the perspective of the person sitting at the piano
and one is the perspective of people in the audience.
So [inaudible] Broadwood piano, which is a little different
than Beethoven's Broadwood, the sound, that chord lasted about 12
or 14 seconds if you're in the audience, before it fades away.
We also have an original 1827 piano made by Mathias Yakras.
On that one it sounds a little bit longer,
15 or 16 seconds before it dies away.
Now for a point of comparison,
I have a modern Mudtner [assumed spelling] piano at my house,
so I went home and tried it.
It sounds for about 15 to 18 seconds if you're in the audience.
But if you're sitting at the piano the chord lasts almost half
a minute.
So, this is one of the places where I'm going to ask Malcolm
to both play the end of the movement.
I would like for you to hear how long the chord lasts
in the audience.
So -- and the reason I'm doing this is how long should the pianist wait
in between the movements?
Beethoven originally wrote Attaca but then he crossed it out,
but there's still that pedal marking, just hold the sound.
So the question for every pianists is how long should I hold the sound?
The one thing that I think we do know --
and Malcolm and I frequently disagree on things,
so that will be part of the fun of today --
is that I don't think that the pianist should attaca.
I don't think it should be an immediate connection.
I don't think it should be sort of rude.
Maybe what I'll do is do a little bit more and then let him talk
because there's a [inaudible] named William Kinderman
that has a wonderful description
of the beginning of the second movement.
Kinderman said, "In the finished work, the breaking off
at the final cadence in the lofty high register in favor
of the soft sycophancy chord several octaves lower,
becomes an important means of inter-movement transition.
The juxtaposition of this tentative understated close
to the first movement with the fortissimo opening
of the second movement is striking and is underscored
by the connected pedal marking.
The emphatic beginning of the second movement seems to shout, 'No!',
to the ending of the Vivagi, contradicting E Major
with the darker sound of E Minor.
Also, planting the lyric impulse of the first movement
with a breathless driving intensity that Beethoven underscored
in his unusual designation to this final movement, Prestissimo.
In other words, as fast as possible.
Kinderman shout, "No!"
is the crux of the matter.
How soon should the shout interrupt and dispel the reverie
of the first movements endings?
So, Malcom could you play that chord, the low chord
and let's just hear how long it lasts?
>> Just the chord?
>> Just the chord.
>> Lovely.
>> [Inaudible].
>> How loud do I play?
>> That's up to you.
[ Playing Piano ]
>> Air conditioning took over.
>> Never has air conditioning turned off in federal buildings.
>> Beethoven had that problem [laughter].
>> Now, to help answer the question, all right, we need to focus
on three simply symbols at the ending of the first movement
that help create its meaning.
The first symbol is the rise to a high register.
And Shin already brilliantly demonstrated that at the end
of the sonata Beethoven has the climax of the whole sonata be
up in this heavenly register up very high.
Beginning from Middle C and Measure 89 the right hand begins a gradual
rise over two and a half octaves to G Sharp.
It has been noted in [inaudible] Beethoven frequently symbolizes the
eternal, the immortal heaven the [inaudible] registers.
As have hundreds of composers before him.
So Malcolm could you play that sort of rise from B to nine [inaudible]?
>> Well, first of all, you've got this.
This...
>> Can we get to [inaudible]?
>> Okay. Here you go.
[ Playing Piano ]
>> So, as I said, very briefly up to the high part.
Now, the second symbol is --
oops, is a symbol that's hundreds of years old in music.
And this is a symbol that's related to the scale passage.
And what it is is the scale steps.
The minor scale step six moving to five.
A pattern that has been used for centuries
to depict grief or anguish.
As Derek [inaudible] demonstrated a long time ago in 1959.
Beethoven first presents the minor version of this pattern
in the melody of measures 89 and 91.
You can see it there.
That's measure 89.
Malcolm could you play that measure for us?
[Background Music] So it's just that, da-da-da-da.
But then Beethoven counters the minor version
with the major version on the six five pattern.
Which is a shape that's used to depict joy.
So what he does is he rocks bath and forth
between minor, major, minor, major.
Did you play the, that part?
[ Playing Piano ]
>> [Inaudible] though.
>> Yes.
>> Until you get, until minor winds..
Until minor winds then you start going up.
>> Yes. And then the last two measures before the movement ends.
This is the very last part [inaudible] treble clefs please,
in E Major.
The last two measures that are very high are the six-five shape
in major.
That represents joy.
And if you look at the second one it has a sforzando on it and an accent.
So Malcolm if you play those and if you want us to talk about them.
[ Playing Piano ]
>> Yeah, I do want to talk about it.
>> Talk.
>> Can I talk a little bit about this whole thing?
>> Please.
>> We were talking this morning.
There is several things that I think we could talk about here.
First of all, one of my doctoral students some years ago,
David Brighton, he's now teaching at Overland, wrote his thesis
on Beethoven and the pedal.
Which is a wonderful subject for a thesis
because there's hardly any information.
All you have is these few pedal markings and you have
to use a lot of intuition.
But he came to me one day and he said, "You know what,
I discovered something interesting.
If there's a single pedal mark in the movement it's always
on the last measure, on the last note, and there is no release.
That starts in Opus 26.
Which is this piece..
This movement.
[ Playing Piano ]
This ends like that..
Then goes on.
Now he doesn't write Attaca there but he does write Attaca
as you put it out -- as you put it forth in the Moonlight
and also in Opus 27 Number One.
And further complicating this, we just saw in the Autograph
which was crossed out, that there pedal marking
in pencil is actually back on this last measure note..
That he says "Take the pedal here.". This also complicates it, see.
So you don't believe it's attaca?
>> No. It's the one thing I don't believe.
>> Well, here's...
>> I didn't calculate it based on [inaudible].
>> Oh, I don't know how long I have to wait.
>> How long do you normally wait before you play it?
I know it depends on the hall.
>> Well it depends also, I think, on what I would call the psychology.
Isn't it?
>> [Inaudible].
>> Certainly, yeah.
>> Yeah.. I mean I wouldn't do that, obviously..
Do you connect the pedals through?
>> I lift [inaudible].
>> You lift...
>> Right on the first note, of the [inaudible].
>> On it? Not before it?
>> Like, maybe a split second.
>> So, of course.
It's nice, if you do it that way.
So, so...
>> Can you do that again a little louder
so that we can get your [inaudible]?
>> Well D...
>> It's a major but the next chord is minor.
So if you keep the pedal down there's a...
>> Yeah I would do that, too.
The minute I do this I put the pedal down.
Yeah, put the dampers down.
>> Yeah. All right, so we stay on schedule.
>> But I just want to say one thing that...
>> Or not.
>> Very very quickly.
That one of the things for me that speaks [inaudible] is that in this,
as in the Moonlight, as in Opus 27, number one,
is making a construction where the third movement is the main movement
of the piece and the -- in time,
the first two movements
and the third movement form a kind of bipartheid thing.
And perhaps for that reason these two movements should go together.
>> That makes a lot of sense to me.
Especially...
>> But I can't prove that.
>> Well we can prove it because Beethoven crossed --
he blotted out the sign that says that this is the end of a movement.
And he put the sign that says this is the end of a section.
>> Yeah.
>> So that helps us.
Well anyway, going back to these three symbols
at the end of the first movement.
So the three symbols suggest that the sought
after joy is only attained in heaven.
In fact, in the famous letter to the Immortal Beloved
from 1812 Beethoven described the kind of love
that is the eternal union of souls,
as something that is actually constructed in heaven.
There he asked the Immortal Beloved,
"Is not our love a true heavenly [inaudible]?"
Given this constellation of symbols in this sonata, the shouted "No!"
at the beginning of the second movement rejects the first movements
conclusion in both senses of the word.
When Beethoven removed the attaca he slowed
down the speed of that rejection.
But the remaining pedal mark at the beginning
of the second movement leaves open the question
of how long the pianist should wait before shouting.
My last example concerns one of the most neglected but important aspects
of music performance, which is slurs.
How notes are connected.
As important as slurs are, however, Beethoven did not normally add them
to his autographs when he first began to write out his works.
He appears to have written
out his manuscripts normally in multiple stages.
First he would transcribe the sketches to the autograph,
fleshing out the one-line sketches as he proceeded.
Sometimes the sketches were transferred
to a single blank staff underneath the stage he was working
on as a kind of cubed staff.
At other times he would transfer them in pencil
and then write over them in ink.
Sometimes he would just begin writing them in ink.
Once the enormous task of writing
out the notes was completed Beethoven normally went back
and added tempo and dynamic markings, again, sometimes first
in pencil and sometimes in ink.
This was not a one-shot deal [inaudible] as we see in many,
many alterations in the dynamic and tempo markings of manuscripts.
It also appears that he made a third --
or a fourth pass through the autograph to insert articulations,
marks, slurs, staccatos, strokes, crescendos.
These additions were also open to revision as Beethoven continued
to work his way through the autograph.
Today I'm going to finish my focusing on a place in the theme
of the last movement that Beethoven changed.
But when he changed it he made what I called a crazy mess.
And here is the autograph and these are the theme of the last movement.
The beautiful theme of the last movement.
And this is the measures 11 and 12.
You can see the measure numbers.
Beethoven wrote measure numbers over every measure of the autograph.
And as he always did he made mistakes in the measure numbers.
So they're often one number's on top of another number,
which frequently happens.
And when he would send correction lists
to the publishers he often gave them the wrong measure numbers.
Which did not help.
So the problem occurs in the second half
of the theme in measures 11 and 12.
Beethoven initially slurred the highest note of the theme.
And in music it's always important what the highest note is.
The E that's in measure 11, to the following three notes in measure 12.
And you see the [inaudible].
Right, thank you.
Changing his mind Beethoven decided he wanted
to emphasize the unusual cadence in measure 12,
and so he shortened the slur.
So he crossed out the slur above and wrote a new slur
that just covers the right hand of measure 12..
He also blackened out the slur from the left hand
that crosses the measure.
Originally there was a slur for five notes in the left hand.
Beethoven crosses it out and by doing so he also blackened
out his slur that was [inaudible] -- it covers up.
Now these changes which separate that measure
out with the weird cadence caused two problems.
First of all he forgot to do anything with the E,
that high E that's left all there by himself.
The left hand meanwhile has no slur on the first feet
of the measure, measure 12.
And it then has two slurs for the next two B's.
Cross out for the left hand..
Also, [inaudible] slur for the right hand measure below it.
Simply put it's a crazy mess that I think has to be solved by all people
who publish editions of this sonata.
Now what did the people do who made different versions of it?
All right, here's Arch Duke Rudolph's copy.
All right, so interestingly he did cut the E off, the E is all alone.
But the left hand still has the original five note slur.
And then here's the first edition.
So the first edition goes back to the slur where the e is connected.
There's a three-note slur in the left hand
and then the last two notes have no slur on them.
Neither the corrected copy nor the first edition follows Beethoven's
wish for measure 12 to be separated from measure 11.
Thus creating an unusual emphasis on this weird cadence.
Malcolm maybe you can play it by emphasizing the --
or by separating the [inaudible] measure one time
so we people can hear the cadence.
>> Okay, what do you want me to do?
I'll do it but what do you want me to do [laughter]?
>> Break before the measure with the cadence.
>> Yeah.
[ Playing Piano ]
>> Like that.
>> Do you see how even with a brilliant pianist
like Malcolm the e's sort of sticks out a little bit by itself?
Now there is another logical place to look to --
have figure out what to do with the phrasing here and that's
at the very end of the sonata because the theme comes back.
So if you look at the end of the sonata,
unfortunately there's bad news.
There are no slurs in that measure, whatsoever.
And no slurs in the measure with the cadence.
We're out of luck.
Now to tell you the truth most editors these days --
it used to be that if you found a slur in one part
of a manuscript you would apply it and it didn't appear somewhere else.
Nowadays editors don't tend to do that so much.
Now what do I recommend and then we'll ask Malcolm to talk about this
because he has lots of very interesting thoughts.
Let's go back to the manuscript.
So I think Beethoven's final intension was to separate off
and highlight the G sharp minor cadence and measure 12's.
So if I were editing this sonata
for the new edition I think I would slur the high E backwards
to the G sharp and make a clear break
in the sound between the measures.
I would also let pianist know
where to put those, like what the story is.
Though ending the slur with an eight note might seem strange,
Beethoven did exactly that in the previous slur.
So, I'm going to stop right here and ask Malcolm to play that,
and to talk about this place, and the problem
with the slurs and his ideas.
>> Okay, what do you want me to do [laughter]?
>> Talk and play.
>> To play..
>> Maybe play it [inaudible].
>> Well...
>> Or three ways.
>> I think there's something that has to be said
by me just before we do this
and that is what is the meaning of the slur.
Slur, the word -- the German word for slur is bogen, bow.
And it is of course how you operate with a bow.
But certainly in this -- in the music of Mozart, these are very,
very central to the entire language.
And it would never be possible in Mozart to play this.
That's simply not possible.
You'd have to [singing].
It's a little bit more complicated here because of the fact
that not only are the pianos getting bigger and juicier, if you want,
but also we know that they don't pedaled a lot.
And people talk about this and people complain about this, and say,
"Mozart didn't pedal so much, does he think he's better
than Mozart" kind of thing.
So in some sense, if this is Mozart I would, not Mozart's music...
[ Playing Piano ]
But that's not what this is, I mean it's not [inaudible] kind of thing.
So, in Mozart if we go back,
we don't have the double [inaudible] do we?
The first bar?.
There's no slur here either but I don't play, which I would.
But I think -- but rather, I'd pedal it at the same time
if the slur starts, I wing a little bit.
So it's not this.
[ Playing Piano ]
But rather, I think it shows us more about the language.
[ Playing Piano ]
That's what I would do.
That's what I would do.
And this, this sign that you see there, we now believe very much,
and I certainly believe, has almost more to do with time
than it does with loudness.
So it's, I wouldn't play, but rather...
[ Playing Piano ]
>> Now, is that right?
Well, how does a composer show us how to do these kinds of things?
And Beethoven must have done a lot of those kinds of things.
And how does our notations show these things?
And I think he's doing as well as he can.
And that's I believe sort of why he gets into these troubles
because he changes his mind.
>> He does change his mind a lot.
>> Yeah, yeah, sure.
>> And by showing you an interesting place.
So just a few measures later.
In measures 15 and 16, the last measures of the theme,
Beethoven originally wrote a ritardando
over the last measure of the theme.
And then he crossed that our very, very vigorously.
Although, you can see it underneath.
So if you go to the copyist manuscript you can see.
Now when he crossed out the ritardando,
he crossed out the slur, too.
So the copyist who is ever faithful, it's like the dog waiting for you
by the door, he doesn't have the slur either.
So see how he crossed out the slur.
And then here's the first edition, which puts the slur back in.
Now the ritardando isn't there, all right.
Now, when he crossed
out the ritardando there is not normally a sign
in music scores today that says don't do this in this measure.
All right.
So, pianists don't know
that Beethoven originally wrote ritardando and then crossed it off.
So since they don't know that, guess what?
They tend to do it.
Okay? It's actually very common and if you listen to recordings.
I listened to about eight the other day, all right,
the longest one was Artur Schnabel.
He takes a gigantic ritard [inaudible].
Walter [inaudible] takes a mild ritard.
The phenomenal Annie Fischer takes a ritard, but only on the last peak.
Very interesting.
Jonathan Biss, a modern pianist, plays a modern ritard, too.
So, it's interesting that Beethoven didn't completely eliminate the
ritard on this measure, but what he did was he moved it
to the very last measure of the piece.
The very last measure of the piece has in pencil,
extremely light pencil, ritardando written in above it.
So the last time you hear this measure there is supposed
to be a ritard.
And then Malcolm why don't you talk
about the pedal marking at that point?
>> But that's also in pencil, you told me.
>> Yes, also very faint pencil.
>> It is in most editions that you have...
[ Playing Piano ]
>> Pedal at the very last, at the very last note.
So that the piece doesn't end.
>> It doesn't ever end [laughter].
>> Doesn't ever end.
>> So my conclusion before we get to hear the piece,
now that we've focused on these three -- or three and a half,
if you'll let me count the last one as a half,
aspects of the Autograph I trust that you can see
that autographs are valuable both as souvenirs
of a great composers handwriting.
But even more importantly for what they can tell us about the meaning
of a composition and how to interpret it.
Interpretation is particularly important for this sonata,
one of the most sublime of the composer's late works.
The details of the manuscript inform us about such small details
as the ways in which one note is connected to another note,
how to connect one movement to the following movement
and how Beethoven was trying to make instrumental music have the power
of words in the gesang, without using words.
The lyric composing's of Beethoven's late period finds its voice
in this sonata.
Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
So what we're going to do is move the piano to the middle of the stage
and then after the performance if we have --
we're hoping we'll have time for a couple of questions.
So that's the strategy from here on out.
So if you will let us put the lid down
and move the piano to the middle.
>> [Inaudible].
>> Good. [Inaudible].
>> You want me to just grab those.
>> [Inaudible].
[ Playing Piano ]
[ Pause ]
[ Applause ]
>> I should probably let you know that the piano got moved
in last night, it actually got carried down the stairs.
And -- but Shin only had an hour to practice and get used to this piano.
So, I'd like to thank you very much and I'm really happy that you threw
in some variations when [inaudible] of the sections.
Which is quite controversial and some people,
although it's quite good that everybody didn't.
But anyway, [inaudible]?
>> We probably have time for a couple of questions
but I'm going to make a plug if I can.
If you'd like today, please join us on March 29th
when we'll be examining the autograph of another one
of the composers we hold in the music division.
Louis Armstrong.
So, we'd love to demonstrate our own treasures and the breathe
of scholarship in American musicology.
So if you have some questions we have a mic,
but I'm thinking we should have about two.
>> I don't think I need a mic.
>> I don't think you do [laughter].
>> For Malcolm and your little [inaudible],
did you tune it and how?
>> Malcom why don't you come up and [inaudible].
>> Sure.
>> While he's coming up I'll tell you Malcolm did tune it
and we discussed which tuning to use.
>> What's the question?
>> Did you tune?
I told him yes.
>> I did. Yes.
>> Do you want to talk about the tuning?
>> Not so much [laughter].
Who am I addressing?
>> This is Kyle Greenlee [assumed spelling].
I'm the tuner technician, I started
by building harpsichords and playing.
>> Oh I see.
He's a tuner.
Most people don't know a lot about tuning
and I don't want to get too technical.
But basically the simple thing about tuning is
that when something isn't tuned it does not do what we call beating.
That is to say it sounds absolutely pure.
A single string, there are three strings,
it has to be absolutely pure, there is one here that is not..
This is all right, and this is not.
Now, I don't have to stand here because I have a mic.
Now, the thing is that you have to tune octaves and you have
to tune fourths, and fifths, and thirds and all of this.
And I don't want to get too complicated but you have
to have a tuning system that allows for the fact that there --
if you tune everything pure you'll eventually get to a place
where you have something that sounds awful.
So you have to adjust.
Modern pianos are tuned in something that is called equal temperament.
And that is that everything is very, very, very slightly out of tune.
And we're all used to that.
But when you get into this period you have, they were still tuning
in ways that were unequal and that is why the difference
between E flat major and E major really counted.
You know, as you were across --
as you go across the 19th century these things count less
and composers get more and more chromatic.
That is to say they want to go through a lot of unrelated keys
and so this -- the tuning gets smoother and smoother.
This is a sort of mid-19th, it's a rather late-ish kind of tuning
that is almost equal but not really equal.
So you can still hear, if you can..
C major,.
And some of their earlier tunings this is pronounced than this one.
But it's not [inaudible].
>> And there's a very fine-tuning called the Prinz tuning.
P-R-I-N-Z.
From 1808, I think it's Owens Jorgensen's book.
But we use that [inaudible] one of our quartet [inaudible].
It's really lovely and shows the different keys.
I have to say that -- this always gets me in trouble
but I don't care --
equal temperament is kind of the McDonald's of tunings.
You can go anywhere in the country
and the hamburger will taste the same and you know it.
But when they actually started using equal temperament more people
started saying, "You can't do that, you're destroying the,
each key sounds different."
And it's really true when you hear this Prinz tuning it's...
>> But when you get to [inaudible] and he has consecutive chords
of dominance they have to be smooth.
He wouldn't rank without equal temperament.
That's very important I think.
If you have these things and they're supposed to slide
and everyone sounds joltingly different, that wouldn't be good.
>> No, the only reason we like that, it is very,
like everything, its very time specific.
So the tuning, the Prinz tuning is from 1806 to 1808.
>> Yes.
>> And it fits the music really well.
Maybe one more question.
It's very hard to see you all.
>> Not if you stand over here.
>> [Inaudible].
Yeah, you're welcome to ask any of the three of us anything.
>> Could you bring up your very first slide?
Is that going to take too long?
I have a question about, it's an editorial question
but it might affect the [inaudible].
>> The projector is off.
>> Oh, I'm sorry, I was thinking and [inaudible].
Horrible. What was the question?
>> At the beginning of the third movement,
if I remember it correctly,
metovocce [assumed spelling] was between the stavs.
>> Yes.
>> Is that correct?
>> Yes.
>> We've had a lot of discussion about placement
in the Cidales Edition because the placement may affect what is
referred to.
And in that passage I -- because in addition to your,
in Schumer Edition, that metovoce has been moved over the top stav.
>> Right.
>> And looking at...
>> Schumer Edition.
Is that the old [inaudible] edition [laughter]?
>> But I wonder if [inaudible] the autograph it would not refer
to the left hand.
The base, that single upward moving voice.
Vis a vis the mounting in the right hand.
>> Could I take this one?
>> Please do.
>> Please.
>> No, because Mozart, you don't see this in modern editions,
Mozart writes piano in the write hand, piano in the left hand.
And little by little by around the turn of the century,
I believe even late Mozart starts writing in the middle.
So when it's written in the middle it's a dynamic marking.
Where else would you put it?
Simply. You wouldn't put it above or below, you put it in the middle.
And that's just a tradition.
I don't think it means much of anything, it's just...
Now the problem is what's metzovoce [laughter]?
That's the big problem.
>> I think they don't use it normally to mean like --
it indicates there is something that he is talking
about that is intimate, more intimate than normal.
So, it's kind of like, I want to tell you something.
I think he's talking about something that has to do with love,
so we often don't shout too much about that.
But it being in the middle, you're right.
It's a very interesting question, does that signify
that his [inaudible] the voices if it's on top.
I mean one thing when you look at the scores and this is why it's
so great to see them is there are very practical things,
like sometimes you run out of room on top.
So you have to squeeze them in somewhere.
So where do you put it?
There's -- and in this case there was a lot of room in the middle.
Sorry we can't have it back up.
But you'll be able to see it and it's not open to that page.
Maybe we can open it and she can see the real thing.
It was one more, I had to do this,
Dee will probably never invite me back to Library of Congress.
>> In the first movement [inaudible] the extreme range
between the voices [inaudible], especially on [inaudible].
But do you that has philosophical or poetic meaning as well?
>> I do. Yes.
I hate to give you such a simple answer.
But one of the things that's interesting
about the Ninth Symphony, next time you hear the Ninth Symphony live,
notice how he uses chords.
Also the [inaudible].
Both of these have this very interesting use
of really high chords.
They're almost like this chord represents God,
or this chord represents this or.
So one of the things I love about hearing [inaudible] on pianos
like this is this is a reproduction of a Brach piano.
Beethoven didn't own Brach piano but there was one in his apartment
that had been lent to him.
And so it was very much like this.
This is a -- does it say...
>> It says Regier.
>> And it was made in 2000.
>> It's an 1824 copy.
>> Yeah it's an 1824 piano.
But when you hear them, actually also when you see them,
it's kind of fun to see Shin's hands at the top of a keyboard.
I mean he's almost at the end of his space,
like the musical space doesn't exist.
So, one of the things that a lot the people talk
about the classical period is the fortepiano was not supposed
to have an even register from the top to the bottom.
The bottom was supposed to have one sound,
the middle register another sound, and the top another sound.
So that there's a manual by the Streicher people
and they said the top should be like a flute, the middle should be
like a clarinet, and the bottom should be like a bassoon.
So this idea on the modern
on this modern [inaudible] regulator register [inaudible] why our music
is so [inaudible] he can take advantage of that aspect of it.
The Moonlight example is a great example because at the very end
where the funeral marcher and then the bum-bum-bum goes to the bass,
it's not enough bass, it sounds really weird.
Then there's a clarinet or a flute that's just wandering
around [inaudible], you know, bum-bum-bum on the bass.
It's spectacular to hear on the fortepiano.
And I think that has to be it.
I feel the shepherd's crook.
[Laughter] Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]