For one of my year-long projects this year I’ve been listening to all (well, most) of the works of Beethoven. This has been helped along by the existence of the website CompleteBeethoven.com, which has listening selections for each day, with commentary.
The past few days I’ve been listening to several piano sonatas. It turns out that Beethoven wasn’t really writing these for him (or even other artists) to play in public concerts. Instead, his business model was that he was making money by selling the sheet music for these pieces. People would buy the sheet music to learn the pieces and play them for their family and friends in their own homes.
I found this fascinating because of course then the limiting factor is that the pieces would need to be accessible to amateur musicians. While this is kind of a cool constraint (can you write something groundbreaking that is also going to sell to the regular public and that someone who’d studied piano for just a few years could play?) later in his life Beethoven decided to dispense with that. I guess he was well known enough that he wrote more of what he wanted, and the later piano pieces are more for professional musician/concert hall situations.
In general, I find it intriguing how working artists balance the need to support themselves financially with creating things that they find interesting. Through history, even artists who have been independently wealthy, or had very open-minded patrons, were often still interested in having an audience. So you can’t go completely off the deep end. Or at least not for everything. And people have to be capable of performing what you produce.
I was thinking of this over the weekend when my church choir premiered the last of seven works we commissioned from Kim André Arnesen. While we are a fairly decent church choir, it is still a constraint to write something that a church choir can sing. These pieces have also been performed, as it were, for people who are just there for Sunday services, not people who’ve bought tickets to an avant-garde performance and were prepared for whatever they were getting in to. But within those constraints he did some interesting things with melodies and particularly the chosen lyrics (he worked closely with someone who helped reinterpret familiar stories in modern poetic language). It’s been a fascinating experience.
Anyway, speaking of accessible music, on Friday night a few of us went to Disney on Ice. This particular show was all Frozen and Encanto music. The 5-year-old was slightly disappointed that there was no Moana, but it was still fun! (I like trying to match up some Lin-Manuel Miranda musical moments from Encanto and Hamilton…). Yesterday a few of us also went out to run around in the very gusty wind. For a while the forecast was calling for a huge snowstorm on Thursday but that seems to have disappeared. It will be cold this week and then maybe that will be about the end of winter. We can hope…
Photo: Olaf snow cone, in portrait mode
I love that your church choir commissions music–as did your Young New Yorkers Chorus. And that the music becomes a part of worship for your church.
I like your thoughts on the Beethoven piano sonatas. I find them fascinating, how his music evolves as he gets older. My favourite recordings are Alfred Brendel from 1970s. Kind regards. Anthony Walker
@Mary- new music can be tricky, but it is great when done well.
I like your thoughts on the Beethoven piano sonatas. I find them fascinating, how his music evolves as he gets older. My favourite recordings are Alfred Brendel from 1970s. Kind regards. Anthony Walker
@Anthony- thanks! It has been fascinating to see what he wrote at a young age and then how he is maturing.
Would you recommend any of the sonatas for an 11 year old who’s been playing for almost three years? I’m always on the lookout for music that is achievable, but makes her feel accomplished as it’s by a famous composer! With my musical knowledge and ability similar to that of a kindergarten child, this may be a silly question! Please humour me.
@Jennie – if you can find sheet music of it, some of the most fun might be the pieces that Beethoven himself wrote when he was 12! His first piece is called Variations on a March by Dressler (WoO 63) and then he wrote three early piano sonatas, WoO 47 nos. 1-3. These are the first four days of listening at CompleteBeethoven.com.
@Jennie – and the first movement of Moonlight sonata (of course!) sounds big and important but is fairly straightforward.
I have to respectfully disagree that the earlier sonatas are written for amateurs. Numbers 2 and 3 for instance are full of severe technical difficulties. The last movement of the Moonlight is famously virtuosic. I am a very good amateur pianist and have worked at the sonatas all my life without mastering them.
@Jeff- interesting! I am actually not familiar with the last movement of Moonlight – only the far easier part!
I assume your conclusion on working artists’ endeavors to balance creating something groundbreaking while also having an audience is that only a few artists can manage to both make some groundbreaking works and create works so that they can have an audience, Ms. Laura Vanderkam. Is that right?
Great topic. I think it must be something anyone trying to make a living as an artist has to grapple with. I recently saw “A Complete Unknown,” the Bob Dylan movie. He was trying to evolve his music and got tremendous pushback from his fans. Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring caused a riot when it was premiered, and Beethoven’s 9th symphony was considered pretty radical . You have to wonder how much these artists tried to strike a balance- or did they just throw caution to the wind, go all out and see what happened? Think of the courage it took for them to create something so original.