Beethoven’s Hero Only Appears in C minor.

Yes! His hero does appear in C minor. However, this post will not include Ludwig van Beethoven’s hero, but rather his whole discography which is certainly heroic as is his third.  Beethoven was a wonderfully prodigious composer who not only made nine symphonies of the huge classical kind but also wrote sixteen string quartets; incidentally he’s also got a lot of piano compositions. We’re talking massive symphonies that last about a half hour or more. If you even dare to bring up Mozart’s forty symphonies, well, let us just say that Mozart’s are constructed from a general plan and didn’t defy, break, and define convention for symphonies. Also, Mozart’s symphonies aren’t an architectural construction amounting to building a skyscraper. Mozart built huts compared to Beethoven. Aside from that, every other composer after Beethoven has struggled to make nine symphonies as large and world-shattering as his, but most have died before they even get to a ninth or are racked with such indecision and nervousness they are unable to finish composing it.

 So, I’m sure or I hope most of you are informed enough to know that Beethoven grew deaf as he grew older and progressively crazier (he was already decently crazy to begin with). I believe most of his best work is when he has already been deaf and become a more unsettled version of himself. They speak to a certain release of his inhibitions. Dissonance abounds and he combines sonata, theme and variation, and any other major form you can think of. He also happens to just write music occasionally in no known form. Essentially, this whole post spawned because I wanted to share one of his most wonderful yet insane pieces. It is the Grosse Fuge in B flat Op.133. A good copy of the score if you want to follow along can be found here. I definitely recommend following along with the score either first or immediately after the first listen to truly understand how hard to play and difficult the quartet piece is.

Aside from the Grosse Fuge, my favorite Beethoven symphony is his third symphony otherwise known as Eroica (Symphony No. 3 in E flat Op. 55). A copy of the score can be found here. It is the beginning of Beethoven completely changing his method of symphonic composition. This, ladies and gentlemen, is literally the symphony that may have started it all. Michael Tilson Thomas and PBS have made this wonderful series of hour-long shows called Keeping Score that showcase certain classical pieces and coincidentally have one on Eroica. The flash site they have set up to lead you through the history and the music is wonderfully well done. I definitely would use it as the beginner’s guide to Eroica. His third symphony is uplifting, glorious, and a monument to doing what you want to do to succeed. Listen to it I say!

A post full of Beethoven wouldn’t be complete without a paragraph chock full of links to Beethoven. For several books on Beethoven that would be a good read we have:

·         Beethoven: The Music and Life

·         The Beethoven Quartets

·         The Beethoven Quartet Companion

·         Beethoven and the Construction of Genius

·         Conducting Beethoven: Volume 1: The Symphonies

·         A Critical Study of Beethoven’s Nine Symphonies

o   Special mention for the last one: It was written by Hector Berlioz. Another famous composer, so it’s a more contemporary dissection of Beethoven.

The last thing for Beethoven is a collection of piano lectures. All of these links are of course, brought to you by Metafilter. Check it out, it might just blow your mind. That is all.

Cesare e pazzo!

P.S. It is a funny little fact that in theory circles this is widely held to be true. Whenever Beethoven writes in C minor, it is him as a hero breaking through everything that stops him. Hence the Fifth Symphony. Can you guess what key it is in?