Beethoven

Beethoven

Acrylic on Canvass

Beethoven on Music -

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

Music is mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.

Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.

What happens when you tell Bach that a violin has its limitations!

The facts are these: When Bach was composing his Partita in D minor for solo violin (BWV 1004), he created a concluding movement called the Chaconne (an old, slow and stately dance form) which lasts longer than the collective duration of all the preceding four movements in the Partita.

A type of theme and variations, Bach opens the Chaconne with a four-measure theme and that same theme is incessantly changed, transformed and transfigured throughout the entire 13 to 15 minutes of the piece, without any literal repetition. And mind you, (1) all the variations remain four measures long and (2) there are no other resources on hand to hold the listener’s attention but those four strings of the violin.

Johannes Brahms, in a letter to Clara Schumann, said about the Chaconne: “On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind.”

Yehudi Menuhin called it the "greatest structure for solo violin that exists" In fact one of Menuhin's childhood dreams was "that peace might be visited upon the earth if I could only play the Bach Chaconne well enough in the Sistine Chapel."

On the emotive scale, its yearning theme is able to transport the listener to places and feelings, worlds and worldviews never before experienced. In terms of form, the grandeur of design and the strength of its structure leave you marveling at the ambition with which Bach conceived it. It is almost as if Bach, himself a decent violinist, having heard the best compositions and performances for unaccompanied violin of the day, decided to show composers and players exactly how it ought to be done and what the possibilities were. Technically, the piece is tremendously formidable even for the most dexterous of violin virtuosos. Musically and spiritually, it is unsurpassed in the entire violin repertoire.

The theme is varied through ingenious elaboration, inversions, fragmentation, transposition, time diminution, implied counterpoint (a suggestion of 2, 3 and 4-part counterpoint with the single violin!), scale modulation and much more. And yet, the result is a coherent whole. In fact, the testament to the breadth and richness of this work is the number of successful transcriptions of this same work for multi-voice instruments such as the piano and organ and ensembles such as the full orchestra.

Paradoxically, the first recording I heard of the Chaconne was not in its original form for solo violin, but rather in a version of Stokowski's famous orchestral transcription. I have over the years listened to different legendary recordings of this piece; the most memorable being those by Nathan Milstein, Henryk Szeryng and Yehudi Menuhin. And among the virtuoso's of today, the best rendition to my ears has been that of the young American violinist Hilary Hahn.

Music sans biography

The implication in my last post “Master Composers – Dysfunctional Men!” is that the music and the life of the composer could in effect be unrelated.

It is true that experiences shape a person’s thinking and circumstances can impact one's outlook on life. It is true that personal tragedy has inspired some composers to pen the most beautiful expressions of grief in music. It is true that a hopeless situation can see despair seep into the score of some composers. Or joy and humour might find its way into the notes of a composer on a career ‘high’. But the opposite is also equally (and fascinatingly) true.

In the last year of Mozart’s life, he could have been forgiven if despair found its way into his music. He was in desperate financial straits. His concerts were no longer as popular as they had been. He had difficulty finding music students to tutor. And his health was deteriorating. But one has to only listen to his serene last piano concerto (No. 27 in B-flat major K595) or his sunny Clarinet Concerto (in A major K 622) – both composed in that last year – to see how unsullied and exalted he could keep his music despite the cares of everyday living.

Thank God for such incongruence! And thank God for such a musical legacy!

Master Composers - Dysfunctional Men!

Staying with the same topic of the 'G' in music from my last post, there is sometimes an obvious question that could be asked: If music can have such a redeeming influence on man, what explains the clearly dysfunctional lives of many of the great composers and (to extend that further) even some of the great performers of music?

Beethoven confessed that he was misanthropic. Brahms was a recluse. Tchaikovsky contended with frequent bouts of severe depression throughout his life. Schumann went insane and committed suicide.

The explanation that works for me is this: Firstly, God uses 'imperfect vessels' to do His work. That applies not only to leaders and saints, but also to composers, painters, sculptors; in fact to everybody.

That explains the dichotomy of Beethoven’s radiant and mystical Missa Solemnis and his actual double-dealing with several publishers to get this work published for the highest returns. That explains how Wagner could compose some of the most stirring music ever penned and yet be a confirmed anti-Semitic in not only his own beliefs but also in his published writings. That explains how Mozart’s music has a purity far removed from the frequent vulgar jokes that punctuate his many letters.

Secondly, the process of creation (for the composer) or re-creation (for the performer) demands infinitely more from the individual than the process of listening. It is almost as if some of the great composers gave everything they had emotionally, intellectually and sometimes spiritually to their music, that they (and unfortunately those around them, including close family and friends) were left with only the ‘leftovers’.

Finally, it is often the case that composers communicate more intuitively through their music than through social interactions or the written or spoken word. In that sense, their actual self comes out best through their works and 'says' more about them than what they say or do outside of music. It is almost like parallel universes - the mystic reality of the process of composition and the mundane reality of everyday living!

This Month in History (April 1759): Handel is dead

This month the world commemorates the 250th anniversary of Handel’s death.

Born in Halle, Germany, George Frideric Handel enjoyed a successful career in Italy and eventually spent most of his creative life in London. For eight years before he died, Handel contended with a steady deterioration in his eyesight which eventually led to blindness.

Among his many masterpieces are the oratorios the Messiah, Saul, Israel in Egypt, Samson, Judas Maccabaeus and Solomon, operas such as Rinaldo and Xerxes, the Concerto Grossi (Opus 3 and Opus 6), the “Water Music” and the “Music for the Royal Fireworks”.

His anthem “Zadok the Priest” (composed for the coronation of King George II in 1727) has since been performed at every coronation of a British monarch.

His most famous work, and one of the most revered compositions of English sacred music, the Messiah, was written in a mind-boggling surge of creativity across a mere 24 days!

Among the earliest known recordings of classical music (on Edison's phonograph) are excerpts of Handel’s “Israel in Egypt”.

Mozart once said "Handel understands effect better than any of us. When he chooses, he strikes like a thunder bolt.”

Another ardent admirer, Beethoven is known to have remarked of Handel: "Go to him to learn how to achieve great effects, by such simple means." And on another occasion, he remarked “I would bare my head and kneel at his grave."

But certainly the best tribute to Handel came from his greatest contemporary, Johann Sebastian Bach who said: "Handel "is the only person I would wish to see before I die, and the only person I would wish to be, were I not Bach".

This Month in History (March 1685): Bach is born

Perhaps the most underrated of composers ever (during his own lifetime), Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany on 21st March 1685.

Known more for his virtuosity as an organist during his lifetime and for around eight decades after he died, Bach was later hailed by Richard Wagner as “the most stupendous miracle in all music.”

Supreme as a composer of counterpoint, master of virtually every form in classical music except opera, Bach created his music at all times to fulfill that one objective so beautifully summed up by the Jesuit motto, “for the greater glory of God.”

Beethoven was so moved by his work as to say that ‘Bach’ (the name means ‘brook’) should have been named the ‘sea’ instead.

Johannes Brahms exhorted: "Study Bach, there you will find everything."

Robert Schumann once said “Music owes as much to Bach as religion to its founder."

Debussy referred to him as "a benevolent god to which all musicians should offer a prayer to defend themselves against mediocrity."

Three of the 27 recordings chosen for the Voyager Golden Record (sounds and images selected to represent mankind and intended for extra-terrestrial life; played on the Voyager spacecraft) are compositions by Bach; the most by any composer.

Some of his major works - the Mass in B Minor, the St. Matthew Passion, the St. John Passion, The Art of Fugue, the Goldberg Variations, the Well-Tempered Clavier, The Musical Offering, the Brandenburg concertos, the Sonatas and Partitas for violin solo, the Cello Suites and a wide range of sublime cantatas.

“To strip human nature until its divine attributes are made clear, to inform ordinary activities with spiritual fervor, to give wings of eternity to that which is most ephemeral; to make divine things human and human things divine; such is Bach, the greatest and purest moment in music of all time.”
- Pablo Casals