LECTURE NOTES: --------------1st movt: modified sonata-allegro-------------- 1. @7:51 the dotted rhythm is reminiscent of the dotted rhythm in the funeral march in Op. 26. 2. @8:20 Beethoven copied out the music from Mozart's Don Giovanni where the titular character murdered the Commendatore, which has to be an inspiration for this piece. 3. @12:23 important Neapolitan harmony --------------2nd movt: scherzo------------ 4. @14:43 like a string quartet 5. @16:03 accents & syncopations: only tenor in forte piano, like a horn --------------3rd movt: sonata-------------- 6. Beethoven always delivers his last movements 7. @18:34 Beethoven was the first great composer of the pedal. Left hand: 2 notes coupled with a chord, both times the chord are in damper pedal. No crescendo, all in piano. 8. @20:14 the first crescendo 9. @20:40 Beethoven writes this crescendi, diminuendi on each phrase 10. @21:12 THAT Neapolitan harmony 11. @22:15 a closing theme like an epilogue 12. @23:20 a Neapolitan from F sharp to G 13. @24:37 a big coda which enlarges the structure to almost a piano concerto 14.@ 25:40 a big cadenza 15. @26:03 coda
I would like to enphasize that the great Edwin Fischer himself wrote his particular interpretation of Beethoven's directions - 'Si deve suonare tutto questo pezzo delicatissamente e senza sordini' - on his guided book for B's piano sonatas. So I think we all should take notes on it: "Beethoven's direction should be followed precisely : the whole movement should be played with the utmost gentleness and without the dampers, that is to say, with the pedal".. that being said I may me wrong but in my humble opinion "with the pedal" doesn't seems like "without lifting the pedal" :D
Well, yes but don't forget the "tutto questo pezzo" part. All this piece without dampeners. On the other hand if you listen to it played on a period instrument with the pedal pressed for the whole time, it doesn't sound as blurred as in Schiff interpretation, so probably a compromise is possible
Whenever Beethoven wants to indicate a particular use of the pedal (for example in the recitatives of op. 31 n. 2 or in the third movement of op. 53) he writes the pedal with the acronym Ped. and indicate the release with an asterisk * . I personally believe that if in the op. 27 no. 2 he wanted the continuous pedal without release, he would have written ped. at the beginning and * at the end. I believe that with the indication in Italian “si deve suonare questo pezzo tutto delicatissimamente e senza sordino” he wanted to indicate that no passage should be played without the pedal.
@@Nessuno777 I don't mean to assume here, but the markings were often added/replaced by the publishers (and later editors), so depending on your edition, it can be rather likely that you find pedal or dynamic markings which may not have been intended in the original manuscript.
On second thought, I believe my above point not to matter as much as the following (which is what Schiff said in his lecture): Beethoven writes, in the quasi universally accepted translation, "without damper[s]". As Schiff demonstrates, it is undisputed in the context of the 3rd movement, that "with damper" means without the pedal [which lifts the dampers], and vice versa. The argument Schiff appears to be making is that there should be no reason to interpret the same expression to the opposite meaning in the context of the 1st mvmt.
More reasonable to me to think Beethoven meant *using* the pedal during the whole piece, which was very uncommon at his time. I really don't know about blurring the whole thing with *one* pedal.
Schiff makes excellent points. Stuart Gordon in his Beethoven's 32 sonatas, mentions a different idea- Beethoven’s student Czerny instructed that the “prescribed pedal must be re-employed at each note in the bass…" "The composer directs that “this piece should be played throughout with the greatest delicacy and without dampers.” He emphasizes in a second note: “always pianissimo and without dampers.” These directions have led to speculation as to how best to carry them out. Many believe that the composer wanted a blurred, atmospheric effect, possible on period pianos, on which the sound dissipated rapidly. However, holding the damper pedal down on the more sonorous modern piano throughout the movement results in harmonic blurring that would seem incompatible with today’s aesthetic standards. Many performers experiment with half-damping or delayed pedal changes. On the other hand, Beethoven’s student Czerny instructed that the “prescribed pedal must be re-employed at each note in the bass….” Does anyone suspicion that generally piano was played very dry in those days? thinking of all the scales and more scales in Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven you can't pedal too much. If the baseline was to play dry, without pedal generally, was Beethoven noting that this was quite different - to be played with the pedal, without the dampers, throughout, but perhaps not continuously? use the pedal as Czerny notes? Liszt noted in his own music "an intelligent use of the pedal is presumed."
The first movement is actually in a very strict sonata form! It's unbelievable how Schiff simply does not address the form of the movement, as if it were just a bunch of non-schematic arpeggios. How Beethoven perfectly merges the straightforwardness of the "sonata" and the unattached expressivity of the "fantasia" is genius!
I’m happy with slow or fast as long as it has feeling. A slower first movement gives more light to the 2nd and more weight to the 3rd movement in my view. Thanks for posting it was very interesting 🧛♂️👌
Well it doesn't matter. The first movement is marked "Alla breve" (2/2), or cut time. Schiff's tempo is still very much a slow tempo relative to the time signature, because he's counting per every half note, *NOT* the quarter notes as everybody erroneously does.
@@PianistTanooki I found the broadwood sound on Pianoteq, a high quality recording, and I played it at the 60 bpm Alle Breve, or 120 bpm with quarter notes on the first beat. And you know what? It suddenly sounded a LOT like the Beethoven I came to know listening to people like Artur Schnabel and Wilhelm Backhaus play lesser known sonatas of Beethoven.
schiff got to research the original sheet music and his version is the correct interpretation though it doesn't stop the slower version from sounding nice in it's own right. I personally prefer how Schiff plays it
And he explains why. The manuscript of the piece clearly states that it's meant to be in 2/2, cut time. It's meant to be felt in two beats with the half note as the pulse, not four. So when you put it at an "Adagio" pulse, but make the half notes the pulse note instead of the quarter notes, his tempo really isn't that fast at all.
1st movement was taken from a funeral scene but to me it sounds romantic, it sound like like a difficult love. Schiff forgot to mention that this sonata was dedicated to a love interest by Beethoven. Not a minor detail in my humble opinion.
I’ve often wondered the same thing about Beethoven and I’ve come to the realization that the answer lies some where in between “Love and Death”, The love that he had for her and the death of that idea when nothing came about, that movement binds the two concepts together! also “moonlight” sounds a lot better than “funeral trot”
Yes! It always sounded like a slightly modified sonata form to me. You can precisely distinguish the exposition with two main themes, the development section, the recapitulation section with a tonic secondary theme and the coda based on theme 1
Holding the pedal all the time in the first movement is a musical nonsense that Beethoven would never have proposed. Beethoven wrote "Si deve suonare tutto questo pezzo delicatissimamente e senza sordino" which translates to "You have to play this whole piece very delicately and without sordino". Sordino was a pedal on pianos in Beethovens times. It pushes a felt between the strings and the hammers (comparable with the damper pedal in upright pianos). It has been rediscovered todays, for example by Steingraeber & Söhne (ua-cam.com/video/wRCbymnyjFY/v-deo.html). "Sordino" also translates to something like "deafness". Beethoven just didn't want this deaf sound in the first movement. What Beethoven wanted to state is that the delicate character has to be reached without a damper pedal.
well said! andras schiff’s version sounds horrendous, it is pure nonsense. it is like when driving a car: not pressing the brake DOES NOT mean pressing the gas.
Who are you to tell us what Beethoven would have intended? I take senza sordini to more literally mean without the mutes, i.e. the dampers. That instruction is given twice, and it should not to be ignored. You'll notice it is written (i.e. con pedale), or "that is, with the pedal" too which is even more explicit of the fact that the sustain pedal should be kept held down, what makes you think your interpretation is in any way more valid than Schiff's?
Sir Andras is historically right because the piece is from 1801, so it just isn't recent enough for all this aching passion that it's generally played with. That would be 20 years later because In 1801, Chopin and Liszt weren't even born for around another decade. I find this beautiful 'real interpretation' is much more sombre, exacting and funerial than the way it's now been popularised and wouldn't perhaps appeal as much to the young, played this authentically as they don't usually like things to be so exact and serious. Beautiful nevertheless. There is a section in the Haydn Creation which also sounds similar. Actually, I don't know why the moonlight is so popular because even though it is gorgeous, there are many more gorgeous pieces that many people don't know about. Anyone else find that? It could be the romantic sentiment around the fake title that has won its popularity.
With Brahms, I generally feel the last movement is better than the first, so I disagree with Schiff on that. Each symphony's last movement is sensational. The piano concerti as well. They're on a smaller scale in many cases, but that does not reflect quality.
Whole-beat theory is crackpot nonsense based on absolutely no evidence. Schiff bases his interpretation on a literal interpretation of the words written to the performer at the very beginning of the piece. You can perhaps make an argument that Schiff is wrong and that he's misinterpreting Beethoven's instruction, or that it's advice that doesn't work on modern instruments. But it is in no way on the same level as whole-beat theory, because it's actually _based on something._
The 2nd and 3rd movements are immaculate but the slow movement is a slurred dysharmonic mess. This idea of not lifting the dampers is so well outside the boundaries of reason that it's almost inconceivable how someone like András Schiff, no intellectual lightweight, could believe in it.
While I would agree with most of the things he said, the sustain pedal thingy is actually nonsense tbh, pretty sure during Beethoven's time the pedal in the fortepianos worked very differently
While the pedal has a different effect now, it can be held down only slightly and it has a less obvious effect. I don't think following an instruction Beethoven wrote twice before the piece starts is remotely absurd
@@Trooman20 is it not a lot more probable Beethoven meant that you should play with pedal the whole piece, something that was unusual, but changing between harmonies? That's obvious to me, there no special effect on that blurring, just bad taste.
The subtitles you're seeing are auto-generated by UA-cam, they're not part of the video itself so they can't be deleted. Only thing to do is turn them off
LECTURE NOTES:
--------------1st movt: modified sonata-allegro--------------
1. @7:51 the dotted rhythm is reminiscent of the dotted rhythm in the funeral march in Op. 26.
2. @8:20 Beethoven copied out the music from Mozart's Don Giovanni where the titular character murdered the Commendatore, which has to be an inspiration for this piece.
3. @12:23 important Neapolitan harmony
--------------2nd movt: scherzo------------
4. @14:43 like a string quartet
5. @16:03 accents & syncopations: only tenor in forte piano, like a horn
--------------3rd movt: sonata--------------
6. Beethoven always delivers his last movements
7. @18:34 Beethoven was the first great composer of the pedal. Left hand: 2 notes coupled with a chord, both times the chord are in damper pedal. No crescendo, all in piano.
8. @20:14 the first crescendo
9. @20:40 Beethoven writes this crescendi, diminuendi on each phrase
10. @21:12 THAT Neapolitan harmony
11. @22:15 a closing theme like an epilogue
12. @23:20 a Neapolitan from F sharp to G
13. @24:37 a big coda which enlarges the structure to almost a piano concerto
14.@ 25:40 a big cadenza
15. @26:03 coda
I would like to enphasize that the great Edwin Fischer himself wrote his particular interpretation of Beethoven's directions - 'Si deve suonare tutto questo pezzo delicatissamente e senza sordini' - on his guided book for B's piano sonatas. So I think we all should take notes on it: "Beethoven's direction should be followed precisely : the whole movement should be played with the utmost gentleness and without the dampers, that is to say, with the pedal".. that being said I may me wrong but in my humble opinion "with the pedal" doesn't seems like "without lifting the pedal" :D
Well, yes but don't forget the "tutto questo pezzo" part. All this piece without dampeners.
On the other hand if you listen to it played on a period instrument with the pedal pressed for the whole time, it doesn't sound as blurred as in Schiff interpretation, so probably a compromise is possible
Without the dampers means without the pedal raised though so it would mean without lifting the pedal
Whenever Beethoven wants to indicate a particular use of the pedal (for example in the recitatives of op. 31 n. 2 or in the third movement of op. 53) he writes the pedal with the acronym Ped. and indicate the release with an asterisk * . I personally believe that if in the op. 27 no. 2 he wanted the continuous pedal without release, he would have written ped. at the beginning and * at the end. I believe that with the indication in Italian “si deve suonare questo pezzo tutto delicatissimamente e senza sordino” he wanted to indicate that no passage should be played without the pedal.
@@Nessuno777 I don't mean to assume here, but the markings were often added/replaced by the publishers (and later editors), so depending on your edition, it can be rather likely that you find pedal or dynamic markings which may not have been intended in the original manuscript.
On second thought, I believe my above point not to matter as much as the following (which is what Schiff said in his lecture): Beethoven writes, in the quasi universally accepted translation, "without damper[s]". As Schiff demonstrates, it is undisputed in the context of the 3rd movement, that "with damper" means without the pedal [which lifts the dampers], and vice versa.
The argument Schiff appears to be making is that there should be no reason to interpret the same expression to the opposite meaning in the context of the 1st mvmt.
Its wonderful...Thanks so much!🌺
More reasonable to me to think Beethoven meant *using* the pedal during the whole piece, which was very uncommon at his time. I really don't know about blurring the whole thing with *one* pedal.
Awesome sense of humor😂
Schiff makes excellent points.
Stuart Gordon in his Beethoven's 32 sonatas, mentions a different idea-
Beethoven’s student Czerny instructed that the “prescribed pedal must be re-employed at each note in the bass…"
"The composer directs that “this piece should be played throughout with the greatest delicacy and without dampers.” He emphasizes in a second note: “always pianissimo and without dampers.” These directions have led to speculation as to how best to carry them out. Many believe that the composer wanted a blurred, atmospheric effect, possible on period pianos, on which the sound dissipated rapidly. However, holding the damper pedal down on the more sonorous modern piano throughout the movement results in harmonic blurring that would seem incompatible with today’s aesthetic standards. Many performers experiment with half-damping or delayed pedal changes. On the other hand, Beethoven’s student Czerny instructed that the “prescribed pedal must be re-employed at each note in the bass….”
Does anyone suspicion that generally piano was played very dry in those days? thinking of all the scales and more scales in Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven you can't pedal too much. If the baseline was to play dry, without pedal generally, was Beethoven noting that this was quite different - to be played with the pedal, without the dampers, throughout, but perhaps not continuously? use the pedal as Czerny notes?
Liszt noted in his own music "an intelligent use of the pedal is presumed."
The Sordino was a pedal in Beethovens times. It has absolutely nothing to do with the dampers. See my comment under this vid.
The first movement is actually in a very strict sonata form! It's unbelievable how Schiff simply does not address the form of the movement, as if it were just a bunch of non-schematic arpeggios. How Beethoven perfectly merges the straightforwardness of the "sonata" and the unattached expressivity of the "fantasia" is genius!
Hier spricht die Kompetenz...
I’m happy with slow or fast as long as it has feeling. A slower first movement gives more light to the 2nd and more weight to the 3rd movement in my view. Thanks for posting it was very interesting 🧛♂️👌
Well it doesn't matter. The first movement is marked "Alla breve" (2/2), or cut time. Schiff's tempo is still very much a slow tempo relative to the time signature, because he's counting per every half note, *NOT* the quarter notes as everybody erroneously does.
@@PianistTanooki thank you Tanooki, Merry Christmas 😎
@@PianistTanooki I found the broadwood sound on Pianoteq, a high quality recording, and I played it at the 60 bpm Alle Breve, or 120 bpm with quarter notes on the first beat.
And you know what? It suddenly sounded a LOT like the Beethoven I came to know listening to people like Artur Schnabel and Wilhelm Backhaus play lesser known sonatas of Beethoven.
He takes the first movement really quickly, I’ve never heard it as fast as this before
Murray Perahia and I play it like that. And always have :)
schiff got to research the original sheet music and his version is the correct interpretation though it doesn't stop the slower version from sounding nice in it's own right. I personally prefer how Schiff plays it
No? So how do you like this in Gary Oldman's "performance"?
ua-cam.com/video/524VlYD0PVw/v-deo.html
And he explains why. The manuscript of the piece clearly states that it's meant to be in 2/2, cut time. It's meant to be felt in two beats with the half note as the pulse, not four. So when you put it at an "Adagio" pulse, but make the half notes the pulse note instead of the quarter notes, his tempo really isn't that fast at all.
@@PianistTanooki i agree
The pedal he is doing I cannot believe it.
Very few people can. 😆 I totally agree with the tempo, but I don't see any reason for the terrible blurring of the harmonies.
@@albertomartin4812 maybe because of 'senza sordino' marked at first bar of 3rd mov
bliss
1st movement was taken from a funeral scene but to me it sounds romantic, it sound like like a difficult love. Schiff forgot to mention that this sonata was dedicated to a love interest by Beethoven. Not a minor detail in my humble opinion.
I’ve often wondered the same thing about Beethoven and I’ve come to the realization that the answer lies some where in between “Love and Death”, The love that he had for her and the death of that idea when nothing came about, that movement binds the two concepts together! also “moonlight” sounds a lot better than “funeral trot”
Just one mistake: I think the first movement is really a sonata form.
Yes! It always sounded like a slightly modified sonata form to me. You can precisely distinguish the exposition with two main themes, the development section, the recapitulation section with a tonic secondary theme and the coda based on theme 1
@@miguelfontesmeira Yes, thanks for your confirmation.
Holding the pedal all the time in the first movement is a musical nonsense that Beethoven would never have proposed. Beethoven wrote "Si deve suonare tutto questo pezzo delicatissimamente e senza sordino" which translates to "You have to play this whole piece very delicately and without sordino". Sordino was a pedal on pianos in Beethovens times. It pushes a felt between the strings and the hammers (comparable with the damper pedal in upright pianos). It has been rediscovered todays, for example by Steingraeber & Söhne (ua-cam.com/video/wRCbymnyjFY/v-deo.html). "Sordino" also translates to something like "deafness". Beethoven just didn't want this deaf sound in the first movement. What Beethoven wanted to state is that the delicate character has to be reached without a damper pedal.
well said! andras schiff’s version sounds horrendous, it is pure nonsense. it is like when driving a car: not pressing the brake DOES NOT mean pressing the gas.
Watch this.
ua-cam.com/video/LJuNgjb2HcY/v-deo.html
Who are you to tell us what Beethoven would have intended? I take senza sordini to more literally mean without the mutes, i.e. the dampers. That instruction is given twice, and it should not to be ignored. You'll notice it is written (i.e. con pedale), or "that is, with the pedal" too which is even more explicit of the fact that the sustain pedal should be kept held down, what makes you think your interpretation is in any way more valid than Schiff's?
14:28 2악장
17:19 3악장
"Gaspedal" funktioniert leider nicht, Lieber Andras. :)
Sir Andras is historically right because the piece is from 1801, so it just isn't recent enough for all this aching passion that it's generally played with. That would be 20 years later because In 1801, Chopin and Liszt weren't even born for around another decade. I find this beautiful 'real interpretation' is much more sombre, exacting and funerial than the way it's now been popularised and wouldn't perhaps appeal as much to the young, played this authentically as they don't usually like things to be so exact and serious. Beautiful nevertheless. There is a section in the Haydn Creation which also sounds similar. Actually, I don't know why the moonlight is so popular because even though it is gorgeous, there are many more gorgeous pieces that many people don't know about. Anyone else find that? It could be the romantic sentiment around the fake title that has won its popularity.
"Surely I have written better things" -Beethoven
too much pedal. it sounds weird. in any event the music reminds me of albinoni’s adagio. regards.
With Brahms, I generally feel the last movement is better than the first, so I disagree with Schiff on that. Each symphony's last movement is sensational. The piano concerti as well. They're on a smaller scale in many cases, but that does not reflect quality.
This idea of playing the whole thing without lifting the pedal is on the same level as whole-beat theory.
Sadly it is, and it's very strange to me coming from the great musician Schiff is.
Whole-beat theory is crackpot nonsense based on absolutely no evidence. Schiff bases his interpretation on a literal interpretation of the words written to the performer at the very beginning of the piece.
You can perhaps make an argument that Schiff is wrong and that he's misinterpreting Beethoven's instruction, or that it's advice that doesn't work on modern instruments. But it is in no way on the same level as whole-beat theory, because it's actually _based on something._
The 2nd and 3rd movements are immaculate but the slow movement is a slurred dysharmonic mess. This idea of not lifting the dampers is so well outside the boundaries of reason that it's almost inconceivable how someone like András Schiff, no intellectual lightweight, could believe in it.
I do that first movement fast also: my own version: ua-cam.com/video/djaJQCTOZlQ/v-deo.html
the sustain pedal nonsense is absurd, and schiff is a clown for clinging to this misunderstanding
While I would agree with most of the things he said, the sustain pedal thingy is actually nonsense tbh, pretty sure during Beethoven's time the pedal in the fortepianos worked very differently
While the pedal has a different effect now, it can be held down only slightly and it has a less obvious effect. I don't think following an instruction Beethoven wrote twice before the piece starts is remotely absurd
well at THIS tempo with the pedal half-pressed it might make sense.
@@Trooman20 is it not a lot more probable Beethoven meant that you should play with pedal the whole piece, something that was unusual, but changing between harmonies? That's obvious to me, there no special effect on that blurring, just bad taste.
Sorry but that first movement is awful. I don't believe he is right and Brendel, Barenboim, Backhaus, Lill, are wrong.
Please delete these non-sensical subtitles!
The subtitles you're seeing are auto-generated by UA-cam, they're not part of the video itself so they can't be deleted. Only thing to do is turn them off