Piano Music - Ludwig van Beethoven

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📖 BEETHOVEN

Music often takes me like a sea
and I set out
under mist or a transparent sky
for my pale star;

I run before the wind as if I had laid on full sail,
climbing the mountainous backs of the waves,
plummeting down

in darkness eardrums throbbing as I feel
the coming wreck;
fair winds or foul - a raging storm

on the great deep
my cradle, and dead calm the looking-glass
of my despair!

Charles Baudelaire

📖 ON PIANO SONATAS
"One should not be able to find epithets enough, of one wanted to characterise the sonatas and their separate movements. Beethoven knew how to write equally perfectly as clearly, charmingly, characteristically, fervently, stormily, energetically, idylically, naively, passionately and mildly, pathetically and elegiacally, - for each most delicate emotion of the soul and frame of mind Beethoven has always found musical expression on the spot. Voltaire's words, 'Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer,' should be translated: 'If Beethoven had not existed, he would have had to be invented.'"
Carl Reinecke, in The Beethoven Pianoforte Sonatas, Letters to a Lady

📖 ON PIANO SONATAS
"Beethoven's vitality (through his music) is amazing. It is a constant source of wonder that the Sonatas are taught - played - murdered - by candidates at examinations; rattled through at festivals; smashed topics by concert pianists; broken into fragments by students; ill-used in all manner of ways and on all kinds of pianos; maltreated by editors and analysed by countless professors - and yet are still fresh. How many works could stand the test of years in that way? Very few indeed. We don't want to hear, after a few repetitions, many a composition that appeals at once. We say, 'Oh, I'm tired of that thing.' But I venture to state that Beethoven's immense mind and the infinite something in his finest works make it impossible to really cast aside, or tire of his whole creations."
Alec Rowley Do's and Don'ts for Musicians. A Handbook for Teachers and Performers

📖 "[Of Beethoven:] His music always reminds one of paintings of battles."
Bertold Brecht,
In Witt (ed) Brecht as they knew him (1974)

📖 "The grandeur of Beethoven's thirty-second piano sonata represents the opening of the gates of heaven."
Robert Browning,
In Thomas Robert Browning - A Life Within A Life (1982)

📖 "Your genius is centuries in advance, and at the present time there is scarcely one hearer who would be sufficiently enlightened to enjoy the full beauty of this music."
Prince Nicholas Galitsin,
In Letter to Beethoven (1824)

📖 "A more self-contained, energetic, sincere artist I never saw."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
in Scott Beethoven (1934)

📖 "To us musicians the work of Beethoven parallels the pillars of smoke and fire which led the Israelites through the desert, a pillar of smoke to lead us by day, and a pillar of fire to light the night, so that we may march ahead both day and night. His darkness and his light equallly trace for us the road we must follow; both the one and the other are a perpetual commandment, an infallible revelation."
Franz Liszt,
In Letter to Wilhelm von Lenz (1852)

📖 "Une fleur entre deux abîmes.
A flower between two abysses."
Franz Liszt,
On the middle movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, quoted in Tovey Beethoven (1944)

📖 "[On the slow movement of the Fourth Piano Concerto:] Orpheus taming the wild beasts."
Franz Liszt,
in Tovey Essays in Musical Analysis III (1936)

📖 "[Of Beethoven's' Sonata in C Minor, Op. 111:] An ego painfully isolated in the absolute, isolated too from sense by the loss of his hearing; lonely prince of a realm of spirits, from whom now only a chilling breath issued to terrify his most willing contemporaries, standing as they did aghast at these communications of which only at moments, only by exception, they could understand anything at all." (Kretschmar)
Thomas Mann,
In Doctor Faustus

📖 "[Of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony:] This is no question of gaily dressed shepherds … it is a matter of nature in her simple truth."
Hector Berlioz
A Travers chants (1862)

📖 "Beethoven's father was tenor singer at the Electoral Chapel, his grandfather bass singer, and finally capellmeister; during several generations, indeed; the family had followed music as a vocation. Beethoven received his first musical instruction from his father, afterwards from the genial oboist Pfeiffer, to whom, later on, Beethoven sent help from Vienna; and the court organist, van der Eden, and his successor, Christian Gottlob Neefe, were also his teachers. Already, in 1785, Beethoven, thus early developed, was appointed organist of the Electoral Chapel. For this appointment, and for his being sent later on to Vienna, he was indebted to Count Waldstein, his first, and in every respect most important patron. The same was knight of the 'Teutonic' order, afterwards commander and chamberlain to the Emperor, and not only held music in high esteem, but himself played the pianoforte remarkably well (Beethoven, as is known, dedicated to him the Sonata in c, Op. 33). When Haydn returned from England in 1792, and was entertained by the Bonn orchestra at Godesberg, Beethoven had the opportunity of placing before him a cantata, of which the former thought very highly (probably on this occasion it was arranged that Beethoven should go to Vienna). In October of this year Waldstein wrote as follows: 'Dear Beethoven, you are travelling to Vienna in fulfilment of your long-cherished, wish. The genius of Mozart is still weeping and bewailing the death of her favourite. With the inexhaustible Haydn she found a refuge, but no occupation, and is now waiting to leave him and join herself to someone else. Labour assiduously, and receive Mozart's spirit from the hands of Haydn. Your true friend, Waldstein.' Already, in 1787, Beethoven (with recommendations from the Elector to his brother, the Emperor Joseph II.) had spent a short time in Vienna, when Mozart is said to have heard him, and to have predicted for him a great future. Beethoven was two-and-twenty years old when he went to Vienna. As he was well recommended, he could not fail to gain access to high art-loving circles (Prince Karl Lichnowski, Count Moritz Lichnowski, Count Rasumowski, etc.). But little came of the proposed lessons of Beethoven with Haydn; the latter was not born to be a teacher. Beethoven certainly went through a course of instruction in composition with him; but, behind Haydn's back, Beethoven worked with Schenk, the composer of the Dorfbarbier, and went to Haydn with his exercises already corrected by Schenk. This well-meant mystification lasted for two years. Beethoven was a gainer, for he learnt the strict style from Schenk, and profited by Haydn's wider, more artistic mode of looking at things. Further, he studied counterpoint with Albrechtsberger, and dramatic composition with Salieri. To the first period of Beethoven's artistic career, which is generally considered to extend to 1800, belong the works with the opus numbers 1-18, among which are six piano trios, nine piano sonatas, four trios, and one quintet for strings, several sets of variations, the grand aria, "Ah perfido," and the first set of six quartets for strings. The critic of the Leipzig Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung did not doubt the importance of the man, but opposed his bold harmonies and daring rhythms. The circle of distinguished lovers of music which surrounded Beethoven was increased by Count Franz v. Brunswick, Baron v. Gleichenstein, and Stephan v. Breuning, an old friend and patron dating from the Bonn period. The brothers of Beethoven—Karl, who held office in a bank, and Johann, an apothecary, settled in Vienna—re- presented the hard prose of life to one to whom poetry was indispensable, for they carried on a provokingly petty trade with his manuscripts. Beethoven's pecuniary position was good: he never accepted a post again, but, from the time of his arrival in Vienna, lived solely by his compositions. His works were well paid, and he received from Prince Lichnowski a yearly allowance of 600 florins; and from 1809 to 1811 a yearly sum of 4,000 florins from Archduke Rudolf and the Princes Lobkowitz and Kinsky. In spite of this manifold relationship to archdukes and princes, Beethoven was by no means a time-serving man and a courtier, but rather remained all through his life a democrat and a republican, and looked upon rulers as tyrants. As is known, he originally dedicated his ''Eroica' symphony to Napoleon, because he regarded him as a genuine republican; but when the latter assumed the title of Emperor, Beethoven tore up the dedication. When, during the Vienna Congress (1814), the foreign monarchs present, together with Beethoven, were frequent guests at the house of the Archduke Rudolf, the composer (to quote his own expression) made these high personages pay court to him, and he put on airs. He felt himself, and rightly, a king of art. The saddest period of his me began after the death of his brother Karl (1815), of whose son Beethoven became guardian. This boy caused him much sorrow. Of quite different, but far deeper, import for the character, and consequently the tendency of his music, was the malady of the ears, which commenced at a very early period, and increased, so that already, in 1800, he had great difficulty in hearing, and gradually became quite deaf. He was ashamed of this difficulty of hearing, and attempted to hide it; his rough, morose, and monosyllabic demeanour was, therefore, in early years at least, to some extent a mask, though, in other respects, it was an inevitable result of the malady. His health, which, for the rest, was robust, began gradually to give way about 1825; in 1826 symptoms of dropsy showed themselves, which threatened his life. A violent cold, which he caught in December of this year, confined him to bed. After a painful operation, his dropsy gradually undermined his health, and he died at six o'clock on the evening of March 26, 1827."
Hugo Riemann Dictionary of Music (1896)

Ludwig van Beethoven

1770 (Bonn) - 1827 (Vienna)
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist.

📖 "Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life"

📖 "To play a wrong note is insignificant. To play without passion is inexcusable!"

📖 "Don’t only practise your art, but force your way into its secrets"

📖 "Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. It is the wine of a new procreation, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for men and makes them drunk with the spirit"
In Scott, Beethoven (1934)
"Musik ist höhere Offenbarung als alle Weisheit und Philosophie."

📖 "Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents."
Ludwig van Beethoven, in a Letter to Bettina von Arnim

📖 "Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind, but which mankind cannot comprehend."
Beethoven quoted by Bettina von Arnim in a letter to Goethe (1810)

📖 "O my fellow men, who consider me, or describe me as unfriendly, peevish or even misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. For you do not know the secret reason why I appear to you to be so. Ever since my childhood my heart and soul have been imbued with the tender feeling of goodwill. But just think, for the last six years I have been afflicted with an incurable complaint which has been made worse by incompetent doctors. From year to year my hopes of being cured have gradually been shattered and finally I have been forced to accept the prospect of a permanent infirmity … Yet I could not bring myself to say to people: 'Speak up, shout, for I am deaf.' Alas! how could I possibly refer to the impairing of a sense which in me should be more perfectly developed than in other people … How humiliated I have felt if somebody standing beside me heard the sound of a flute in the distance and I heard nothing, or if somebody heard a shepherd sing and again I heard nothing. Such experiences almost made me despair, and I was on the point of putting an end to my life. The only thing that held me back was my art …"
In a letter to his brothers Carl and Johann (6 October 1802), found among his papers after his death, and known as the Heiligenstadt Testament

📖 "I will seize fate by the throat; it shall certainly not bend and crush me completely."
In Letter to F.G. Wegeler (1801)

📖 "Power is the moral principle of those who excel others, and it is also mine."
In Letter to Freiherr Zmeskall von Domanowecz (1798)

📖 "I carry my thoughts about with me for a long time, before I write them down. Meanwhile my memory is so tenacious that I am sure never to forget, not even in years, a theme that has once occurred to me. I change many things, discard and try again until I am satisfied. Then, however, there begins in my head the development in every direction and, insomuch as I know exactly what I want, the fundamental idea never deserts me - it arises before me, grows - I see and hear the picture in all its extent and dimensions stand before my mind like a cast, and there remains for me nothing but the labour of writing it down, which is quickly accomplished when I have the time, for I sometimes take up other work, but never to the confusion of one with the other."
In Letter to Louis Schlösser (1823)

📖 "Music should strike fire from a man."
Scott, Beethoven (1934)

Quotes by Ludwig van Beethoven

From the Ludvig van Beethoven article in the Grove Music Dictionary

(b Bonn, bap. Dec 17, 1770; d Vienna, March 26, 1827).German composer. His early achievements, as composer and performer, show him to be extending the Viennese Classical tradition that he had inherited from Mozart and Haydn. As personal affliction – deafness, and the inability to enter into happy personal relationships – loomed larger, he began to compose in an increasingly individual musical style, and at the end of his life he wrote his most sublime and profound works. From his success at combining tradition and exploration and personal expression, he came to be regarded as the dominant musical figure of the 19th century, and scarcely any significant composer since his time has escaped his influence or failed to acknowledge it. For the respect his works have commanded of musicians, and the popularity they have enjoyed among wider audiences, he is probably the most admired composer in the history of Western music
(Joseph Kerman, Alan Tyson, Scott G. Burnham, Douglas Johnson and William Drabkin)

Free scores of piano music and other works by Beethoven on IMSLP.

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Piano Music by Beethoven

Piano Sonatas by Beethoven

Books About Other Works by Beethoven

Written Words by Beethoven

Books about Beethoven

Documentaries and Talks about Beethoven

Pianist Claudio Arrau Talks About Beethoven (1970)

David Dubal's 'Conversations with Arrau' (1 of 6): Beethoven

Explore Recordings of Beethoven's Music

Beethoven - Symphonies nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 + Presentation (Century’s recording)
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra
Bayreuth Festival Chorus and Orchestra
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Soprano
Elisabeth Höngen, Contralto
Hans Hopf, Tenor
Otto Edelmann, Bass

Beethoven - 32 Piano Sonatas
Wilhelm Kempff, piano

Beethoven - Complete Violin Sonatas (Century’s recording) 91956)
Arthur Grumiaux, violin
Clara Haskil, piano

Beethoven - Cello Sonatas nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & Variations + Presentation (reference recording)
Paul Tortelier, cello
Eric Heidsieck, piano

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