Collecting the best of international Beethoven studies, Beethoven Forum promotes and sustains the high level of scholarship inspired by Beethoven's extraordinary works.
An annual of international Beethoven studies, Beethoven Forum promotes and sustains the high level of scholarship inspired by Beethoven’s extraordinary works. Volume 5 presents studies on Beethoven’s Fidelio, his piano sonatas, and his uses of form and dynamics, along with reviews of Theodor Adorno’s Beethoven’s Philosophie der Musik and of recent writings on the Ninth Symphony. The contributors are Michael C. Tusa, Lee Rothfarb, Miriam Sheer, Michael Spitzer, William Kinderman, Stephen Hinton, and Scott Burnham.
The opening essay by James Webster, "Beethoven in Vienna, 1792-1802: Anø'Early' Period?", evaluates the critical tradition of dividing Beethoven?s career into three periods?early, middle, and late?and shows both their artificiality andøtheir implications, including a tendency to undervalue early works. J_rgen May?s essay "Beethoven and Prince Karl Lichnowsky," considers Beethoven?s relations with one of the first of his most important patrons. In "Beethoven before 1800: The Mozart Legacy," Lewis Lockwood examines Beethoven?s sketchbooks to describe how Beethoven composed with and against models from Mozart. Glenn Stanley's essay, "The 'wirklich gantz neue Mainer' and the Path to It: Beethoven's Variations for Piano, 1783-1802," surveys Beethoven?s sets of piano variations written in his first decade in Vienna and argues the importance of the variations in Beethoven's progress as a composer. In 'Pathos and the Pathätique," Elaine R. Sisman provides a historical and aesthetic analysis of one of Beethoven?s most popular piano sonatas. The composition of one of Beethoven's most popular violin sonatas, the "Spring" sonata is traced in the sketchbooks by Carl Schachter in "The Sketches of the Sonata for Piano and Violin, Op. 24." Nicholas Marston's "Stylistic Advance, Strategic Retreat: Beethoven's Sketches for the Finale,"øalso pays precise attention to Beethoven's sketches to discover how the composition of the Second Symphony illuminates Beethoven's work on an "underlying idea." In "Hybrid Themes: Toward a Refinement in the Classification of Classical Theme Types,"øWilliam E. Caplin defines "hybrid themes" and shows their variety in Beethoven?s early compositions. William Kinderman concludes the volume with a review article onøKlaus Kropfinger?s Wagner and Beethoven and its study of the "battle for Beethoven" that racked nineteenth-century European music.
Collecting the best of international Beethoven studies, Beethoven Forum promotes and sustains the high level of scholarship inspired by Beethoven's extraordinary works.
Volume 1.Nos. 1 to 8 (February 1818 to March 1820) --Volume 2.Nos. 9 to 16 (March 1820 to September 1820) --Volume 3.Nos. 17 to 31 (May 1822 to May 1823).
In accompanying the present edition of the Letters of Ludwig van Beethoven with a few introductory remarks, I at once acknowledge that the compilation of these letters has cost me no slight sacrifices. I must also, however, mention that an unexpected Christmas donation, generously bestowed on me with a view to further my efforts to promote the science of music, enabled me to undertake one of the journeys necessary for my purpose, and also to complete the revision of the Letters and of the press, in the milder air and repose of a country residence, long since recommended to me for the restoration of my health, undermined by overwork. That, in spite of every effort, I have not succeeded in seeing the original of each letter, or even discovering the place where it exists, may well be excused, taking into consideration the slender capabilities of an individual, and the astonishing manner in which Beethoven's Letters are dispersed all over the world. At the same time, I must state that not only have the hitherto inaccessible treasures of Anton Schindler's "Beethoven's Nachlass" been placed at my disposal, but also other letters from private sources, owing to various happy chances, and the kindness and complaisance of collectors of autographs. I know better, however, than most people--being in a position to do so--that in the present work there can be no pretension to any thing approaching to a complete collection of Beethoven's Letters. The master, so fond of writing, though he often rather amusingly accuses himself of being a lazy correspondent, may very probably have sent forth at least double the amount of the letters here given, and there is no doubt whatever that a much larger number are still extant in the originals. The only thing that can be done at this moment, however, is to make the attempt to bring to light, at all events, the letters that could be discovered in Germany. The mass of those which I gradually accumulated, and now offer to the public (with the exception of some insignificant notes), appeared to me sufficiently numerous and important to interest the world, and also to form a substantial nucleus for any letters that may hereafter be discovered. On the other hand, as many of Beethoven's Letters slumber in foreign lands, especially in the unapproachable cabinets of curiosities belonging to various close-fisted English collectors, an entire edition of the correspondence could only be effected by a most disproportionate outlay of time and expense.
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