The Life of Beethoven: Early Period (40 min)
In one of the back streets of Bonn, Germany, there is a small house containing a tiny attic room with a sloping roof. In this room Ludwig von Beethoven was born on November 16, 1770. Like Mozart, he was the son of a musician engaged in the service of a local magnate; but unlike Mozart, his father was exceedingly poor and extremely abusive. He did give his son his first music lessons, but quickly passed him off to someone else.
Beethoven, like Haydn, got his education largely through acting on his own initiative. When he was twelve years old he achieved the post of accompanist (on the piano or harpsichord) in the Electoral Theater.
During these years he composed regularly, not with the confidence Mozart had at the same age, but with a steady persistence. He never at any time of his life had that ease of composition which we find in most of the great earlier composers.
Indeed, slowness is the first quality in Beethoven’s character. This is typical of the change in attitude musicians had towards their art which came at the turn of the century. Almost all Beethoven’s great works were the result of long thought and mental struggle. He gradually shaped them out by a process of writing and rewriting. In fact, he sometimes re-worked a piece after it had been performed to adjust it according to mature reflections.
In 1787, when he was 17, he traveled to Vienna where he visited Mozart. He succeeded in impressing him by his improvised playing on the piano. Though the visit was a short one, it was of immense importance to Beethoven. It gave him his first sight of the big musical world where great things happened, and it introduced him personally to the man who was making those things happen. He returned to Bonn energized and inspired.
Beethoven and Haydn
In 1792, when Beethoven was 22, he moved permanently to Vienna. Earlier that year, he had met Haydn while he was traveling to England and showed him some of his work. Haydn was impressed and encouraged Beethoven to go forward with it. The local authorities realized what this meant, so later in the year Beethoven was sent to Vienna to study under Haydn.
Like Mozart before him, Beethoven made his reputation in Vienna as a performer. He played the piano at the musical gatherings of the Viennese nobility, and the wonders of his improvisation soon raised his reputation high.
At first the business of establishing himself as a performer and of studying composition—more particularly studying counterpoint with Haydn—occupied Beethoven. Unfortunately, Beethoven’s relationship with his teacher was not particularly happy: their contradictory natures irritated each other.
Listen to Allemande in A Major, WoO 81 (1 min)
This piece was possibly written when Beethoven was studying with Haydn. It was not published by Beethoven, so instead of an ‘opus’ (work) number, it is labeled with WoO – without opus number.
Works from His Early Period
While Beethoven was studying with his next teacher, he published his first important compositions. In 1795, he wrote his piano trios for pianoforte, violin, and violoncello (Op. 1). He also wrote his three piano sonatas in F minor, A major, and C major (Op. 2). He actually dedicated these three sonatas to Haydn, showing he admired the artist whom he had disliked as a teacher.
You will have an opportunity next to listen to the first work Beethoven published: his Piano Trio Opus 1, Number 1. It is full of brilliant energy and delight, reminiscent both of Mozart and Haydn, yet with something completely different and new: Beethoven’s strength and character. Each movement is stamped with his unique style.
Listen to 1st Movement: Allegro from Piano Trio Op. 1, No. 1 (7 min)
Watch until 7:30. Performed by the Atos Trio in Berlin. You are welcome to finish the entire piece, too.
Timing: 1. Allegro – 0:00 | 2. Adagio cantabile – 7:45 | 3. Scherzo: Allegro assai – 15:20 | 4. Finale: Presto – 20:25
During the same period, he also wrote two cello sonatas for piano and violoncello (Op. 5), a series of string trios for violin, viola, and violoncello (Op. 9), and further piano sonatas (Op. 10) including the famous ‘Pathétique’ piano sonata (Op. 13). He composed his first six string quartets (Op. 18), the septet for clarinet, bassoon, horn, and strings (Op. 20), and his first symphony (Op. 21). This takes us up to the year 1800. Beethoven had taken a firm hold on all the forms of solo, chamber, and orchestral music which he was to carry on to hitherto unsuspected heights.
In these first compositions he did not immediately begin to strike out a new path for himself. He accepted the common shapes of sonata form just where Mozart left them. In the early sonatas for piano and other instruments there are a number of turns of expression which come straight from Mozart’s vocabulary.
In spite of that, these early compositions show Beethoven starting upon the career of composition which was ultimately to change the whole face of musical art. Beethoven’s strong personality and direct approach were stamped on everything he wrote.
It is in the ‘Pathétique’ sonata (No. 8, Op. 13 from 1799) that Beethoven successfully merged sonata form and piano style. Virtuosity is being subjugated to the poetic idea.
The introduction is full of strong feeling expressed by violent dynamic contrasts. The first movement Allegro is filled with strength, excitement, and pianistic boldness. By contrast, the second movement Adagio cantabile is one of Beethoven’s smoothest, most beautiful melodies. It has a tender accompaniment broken by two episodes in which the emotional tension is heightened. In the finale, a Rondo in Allegro, there is a surprising amount of movement, with the hands sometimes spread across the keyboard and sometimes in close proximity.
Listen to Piano Sonata No. 8, ‘Pathetique’ (13 min)
This is a historic performance by the legendary Hungarian pianist Annie Fisher. She was known world-wide for her incredible interpretations of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, with the Pathetique being one of her most famous. One of the many fantastic things about this video is that you can see her hands up close throughout its entirety. It is a powerful, energetic performance. PLEASE NOTE: this video opens with a man sitting and listening to her play, but at 30 seconds it fades to her and stays on her through the rest of the video. (Yes, it is odd—but it’s the best online recording available.) Listen to at least the first two movements (although listening to all three would be wonderful). You will need to turn up the volume.
Timing: 1. Grave – Allegro – 0:00 | 2. Adagio cantabile – 8:30 | 3. Rondo: Allegro – 13:30
First Piano Concertos
During this same period, Beethoven composed his first two piano concertos, No. 1 in C major (Op. 15) and No. 2 in B flat major (Op. 19). Like Mozart, Beethoven wrote most of his piano concertos to be played by himself. As a young man he made his first big successes in Vienna as a performer of his own works. He even delayed the publication of his early piano concertos in order to assure himself of their exclusive use, there being as yet no copyright to give him legal protection.
His concerto No. 1, although published first, was actually second in order of composition. It was completed in 1798, when Beethoven was twenty-eight years old; he seems to have played the first performance of it that same year at a concert in Prague. A fair picture of the overwhelming impression Beethoven’s playing made on his contemporaries is left to us by the Czech composer, Vaclav Tomasek, who was present at that performance:
“It was in 1798, when I was studying law, that Beethoven, that giant among players, came to Prague. At a crowded concert in the Seminary hall he played his Concerto in C (Op. 15)… His grand style of playing, and especially his bold improvisation, had an extraordinary effect upon me. I felt so shaken that for several days I could not bring myself to touch the piano.”
Beethoven wisely presented himself first as a performer, for there were things in those early works which even admirers found wild and disturbing. After hearing Beethoven twice more, Tomasek wrote:
“This time I was able to listen with greater calmness, and although I admired the power and brilliance of his playing as much as ever, his frequent daring deviations from one theme to another, which destroyed the continuity and gradual development of his ideas, did not escape me. Evils of this nature, springing from a too exuberant fancy, often mar his greatest compositions. It is not seldom that the unbiased listener is awakened from his transport. The singular and original seem to be his chief aim in composition….”
It takes an effort of the imagination today to hear the “daring deviations” and the effort to be “singular and original” in this well-behaved concerto. The pianissimo (very soft) opening presents the main theme delicately. Yet a few measures later, when the full orchestra proclaims it with trumpets and drums, the theme has an assertive stride which its eighteenth century manners cannot conceal.
The orchestra then introduces the remaining thematic material of the movement, works up to a little climax on the rhythm of the opening measure, takes a formal bow, as it were, in an emphatic cadence, and clears the stage for the arrival of the piano.
The soloist makes a lyrical entrance with what seems to be a new theme, but develops more and more into the graceful embellishment of themes already established by the orchestra. The movement continues according to the classical rules of the concerto with grace and power. Before the exuberant closing measures there is a solo cadenza for the pianist.
Listen to First Movement: Allegro con brio from Piano Concerto No. 1 (15 min)
This is a historic performance by the famous Russian pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy, accompanied by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and conducted by Bernard Haitink in 1974.