Ludwig van Beethoven: A “Bagatelle” Tribute

by Georg Predota

Arguably, the first composer to write true piano music was Ludwig van Beethoven. To be sure, he had tremendous technical ability, and critics wrote, “He was attacking pianos with such force that during the performance, keys, hammers and strings would be flying.”

Ludwig van Beethoven at 26 years old

However, virtuosity is all but one aspect of Beethoven’s piano repertoire, as he was able to compose music with “glowing passion, exuberance, heroism, nobility and dramatic pathos.” His 32 piano sonatas and the late variation sets are at the pinnacle of piano literature, but Beethoven also composed three sets of what he titled “Bagatelles.” 

That particular title implies no specific form, and Beethoven himself called the first six of his Op. 119 “Kleinigkeiten,” or trifles. So, just how serious are these Bagatelles? Well, some of the bagatelles were originally planned as movements for piano sonatas but were subsequently rejected by Beethoven before publication. This seems to suggest that some of the bagatelles, as potential sonata movements, are the compositional equal to sonata movements in quality and completeness.

Beethoven’s house of birth in Bonn, 2008

One thing for sure, the bagatelles are a series of short and sometimes light-hearted piano works in a variety of contrasting characters and moods. It’s hardly surprising that some scholars consider Beethoven’s bagatelles to be the first 19th-century character pieces. To celebrate Beethoven’s baptism on 17 December, let us briefly explore his Bagatelles Op. 33, Op. 119, and Op. 126.

Bagatelles Op. 33

The first of Beethoven’s three published sets of Bagatelles was issued in 1803 by Bureau d’Arts et d’Industrie. The surviving sketches and the nature of the music suggest that Beethoven simply compiled a number of separate pieces that originated anywhere between boyhood and the start of the new century. All 7 Bagatelles display conventional musical forms and styles, and most are written in three-part form.

Photograph of bust statue of Ludwig van Beethoven by Hugo Hagen

Beethoven thoroughly revised his Bagatelles shortly before publication. At the same time, however, he was incredibly busy and worked on his Piano Concerto No. 3, the Symphony No. 2 and the oratorio “Christ on the Mount of Olives.” We still don’t know exactly why Beethoven devoted so much time to the Bagatelles, but Paul Lewis suggests that “in light of Beethoven’s rising fame, it was to satisfy a growing demand from students and amateurs for easy pieces from his pen.”

We find a simple and innocent tune in No. 1, garnished with plenty of ornamentation and light-hearted transitions. No. 2 has the character of a scherzo that humorously manipulates rhythm and accents, while No. 3 appears folk-like in its melody and features a delicious change of key in the second phrase. The A-Major Bagatelle No. 4 is essentially a parody of a musette with a stationary bass pedal, and the minor-mode central section offers harmonic variety.

Beethoven provides some musical humour in No. 5 as this playful piece is a parody of dull passagework. In a really funny moment, the music gets stuck on a single note repeated over and over, like Beethoven can’t decide what to do next. In the end, he decides to repeat what he has already written before. In No. 6, we find a tune of conflicting characters, with the first phrase being lyrical and the second phrase being tuneful. The beginning of No. 7 almost suggests Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata.

Bagatelles Op. 119

Beethoven’s Bagatelles Op. 119 No. 1 manuscript

In 1823, Beethoven was finishing his late piano sonatas Op. 109, 110, and 111, and he was working on the Diabelli Variations and the Missa Solemnis. In that year, he wrote to Ferdinand Ries in London, “you are receiving six bagatelles or trifles, and again another five, which belong together, in two parts. Dispose of them as favourably as you can.” Ries sold the set to the London publisher Clementi, who issued all eleven pieces in 1823. This edition is titled “Trifles for the Piano Forte, consisting of eleven pleasing pieces composed in various styles.” 

Essentially, in Beethoven’s Op. 119, we are dealing with two different collections combining old and new works. The set builds on five miniatures, which Beethoven composed in 1820 for the third and final volume of Friedrich Starke’s Wiener Piano-Forte-Schule (Viennese School of Piano Playing). Eventually, these 5 bagatelles became Nos 7-11 of Op. 119. Nos 1-5 had already been completed, or possibly sketched, much earlier and dated from around 1800. The central bagatelle in this set was the last to be composed, probably in late 1822, shortly before publication.

In the 1820s, Beethoven’s Leipzig publisher Carl Friedrich Peters was initially interested in publishing the first bagatelles but later emphatically rejected them as he wrote to Beethoven, “I’ve had them played by several people, and not one of them will believe me that they are by you. I asked for “Kleinigkeiten,” but these are really too small… I will say no more about it, other than that I will never print these but will rather lose the fee I have already paid.” And he added, “the pieces are not worth the money, and you should consider it beneath your dignity to waste time with such trivia that anyone can write.”

However, in Beethoven’s mind these miniatures were by no means inferior to his more extended piano works but “were simply ideas that were complete in themselves.” He actually enjoyed writing these little pieces, and he highly valued his “trifles.” Imogen Cooper writes, “Op. 119 form a compendium of technique and piano texture in concise form, as is appropriate for a piano tutor.” We may add, however, that Beethoven may not have always had the amateur performer in mind, given the technical challenges written into some of these “Kleinigkeiten.”

No. 1 presents a rather nostalgic opening, while a busy No. 2 unfolds with triplets surrounding the theme in the right hand. Written in the style of an Allemande, No. 3 promises a point of reflection, but it is interrupted by the opening waltz. A lyrical No. 4 is juxtaposed by an almost pompous No. 5, and No. 6 is the most varied and developed. Trills dominate No. 7, while a tranquil No. 8 features some intriguing harmonic progressions.

No. 9 unfolds in the character of a Ländler and features heavily accented syncopation. No. 10 is noteworthy because of its extreme brevity. Lasting only a few seconds and fitting into a single system of printed music, it is Beethoven’s shortest work, perhaps one of the shortest works of any composer of note. Finally, No. 11 rounds off the set in a mood of graceful contemplation.

Bagatelles Op. 126

Beethoven’s Bagatelle Op. 126

When Beethoven offered the Bagatelles Op. 126 to the publishers Schott & Co. in November 1824, he described them as “6 Bagatelles or Trifles for solo piano, some of which are rather more developed and probably the best pieces of this kind I have written.” Contrary to his earlier Bagatelle settings, Op. 126 was conceived as an integral group of pieces which Beethoven labelled a “cycle of little pieces.”

Designed as a unified cycle from the outset, the Bagatelles are alternately lyrical and introspective, and fast and dramatic, “with the two threads drawn together in the final number; and their keys form a descending chain of thirds, beginning in G major and minor, and ending in E flat major.” And let us not forget that Op. 126 was Beethoven’s last work for the piano offering a concentration of musical thoughts typical of his late style.

As Paul Lewis writes, “Typical of that style is a native fluency in contrapuntal writing paired with freedom from formal constraints in applying it, along with a willingness to write his contrapuntal voices several octaves apart. Beethoven, the architect of massive, great formal structures, shows himself in these pieces as a master of the miniature, deftly creating an immediate impression with his opening gestures and developing his motives with unfettered originality.”

Beethoven treats his material with a great deal of freedom, transforming it through intricate ornamentation as in No. 1. Full of driving energy, No. 2 channels the music into playful directions while the noble simplicity of No. 3 is sustained through many changes in texture. The contrapuntal opening of No. 4 is contrasted by a dream-like section, with plenty of unexpected harmonic and mood changes.

The quietly expressive No. 5 creates a gentle flow with triplet patterns and subtle syncopations, while No. 6 starts and ends with an energetic, turbulent section, framing a central, more composed segment that begins like a barcarolle. The opening Presto dismisses the slower section and the piece ends abruptly. As a commentator wrote, it ends “almost if dismissing the introspective nature of the preceding music; a fitting way for Beethoven to conclude his piano compositions.”

In terms of compositional style, the Bagatelles are comparable to the late string quartets, particularly with the second movement of Op. 132. And to be sure, the relationship between the late bagatelles and Beethoven’s late period works has been the subject of various studies. It uses the same musical language but “offers a musical universe in just a couple of minutes.”

Stylistically, the late Bagatelles looked forward to the foundations of romanticism as the expression of personal emotions became increasingly important. To some observers, Beethoven’s late Bagatelles are the first character pieces, a genre that gained unprecedented prominence later in the century. As Maurice Hinson suggests, “Beethoven’s Op. 126 are, if anything in music can be, self-portraits, as they express his moods and frame of mind the day he composed them.”

As you might have expected, we can’t really talk about Beethoven Bagatelles without mentioning the Bagatelle in A minor, WoO 59. One of the most popular short pieces by the composer, this Bagatelle goes by the nickname “Für Elise.” Probably composed around 1810, it was reworked in the early 1820s. It was first published only in 1867, four decades after the composer’s death, in an appendix to a collection of Beethoven letters and hitherto unknown works.

The inscription “Für Elise” remains a mystery, and various theories suggest young women in or around Beethoven’s circle. The distinctive theme with the repeated neighbour-note is supported by arpeggiated chords shared between the hands. As a scholar reports, in some of the sketches from the early 1820s, Beethoven contemplated “a somewhat more sophisticated layout of the arpeggios, but these did not find their way into a definite version of the work.”

The Beethoven Bagatelles offer a diverse and evolving body of work, displaying the composer’s creative exploration in this genre of short and expressive piano pieces. They evolved from playful themes and structure to pieces of greater sophistication by blending dense harmonic landscapes with sudden shifts in mood, texture, and rhythm.

Beethoven the European: The Ninth, Celebrated in Leipzig, Paris, Milan and Vienna

by Georg Predota, Interlude

Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125

Ludwig van Beethoven was a revolutionary man who lived and worked in tumultuous times as the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars greatly destabilised the European continent. For over two decades of Beethoven’s life, Napoleon was the most powerful man in Europe, an authoritarian who almost succeeded in unifying the continent under French hegemony.

In some works, as Jürgen Thym explains, “Beethoven gave voice to events that were occurring on the political and military level.” The “Bonaparte Symphony,” eventually subtitled “Eroica,” became a celebration of a hero and the musical representation of the ideal of heroic greatness. However, when Beethoven learned that Napoleon had crowned himself Emperor in 1804, he angrily tore up the title page containing the original dedication. And let’s not forget that he gave voice to the demise of the dictator in his highly popular “Wellington’s Victory.”

Ludwig van Beeethoven

The Human Perspective

Beyond the complex and seemingly incomprehensive enormity of Beethoven’s music, we find a man who was thoroughly human. Much has been written and made about his deafness and its impact on the creative process. It predictably affected his mental health by creating a sense of deep isolation and frustration that informed his interaction with society at large.

Beethoven had a small number of close male friends, and most of the women he admired were happily married, committed to somebody else and usually of higher social standing.

Eternally, in search of “tranquillity and freedom,” he showed utter disdain for discipline and authority and, unable to adopt a submissive attitude, brusquely dismissed the conventions of aristocratic society.

In Beethoven, we discover a fragmented individual who is full of contradictions. He struggled with a severe disability, a failing body, mental instability and an alcohol addiction. Once we add his volatile temperament, unrequited love and dreadful communication and social skills to the thorny mix, it becomes clear that composing and the discipline associated with his art was the personal therapy that confidently anchored the sinking ship.

Defiance

Beethoven’s ear trumpets

By 1814, Beethoven had become profoundly deaf, unable to perform in public, unable to hear music, and unable to talk with friends. This silence, which had slowly enveloped the composer beginning in the late 1790s, halted the enormous productivity of his heroic period and led to four years of almost complete inactivity.

The monumental pieces of his “late period” started to take shape in 1819, and the Ninth Symphony emerged as the result of a commission from the London Philharmonic Society in 1821. Completion of the work was delayed until 1824, and Beethoven actually pondered the possibility of concluding his symphony with an instrumental finale. As William Kindermann explained, “a passionate melody in D minor was eventually used in the A-minor String Quartet Op. 132, as Beethoven opted for an affirmative ending.”

Ode to Joy

By appealing to the spirit of Romanticism and the shared ideals of humanity as expressed in Schiller’s “Ode to Joy,” the composer appeared to have made not only a musical point but also issued a decisive cultural statement. As a cultural artefact, Beethoven’s celebration of universal brotherhood has been questioned. However, the utopian ideals expressed are once again highly relevant.

Today, the “Ode to Joy” is the anthem of both the European Union and the Council of Europe. Its described purpose is to “honour shared European values, expressing the ideals of freedom, peace, and unity.” In fact, it has become a trans- and international anthem, “a beacon of hope and community.”

ARTE CONCERT

Beethoven’s “Choral Symphony” first sounded at the Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna on 7 May 1824. To commemorate the 200th anniversary of this memorable event, ARTE is celebrating Beethoven the European by presenting a special celebration of this work; individual movements are performed in four of the most important concert venues across Europe.

Conductor Andris Nelsons opens the festivities at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, the location of the premiere of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, also known as the “Emperor Concerto.” The European journey continued in Paris, as the Orchestre de Paris was the first French orchestra to play Beethoven’s symphonies shortly after the composer’s death. For the “Scherzo” movement, the Philharmonie de Paris is in the capable hands of Klaus Mäkelä.

Next, Riccardo Chailly takes us to Milan. He conducts the Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala in a performance of the “Adagio e molto cantabile,” a melancholy and pensive, some would say, brooding movement. The crowing conclusion takes place at the Konzerthaus in Vienna, with Petr Popelka conducting the Vienna Symphony with soloists Rachel Willis-Sørensen, Tanja Ariane Baumgartner, Andreas Schager, and Christof Fischesser.

Andris Nelsons © Marco Borggreve

Klaus Makela © Marco Borggreve

Riccardo Chailly © riccardochailly.com

Petr Popelka © Susanne Hassler-Smith

Assessment

By artistically realising the potential for freedom and optimism within all of us, Beethoven’s music has not only transcended the mundane and the narcissistic, but it is still capable, as it has done in the past, of successfully challenging regressive political ideology. As the world is becoming increasingly fractured and polarised on countless issues, humanity needs Beethoven’s optimism even more urgently today than it did 200 years ago.

On This Day 29 November: Giacomo Puccini Died

by Georg Predota, Interlude

Giacomo Puccini lived life to its fullest. He loved fine cigars, expensive spirits, and fell in love at the drop of a hat. He was an addicted gambler and hunter and loved nothing more than fast cars and speedboats. Puccini bought the latest and fastest automobiles, and his yachts were named after the works whose proceeds financed them. A serious automobile accident in 1903 almost took his life, and he was barely saved by the quick intervention of a nearby doctor. Puccini was a heavy smoker of cigarettes and cigars, and he could not escape the long-term effect of this addiction. He persistently complained about a pain in his throat, and while attempting to put the finishing touches on his opera Turandot, his son Tonio urges him to consult a specialist.

Giacomo Puccini in Torre del Lago, where he lived for thirty years

Like his colleagues before, the physician discovered nothing suspicious beyond a slight inflammation deep down the throat. He advised Puccini to take a complete rest, abstain from smoking and come back in fourteen days. While his family was clearly relieved, Puccini knew that things weren’t right.

Giacomo Puccini: Turandot, “Tu che di gel sei cinta” 

Unbeknownst to his family, Puccini consulted yet another specialist in Florence who diagnosed a “walnut-sized advanced extrinsic cancer of the supraglottis.” Tonio refused to accept the diagnosis but was told in no uncertain terms that his father was suffering from cancer of the throat in so advanced a stage that an operation would be futile. After consulting a number of eminent specialists, it was suggested that treatment by X-ray “was the only method likely to arrest the rapid progress of the disease.”

Puccini in 1924

As this kind of treatment was in its infancy, there were only two clinics in all of Europe where the method had been tried out with some success. Puccini decided to consult Dr. Ledoux in Brussels, and he wrote to his librettist Adami on 22 October 1924, “I am leaving soon… Will they operate on me? Shall I be cured? Or condemned to death? I cannot go on like this any longer. And then there is Turandot… Puccini departed for Brussels on 4 November 1924, taking with him sketches for the love duet and the finale of the last act, thirty-six pages in all.

Giacomo Puccini: Turandot, “Nessun dorma” 

The first part of the experimental treatment saw Dr. Ledoux place a collar containing radium around Puccini’s neck. Puccini reports, “I am crucified like Christ! External X-ray treatment at present—then crystal needles into my neck and a hole in order to breathe… What a calamity! God help me. It will be a long treatment, six weeks, and terrible.”

Poster of Turandot‘s performance

During his initial treatment stage, Puccini was not confined to bed but was allowed to leave the clinic. He went to see a performance of Butterfly at the Theatre de la Monnaie, and his clinical condition improved. Puccini visited the local markets and went out for luncheons, and he started smoking again. The second part of the treatment commenced on 24 November, when seven needles were inserted into the tumor in an operation that lasted three hours and forty minutes. Although Puccini suffered agonizing pain, Dr. Ledoux was apparently satisfied that Puccini would pull through.

Memorial plate of Puccini

Unexpectedly, however, Puccini collapsed in the evening of 28 November and he died of heart failure at 4 am on 29 November 1924. A biographer writes, “Dr. Ledoux was so shattered by this sudden turn of events that, driving home in his car afterward, he is said to have fatally injured a woman pedestrian.”

Giacomo Puccini: Turandot, “Del primo pianto si, straniero” 

When news of Puccini’s death reached Rome, a performance of La Boheme was stopped, and the orchestra spontaneously played Chopin’s “Funeral March.” The funeral ceremony took place on 1 December in Brussels, and mourners silently lined the street from the clinic to the Church of Ste Marie. When Mme Laure Berge sang Gounod’s “Ave Maria,” a wave of emotion “rippled through the crowd outside the church as the public wanted to share their sorrow for the loss of a famous and very loved Maestro.”

Statue of Giacomo Puccini in Lucca, Italy

Puccini’s body was taken to Milan two days later. Toscanini and the Scala orchestra played the Requiem music from Edgar. Amid torrential rain Puccini’s mortal remains were then conveyed in a solemn procession to the Cimitero Monumentale for provisional burial in Toscanini’s family tomb. On the day of the second anniversary of his death, the coffin was brought to Torre and placed in “the mausoleum, which Tonio had erected in the villa by the lake. Pietro Mascagni spoke the funeral oration, and the conductor Bavagnoli and an orchestra performed music from Puccini’s operas. As for Turandot, Franco Alfano was commissioned to complete the score, a task that took him roughly six months.

Thus Spoke Friedrich Nietzsche: Piano Music

by Georg Predota, Interlude

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) is primarily known as a philosopher who published some groundbreaking books. “Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None,” was published in four volumes between 1883 and 1885, and it spawned a number of philosophical and theological contemplations. Not to mention a gigantic tone poem by Richard Strauss!

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche at 21

Essentially, Nietzsche questioned the value and objectivity of truth, looking at God as a historical process and construct. Nietzsche wrote numerous texts on morality, contemporary culture, philosophy and science. Interestingly, he never really trusted the written word. He wrote, “all communication through words is shameless. The word diminishes and makes stupid; the word depersonalises, the word makes what is uncommon common.”

It might come as a surprise, but music was actually Nietzsche’s true love. Descended from a family of pastors where music and theology went hand in hand, young Friedrich was an accomplished pianist and organist by the time he reached the age of seven. At that age, he already played several Beethoven sonatas, transcriptions of Haydn Symphonies, and he was skilled in the way of improvisation. A couple of recent recordings have engaged with Nietzsche’s piano compositions, so we decided to take a closer look.

Reminiscences on my Life

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Young Nietzsche initially improvised his own melodies, yet he soon moved on to sketch motets, symphonies, masses and oratorios, most of them unfinished. As he grew up, Nietzsche switched to smaller forms, particularly Lieder and piano pieces. As pianist Jeroen van Veen writes, “these pieces reflect the philosopher as a human being, vulnerable and desirous, but above all melancholic.”

At the age of 14, Nietzsche wrote his “Reminiscences on my Life.” He explained, “All qualities are united in music: it can lift us up, it can be capricious, it can cheer us up and delight us, nay, with its soft, melancholy tunes, it can even break the resistance of the toughest character.”

“Its main purpose, however, is to lead our thoughts upward so that it elevates us and even deeply moves us. All humans who despise it should be considered mindless, animal-like creatures. Let music, this most marvellous gift from God, remain forever my companion on the pathways of life.” 

Barbarous Frenzy

In his “Reminiscences on my Life,” Nietzsche carefully listed his writings and his compositions, and at age fourteen, he had 46 compositions to his name. The earliest Lieder settings of Klaus Groth, the Hungarian poet Sándor Petöfi, Pushkin and Hoffmann von Fallersleben, were all composed “in a kind of barbarous frenzy, as the demon of music took hold of me.”

Nietzsche never took composition lessons, as he was essentially self-taught. He described himself as “a wretched youth who tortured his piano to the point of drawing from it cries of despairs, who with his own hands heave up in front of himself the mire of the most dismal greyish-brown harmonies.” 

The Germania

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

At the age of 16, Nietzsche started on a Christmas oratorio that was never finished. However, he would develop several themes for later use in subsequent compositions. “I look for words for a melody that I have and for a melody for words that I have, and these two things I have don’t go together, even though they come from the same soul. But such is my fate.”

Nietzsche’s early piano music is frequently dedicated to family and friends. Together with two young friends, he founded a small society called “The Germania,” which was dedicated to the “development of the spirit.” They would send each other compositions and poems, lectures and articles. And Nietzsche loved to improvise. A fellow student listened to these improvisations and wrote, “I should have no difficulty in believing that even Beethoven did not play extempore in a more moving manner.” 

Assessment

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche’s Hungarian March

However, assessment from professional sources was less encouraging. Nietzsche sent Hans von Bülow, son-in-law of Richard Wagner, his “Manfred Meditation” for evaluation. Bülow was not impressed and wrote, “this music is the most extreme in fantastic extravagance and the most unsatisfying and most anti-musical composition I have seen in a long time. Is this a joke that deliberately mocks all rules of tonal harmony, of the higher syntax as well as of ordinary orthography?”

“In musical terms, this piece is the equivalent to a crime in the moral world, with which the musical muse, Euterpe, was raped. If you would allow me to give you some good advice, just in case you are actually serious with your aberration into the area of composition, stick with composing vocal music, since the word can lead the way on the wild sea of tones. I apologize, esteemed Herr Professor, of having thrown such an enlightened mind as yours, into such regrettable piano cramps.” 

Lou Salomé

Lou Salomé

Nietzsche’s “Hymn to Life” is based on a text by Lou Salomé, a Russian-born psychoanalyst, well-travelled author, narrator, and essayist. At a literary salon in the city, Salomé met the author Paul Rée, who instantly proposed to her. Salomé declined and suggested setting up an academic commune, which was joined by Nietzsche in April 1882. He instantly fell in love with her as well, but she rejected him twice. Instead, Salomé, Rée, and Nietzsche travelled in search of setting up their commune in an abandoned monastery, but as no suitable location was found, the plan came to naught.

We do find an interesting assessment of Nietzsche by Salomé, which reads, “The higher he rose as a philosopher in his exaltation of life, the more deeply he suffered, as a human being, from his own teachings about life. This battle within his soul, the true source of the philosophy of his last years, is only imperfectly represented in his words and books, but it sounds perhaps most profoundly through his music to my poem Hymn to Life.” 

Sabbatical

After completing the “Hymn of Life” and receiving Bülow’s devastating letter, Nietzsche wrote, “As for my music, I only know that it allows me to master a mood that unsatisfied, would perhaps produce even more damage. If music serves only as a diversion or a kind of vain ostentation, it is sinful and harmful. Yet this fault is very frequent; all of modern music is filled with it.”

After receiving this letter, Nietzsche did not touch his piano for a while, but in the end, “his awareness of being an amateur was overshadowed by his urge to become a better person, through music,” writes Vrouwkje Tuinman. As Nietzsche frequently proclaimed, “Emotions, morals, the world: the only way to (maybe) grasp the essence of being is surrendering to the highest of art forms,” he writes again and again. “Without music, life would be a mistake.” 

The Affair Wagner

Richard Wagner

During his time as Professor of Philosophy at Basel University, Nietzsche became a close personal friend of Cosima and Richard Wagner, then living in Swiss exile. He was a regular house guest and even had his own room at Tribschen. We know that Nietzsche fell in love with Cosima Wagner, and he certainly composed some music for her.

Nietzsche dedicated his first book, “The Birth of Tragedy” to Wagner, proclaiming Wagner’s music the modern rebirth. The first part of the book was developed from long conversations between Cosima, Wagner and Nietzsche, roughly around the same time that Wagner began to develop the story of what eventually would become the “Ring Cycle.” 

Postlude

Cosima Wagner

Nietzsche offered Richard and Cosima his “Reminiscence of a New Year’s Eve,” but they basically ignored it. In turn, Nietzsche started to object to Wagner’s “endless melody,” suggesting that listening to Wagner’s music made his whole body feel discomfort. He called it “a music without a future,” and that the effects of Wagner’s music are “for idiots and the masses.”

Nietzsche suffered a mental breakdown at the age of 44, from which he never recovered. For the last eleven years of his life, he was no longer able to speak or write, but he continued to play the piano. Listening, performing and composing music became an unconscious philosophical activity for Nietzsche, who had suggested earlier that “sound allowed me to say certain things that words were incapable of expressing.”

Editors of Nietzsche considered his compositions “amateurish and lacking in originality.” However, composing for Nietzsche meant experimentation and therapy, as he famously wrote, “we have art so not to die from the truth.” His piano music continues to be explored, and scholars write that “these piano miniatures present a fascinating window into the creative mind of a still-lofty figure in Western thought.” To me, his piano music, an elaboration of the conflicted world of Schumann, sounds hesitant and even unguarded, and the occasional ray of optimism is quickly cast aside by all-pervasive melancholy.

Franz Schubert (1797-1828): A Piano Duet Tribute

by Georg Predota, Interlude

It might come as a surprise, but Franz Schubert wrote almost as much piano music for four hands as for two. His thirty-four compositions in this medium range from his earliest surviving music, the Fantasie D. 48, to his Rondo in A Major finished in the summer of 1828. A scholar writes, “no composer ever approached the piano duet with the seriousness Schubert did, and his corpus of four-hand pieces stands as the apex of the genre.”

Franz Schubert

Throughout the 19th century, piano music for four hands played an important role in the home. Since larger ensembles could only be afforded by the upper classes and the aristocracy, salons everywhere sounded with music for four hands, be it arrangements of works written for larger ensembles, the operatic stage, or original compositions.

For Schubert, the four-hand set-up seemed ideally suited to his temperament as “it was a congenial form of music-making that was emblematic in Biedermeier culture as an activity of friendship and sociability.” These works were a staple in Schubertiade’s gatherings, and they ranked among his most successful publications during his lifetime. As we commemorate Schubert’s passing on 19 November at the age of 31, let us celebrate his genius by exploring some of his genial and charming original works for piano 4-hands.

Franz Schubert wrote to a friend, “Every night when I go to bed, I hope that I may never wake again, and every morning renews my grief.” Yet, it was music that gave him purpose. As he wrote, “I compose every morning, and when one piece is done, I begin another.” In May and June 1828, Schubert composed the Allegro in A Minor, D 947 and the Rondo in A Major, D 951, as a possible two-movement sonata.

The Rondo was published in December 1828, a month after his death, but the Allegro only appeared in print in 1840. Anton Diabelli added the heading “Lebensstürme” (The storms of life), presumably with an eye on prospective customers. This trite sobriquet does not prepare us for the depth of Schubert’s music, as harmonic and structural shifts create subtleties of light and shade. Schubert was the undisputed master of compressing emotional complexity, joy, sorrow, friendship, and solace into a simple change of key.

Turbulent minor chords prepare for an opening statement that emerges from within a deep silence. An introspective melody murmurs in the unsmiling minor key, but the serenity of the second theme, sounding a distant chorale, leaves all storms far behind. However, Schubert has led the music into a highly remote territory, with the harmonic ground shifting restlessly. Suddenly, the music breaks off mid-stream, and an unceremonious plunge takes us to the central development stage. And while the radiant chorale takes centre stage in the recapitulation, the movement ends in the stormy minor key. 

With the “Lebensstürme” Allegro and the “Grand Rondeau,” Schubert completely transcended the confines of the salon and, in the process, wrote highly original and wonderful music for piano duet. The Schubert biographer Christopher H. Gibbs writes, “Such innovations may explain why his attraction to the medium continued even after his energies shifted increasingly to large-scale instrumental works. Indeed, the audacious harmonic and structural adventures in his finest keyboard duets may have pointed the way to orchestral projects that he did not live to realise…The late piano duets exquisitely merge Schubert’s lyrical gifts with daring formal structures.”

Franz Liszt called Schubert “the most poetic musician who had ever lived,” and musicologist Alfred Einstein called the A-Major Rondo D. 951 “the apotheosis of all Schubert compositions for four hands.” The piece is modelled on the lyrical second movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in E minor, Op. 90. It mirrors the tranquillity of mood, the layout, and the harmonic pattern.

The Rondo theme is quietly accompanied by running 16th notes and immediately sounds an octave higher. This theme appears in various keys and registers throughout, and it is interspersed with episodes and subsidiary themes derived from it. A slightly stormy section in C Major is quickly cast aside, and the Rondo theme returns in the cello register to conclude the movement in a warm and quiet manner.

Variations in B-flat Major, D. 968a

Caroline Esterhazy

For Schubert and his friends, four-hand piano music was a natural part of convivial evenings. This repertoire was almost exclusively destined for the private amateur salon market, and the prospects for having such pieces published were higher than they were for solo piano music, specifically when it came to works of the ambitious scope Schubert wanted to write.

Presumably written in 1818 or 1824, Schubert’s Variations D. 968a for piano four hands is one of series of compositions written for the two daughters of Count Johann Karl Esterházy. Schubert was engaged as a music tutor to the two girls and spent two summers at the Count’s estate at Zseliz in Hungary. Schubert wrote to his friend Moritz von Schwind, “I have composed a big sonata and variations for four hands; the latter is enjoying great applause here, but since I don’t quite trust the taste of the Hungarians, I’ll let you and the Viennese decide about them.”

A curiously pompous introduction terminates in a short cadenza for the primo pianist, and it is followed by a simple theme of Schubertian charm. The variations get progressively more brilliant, with Schubert accelerating the rhythms and adding rapid figuration. The third variation is aptly marked “Brilliante,” and it is followed by the mock solemnity of a slower variation. The merry finale features folk-like elements, including a yodelling call. It has been called “one of Schubert’s most jovial and overtly entertaining pieces.”

Sonata for Piano 4-hands in C Major, D. 812 “Grand Duo”

The big sonata Schubert mentioned to Moritz von Schwind turned out to be one of the most monumental and powerful achievements of the composer. Generally known as the “Grand Duo,” the work caused a bit of confusion. As Robert Schumann wrote in 1838, “I thought at first it was a symphony transcribed for piano, but the original manuscript on which Schubert has written Sonata for four hands would suggest I was wrong.”

Schumann continues, “I say I would suggest, for I am still not convinced of my error. A composer as prolific as Schubert may well, in haste, have written Sonata when what he really had in mind was a symphony. Knowing his style and his manner of writing for the piano and comparing this work with his other sonatas where the purest pianistic character is evident, I cannot but think that it was composed for the orchestra. You can hear the strings, the woodwind, the tutti, some solos, the drum roll; the symphonic form in all its breadth and depth.”

Joachim’s orchestration of Schubert’s Grand Duo

Joseph Joachim went ahead and orchestrated the “Grand Duo” in 1855, and the musicologist and composer Donald Francis Tovey included this orchestration in his book analysing symphonies. He wrote, “there is not a trace of piano style in the work.” More recently, the Sonata has been more readily appreciated as a piano work with orchestral effects, one of many other piano works by Schubert that have been called “symphonies in disguise.” 

Actually, Schubert wrote two sonatas for piano 4-hands. While the “Grand Duo” dates from 1824, the “Grande Sonata” originated in 1818. The two works couldn’t be more different, as the “Grande Sonata” seems very close to the world of Mozart, “the unique combination of purity, subtlety and emotional richness of whose music was an abiding source of wonder to Schubert.”

A grand opening gesture, a wonderful curtain-raiser, proceeds to an easy-going theme. The contrasting second subject sounds in a remote key, but it cheekily meanders back to the correct key just in time to close the exposition. Schubert also introduces a charming new melody in the middle of the development, which will be echoed in the beautiful slow movement. The Rondo finale takes a renewed look at Mozart with a dramatic, almost operatic middle section and replaces the development.

The work stems from Schubert’s time at the Esterházy’s estate at Zseliz in Hungary, and it found the composer in a jovial mood. He writes, “I am in the best of health. I live and compose like a god, as though indeed nothing else in the world were possible… I am really alive at last, thank God!”

Polonaises, D. 599

Schubert’s Polonaise

Schubert published a couple of sets of Polonaises in 1826 and 1827. The young Robert Schumann, not yet seventeen, was already reviewing for a Frankfurt publication and wrote of “most original and very richly melodious little movements… The execution is difficult at times on account of the sometimes surprising and sometimes far-fetched modulations. Thoroughly recommended.”

Schumann called them “romantic rainbows over a sublimely slumbering universe,” as Schubert turned the Polish courtly ceremonial style of music into his own delightful and sparkling character pieces. The Polonaises for piano 4-hands range from light and airy to robust and balletic, but all unfold in three-part form and venture into unexpected keys.

Fugue in E minor of Piano 4-hands, D. 952

Schubert’s Fugue in E minor

In 1828, Schubert and his friend Franz Lachner were invited by Johann Schikh, the editor of a Viennese magazine for art, literature, theatre, and fashion, for a country outing to Baden, near Vienna. Apparently, Schikh told Schubert, “Tomorrow morning, we shall go to Heiligenkreuz to hear the famous organ there. Perhaps you could both compose a small piece and perform it there?” Schubert suggested the composition of a four-hand fugue, which was completed by midnight.As Lachner reports, “on the next day, at 6 in the morning, we travelled to Heiligenkreuz where the fugues were performed in the presence of several monks.” The fugue subject had already appeared in Schubert’s counterpoint lesson with Simon Sechter, and it might well have been his very last completed composition. As he wrote to a friend eight days later, “I am ill. I have had nothing to eat or drink for eleven days now and can only wander feebly and uncertainly between armchair and bed.”

Fantasie in F minor, D 940

Schubert composed a number of Fantasies, but the one in F minor, D 940, is surely one of the best-loved works in the piano duet literature. But what is more, it is widely considered one of Schubert’s greatest masterpieces. Dedicated to Countess Caroline Esterházy, this work completely leaves the sphere of informal social gatherings. During the first months of his last year of life, Schubert created a work of almost symphonic form, whose elegiac atmosphere at the beginning sets the tone for the entire work. Schubert scholar John Reed called it “a work which in its structural organisation, economy of form, and emotional depth represents Schubert’s art at its peak.”

Although Schubert called it a Fantasie and the work unfolds in one continuous flow of music, it might well be structured in the manner of a sonata in four movements. The opening “Allegretto molto moderato” evolves from a murmuring accompaniment that features a theme of halting rhythms and chirping grace notes. When Schubert almost hypnotically repeats the theme, the music has effortlessly shifted from F minor to F Major. The rhythmically conceived second subject drives directly into a powerful “Largo.” We move directly into the “Allegro vivace,” a sparkling scherzo of nostalgia followed by a delicate trio. The trio breaks suddenly, and the music eventually plunges into a complex fugue, which takes us to the point of despair. The concluding section brings back the music from the very beginning, and contrapuntal complexity drives the Fantasie to its climax. It all ends with some heart-rendering chords that bring this masterwork to a quiet close.

A scholar writes, “that a legacy of such beauty should have been bequeathed to all humanity as a result of Schubert’s pain and suffering is a miracle in itself.” And Schubert himself commented in the final moments of his life, “the product of my genius and my misery, and that which I have written in my greatest distress, is that which the world seems to like best.”

Franz Schubert died in Vienna on November 19, 1828, and he was buried at his own request near Beethoven. Schubert had carried the torch at Beethoven’s funeral a year before his own death.