interpreting Beethoven

[nick]

Can someone tell me why some editors are putting all kinds of marking on the music that was not there from beethovens writing? I am working on the appassionata and see the urtext having so much less markings than other editors, and many concert pianists are playing it according to the editors markings. Did Beethoven assume the performer would follow certain unwritten rules, like an accent on the dissonant portion of the first notes of a 2 note phrase followed by the following note/s softer?

Nick

[twiltot]

well, you should feel the passion first....  try to listen different recordings of famous pianists and decide yourself, if you want I can send some recordings;
-V. Ashkenazy
-C. Arrau
-A. Brendel
-D. Barenboim

[nick]

well, you should feel the passion first....  try to listen different recordings of famous pianists and decide yourself, if you want I can send some recordings;
-V. Ashkenazy
-C. Arrau
-A. Brendel
-D. Barenboim

My question was not whether other pianists play it diffently or are some better than others, but why since Beethoven did not write that. And why would Beethoven not put pedal markings on so much of the piece where it clearly sounds so much better with it? The difference in piano structure and mechanics in his day would not account for the reason since he left out pedal where it would sound much better with.

nick

[iroveashe]

My question was not whether other pianists play it diffently or are some better than others, but why since Beethoven did not write that. And why would Beethoven not put pedal markings on so much of the piece where it clearly sounds so much better with it? The difference in piano structure and mechanics in his day would not account for the reason since he left out pedal where it would sound much better with.

nick

"Better" is a relative term, that changes not only with each person but also with times; and sometimes how good or bad it sounds is not the question, some things are meant to sound "bad" to achieve some sonority. That aside, maybe Beethoven, in his earlier pieces (since the later ones seem to get more and more specific) only wrote down pedal markings when he absolutely wanted them, same way Bach could have played lots of ornamentation that he didn't bother to write down.

[nick]

so maybe he left most of the notes up to the performers discretion? could be i guess, but i have not read anywhere historically that this is the case with Beethoven. I would hope this is it as just take the 1st page of the Appassionata. So much of it really sounds soooo much better with the pedal. Otherswise it looses so much sound and power. oh well.

nick

[aslanov]

to really interpret beethoven you should listen to recordings of, try and a passage here and there of a wide variety of his works; symphonies, concertos, and sonata's. it really helped me in understanding.

[claude_debussy]

Beethoven's piano was very - in fact, radically - different from today's instrument.

Wooden frame vs. steel, strings now at much higher tension, different tonal balances between registers, and on and on and on.

Pedaling?  Beethoven indicates, clearly in the Waldstein MS (which I own in facsimile) that the rondo theme in the Waldstein should be pedaled through, with no changes.  Obviously it created a much different effect on his piano.

That goes for a lot of other effects particularly in Beethoven - the balance between accompaniment figure and melody is much harder to achieve on a modern instrument.  The old pianos were transparent mid-range, while ours tend to be lavishly colored and blurry by comparison.

Editing music is a tempting path to hell - but some non-urtext editions are very informative and valuable.  The much-derided Czerny editions, for example, probably give a good idea how Beethoven played and interpreted the music Czerny edits.  We want to know that!  Even in Bach!    Same for Mikuli/Chopin.   Even though they aren't faithful to the composer's score, editions by editors who knew and heard the composers may be the closest thing we have to recordings...  Many are information and suggestive.

Of course we worship the Urtext.  But it doesn't have to be the whole story. 

peace, Claude

[nick]

Editing music is a tempting path to hell - but some non-urtext editions are very informative and valuable.  The much-derided Czerny editions, for example, probably give a good idea how Beethoven played and interpreted the music Czerny edits.  We want to know that!  Even in Bach!    Same for Mikuli/Chopin.   Even though they aren't faithful to the composer's score, editions by editors who knew and heard the composers may be the closest thing we have to recordings...  Many are information and suggestive.

Of course we worship the Urtext.  But it doesn't have to be the whole story. 

peace, Claude

thanks, i will look at Czerny's editing on this piece.

nick

[neardn]

the Cotta editions of the Beethoven sonatas, edited by Bülow, are very informative.

Some of them are on IMSLP:
https://imslp.org/wiki/Piano_Sonata_No.23,_Op.57_(Beethoven,_Ludwig_van)