Beethoven "Tempest" op 31 no 2

[nosaj123]

Hello everyone,

After spending time learning the Tempest, I was thinking about how this piece actually relates to Shakespeare's Tempest.  To be honest, I don't see the connection between the two works besides the fact that they are both stormy.  Could someone point me in the right direction on this?

[chicoscalco]

As you may already know, this title was not given by Beethoven himself. It was his associate, Anton Schindler. And Schindler's information is distrusted by scholars.
So, I would not spend too much time trying to relate the play to this piece. I'm studying it myself, as well, and I don't find it particularly helpful interpretation-wise.

[cabbynum]

Write your own story to go along with it if you want to. Paint a mental image with words and re creat it with notes. See how that helps.

[lecafe88]

To be honest I don't really see a storm in this piece at all. One might as well argue that any furious piece is a storm, so you have the Pathetique storm or the Appasionata Storm.

It makes as much sense as "Moonlight" is to the Op 27. No. 2, but once the name is stuck it might help just to think of a storm while playing it.

I'd say the name relates most closely to the tremolo main theme of the 1st movement, or the part where you play the mordents (FGFE and BbCBbA) on the RH in the 3rd movement. I have absolutely no idea how you'd relate the tranquility of the 2nd movement to a storm though.

So yeah, the urtext edition gives you as much information as everyone has mustered from the past 200 years about the piece. You'll have to use your own judgement to pull off the rest of the interpretation.

[cabbynum]

My teacher jumps to the storm name often. And I argue it a bit but she says it doesn't matter what the story is just make sure it's the same everytime.