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The Meaning of the Interrupted Lebewohl-Motto

[5] Any representational interpretation of Op. 81a may well begin with the disruption, both textural and harmonic, that the left-hand’s entry in measure 2 inflicts upon the right-hand’s Lebewohl-entity initiated one measure earlier (Example 1). Leonard Meyer believes that “this [deceptive] cadence further defines the ethos of the motto, bringing ‘the eternal note of sadness in’ and perhaps suggesting that the parting is not final.”(9) Indeed, as Meyer subsequently points out, Beethoven’s placing of the horn figure at the beginning of the composition rather than the end, where it more typically belongs, is already deviant.(10) However, I believe there is more to the left- hand’s interference with finality than Meyer suggests.

[6] Several commentators have suggested a possible connection between Beethoven’s Op. 81a and Bach’s “Capriccio on the Departure of His Beloved Brother” (BWV 992), apparently composed when Bach was only nineteen years old on the occasion of his brother Johann Jacob’s departure to join the retinue of the King of Sweden.(11) Kenneth Drake’s observations are most illuminating in this regard. Noting that Bach conceived his first movement as depicting the attempts of the brother’s friends to deter him from embarking on his journey,(12) Drake presents examples from both Bach and Beethoven where “. . . melodic continuity and harmonic movement are held back, display vacillation, and are postponed . . .”(13) Surely, though, the quintessence of held- back harmonic movement in Beethoven is the deceptive cadence of measure 2, which Drake fails to cite. It thus appears that Beethoven’s movement is not so much a depiction of the sorrow of parting, as is commonly assumed; rather, like Bach’s, the movement depicts (or at least begins by depicting) an instinctive reaction of any human being to a projected departure of someone he or she deeply cares for: preventing that someone from executing the pain- afflicting plan. This, I believe, is the meaning of the left-hand’s interference with finality in measure 2, signified (as Meyer and others have rightfully observed) by the right-hand’s Lebewohl-motto.

[7] In light of Bach’s capriccio, in other words, the first movement of Op. 81a may be interpreted as depicting an external struggle, namely, Beethoven’s struggle against Rudolph’s intended departure. As in the fourth movement of Bach’s work, where the friends realize that the brother’s departure is inevitable and bid farewell, by the end of Beethoven’s movement the struggle against Rudolph’s projected departure subsides, and leave-taking takes place. However, I believe that even greater insight into Beethoven’s work may be gained by applying a variant of the same idea. According to this variant, which I shall pursue through the remainder of this essay, the struggle depicted in the first movement is internal: Beethoven’s subconscious denies what his conscious self already knows, namely, that the Archduke’s departure is imminent. This idea of an inner struggle, however, is more properly introduced through a brief psychological digression.(14)