Howard Who?

The holidays are upon us, and it is a time for great moments in social awkwardness. All those family get togethers and dinners and gifts exchanged are fraught with faux pas and egregious missteps in emotional intelligence. The most you can hope is to survive.

The good news is Beethoven feels your pain. 

Beethoven always felt an outsider to the decorum of the musical city of Vienna. He went there because he wanted to be somebody, but aside from his amazing musical talents he had little to offer socially to the upper crust. So a lot of his anxieties and foibles are manifested in his music, like he’s working them out.

One of my favorite Beethoven pieces is the first movement of the Piano Sonata 18 in Eb flat major. It sounds to me like the musical representation of someone who is constantly tripping over himself in delicate situations. The mood is constantly shifting due to musical non-sequiturs. For instance, there is a very deep emotional longing in the opening line, which is rudely thwarted by someone barging in trying to be stupid.

Listen: opening

When the emotional theme comes back a little later, it is allowed to expand a little further, but it doesn’t get to finish its thought. Instead, it sounds like a little kid has interrupted the pianist by playing the piano equivalent of stick figures.

Listen: rude kid

Ever been to a party where people just ramble on and on about things you don’t care about but they insist on talking to you as if you do? Well, Beethoven seems to nail that too. He’s got some really great melodic lines that lose all cabin pressure and start to meander aimlessly under until they miraculously find their bearings.

Listen: melisma

Or how about someone who is trying to make a point and won’t get off of it even though you got it an hour ago? Well, Beethoven also understands your pain. He has a gruff, insistent theme dig itself into a hole to be rescued by…a rambling melismatic line.

Listen: resolution

I think all of these examples are funny in and of themselves and quirky and personal and everything you want from art. Yet they do not equal the piece of music that happens when they are connected together. The sad and happy and bewildering and the stupid are all bound together like a dysfunctional family at Thanksgiving. Enjoy!

Piano Sonata 18 in Eb Flat Major first movement (mp3) - Beethoven Buy

This entry was posted on Monday, November 27th, 2006 at 8:56 am and is filed under Uncategorized, Classical Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.