Beethoven; a critical biography . sorbs theMasters thoughts to the wellnigh total neglect of his cham-ber music, wherein he excels. Three trios and five quartets,that is all that one discovers from 1804 to 1812; whereas thesame eight years have produced no fewer than twenty-fourconsiderable works for orchestra. Suddenly, one mightalmost say, Beethoven exteriorizes his music and seeks toimpress the hearers emotionality through the effect ofsonority itself. One might, therefore, be tempted to date hischange of style from this year 1804, in which the transfor-mation is manifested by such a rapid
Beethoven; a critical biography . sorbs theMasters thoughts to the wellnigh total neglect of his cham-ber music, wherein he excels. Three trios and five quartets,that is all that one discovers from 1804 to 1812; whereas thesame eight years have produced no fewer than twenty-fourconsiderable works for orchestra. Suddenly, one mightalmost say, Beethoven exteriorizes his music and seeks toimpress the hearers emotionality through the effect ofsonority itself. One might, therefore, be tempted to date hischange of style from this year 1804, in which the transfor-mation is manifested by such a rapid and complete evolutioninto the instrumental symphony. At all events, an attentiveobserver will readily perceive that we must go back to theyear 1801 for the beginnings of this break with the proc-esses previously employed, the shaking off of all indolenceof imitation. It is, in fact, more especially in the sonatascomposed from 1801 to 1804 that one may observe thesehesitations, this uncertainty now so profoundly sorrowful, [ 42 1. BEETHOVEN IN 1804 Painted by Mahler(Property of Mrs. Heimler, grand-niece of Beethoven) LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN now tempestuously impassioned, which denote a re-orienta-tion, one might almost say combat, in the creative soul,whereof the sonatas Op. 57 and 53, and the Third Symphony,mark the close. Before trying to determine the causes of this brusquechange, we may be permitted to enumerate its effects uponthe style of composition; the captivating interest attachingto this epoch, hitherto quite insufficiently studied, may (wetrust) justify in our readers eyes whatever slight ariditymay inhere in a technical digression. We know that the Sonata, a form of composition growingouToTlKe^l Suit6 of dances, is built upbv combiningthreeor four pieces of contrasted type. The first piece (move-tnent) ^evelops^a conflict between two themes or musicalideas, Miich, appearing ^successively at opposite poles of theadopted tonality, pursue, evade, display each other, andf
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectbeethov, bookyear1913
