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XV: The Cosmopolitan Impostor: Op. 2 No.3, Op. 14 No.1
- Indiana University Press
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1 0 00 The Cosmopolitan Impostor OP. 2 NO.3, OP. 14 NO.1 Throughout its existence, the keyboard has been the central meeting place for every genre of composition. It is the instrument of accompaniment, a chamber music partner, a concerto soloist, and the instrument for orchestral reductions. In a letter to Breitkopf & Hartel, dated July 13, 1802, Beethoven referred to the popularity of transcriptions as an "unnatural mania," saying that the piano and string instruments were so different from one another that the practice should be checked.' One wonders what he might have said about Liszt's transcriptions of his symphonies, in which form the piano became a cultural missionary, making the music accessible in places where there were no orchestras. Thinking in choirs of instrumental sound and independent voice parts is central to Beethoven's keyboard style, just as an operatic vocal style emerges from the Mozart sonatas and the Chopin concertos. Op. 2 NO.3 has been chosen to group with Op. 14 No. I, the only sonata Beethoven transcribed for strings, because its orchestral manner-in addition to a concerto-like cadenza in the first movementis its most prominent characteristic. OP. 2 NO.3 Four bars announce the method of construction of the first movement: Two bars, tonic to dominant, followed by two bars, dominant to tonic; the phrase closed The Sonatas 240 and complete, symmetrical in form. There are four voice parts. The repeated lowersecond neighboring tone produces the rhythmic energy of the theme. The virtuoso in one's nature finds in the piece a brilliant, professional sonata, a brawny piece in which to pretend that the piano, played by ten fingers, is equal to an orchestra of sixty or seventy players. The piano has achieved its position by being an instrument of illusion. It cannot actually sing, yet we pretend to do just that in a Chopin nocturne. Every shade of dynamic produced by the hammer striking the strings is controlled solely by the speed of a key descent of 3/8 inch that may be effected by a pencil eraser as well as the tip of a finger. Yet with these simple movements we become each of the characters in Carnaval, suggest the sentiments of a sonnet by Petrarch, sense Brahms's brooding presence, see rockets burst in Feu d'artifice, or become an organist playing a Bach toccata in transcription. The C-major Sonata is a bona fide original composition for the piano, but a transcription nonetheless of a sound ideal that must be retranscribed by one's imagination when playing. The principal factor in this orchestral transformation in the first movement is the blocklike construction, individual sections separated by dynamic plateaus (Ex. 15.1). Dynamic nuance is restricted to the second theme, the calando in mm. 107108 , and the crescendo in the bars preceding the six-four chord in m. 232. The crescendo in m. 228 is the sole instance in the entire sonata of either crescendo or decrescendo , although there are two such "signs" in the slow movement, plus another calando in the finale. The orchestral sound ideal reveals itself also in the consistency of voice parts within individual sections, the cadenza, the separation of lines through differing articulation, and the placing of sforzandos on inner notes (Ex. 15.2). In its episodic organization, in which each section-like the principal theme itself-is closed, and in its assertiveness the music has an authoritative character. Through its size, the movement aspires to be equal in stature to a symphony or concerto without necessarily having big thematic ideas. By comparison, the first movement of Op. 31 NO.2, which sounds bare in notes, communicates ideas that are huge in an interpretive sense; and the first movement of Op. 110, which is just the opposite of Op. 2NO.3 in outward activity, extends across inner distances for which no measurement exists. The sonata is not totally lacking in sophistication, for the four movements are linked motivically (Ex. 15.3), although the similarity is one of pattern rather than of interpretive content, as in Op. 110. In the first movement, new ideas, each well crafted and similar to its fellows, are introduced, one after another, like athletes at a sports banquet who have in common their physically fit bodies and untroubled personalities. For the pianist, the realization of the orchestral style raises a question regarding dynamiCS. Because gradualism in the handling of sonority is natural to the instrument , one cannot fault the...