INTRODUCTION


There's an often difficult topic when it comes to interpretation and transmission of works, in the relationship between teacher and score: the student writes things told by his teacher on the score, so the score is seen as a clean slate (and this is more and more the case); the teacher might tell him 'get this edition': an often overlooked comment, but ripe with advice: the basis for the work and transmission of tradition is actually a very important tool - how are textual decisions made? This is very much related to the research at hand, because we will look at different editions, manuscripts, and see what traditions might have arisen from certain readings of the text.

The issue with the general implement of performing editions is that there is an equality principle, an absence of conflict when it comes to sources and comparison between works : editions try to come very close to, and 'weigh' as many sources as possible when setting up an Urtext, trying to untie and unite sources and their discrepancies. But the choice of observing manuscripts as rich as op.47 and 61, and then looking at modern editions might help us understand the steps of comprehending a source.

Beethoven, striving for unity of character within a movement, building on ‘the shoulders of giants’, makes different emotions ‘pile up’ differently according to which movement they are put in, in a much more controlled manner when it comes to the architecture (that is what I mean by 'measuring' dynamics on a spectrum rather than on a dialectical manner of forte against piano).

Obviously, a ‘piano’ dynamic in a fast movement will not have the same consequences on sound production and phrasing than in a slow movement. Furthermore, a dotted note marked piano will not be the same as a non-dotted one. A series of dots interrupted despite a figure continuing might be a conscious act of the composer (van Oort 2016: 46).

When looking at a score, inconsistencies could be very well treated as fallacies, rather than proof of self-reflection and creative process. This is the main topic of the research question posed above: Beethoven’s total (seemingly total) control of dynamic induces a change of role on the part of the performer, from a signifying one to a prescriptive.

Looking at diverse sources, and mainly manuscripts, we will decipher and draw conclusions or possibilities according to the form and energy of the two works, looking and comparing those to similar Beethoven 'spots' and ideas (where, for example, he might have been clearer), observing their eventual differences despite a surface resemblance, or vice versa.

This not only changes what the performer's role is, it also changes the relationship between the score as a physical product, as a product of reflection, tradition and the performer, and we will develop this now.

Maybe this charge happened due to the fact that Beethoven used more ’signs’ on a score than his predecessors. Did he, indeed, use more signs and indications ? As musical tradition has shown, many of these go against the instruments' own logic. With this in mind, ambiguity is created in the performer's mind, with elements of notation going accordingly to classical logic and acoustics, while others oppose a new order.

A second step explaining our research question is that finding out this ambiguity can only lie in the text, due to this very ample interplay of traditions and innovations that occur within Beethoven's music, that makes every work a new aesthetic - especially when it comes to the huge creative overflow, the 'miraculous years' of 1806-1810 (Sullivan 1960: 40). I don't think treatises can help us, but advice given by performers make one's own treatise. Only with the instrument can we make this reflection effective, through the means that define the very work we analyse and perform.

We will see that the Kreutzer Sonata’s manuscript provides us with a great richess of ambiguity, that still manages to confound tradition and performance practice, that begs renewal.

Whereas the Violin Concerto’s manuscript is to me nothing but an interpretative opera aperta, a textual hydra, which from the current point of view of the editions we have is an unsolvable mathematical and formal labyrinth – this research may provide a way into the heart of this labyrinth.

Fournier’s categories

Bernard Fournier is a french musicologist, published by Fayard, who between others completed a state thesis on "Beethoven and modernity" (1993), a three-volume analytical guide to the string quartets, and held the musicology chair at Paris-VIII. His 2016 book 'le génie de Beethoven' is a synthetic approach to Beethoven's music through a new lens, trying to tie acoustical elements with those related to musical grammar. Though many of his works have a deep formal-schenkerian approach, 'le génie de Beethoven' tries to do away with score examples, only referring in an annex to excerpts from recordings.

As way of introduction to my literary sources, the three main chapters of Bernard Fournier’s « le génie de Beethoven » are : Energy, Space and Time. The first one, especially, sparked my interest, because a reflection by him about the topic of dynamic and dynamics rather surprised me: he divided the latter in 'static' (f, p, pp, ff) and 'dynamic' ones (crescendo, sf, rinf, etc). The first step towards answering my research question comes here: is a forte truly to be sustained, or, does it, depending on its context, evolve, turn into something else?

A second point he makes is that Beethoven’s music bears more ‘content’ and affiliations/connections within itself than previous music, even only in his notational aspexts. How is this related to the previous topic of static vs dynamic energy?

But this contrived energy, this oppressed quality, even in externalized sections of some works, takes on new meaning when looking at manuscripts by Beethoven.

The very thing, the very musical, graphic, object that bears the « criteria » which measure newness inherent to the object of which it is a part, is dynamics.

That is what I mean by ‘equality’ principle when performing a work : its study is sometimes done at the surface level, of mirrorred resemblance of material, not in its workings, but is rather based on the active or unconscious (fingers) memory of the performer. This is especially tricky for music, which is in and of itself a language with no ground from which to start, a language all made out of experiencing, a language beyond memory: resemblance of tone, affinity of emotion create more than enough tangible proof of relationship for the listener and performer to stop research there. Beethoven’s music, with its deep impact and clearcut material, reaches even more clarity when it comes to tone, to the musical tropes it uses.

Introduction

This dissertation is about interpretation in Beethoven : namely, the way Beethoven tells in a work indications for the interpretation of said work. As main examples, we’ll use the manuscripts to the « Kreutzer » sonata for violin and piano op.47 and the violin concerto in D major op.61. Furthermore, we will first introduce the dissertation with a survey and description of Bernard Fournier’s « le génie de Beethoven » (Fayard 2016), which will lead us to the main element of this paper: manuscript markings and their relationship to interpretation, through the scope of what energies unites these two.

       Our question, which will be analyzed in this chapter and developed in the next ones, is: How can we, as performers, perceive  new spectrum of dynamics and writing implied in those works, whether that is on a formal, instrumental, emotional level?

Energies in discourse.

Fournier’s Energy chapter is organized in two parts, with three subparts containing and analyzing through the kinetic spectrum (through texture, orchestration, rhythmic play and development through dynamics) single movements from Beethoven’s œuvre : Externalized and internalized energy.

‘often the most admitted quality of (Beethoven’s) work, energy also appears as the main catalyst for his work. If energy undermines mass, pitch, durations, velocities, repetitions, energy is mainly expressed through dynamics (intensities). We must however distinguish two very different types of energy.’ (Fournier 2016: 51, personal translation)

And those two types are externalized – dramatic, developmental, mainly vertical energy – and internalized, where a more acoustic, contemplative, repetitive, sacred ear is developed (for example, the dichotomy between the first movement of the fifth symphony, and the Cavatina from the quartet op.130). In Fournier’s words, everything Beethoven wrote is within the spectrum between the two, never fully belonging to only one of those categories. A third step toward our research question: finding out in a work, inside the form of op.47 and 61 what parameters help us determine the ernergetic leanings of a work.

 

in the performer’s workshop

The question raised here is : how do these signs, on the edited and manuscript score, coexist ? Is there a hierarchy between dynamics, articulation, harmony, agogic ? How is a slur treated when a crescendo is drawn under it, while a certain harmony happens ? I have often seen a rather rational approach to these questions with my teachers, only referring especially to harmony’s proeminence rather than that of phrasing. When performing and studying both the op.47 violin sonata and the violin concerto, hanging on to a certain parameter (especially dynamics) to the expense of others often breaks the work in too many pieces. Avoiding this dependence on one aspect of the writing is my main thesis when it comes to how tradition treated interpretation of Beethoven’s work.

A liminary note, from a performer's perspetive

      The fates of interpretation and that of editing music from the past have, since the rise of Urtext editions, been intertwined, since sources are now easily made available for editing and performing.

We seem to live in the final step of the evolution of musical edition and in a similar vein, in the most advanced, omnipotent freedom of faithfulness from the practicing musician. In the case of a continually evolving creator like Beethoven and all the others, who often spends hundreds of sketches to arrive at a certain state of satisfaction, attesting a proper version of such or such work, untangling the different hands and spirits that informed a certain work, is a difficult task, if ever one is able to arrive at a « final » product.

But Beethoven himself unraveled his own works, made them understandable to us through adding information to the score. One finds in a score by his hand a newfound precision, with fully written out musical parts, which is - in the matter of virtuoso, diatonic lines, or counterpoint - something we don't find very often before: many moments in Haydn among others finds freedom and trust in the ability and taste of the performer; whereas the understanding and consistency attained by Beethoven requires a form of rigor we're taught is the key to the composer. He in fact devised his own invented symbols and indications, many of which gain new meaning through, as we'll see, their superposition. What steps must be taken, as a performer, in order to trigger motion and emotion, when looking at a score such as this ?

Aside: By treating energy as the catalyst of Beethoven’s work, the main conclusion could be that Beethoven explores more thouroughly, more continuously some aspect of the musical tension, than, say Haydn, who evokes them, makes extremes play against one another, even creates them with the sparkle’s wit, or Mozart who plays with tropes, extends a singing quality beyond rhythmical and agogical considerations.