A short breath

I believe research from those literary and manuscript sources makes one understand the true meaning of an ‘Urtext’, as well as the true meaning, evolving throughout a work, changing or running in circles from sketch to copy, of a certain section from a musical work.

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For example, in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, a new ambiguity appears, thanks to the text that we have, and within the score itself. There is there a novelty of instrumentation and sheer efficacy of the material that enables us to perceive new ways of building a large form : namely through truncated and lengthened hypermeter (four-bar phrases stretched to 5), but also the manuscript and its editorial decisions. The fact that we have access to several stages of the work, introduces us to a new way of interpreting, through the decisions of the performer and the composer, to understand what Beethoven ‘was going for’, what he refuted, and the difference between those steps guide us through interpretation.

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In the case of the Kreutzer Sonata, we will also study its manuscript changes and additions in terms of dynamics, so as to understand in what way Beethoven was breaking of following certain traditions of interpretation of his time. His understanding of the instruments and the music complement each other, so that it is possible to see appear a true ‘polyphony’ of when the instrument’s limits are pushed, and when the dynamic and articulation signs follow the logic of the instruments. Our main source here will be Bart van Oort’s ’Understanding Classical and Early Romantic Dynamics 1750-1830’, as well as a study of a live recording of the work. For each movement, we will chose a certain topic and develop it throughout each: upbeats and slurs for the second, keilen (staccato marks) for the third, and fermatas for the first.