Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

[prémont]

I have a few "mehs" among the piano sonatas:

Op. 7
Op. 22
Op. 27/1

All rather uninspired in my opinion.

My answer to you is: Meh! 

[amw]

I have a few "mehs" among the piano sonatas:

Op. 7
Op. 22
Op. 27/1

All rather uninspired in my opinion.

Op. 2/1, Op. 2/3, Op. 49 (both) and the outer movements of Op. 79 are pretty 'meh' imo. I actually like 7 and 27/1 in spite of their obvious flaws; 22 definitely starts out 'meh' although it gets better.

Other Beethoven-missing-the-marks:
the clarinet trio Op. 11
a fair bit of Fidelio
Op. 18/5 and to some extent 4
slow movements of the first two piano concertos
some of the violin sonatas maybe? I don't remember half of them tbh

[(poco) Sforzando]

Op. 2/1, Op. 2/3, Op. 49 (both) and the outer movements of Op. 79 are pretty 'meh' imo. I actually like 7 and 27/1 in spite of their obvious flaws; 22 definitely starts out 'meh' although it gets better.

Just sticking with the sonatas, I find 2/1 a nice tidy work, weak only in the middle section of the finale where B marks time with that Ab major interlude rather than developing his material. The slow movement is really quite beautiful and B ornaments the main theme exquisitely. The trio of the scherzo in 2/3 is routine, but otherwise this is a nice concerto for solo piano. I give 49 (both) a pass because they're just little sonatinas and don't pretend otherwise; but the opening movement of 79 is quite sophisticated especially rhythmically, much the strongest movement in that piece, and a helluva lot of fun to play especially with all those hand-crossings. The andante though is a nice little pre-Mendelssohnian song without words, the finale is at least short.

27/1 for me is a total dud throughout, by far the weakest of the sonatas. It depresses me just to think of it.

[Jo498]

op.7 is not a big favorite but I like it much more than op.22. IIRC Riezler thinks it is the best from the first 7 sonatas (IMO it is at least a contender although I probably prefer most of op.2 and op.10/3 is far superior)

op.27/1 is for me an interesting but not really successful experiment (but it's closer to "quasi una fantasia" than 27/2). My impression of op.26 is similar. I love the first movement (which is better than anything in op.27/1) but the rest is rather meh and I do not think the whole thing fits plausibly together. Beethoven should have written a few more variations and published it as a variation cycle.

(I dearly love the slow movements from the early piano concertos and the clarinet trio is a fun piece. I also find op.18/5 brilliant although not as good as #1 and #6. My least favorite is #4. Actually, I find even lesser early Beethoven, e.g. the op.3 string trio lots of fun to listen to.)

[George]

My answer to you is: Meh! 

Agreed.

[Madiel]

I've played op.7 and find the slow movement quite lovely - and also musically quite difficult, as so much of the music is in the silences. The only movement that I think lets it down is the finale, one of Beethoven's early rondos that are just a bit too convivial.

I think op.27/1 is marvellous. Experiment? Yes. Doesn't work? Whaddya talking about?

Of course, the thing with classical music particularly is that so much can depend on the performances/recordings you hear and whether they click for you.

[Jo498]

Of the similar Rondos in op.2/2, op.7 and op.22 I think op.7 is my favorite (but admittedly they are not always sharply distinguished in my head). In each case the movement fits the rest of the sonata quite well.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I've played op.7 and find the slow movement quite lovely - and also musically quite difficult, as so much of the music is in the silences. The only movement that I think lets it down is the finale, one of Beethoven's early rondos that are just a bit too convivial.

I think op.27/1 is marvellous. Experiment? Yes. Doesn't work? Whaddya talking about?

Of course, the thing with classical music particularly is that so much can depend on the performances/recordings you hear and whether they click for you.

I was going to add that the slow movement of 7 is by far my favorite part of that piece, but I don't at all like the last two movements. The opening movement is also extremely fatiguing to play, perhaps part of my reason for disliking it, but I don't really think so. The boogie-woogie variation in 111 is also a killer for the pianist.

As for 27/1, it has nothing to do with performances or recordings but rather the pedestrian phrase structures, perhaps above all in the opening movement.

Jo498 mentioned 26 above, as a work that does not "plausibly fit together." Agreed. The problem is that this is the only sonata, perhaps the only such work in Beethoven's oeuvre, that lacks an anchoring sonata-form movement. It consists of variations, scherzo, funeral march, and rondo finale. Hence it feels more like a suite than a typical Beethoven sonata.

Responses of "meh" and "agreed" without giving any reasons add nothing, IMO.

[Madiel]

As for 27/1, it has nothing to do with performances or recordings but rather the pedestrian phrase structures, perhaps above all in the opening movement.

See, I think the pedestrian phrase structures in the first movement are the whole point. It's his joke. The music is so ridiculously well-behaved, then it charges off into C major at speed, then comes back and behaves again.

It's not as if he forgot how to write non-pedestrian phrases all of a sudden. He's writing pedestrian phrases because he wants the opening to sound pedestrian. Not unlike, say, Haydn's "Surprise" which relies on the fact that the audience thinks it knows exactly where the music is going.

And then, after Beethoven has established he's writing safe and boring music, the sonata proceeds to do weird things.

[(poco) Sforzando]

See, I think the pedestrian phrase structures in the first movement are the whole point. It's his joke. The music is so ridiculously well-behaved, then it charges off into C major at speed, then comes back and behaves again.

It's not as if he forgot how to write non-pedestrian phrases all of a sudden. He's writing pedestrian phrases because he wants the opening to sound pedestrian. Not unlike, say, Haydn's "Surprise" which relies on the fact that the audience thinks it knows exactly where the music is going.

And then, after Beethoven has established he's writing safe and boring music, the sonata proceeds to do weird things.

Well, that's a clever interpretation, but at least you don't deny the opening is pedestrian. I don't find the C major interlude much more interesting than the opening myself, and I don't think I'm immune to Beethoven's humor (there are more clever harmonic touches in the second movement of the 8th symphony, and as for Haydn, he did many things far more surprising and clever than the familiar movement you mention). Sorry if you haven't rescued 27/1 for me (and note we're no longer talking about performances or recordings), but your description I think would better suit op. 54, perhaps the weirdest sonata of the lot, and one which I didn't include in my short list of "mehs."

[Madiel]

Well, that's a clever interpretation, but at least you don't deny the opening is pedestrian. I don't find the C major interlude much more interesting than the opening myself, and I don't think I'm immune to Beethoven's humor (there are more clever harmonic touches in the second movement of the 8th symphony, and as for Haydn, he did many things far more surprising and clever than the familiar movement you mention).

Why are you equating "humour" with "clever"? I didn't suggest that either Beethoven 27/1 or Haydn's Surprise were especially clever, so you're not actually refuting what I said. I picked the Surprise Symphony precisely because it has the same element of obvious predictability, of square phrases. Not because I think in either case it's the most brilliantly witty joke a composer ever pulled.

[Jo498]

I believe that there are several "waves" of experimenting in the early Beethoven sonatas. The first 4, all with 4 movements and often on a very broad scale probably seek to establish a large scale virtuoso sonata distinct from the often more intimate Haydn and Mozart pieces. (Although I am not sufficiently familiar with what Dussek or Clementi wrote in the late 1790s and Haydn's last sonata in E flat major is also quite large scaled and brilliant but without a dance movement).

Then in op.10 the first two pieces are rather terse (in #2 Beethoven manages to sound like Brahms in the central movement while the outer movements seem indebted to Haydn) and the 3rd one is also more concentrated than op.2/3 or op.7 (if often comparably brilliant). The next three are all in three movements, the op.14 ones rather intimate and lighter in mood whereas the Pathetique is even more "heroic" than the two earlier minor mode sonatas but also somewhat "mixed" with a comparably short adagio and a rather light rondo finale.
op.22 returns to the broad, virtuoso style in 4 movements (but for some reason I find it the least convincing of them).

Then he starts the "quasi fantasia" experiments of op.27, followed by the "suite"-like op.26 (which seems also trying something different out). Again, after experimenting comes a "regular" 4 movement piece (IMO superior to the preceding ones), the "Pastoral" sonata. But as in op.22 it is more genial in mood, not heroic like op.13 or melancholic/romantic like op.27/2.

One can probably argue that all these aspects were important for Beethoven to explore, even if some results are more convincing than others. After all, in the late Sonatas like op.101, 109 or the Cello sonatas op.102 he again used rather unusual combinations of movements which could be called quasi fantasia style.

(op.54 is a piece I don't get. It's for me the weirdest as well and I guess I am more likely to listen to trifles like op.49 or to op.27/1 with all its "faults" than to this strange piece.)

[Madiel]

I believe that there are several "waves" of experimenting in the early Beethoven sonatas.

...

One can probably argue that all these aspects were important for Beethoven to explore, even if some results are more convincing than others.

...

I only highlighted a couple of key sentences in your post, but I agree with most of what you're saying. I think a lot of the really great musicians essentially set themselves musical problems and then go ahead and solve them. I'd definitely cite Beethoven as an example of that tendency. He wasn't just trying to do the same thing in every piece; rather, he was exploring his interests at the time.

[Mandryka]

I'll just mention, briefly, that HJ Lim made me prick up my ears and listen to op 27/1.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Why are you equating "humour" with "clever"? I didn't suggest that either Beethoven 27/1 or Haydn's Surprise were especially clever, so you're not actually refuting what I said. I picked the Surprise Symphony precisely because it has the same element of obvious predictability, of square phrases. Not because I think in either case it's the most brilliantly witty joke a composer ever pulled.

Then there may be a semantic subtlety here I'm not picking up on. After all, you spoke of 27/1 to say "It's his joke," and I don't think cleverness and humor are so far apart as to be unrelated.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I believe that there are several "waves" of experimenting in the early Beethoven sonatas. The first 4, all with 4 movements and often on a very broad scale probably seek to establish a large scale virtuoso sonata distinct from the often more intimate Haydn and Mozart pieces. (Although I am not sufficiently familiar with what Dussek or Clementi wrote in the late 1790s and Haydn's last sonata in E flat major is also quite large scaled and brilliant but without a dance movement).

Then in op.10 the first two pieces are rather terse (in #2 Beethoven manages to sound like Brahms in the central movement while the outer movements seem indebted to Haydn) and the 3rd one is also more concentrated than op.2/3 or op.7 (if often comparably brilliant). The next three are all in three movements, the op.14 ones rather intimate and lighter in mood whereas the Pathetique is even more "heroic" than the two earlier minor mode sonatas but also somewhat "mixed" with a comparably short adagio and a rather light rondo finale.
op.22 returns to the broad, virtuoso style in 4 movements (but for some reason I find it the least convincing of them).

Then he starts the "quasi fantasia" experiments of op.27, followed by the "suite"-like op.26 (which seems also trying something different out). Again, after experimenting comes a "regular" 4 movement piece (IMO superior to the preceding ones), the "Pastoral" sonata. But as in op.22 it is more genial in mood, not heroic like op.13 or melancholic/romantic like op.27/2.

One can probably argue that all these aspects were important for Beethoven to explore, even if some results are more convincing than others. After all, in the late Sonatas like op.101, 109 or the Cello sonatas op.102 he again used rather unusual combinations of movements which could be called quasi fantasia style.

(op.54 is a piece I don't get. It's for me the weirdest as well and I guess I am more likely to listen to trifles like op.49 or to op.27/1 with all its "faults" than to this strange piece.)

Nice comments. It's ironic that Beethoven himself thought especially well of 22, which neither of us much cares for.

I myself don't hear Brahms in 10/2, but I do hear a hint of Brahmsian melancholy in the central movement of 14/1. And definitely Haydn in the outer movements of 10/2, the finale of which is a gem of humor and cleverness (sorry, orfeo).

[EigenUser]

I like the 1st symphony better than the 3rd. Is there something wrong with me?

[Todd]

I like the 1st symphony better than the 3rd. Is there something wrong with me?

Yes.

[Madiel]

The only thing wrong with you is that you're hanging around with people who tell you it's not okay to like one piece of music more than another.

[Ken B]

I like the 1st symphony better than the 3rd. Is there something wrong with me?

Yes. Even if we concede Orfeo's point.