What's the point of Beethoven's piano sonatas?

[Florestan]

our perception of the world is made up of incoherently juxtaposed elements

Is this really your usual way of perceiving the world?

[Gurn Blanston]

Are these sentences really true? They may be, but  they're not obviously true to me.

1. J S Bach had no fondness for his instrumental music, he wrote it because he was either ordered to, or he saw a demand with an opportunity for income.
2. Sainte Colombe had no fondness for his instrumental music, he wrote it because he was either ordered to, or he saw a demand with an opportunity for income.
3. Froberger had no fondness for his instrumental music, he wrote it because he was either ordered to, or he saw a demand with an opportunity for income.
4. Byrd had no fondness for his instrumental music, he wrote it because he was either ordered to, or he saw a demand with an opportunity for income.
5. Christopher Tye had no fondness for his instrumental music, he wrote it because he was either ordered to, or he saw a demand with an opportunity for income.
6. Esaias Reusner had no fondness for his instrumental music, he wrote it because he was either ordered to, or he saw a demand with an opportunity for income.
7. Eustache de Caurroy had no fondness for his instrumental music, he wrote it because he was either ordered to, or he saw a demand with an opportunity for income.
8. Costanzo Festa had no fondness for his instrumental music, he wrote it because he was either ordered to, or he saw a demand with an opportunity for income.

It seems I have to be the one to introduce you to the concept of relativeness, despite not wanting to be. For those composers, and especially their commissioners and listeners, any mass, opera, oratorio, cantata, motet or the like, sacred or profane, had more inherent value than any piece of instrumental music. The meaning of any of those works is clearly stated in the words. Music had no power of itself to convey meanings or especially a narrative, which was at issue at the beginning of this thread. The fact that we don't believe this today has no bearing on what they believed then.

" This ability to "construct a narrative in [one's] head" is a new stage of intellectual refinement." says Gurn.

A major trend in C20 modernism has been the rejection of cause and effect narratives in art. The idea is that art based on coherent narratives is at best a solace and at worst a lie, because as a matter of fact, our perception of the world is made up of incoherently juxtaposed elements, our explanations (narratives) are always defeasible. This is, I guess, what led Faulkner to write The Sound and The Fury a century ago, and indeed Proust to write Recherche, and why Schoenberg wrote music which defies narrative understanding, pieces like the op 31 variations.

The 20th century rejected a shitload of ideas that were held dear in the 19th. The fact that more modern trends have supplanted earlier ones only means that thought is evolving. There again, what we believe/don't believe today has no bearing on what they believed then. Read Charles Burney's 'History of Music' to see what his 18th century peers believed.

FWIW, I don't ever build narratives around music of any age. But it isn't because some arcane art theory dictated I don't (or do). It is what it is.

[Florestan]

we don't have ears in order to be able to hear

Actually, this is exactly why we have ears. Are you suggesting there was a time when we had ears but did not hear anything? (Excluding, of course, deafness or other ear conditions)

[Gurn Blanston]

I think evolution, which largely seems to happen casually, came before its teleologically interpreted purpose. So we don't have ears in order to be able to hear, but evolution gave us ears and the result is, that we are able to hear. In the same way I think it was by chance we developed taste for music and for the beauty of life. We are generally too inclined to seek a purpose with everything, but probably we delude ourselves.

I find this congruent with my own experience. We DO seek a purpose in everything, order from chaos etc.. TO get back to the original question: there IS no "point" to them, they are a very pleasingly arranged series of sounds and pauses which seem to have appeal to a great many people, more appeal than most other arrangements of same. Applying the human urge to apply order is just something that goes along with it all.

[Gurn Blanston]

Actually, this is exactly why we have ears. Are you suggesting there was a time when we had ears but did not hear anything? (Excluding, of course, deafness or other ear conditions)

Very possibly we had the basic structures which became our hearing organs, but they served a different function, probably unrelated to hearing. The bones which make up a fish's lower jaw, a few hundred millions hears ago were the front gill arch. Embryology has conclusively demonstrated this. So yeah. Ears didn't appear full-blown, they evolved.

[Florestan]

It seems I have to be the one to introduce you to the concept of relativeness, despite not wanting to be. For those composers, and especially their commissioners and listeners, any mass, opera, oratorio, cantata, motet or the like, sacred or profane, had more inherent value than any piece of instrumental music. The meaning of any of those works is clearly stated in the words. Music had no power of itself to convey meanings or especially a narrative, which was at issue at the beginning of this thread. The fact that we don't believe this today has no bearing on what they believed then.

The 20th century rejected a shitload of ideas that were held dear in the 19th. The fact that more modern trends have supplanted earlier ones only means that thought is evolving. There again, what we believe/don't believe today has no bearing on what they believed then. Read Charles Burney's 'History of Music' to see what his 18th century peers believed.

FWIW, I don't ever build narratives around music of any age. But it isn't because some arcane art theory dictated I don't (or do). It is what it is.

As L. P. Hartley very aptly put it: The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

[Florestan]

Ears didn't appear full-blown, they evolved.

Be it as it might, you cannot aply the term "ear", that is "the characteristic vertebrate organ of hearing" (Merriam=Webster), to anything that doesn't enable us to hear. Ears are for hearing; their ancestors which were not for hearing were not ears.

That's my opinion. I might be wrong, though. 

[San Antone]

Music had no power of itself to convey meanings or especially a narrative, which was at issue at the beginning of this thread.

I have read that the period of Haydn was different from the period beginning around 1800 in how composers and their audience thought about music.  It has been called the age of rhetoric since for them (and this is true for Bach as well) causing their audience to experience some response to the music (especially the instrumental music) was their goal.  This is opposed to what happened after 1800 when the composer became more interested in expressing himself and the music became a vehicle for the expression of his individuality and artistic genius.

Does this jibe with your knowledge of the time of Haydn?

[Mandryka]

It seems I have to be the one to introduce you to the concept of relativeness, despite not wanting to be. For those composers, and especially their commissioners and listeners, any mass, opera, oratorio, cantata, motet or the like, sacred or profane, had more inherent value than any piece of instrumental music. The meaning of any of those works is clearly stated in the words. Music had no power of itself to convey meanings or especially a narrative, which was at issue at the beginning of this thread. The fact that we don't believe this today has no bearing on what they believed then.

It's one thing to say that their vocal music  "had more inherent value than any piece of instrumental music", and it's quite another thing to say that they had "no fondness for [t]heir instrumental music" or that "[t]hey wrote it because they were either ordered to, or he saw a demand with an opportunity for income." I can well believe the first.

[Gurn Blanston]

As L. P. Hartley very aptly put it: The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

I love that...

And to the point:

I have read that the period of Haydn was different from the period beginning around 1800 in how composers and their audience thought about music.  It has been called the age of rhetoric since for them (and this is true for Bach as well) causing their audience to experience some response to the music (especially the instrumental music) was their goal.  This is opposed to what happened after 1800 when the composer became more interested in expressing himself and the music became a vehicle for the expression of his individuality and artistic genius.

Does this jibe with your knowledge of the time of Haydn?

Yes, it was a different kind of reaction they were trying to provoke. It was more intellectual than emotional. A theme might state or propose something, the subsequent replies argued it, both for and against, in a rhetorical way. This was totally not the 19th century way. To help Florestan debate one of his most dearly held tenets of musical performance: the reason we can't appreciate music the way they did in the 18th century is that we don't know how to understand what they were saying. We don't have the basics of rhetoric any longer, and neither did the 19th century. When music became a popular art, the learning needed to understand the old way became to scarce to pursue, so emotion, and note for note adherence to the detailed script became the New Way.

Vocal music didn't require rhetoric to make its point. It had words.

[Gurn Blanston]

It's one thing to say that their vocal music  "had more inherent value than any piece of instrumental music", and it's quite another thing to say that they had "no fondness for [t]heir instrumental music" or that "[t]hey wrote it because they were either ordered to, or he saw a demand with an opportunity for income." I can well believe the first.

I said that Haydn, personally, had little fondness for his instrumental music. In later life he said he regretted spending so much creative juice on it when he could have been writing vocal music. His peers shared this feeling to some degree or another. In every case, vocal music would have been more highly esteemed than instrumental music.

[Mandryka]

I said that Haydn, personally, had little fondness for his instrumental music. In later life he said he regretted spending so much creative juice on it when he could have been writing vocal music. His peers shared this feeling to some degree or another. In every case, vocal music would have been more highly esteemed than instrumental music.

Sure, but it may just be a quirk of Haydn's. Clearly you can love, deeply care about, things which are not particularly highly esteemed, you can put your whole self into them, heart and soul,  and indeed you can hold the esteemed things in contempt.

(I keep thinking of Charles Foster Kane's fondness for Rosebud!)

(It's a shock to be told that Haydn wasn't fond of the F minor variations, but so be it. Maybe you can not be fond of something you've pour your heart and soul into. That sounds funny to me. Maybe Haydn was inauthentic. But that sounds funny too, without seeing the evidence.)

[Gurn Blanston]

Sure, but it may just be a quirk of Haydn's. Clearly you can love, deeply care about, things which are not particularly highly esteemed, you can put your whole self into them, heart and soul,  and indeed you can hold the esteemed things in contempt.

(I keep thinking of Charles Foster Kane's fondness for Rosebud!)

(It's a shock to be told that Haydn wasn't fond of the F minor variations, but so be it. Maybe you can not be fond of something you've pour your heart and soul into. That sounds funny to me. Maybe Haydn was inauthentic. But that sounds funny too, without seeing the evidence.)

Nah, that's just a 21st century POV of an 18th century man. Authenticity didn't enter into it, for him (or anyone else I have read about). See Florestan's comment above....

[Mandryka]

The thing that just popped into my head was Froberger's Lamentation faite sur la mort très douloureuse de Sa Majesté Imperial Ferdinand III.   Douloureuse here is referring to Froberger's (emotional) pain at the death of Ferdinand; the king himself, as far as I know, didn't specially suffer.

Well, assuming he was telling the truth, Froberger was pained. And he wrote a lamentation, lamenting the very death which pains him.

I mean . . . what more would you need for me to support a connection between what the composer felt and what the composer wrote?


There's also Froberger's Meditation sur ma mort future to think about!

[Florestan]

(It's a shock to be told that Haydn wasn't fond of the F minor variations, but so be it. Maybe you can not be fond of something you've pour your heart and soul into. That sounds funny to me. Maybe Haydn was inauthentic. But that sounds funny too, without seeing the evidence.)

Nah, that's just a 21st century POV of an 18th century man. Authenticity didn't enter into it, for him (or anyone else I have read about). See Florestan's comment above....

And yet, the foreigner Horace would have probably sided with the Romantics' quest for authenticity against Haydn's tailor-made craftsmanship: Si vis me flere, dolendum est primum ipsi tibi.

[Mandryka]

And yet, the foreigner Horace would have probably sided with the Romantics' quest for authenticity against Haydn's tailor-made craftsmanship: Si vis me flere, dolendum est primum ipsi tibi.

well he knows more about Haydn than I do so I'm prepared to concede him that. Where I'm not convinced is in this

It's an early music thing, not a Haydn thing.

What I'm saying is . . . let's not make this discussion about Haydn, who may well have been a bit like what Gurn says he was like!

[Gurn Blanston]

Well, I'm not trying to be unduly stubborn, I am just needing to point out that whatever the result of your Beethoven quest (which I am curious to see) is going to apply to him and only to others if you go forward in time, because perception of music underwent a major change right around 1800 and he was in the right place at the right time to not only benefit from this, but be an active participant in making it happen.

So don't give up on it, hopefully there will be others with cogent input.

[Florestan]

perception of music underwent a major change right around 1800 and he was in the right place at the right time to not only benefit from this, but be an active participant in making it happen.

This, absolutely. I'd say, the most important and influential participant.

[Gurn Blanston]

This, absolutely. I'd say, the most important and influential participant.

Well, probably so. But it was the cultural sea change that he was in the middle of which really triggered it. Even odd little things, like the startup of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in 1798, which he had no hand in starting, but which benefited him hugely. And let's not forget the French Revolution....

[Florestan]

Well, probably so. But it was the cultural sea change that he was in the middle of which really triggered it. Even odd little things, like the startup of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in 1798, which he had no hand in starting, but which benefited him hugely. And let's not forget the French Revolution....

Well, yes. And let's not forget the onset and subsequent progress of his deafness. Yet, I'd say that of the hundreds composers active at that time, none could have played his role had he not been born and music would have take a whole different course without him. Counterfactual speculation, sure, but I stand by it.