Beethoven Question

[mn dave]

I notice in a few Beethoven pieces, like the 5th piano concerto which I'm listening to right now, that it sometimes sounds like LvB put in some scale practice in the middle of a work.

What's that all about?

[knight66]

Dave, I assume you are referring to a cadenza. Here is an article about them.

http://www.classicalarchives.com/dict/cadenza.html

Mike

[hornteacher]

Its also a historical development in the history of the piano.  You'll notice how the cadenza at the beginning of the first movement goes up and down all the octaves of the piano.  This was designed to show off the then new pianos with a much larger range than their immediate predecessors.

[mn dave]

Thanks. I'd like to confirm that that's what I'm talking about but I have no idea. "Cadenza" is one of these words I gloss over, after having looked up the meaning a couple of times and not being able to apply it to what I know.

And...I'm lazy. 

[scarpia]

Thanks. I'd like to confirm that that's what I'm talking about but I have no idea. "Cadenza" is one of these words I gloss over, after having looked up the meaning a couple of times and not being able to apply it to what I know.

And...I'm lazy. 

In a cadenza the orchestra will stop playing entirely and the soloist will play an extended passage, often featuring virtuoso display.  Formally it is extreme ornamentation of a cadence, but I'm guessing you have no idea what a cadence is either...

[knight66]

Well basically it is a showpiece, often extemporised, which is inserted into vocal and concerti works up until the modern period, though it was dying out during the Romantic period. It would be interesting if anyone comes up with more than an exceptional example post Schumann.

Is that helpful?

Mike

Vocal cadenzas can be accompanied, there might even be interplay betweenthe singer and a specific instrumentalist, eg flute, where they copy one another's phrases passing them back and forth for a while, then return to the printed music. This might be 10 seconds or 30 seconds in vocal music. In instrumental music the cadenza can be considerably longer.

Mike

[mn dave]

In a cadenza the orchestra will stop playing entirely and the soloist will play an extended passage, often featuring virtuoso display.  Formally it is extreme ornamentation of a cadence, but I'm guessing you have no idea what a cadence is either...

I can look it up.

Thanks. That helped me understand it.

Still, I'm not sure why the pianist chooses to go up and/or down a scale, one key at a time. At least, that's what it sounds like to me.

[mn dave]

Well basically it is a showpiece, often extemporised, which is inserted into vocal and concerti works up until the modern period, though it was dying out during the Romantic period. It would be interesting if anyone comes up with more than an exceptional example post Schumann.

Is that helpful?

Mike

Yep. I think I'm getting it now. Thanks, Mike...and everyone.

[jochanaan]

I can look it up.

Thanks. That helped me understand it.

Still, I'm not sure why the pianist chooses to go up and/or down a scale, one key at a time. At least, that's what it sounds like to me.

Scales are one way for pianists to show off.  But "one key at a time"?  I've heard pianists play that opening solo passage (not strictly "cadenza," since Beethoven notated it precisely) that way, and it's completely anti-Beethoven.  I much prefer the Rudolf Serkin approach: Those opening arpeggios exploded out of Serkin as if he could hardly control them--yet every note was in its place.

...It would be interesting if anyone comes up with more than an exceptional example post Schumann...

Brahms' Violin Concerto is the only one I know--and Brahms was writing for a specific violinist, Joseph Joachim, who was also a composer and improviser.  However, every concerto I know up to the present time has at least one extensive unaccompanied solo passage.

[mn dave]

Scales are one way for pianists to show off.  But "one key at a time"? 

This isn't at the beginning. It's somewhere well into the first movement. I should have checked I guess. 

[(poco) Sforzando]

Well basically it is a showpiece, often extemporised, which is inserted into vocal and concerti works up until the modern period, though it was dying out during the Romantic period. It would be interesting if anyone comes up with more than an exceptional example post Schumann.

Grieg and Tchaikovsky 1 piano concertos, Berg and Ligeti violin concertos, Berg Chamber Concerto, no doubt many others. The only "dying out" I perceive is in the Brahms piano concerti, and even in Brahms 2 there is a substantial cadenza on the piano's first entrance. (Interestingly enough, this placement of the cadenza is similar to that in the first concerto by Liszt a composer who is generally thought of as a polar opposite to Brahms.) What does die out, except for the Brahms Violin Concerto, is the classic tradition of placing the cadenza near the end of the first movement as an elaboration of the 6/4 - 5/7 cadence. Even in the Mendelssohn violin concerto, the cadenza in the first movement occurs at the end of the development section.

But it's more than a showpiece. In the models left by Beethoven for his own concertos and Mozart's D minor, the cadenza also serves as a second development section, albeit in a more improvisational, virtuosic style. One of my prime objections to the Schonderwoort LvB 4-5 disc, which has garnered many raves here, is the weakness of his cadenzas. He gets the external idea - that the soloist can legitimately interpolate his own cadenza material - but he completely misses the quality of motific development that Beethoven supplies in the two models he left for the first movement of #4. Fortunately in the Emperor there are no opportunities for a soloist to add his own cadenzas, so Sch. can't screw that up, though he does plenty of that otherwise. 

[jochanaan]

This isn't at the beginning. It's somewhere well into the first movement. I should have checked I guess. 

Is that the passage in double octaves?

[mn dave]

Is that the passage in double octaves?

It might be. I listened (to the Curzon/Knappertsbusch) and it's just past the middle of the first movement, after a portion that features brass (like a fanfare (maybe) with the piano replying), and he isn't playing single notes (sorry), but he is going up and down the keyboard repeatedly. The violins play sporadically behind the keyboard while he's doing this.

[(poco) Sforzando]

It might be. I listened (to the Curzon/Knappertsbusch) and it's just past the middle of the first movement, after a portion that features brass (like a fanfare (maybe) with the piano replying), and he isn't playing single notes (sorry), but he is going up and down the keyboard repeatedly. The violins play sporadically behind the keyboard while he's doing this.

Jochanaan is surely correct. It starts at measure 304, page 56 of the Eulenburg score for anyone who has it. The piano responds to the orchestra's martial rhythms, and then plays a series of scale passages with a slow diminuendo. But what exactly are you asking? It is part of the development section, and expands on some scalewise material heard earlier in the movement.

[mn dave]

Jochanaan is surely correct. It starts at measure 304, page 56 of the Eulenburg score for anyone who has it. The piano responds to the orchestra's martial rhythms, and then plays a series of scale passages with a slow diminuendo. But what exactly are you asking? It is part of the development section, and expands on some scalewise material heard earlier in the movement.

Did he use "scalewise material" often?

[scarpia]

Did he use "scalewise material" often?

I't called a "melody" 

As was mentioned above, in this passage Beethoven is contrasting a military styled motif with scale passages.  It is not simple repetition of a scale, the scales are constantly shifting to imply a harmonic progression as Beethoven transitions from one section to another.

[mn dave]

I't called a "melody" 

No. Really? 

As was mentioned above, in this passage Beethoven is contrasting a military styled motif with scale passages.  It is not simple repetition of a scale, the scales are constantly shifting to imply a harmonic progression as Beethoven transitions from one section to another.

Still. Scales. 

[jochanaan]

No. Really? 

Still. Scales. 

But if you listen closely, each scale has some surprise in it, some extra-harmonic tone or rhythmic oddity that's not "just a scale." And perhaps the main "point" of this passage is the big harmonic strides from Cb major to G major.

[mn dave]

But if you listen closely, each scale has some surprise in it, some extra-harmonic tone or rhythmic oddity that's not "just a scale." And perhaps the main "point" of this passage is the big harmonic strides from Cb major to G major.

He does this sort of thing in other pieces?

[(poco) Sforzando]

Did he use "scalewise material" often?

Only on every third Tuesday of the month.