5/29 Pianos, Cannons and the Gift of Fire

One of the best Beethoven-related sites around is the Unheard Beethoven site.  The people there have cataloged pretty much every Beethoven work not recorded (or seldom recorded) and posted midi files for B. fans to audition.  Midi files are more or less "piano rolls" of compositions and sometimes need a bit of finessing before they can sound musical.  So I took a few of these and did my best.... Here's the piano arrangement of Opus 43, "The Creatures of Prometheus" (Hess 90) authored by Willem.  I used my surround-piano sound ("Beethoven 360") for this...

From the Unheard Beethoven:
The Creatures of Prometheus op. 43, for Piano, Hess 90 (1801).
This transcription by Beethoven was published in 1801. The transcription quite faithfully follows the orchestral work, though with very different effects. Act One of the ballet--even including the overture--is much shorter than the second act. Act One concerns the creation of the first man and woman from dust by Prometheus; the second act concerns the education of these creatures. The theatre-bill for the first performance of March 28, 1801, describes the action as follows:  
"This allegorical ballet is based on the myth of Prometheus. The Greek philosophers, who knew of him, elucidate the story in the following manner--they depict Prometheus as a lofty spirit who, finding the human beings of his time in a state of ignorance, refined them through art and knowledge and gave them laws of right conduct. In accordance with this source, the ballet presents two animated statues who, by the power of harmony, are made susceptible to all the passions of human existence. Prometheus takes them to Parnassus, to receive instruction from Apollo, god of the arts, who commands Amphion, Arion and Orpheus to teach them music, Melpomene and Thalia tragedy and comedy. Terpsichore aids Pan who introduces them to the Pastoral Dance which he has invented, and from Bacchus they learn invented, and from Baccus they learn his invention, the Heroic Dance. The music is by Herr van Beethoven."
Link
More on The Creatures of Prometheus op. 43 in a previous post HERE.

Another piece I worked out is Wellington's Victory, or the Battle of Vittoria op. 91, for Piano and Two Cannons, Hess 97.  In this case I spruced up the cannons mostly - because I'm such a "cannon-expert" of course...(Midi Author: Mark S. Zimmer).
From the Unheard Beethoven:
Wellington's Victory, or the Battle of Vittoria op. 91, for Piano and Cannons, Hess 97 (1816). 
This is certainly the strangest of Beethoven's arrangements for piano, since it also calls for two cannon to be fired throughout the first (Battle) portion of the piece. In this midi, the English forces are on the right channel; the French are on the left. As the battle progresses, the English march toward and take the center, forcing the French further left and eventually completely off the soundstage. The piece was wildly popular in its time as anti-Napoleonic feeling increased in Europe. This "symphony" (as Beethoven referred to it in letters) is easily the most clearly descriptive piece Beethoven ever wrote. The transcription ends, as does the orchestral version, with a fugato treatment of "God Save the King." Published 1816 by Steiner in Vienna.

Link

5/8 Levine's Fidelio (with Subtitles)

The theatrical mask contemplated by a putto on the Beethoven
monument by Kaspar von Zumbusch (Vienna, 1880) commemorates
Beethoven's sole opera in the city where it made its debut.

Beethoven's Opera, Fidelio
Conducted by James Levine
Production: Jürgen Flimm · Set Design: Robert Israel Costume Design: Florence von Gerkan
with Karita Mattila · Ben Heppner · René Pape · Falk Struckmann Robert Lloyd · Matthew Polenzani · Jennifer Welch-Babidge
Metropolitan Opera Chorus,  Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
2003

This is one of those modern 20th century stagings of a 19th century opera.  Personally, I have some trouble with these kinds of modern reimaginings, but I suppose if an opera is almost 200 years old, it can stand a few "unusual" variations.  Either way, Maestro Levine's music direction is great and this particular YT video actually has subtitles. 


Linklist (123 min)

3/21 Beethoven's Music of the (Spinning) Spheres (or "That Glass Armonica is Driving me Crazy")

One of the most unusual instruments Beethoven ever wrote for (and that's saying something considering he wrote for Panharmonicon, cannons and ring-tone) is the "glass armonica".  This is an instrument which is made up of spinning bowls upon which the performer "lays hands on".  The spinning bowls remain wet from a water pool, so that when the player places his/her hands on it, the vibrations create a somewhat ethereal tone.  It's the original version of the "wine-glass" music that is much more prevalent today on late night TV.  The glass armonica was invented by Benjamin Franklin and was thought to cause insanity for it's player.  Actually the performer got lead poisoning from touching the spinning (unrefined) glass. 

Beethoven only wrote about a minute and a half of music for the glass armonica in the incidental music for Leonore Prohaska, WoO.96 (1815). 
From www.glassarmonica.com:

In 1815 Beethoven was commissioned to write the incidental music (Op.202/WoO 96—click here for the score) for a tragic play written by Friedrich Duncker (the King of Prussia's secretary) called Leonore Prohaska. The play "tells the story of a maiden who, disguised as a soldier, fought through the war of liberation." Among the movements for your usual Beethoven orchestra and chorus is a short little "Melodrama" for armonica and narrator—at the point in the play when the heroine Leonore is speaking to her true love from beyond the grave. The narration (written by Duncker) is as follows:

I entwined for you, Two flowers: one for love, and one for constancy. Alas! All I have for you now are death's flowers! And yet, from the earth on my tomb The lily and the rose bloom anew.

Here's a video of the glass armonica Melodram piece B. wrote (with some additional variations composed by Charlie Barber) performed by Alasdair Malloy.
Melodram / Funeral Flowers (from Leonore Prohaska):

Link

You can see Alan Alda learn how to play the glass armonica here:
Glassharmonica / Alan Alda's first lesson with Thomas Bloch

And here's a fine blog post which first alerted me to the existence of B.'s foray into "music of the spheres": http://impossiblekisses.blogspot.com/2011/03/beethoven-and-three-plates-in-my.html

3/2 Beethoven's Speech at the Oscar Awards

Last Sunday the film "The King's Speech" won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 2010.  One LvB-related news item which has been floated in the blogosphere is the use of Beethoven's 7th Symphony (specifically the 2nd movement Allegretto).  I had heard that B.'s music was in this film, but for some reason or another my wife ended up seeing it before me.  She told me that, yes, indeed B.'s music had a big part in the climactic scene.  So eventually I saw it, somewhat with the expectation that Beethoven would come swooping down to the King's aid in his quest for verbal articulation - so I was just a bit disappointed that in the actual scene where Colin Firth deliveres the most important speech of the film at the climactic moment, the King didn't have the 5th Symphony blasting in his headphones!  Yes, they used the 7th's Allegretto as incidental music but it was just scoring and not "source" music (music existing within the reality of the film).  Oh well.  Nonetheless it was a great scene made greater with the use of B.'s Allegretto 7th (just like it was used in "Knowing", a Nike ad, and innumerable other places....which you can see HERE and HERE)

I hadn't originally planned on writing about this film at all since it's been well-covered on other blogs, but since they used the same music (well - soundtrack) during the final video montage before announcing the Best Picture Award, I decided I might as well throw that clip out here...thinking that might not be as well-blogged (tho I assume millions more people saw this montage than the actual "King's Speech" film).

1/7 War Games

I've posted a few times before (here and here) about how appropriate I think Beethoven's music would be for modern film scores.  Apparently he's already quite popular in the "Early-19th-Century-Warfare-Video-game" genre..
WARNING: Like all modern videogames seem to have nowadays, these have lots of computer-generated guns and shooting - and HORSES.  (These are apparently "fan-made" vids, but they look quite nice IMHO.)

Napoleonic Total War 2 Cavalry Trailer (Violin Concerto Op.61)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r88986zJU0Q


Napoleonic Total War 2 Infantry Trailer (Eroica finale)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubWYQ9XO1BI


Empire: Total War by "dmovieproduction" (Fur Elise)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPliNF_2eHk


Beethovan goes on an urban rampage in this one...kind of "Godfather" meets Tarantino?
"If GTA was an art film..." (7th Symphony Allegretto) by "Shane063"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEq9Kkv7JB8

12/26 Fidelio (1963, Berlin with Christa Ludwig)

(Christa Ludwig in Fidelio conducted by Klemperer, 1962)

I posted about Beethoven's only opera in the past but today being a weekend post I'm putting up the whole opera in one, long, 2 hour playlist - generously uploaded by Youtuber "1964fidelio"...
Happy Holidays!

I advise downloading the German-English libretto here to follow along...
(or if you just want to read the English translation go here.)

Beethoven: FIDELIO: 1963 Berlin (BW).Total length: 2 hours, 3 minutes

Christa Ludwig: Leonore
James King: Florestan
Walter Berry: Don Pizarro
William Dooley: Don Fernando
Joseph Greindl: Rocco
Lisa Otto: Marzelline
Martin Vantin: Jaquino

Arthur Rother - Chor und Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin, 1963


Linklist

There also happens to be a full Fidelio conducted by James Levine at the MET from 2003 on YT - You can see a linklist of that performance HERE.

12/1 Beethoven's "Dervish Chorus"

One of my favorite less-famous choral "numbers" by Beethoven is the "Chorus of Dervishes" from "The Ruins of Athens" (Die Ruinen von Athen), Opus 113, another of Beethoven's works for the stage.  In general B. preferred to write music only for the opening, transitions and non-speaking action parts of plays.  He wasn't interested in "background music", though I often consider his stage music to be a 19th Century equivalent to today's film music - well, functionally at least.

August von Kotzebue's play "Die Ruinen von Athen" premiered at the opening of a new royal theater in Pest (now Budapest) in Hungary. The plot is as follows:

"Die Ruinen von Athen (The Ruins of Athens) tells the story of Minerva, who, after sleeping for 2,000 years, awakens to find the Parthenon destroyed and Athens occupied by the Turks. Culture and reason have disappeared from what was the ancient Greek world, but these human qualities have been preserved in Pest by the enlightened Emperor Franz." (Allmusic)

The Emperor Franz happened to be the reigning emperor at the time, so you can see how appropriate this plot was to the occasion....

Beethoven wrote the music for "Ruins" as well as music for another play for the same occasion ("King Stephen") in 3 weeks while at the hot springs at Teplitz to cure some stomach pains.  Altogether he wrote 17 pieces (!).

10/18 Beethoven and Haydn on a street...

http://www.lvbeethoven.com/Cartes/Cards09Others.html

From the Wiener Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung (No. 39, 1846) on Beethoven's meeting with Haydn shortly after the premiere of the Creatures of Prometheus:

It has long been known, and especially proven by certain remarks by Beethoven against his equally artistic colleague Goethe, that Beethoven was very much aware of his position in the world of music, and on certain occasions knew how to take advantage of it, even if it meant running the risk of being harshly judged or misunderstood by lay persons .... When in 1801 Beethoven had written the music to the ballet "The Creatures of Prometheus", he encountered his former teacher, the great Joseph Haydn, who immediately stopped him and said, ‘Now, yesterday I heard your ballet and it pleased me very much.’ Beethoven thereupon answered, ‘Oh, my dear Papa, you are very kind, but it is a long way from being a “Creation”.’ Haydn, surprised and almost offended by this answer, said after a short silence, ‘That is true, it is not yet a “Creation” and I very much doubt whether it will ever succeed in being one.’ Whereupon each of them, somewhat dumbfounded, took leave of the other.

I love little stories like these where the father of the symphony and string quartet (Papa Haydn) meets the father of modern music (B) and they basically trip over each other like normal humans....


This past week or so my posts have been a little on the light side because I've been traveling in Vienna tracking down B.s homes and haunts!  Well, I just got back literally hours ago and hope to make a full report - but it will be a few days since I have to sort out about 1.5 gigs of datafiles...

Ringing B. at his apt on the Molker Bastei in Vienna

9/27 Beethoven's "Creatures" (Ballet)

Beethoven only composed one complete ballet, "The Creatures of Prometheus".  It's the only orchestral work of his that has a harp in it, I have no idea why.  It's also his only work which has a bassett horn.  That I can understand.  Written in 1801, there's no surviving notes on the choreography but what typically happened in those days is that shorter music pieces in a "dance style" were used to accompany the stage action.  The producers weren't interested so much in large themes or any kind of symphonic development so this ballet really comes across more as a 19th century jukebox collection.  It's admittedly far from his greatest work, but it's still fascinating and is fun to listen to.  The story itself is pretty interesting.  When I first read the title "Creatures of Prometheus" I expected scenes of giant monsters fighting in volcanoes.  Not quite.

Basically Prometheus created Man, and gave Man his skills in creativity and logic, everything a civilization needs.  Zeus got jealous of these upstarts and took away Man's fire.  Prometheus stole some fire from another god and smuggled it back to Man.  Zeus later punished Prometheus with some gory animal-inflicted punishment.  So the titular characters of the ballet, the "Creatures", are actually Man!  Pretty cool (tho a bit disappointed about the lack of fire-breathng dragons).  The ballet itself portrays a man and woman being given these artistic/technological gifts and learning to play music and dance from various gods whom Prometheus introduces them to.  I think.  Who knows?

Beethoven wrote an Overture, an Introduction and 16 pieces in 2 Acts.  Most importantly the Eroica theme, used in the Finale to the Eroica 3rd Symphony as well as the Eroica Variations Op.35 (not to mention one of his German Dances WoO.14) can be found in the finale to this ballet.  According to the playbill the story goes something like this:

"...the ballet presents two animated statues who, by the power of harmony, are made susceptible to all the passions of human existence. Prometheus takes them to Parnassus, to receive instruction from Apollo, god of the arts, who commands Amphion, Arion, and Orpheus to teach them music; Melpomene and Thalia, tragedy and comedy. Terpsichore aids Pan, who introduces them to the Pastoral Dance, which he has invented, and from Bacchus they learn his invention—the Heroic Dance."

Here's a possible rundown:

Ouverture – Adagio – Allegro molto e con brio – attacca:

ACT I: Introduction. (La Tempesta) Allegro non troppo – attacca: (C Major)

    Heavy accents represent stormy nature

No 1. Poco Adagio – Allegro con brio – Poco Adagio – Allegro con brio (C Major)

    Prometheus uses fire to light the hearts of 2 statue-like humans, which slowly come to life.

No 2. Adagio – Allegro con brio (F Major)

    The humans do not "get" the fire and Prometheus gets frustrated and almost destroys these stupid creatures.

No 3. Allegro vivace (F Major)

    Prometheus gets an idea - take them to the land of the Gods!

ACT II: 

    The gods Euterpe, Amphion, Arion and a couple others play music using harp, flute, cello etc and this slowly awakens "reason" within the human pair.

    Terpsichore and Bacchus enter and engage in a "warlike" dance, which the pair participate in.

    Then Melpomene appears and the mood gets very somber.  See below:

No 4. Maestoso – Andante (D Major) (arrival in Parnassus)

No 5. Adagio – Andante quasi Allegretto (B♭ Major) (Euterpe and Amphion's duet)

No 6. Un poco Adagio – Allegro – attacca: (G Major) (Humans react with joy)

No 7. Grave – attacca: (G Major)

No 8. Marcia. Allegro con brio – Presto (D Major) (War dance)

No 9. Adagio – Adagio – Allegro molto (E♭ Major) (Melpomene)

    This is followed by Prometheus getting punched by Melpomene, the humans getting some kind of "comic masks" and then the pastorale ensues. 

No 10. Pastorale. Allegro (C Major) (rustic dance)

No 11. Coro di Gioja. Andante – attacca: (C Major) (entrance of solo dancer)

No 12. Solo di Gioja. Maestoso – Adagio – Allegro (C Major) (comic dance solo)

No 13. Terzettino - Grotteschi. Allegro – Comodo – Coda (D Major)

No 14. Solo della Signora Cassentini. Andante – Adagio – Allegro – Allegretto (F Major)

    (sinfonia concertante for basset horn and oboe)

No 15. Coro (e) Solo di Vigano. Andantino – Adagio – Allegro (B♭ Major)

No 16. Finale. Allegretto – Allegro molto – Presto (E♭ Major)

    (uses Eroica theme)

There you have it.  Though I have no idea if any of the above description helps or hinders the enjoyment of this ballet...
The Creatures of Prometheus, Op.43 (1801), I.Overture.Allegretto. Finale.
Willem Mengelberg, Orchestre du Concertgebouw d'Amsterdam, enr 01-11-1942.

9/21 Beethoven's Fidelio ("Er Sterbe")

Since yesterday was about Beethoven's music in today's movies, how did he actually use music in his own movie?  They didn't have movies of course, but they did have opera and B only wrote one, "Fidelio".  Fidelio has a long and tortuous history and frankly opera was not B's strong point in my opinion.  However I think he felt pressured to write one because opera was considered the true mark of a composer in those days, and also because Mozart had done so many great operas (and B greatly admired Mozart). 

First a personal note about opera - I hate opera.  Actually I don't hate it, but of all classical music styles this is the hardest for me to really enjoy.  Part of it is because of all those "fat lady in a Viking helmet" stereotypes, and partly because operatic singing is so alien to popular singing styles of today.  Upon first listening it just sounds so forced and artificial.  The sound of a string quartet can be fairly innocuous, but Maria Callas at full throttle is hard to put on as background music so it's not as ubiquitous.  Fortunately the two B's, Beethoven and Bernstein, slowly helped me to appreciate opera (to some degree anyways). At the bottom of today's post I'll add the Leonard Bernstein Fidelio appreciation TV show.  One thing to mention that I learned from Lenny is that opera is the only musical artform where more than one person can be talking (singing) and still make sense.  In fact because several people can be singing at once, you can get an amazing and unique collage of emotion and sentiment.  One person can be singing about how she loves the guy, the guy can be singing about how he loves some other girl, and the girl's father can be singing about how he doesn't trust the guy - all this singing at the same time.  It sounds confusing when described, but in actuality it's pretty magical and feels totally organic.

Back to Fidelio.  Fidelio went through several versions and the first version was a huge flop, mainly due to Napoleon's occupation of Vienna.  Years later it was re-composed, re-arranged and re-staged and was a success.  The whole story of Fidelio's production could be a book by itself.  The story of Fidelio the opera however is basically this:

Leonora's husband Florestan has been jailed for political reasons, so Leonora dresses as a man and calls herself Fidelio so that she can get hired as an assistant to the jail manager, Rocco. The main baddie who arrested Florestan, Pizarro, decides that Florestan must be executed before a certain minister comes and exposes him.  Just as Pizarro is about to shoot, Leonora tries to stop it.  The minister's announcing horn sounds just in the nick of time to stop Pizarro from shooting Leonora and Florestan.  That's it in a very small nutshell, like saying the Lord of the Rings is about some short guys taking a trip to a volcano and they meet people on the way.

So, here's the confrontation scene with Christa Ludwig as Leonora/Fidelio in glorious B&W, the emotion is scalding and just can't be ignored:

Leonard Bernstein's Young Person's Concert episode about Beethoven's Fidelio helped me tremendously to understand and appreciate Beethoven's only opera.  I should save this for a weekend feature since it's pretty long, but what the heck.
Here's part 1 of 5:




You can watch the whole program here in 5 parts (about an hour):
Youtube link

Also here's some very cool Fidelio postcards!

9/20 Beethoven vs the Lord of the Rings

One of the things I love about Beethoven's music is that it feels so timeless.  By that, I mean that B's music feels like it could fit with today's world very easily.  And by THAT, I mean that it can be used in modern film soundtracks.  In fact, it according to IMDB, B's music is used quite alot in film and TV.  There are 474 entries for Beethoven, not including actual concert films.  Many of these uses are as "source music" (music actually played on screen) so are not necessarily film score in the strictest sense, but there are cases where its use is so effective it actually makes scene worthwhile (though perhaps not the whole film..).

Here's IMDB's Beethoven listing.

And here's a recent and very memorable use of the Allegretto 2nd Movement from the 7th Symphony.  It's from the end of the film "Knowing" so if you don't want to know how it ends I'd recommend watching the film first.  Its not a terrible film (but could have been better).


Here's String Quartet Opus 131 - Adagio quasi un poso andante, as used in the episode "Why we fight" from Band of Brothers.  Almost brings a tear to my eye....



And apparently String Quartet in C Minor, Op. 18 No. 4 was used in "Mission Impossible III" and the Kreutzer Violin Sonata Op. 47 was used in "Hellboy II - The Golden Army".  Good luck with your mission if you choose to accept it.

I hate to give the impression that B's music is used in sub-standard films but apparently modern producers are not very familiar with the Coriolan Overture or the Egmont stage music.  That music would fit right in with a Ridley Scott film....

...Putting money where mouth is, here's my quick attempt to put B with Tolkien and Jackson:

(I know it's not perfect, but I need to leave some work for me to do when Hollywood calls me up and hires me to score all their movies, right?  FYI - I used the allegro from the Pastoral "Storm" movement and an edit of the Coriolan Overture)

9/16 Wind Octet Op.103 - Finale (& More)

(www.cafepress.co.uk)

Octet for 2 Oboes, Clarinets, Horns & Bassoons Op.103 (1792)
String Quintet in E flat major Op.4 (arr of Wind Octet Op.103)(1795)

Here's a less well-known Beethoven piece, the Wind Octet Op.103 from before 1792, very Mozart-ean and lots of brio.  These wind players really had their work cut out for them....It's followed in the video by the String Quintet arrangement, Op. 4 from 1795....you can hear how B made significant modifications to the octet, and then deemed that version the more ready for publication.  It's clearly more "Heroic", especially the extended development section.

Wind Octet Op.103 - Mvmt 4 Finale, Presto (1792), followed by
String Quintet in E flat major Op.4 (arr of Wind Octet Op.103) (1795) (starting at 3:30)


Since we're on wind octets today, here's the Fidelio Overture in an unusual wind octet arrangement. (Octophoros)