Title: Book Reviews: Recent Chapters on Beethoven by Kinderman, Kramer, Subotnik, and Wolff
Abstract: Konrad Wolff. (pp. 110-159), in Masters of Keyboard: Individual Style Elements in Piano Music of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, and Brahms. Enlarged edition. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990. xii, 314 pp. $35 cloth; $14.95 pbk. William Kinderman. (pp. 55-96), in Nineteenth-Century Piano Music, edited by R. Larry Todd. Studies in Musical Genres and Repertoires. New York: Schirmer Books, 1990. xvi, 426 pp. $42.00. Lawrence Kramer. two-movement piano sonatas and Utopia of romantic esthetics (pp. 21-71) and 'As if a voice were in them': Music, narrative, and deconstruction (pp. 176-213), in Music as Cultural Practice, 18001900. California Studies in 19th Century Music, edited by Joseph Kerman. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990. xv, 226 pp. $24.95. Rose Rosengard Subotnik. Adorno's diagnosis of Beethoven's late style: Early symptom of a fatal condition (pp. 15-41), in Developing Variations: Style and Ideology in Western Music. Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press, 1991. xxxiv, 372 pp. $39.95 cloth; $16.95 pbk. MASTERS OF THE KEYBOARD first appeared in 1983. The present edition is a substantially unchanged reprint, with some errors corrected and with important addition of new chapters on Chopin and Brahms. As Wolff writes in his original preface (p. x), book is a collection of essays dealing with five composers without comparing each one's to that of others and without attempting generalizations about - that is, stressing what is unique in each man's musical style. Wolff thus takes an approach contrary to that of his mentor Artur Schnabel, who was convinced that what two or more composers have in common is more important than what separates them (p. xi). (Incidentally, Wolff is author of an excellent little book entitled Schnabels Interpretation of Piano Music (New York: W.W. Norton, 1979), in which he draws on his own experiences as a student of Schnabel to create a rich composite picture of great pianist's aesthetic of performance.) Masters of Keyboard is aimed primarily at piano students who, though well trained and well educated, may still lack insight into the general aims - different in each case - that were in minds of great masters as they turned to keyboard music (p. x). Wolff's long Beethoven chapter is divided into eight topics: phenomenon of Beethoven (his individuality, thematic invention, and three style periods); Two principles (the tension between pleading and resisting in his music); symbolism (of musical elements including diminished seventh chords, major and minor modes, dotted rhythms, registral shifts, and polyphony); vibration (i.e., repeated-note figuration); vibration and instrumental rhythm; harmonic language; melody and texture; and problems of performance practice (tempo, dynamics, pedaling, technique). Masters of Keyboard has received some excellent reviews, and Wolff's experience and insight as a pianist are obvious; yet, I do not feel that this chapter makes an important contribution to our understanding of Beethoven. Considering that book proposes to deal with individuality of its subjects, there is a good deal of old news here. The short and very conventional description of Beethoven's three style periods, for example, is simply dated, taking no notice of crucial refinements of usual scheme made in recent decades by Charles Rosen, Maynard Solomon, Joseph Kerman, and others. (This is not only case of an important subject being scantily treated in this book.) The chapter is disorderly, too, moving from point to point without suggesting a controlling thesis. And writing can be awkward, as in this reference to contrary motion: After using this compositional technique in Sonatas, op. 14, Beethoven permanently adopted opposite directions between top and bottom of musical texture as a structural principle (pp. …
Publication Year: 1992
Publication Date: 1992-04-01
Language: en
Type: article
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