{"id":2743,"date":"2015-05-11T08:00:40","date_gmt":"2015-05-11T06:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.henle.de\/blog\/en\/?p=2743"},"modified":"2015-05-28T13:41:23","modified_gmt":"2015-05-28T11:41:23","slug":"is-it-ok-to-add-them-%e2%80%93-the-%e2%80%9cmissing%e2%80%9d-low-notes-in-beethoven%e2%80%99s-piano-sonatas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/2015\/05\/11\/is-it-ok-to-add-them-%e2%80%93-the-%e2%80%9cmissing%e2%80%9d-low-notes-in-beethoven%e2%80%99s-piano-sonatas\/","title":{"rendered":"Is it OK to add them? \u2013 The \u201cmissing\u201d low notes in Beethoven\u2019s piano sonatas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Here\u2019s a topic that pianists have been discussing since the 19th<\/sup> century: Is it OK to change the music text in Beethoven\u2019s piano sonatas (and, of course, anywhere else, too) and extend the pitch range downward at several spots in the left hand? Because even though to some extent keys for the low pitches E<\/em>1<\/sub> to C<\/em>1<\/sub> were in fact available on English pianos from ca. 1800, they were clearly first \u201cused\u201d in Beethoven\u2019s piano sonatas, however, only later. Up until the piano sonata op. 101, composed between 1815 and the start of 1817, Beethoven faithfully respected the limitation of the pitch-range down to F<\/em>1<\/sub> \u2013 his music was after all supposed to be playable on a \u201cnormal\u201d piano. <\/p>\n

Only when composing op. 101 did he conclude \u2013 perhaps together with his publishers \u2013, that he could count on a wide distribution of new pianos with a larger range. \u00a0That this was actually a very deliberate step is just so impressively documented by the autograph and first edition of the sonata, as well as by two letters from January 1817 to Beethoven\u2019s publisher. So we read, for instance, in a letter: \u201cat the spot in the last piece where the contra E enters at the 4, I want the letters to be added to the chords\u201d (no. 1067 in the collected edition of the correspondence).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Op. 101, 4th movement (ed. Perahia\/Gertsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

Yes, Beethoven actually demanded at this spot, the climax of the last movement\u2019s development, that pitch letters be added in the musical notation to aid in reading the low chords. In the autograph he recorded this in the bottom margin: \u201cNB: the letters also to be placed underneath in the engraving\u201d:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Op. 101, excerpt from the autograph by Beethoven<\/p><\/div>\n

In the first edition, though, probably owing to lack of space, only the pitch letter \u201cContra E\u201d was then used (see the illustration from the Urtext edition above), marking for the composer the \u201cdoor-opener\u201d into an expanded world of low sounds.<\/p>\n

Before then, Beethoven had repeatedly come up against limits; to some extent presumably, he was frustratingly aware of these and solved them with compromises, partly viewing the ambitious solutions as creatively stimulating points of departure that served the work. The close of the 1st<\/sup> movement of sonata op. 2 no. 3 certainly belongs to the first category. Its virtuosic C-major frenzy ends in a makeshift solution, the broken-16th<\/sup> octaves expiring in an 8th<\/sup> figure, because there are simply no more keys available in the left hand:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Op. 2 Nr. 3, 1st movement (ed. Wallner)<\/p><\/div>\n

From the perspective of modern instruments, the solution is so frustrating that in his \u201cCritical<\/strong> Instructive Edition\u201d published in 1902, for example, Eugen d\u2019Albert ignores \u2013 believe it or not! \u2013 the text of the source and \u201cjazzes up\u201d the spot:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Op. 2 Nr. 3, 1st movement, ed. by Eugen d'Albert 1902<\/p><\/div>\n

Or here is a similar case from the 1st<\/sup> movement of sonata op. 10 no. 3, where supplementing also comes naturally from a previous parallel spot. There, the whole passage is a fifth higher and does not result in any range problem for the octaves. Here, in D major, we have to decide whether to add, or not to add:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Op. 10 Nr. 3, 1st movement (ed. Wallner) <\/p><\/div>\n

In both examples, the psychological barrier to playing the additions is perhaps quite low, for nothing changes (perhaps) in the music\u2019s \u00a0\u201csubstance\u201d, and then there\u2019s the good feeling of having gotten rid of hindrances from the past that are really out of date. (In the Urtext edition transparency must of course be maintained, the additions in the illustration above for op. 10 no. 3 are in parentheses, to be understood as suggestions!)<\/p>\n

Hoping not to go too far wrong with the good feeling, we take a further step and look at not such entirely \u201cunambiguous\u201d spots. Here, for example, are several measures from sonata op. 14 no. 1:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Op. 14 Nr. 1, 1st movement (ed. Wallner)<\/p><\/div>\n

Bertha Wallner, the editor of our previous Urtext edition, added these low E1<\/sub> notes, but I must confess that here I can\u2019t go along with her. Creating the sforzati octaves is, after all, a singular phenomenon, the surrounding bass line being notated in unison. In the new Urtext edition<\/a> that I edited with Murray Perahia<\/a> we have not adopted these additions.<\/p>\n

Even bolder: There is in the slow movement of sonata op. 7 a bass line in measure five that we could also suppose to be due simply to the keyboard\u2019s restricted range:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Op. 7, 2nd movement (ed. Wallner)<\/p><\/div>\n

Should we perhaps play this today like this?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And now I am piling up still another example to the point of blasphemy. You know the beginning of sonata op. 10 no. 3?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Op. 10 Nr. 3, 1st movement (ed. Wallner)<\/p><\/div>\n

We could, however, play it like this today:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Believe me, I can already sense your dismay while writing these lines, and I do, of course, fully agree with you. But I wanted to present the extremes of the problem in order to make it clear that there is also \u2013 as always \u2013 no simple answer to the question of possible adding to the depths. When did Beethoven make a virtue out of necessity? Only the intensive study of the music in all its abundant detail and full significance can provide the interpreter with an answer that, from case to case, from musician to musician, turns out to be different.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, after Beethoven had deliberately expanded the pitch range in sonata op. 101, it was not always easy for him to forget the earlier limitations. Even in sonata op. 109 from 1820, which already goes down to D<\/em> sharp1 <\/sub>in the 1st<\/sup> movement, such spots as the following encourage us to supplement from time to time:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Op. 109, 2nd movement (ed. Wallner)<\/p><\/div>\n

Shouldn\u2019t the octaves go down to the low B<\/em>2<\/sub>, as previously realised in the parallel spot a fifth higher? But, watch out! Established by the 1st<\/sup> movement are not only the low pitches, and we would have to ask ourselves why Beethoven forgets that here. The dynamics in the just-as-readily-supplied following example also argue against a simple solution:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Op. 109, 2nd movement (ed. Wallner)<\/p><\/div>\n

Even in the Hammerklavier sonata op. 106, going in every respect beyond established dimensions, Beethoven astonishingly keeps to the obsolete F<\/em>1 <\/sub>boundaries, also at spots where we would expect something different (for instance, the 1st<\/sup> movement, m. 262, and the 2nd<\/sup> movement, m. 104). The full range of all available low pitches is used then only in the closing fugue, as also later in the last sonatas opp. 110 and 111.<\/p>\n

After this battle of the music examples, where I have deliberately concentrated only on extension into the depths, here in conclusion is one more example of constraints at the heights (up to f<\/em>4<\/sup>). We\u2019ve been given two wonderful \u201csubstitute\u201d solutions in the \u201cTempest\u201d sonata op. 31 no. 2, which no one, really no one, can be without for the benefit of a now possible unaltered repeat of the parallel spots at the higher altitudes. I am now showing the respective, relevant excerpts from the exposition and recapitulation of the 1st<\/sup> and 3rd<\/sup> movements:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Op. 31 Nr. 2, 1st movement, exposition<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Op. 31 Nr. 2, 1st movement, recapitulation<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Op. 31 Nr 2, 3rd movement, exposition<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Op. 31 Nr. 2, 3rd movement, recapitulation<\/p><\/div>\n

But just to clarify: I am rigorously against any alterations to the sources in this sense! And you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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