{"id":5865,"date":"2020-05-04T09:08:51","date_gmt":"2020-05-04T07:08:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.henle.de\/blog\/en\/?p=5865"},"modified":"2020-05-04T09:07:59","modified_gmt":"2020-05-04T07:07:59","slug":"beethoven-and-the-viola","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/2020\/05\/04\/beethoven-and-the-viola\/","title":{"rendered":"Beethoven and the viola"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Illustrations with kind permission by the Beethoven-Haus Bonn<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n

Piano concertos and sonatas, violin concerto and sonatas, cello sonatas \u2013 but where are the solo works for viola from Beethoven’s pen? Was the instrument too alien to him, wasn\u2019t he aware of the viola\u2019s special value and timbre? This certainly can\u2019t be the case when we think of his unique string quartets and string trios. And the fact that Beethoven himself played the viola! It\u2019s worth taking a closer look at the matter! <\/p>\n

The young composer as violist<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, in Bonn, to be sure, Beethoven was taught not only organ and other keyboard instruments by Christian Gottlob Neefe, but also violin and viola by the court musician Franz Georg Rovantini and by Franz Ries, Electoral-Court music director. At age 14, he was hired as second organist of the Hofkapelle, five years later he was a violist in the same ensemble.<\/p>\n

We know about his extraordinary talent as a pianist, with which he caused a stir throughout Vienna. Yet, hardly anything is known about his viola playing. Ferdinand Ries, who took piano lessons from Beethoven at the turn of the 19th century, offers us a very small and not very representative view, though coming from a candid source:<\/p>\n

\u2018Beethoven took lessons on the violin from Krumpholz, and at the start when I was there*), we still sometimes played his sonatas with violin together. But that was really a dreadful music; for in his enthusiastic keenness, he did not hear when he wrongly fingered a passage.\u2019<\/p>\n

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From Ferdinand Ries\u2019s \u2018Biographischen Notizen [biographical notes]\u2019 of 1838<\/p><\/div>So, Beethoven also still took violin lessons in Vienna, from the Wenzel Krumpholz mentioned by Ries and from his friend Ignaz Schuppanzigh, first violin of his famous eponymous string quartet.<\/p>\n

Beethoven\u2019s viola<\/strong><\/p>\n

The viola that Beethoven played in Bonn around 1789 is extant. It belonged to the Bonn Hofkapelle \u2013 it was built by the Viennese Sebastian Dalinger ca. 1780, initially owned by the Ries family and reconditioned several times in the 19th<\/sup> century (neck, fingerboard, tailpiece and pegs were restored), though it languished in silence for about 100 years. This only changed in 2001 when Tabea Zimmermann brought the instrument back to life:<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u02bcs rather small, with gut strings, no chin or shoulder rests, and a sound very different from what we need today \u2013 not very large but beautiful, sweet like a soprano. It was fantastic, picking it up, touching it slowly, starting to play it slowly, getting the first music out of it in 100 years. And it certainly helped make my connection with Beethoven a very personal one.\u2019 (Original quote from: bachtrack<\/a>)<\/p>\n

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Beethoven\u2019s Bonn service viola, today in the Beethoven-Haus collections.<\/p><\/div>\n

Further information and views of the instrument can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Notturno op. 42, from Serenade op. 8<\/strong><\/p>\n

When is an arrangement of a composition authentic, when can it be considered \u201cgenuine Beethoven\u201d? The composer occasionally commented on this in clear terms, such as concerning his piano works and possible arrangements in 1802:<\/p>\n

\u2018The unnatural rage one has of even wanting to transcribe piano things for string instruments, instruments that are so opposed to each other in every way, would like to be able to be halted […] and without my wanting to be associated with both great men [Mozart and Haydn], I would also say the same thing about my piano sonatas, since not only do whole passages have to be completely omitted and changed, but one must \u2013 still add, and here is the awkward stumbling block, which in order to surmount one must oneself be either the master, or at least have the same skill and invention\u2019 (from letter no. 97, Beethoven Briefwechsel Gesamtausgabe<\/em> [Complete Edition of the Beethoven Correspondence], vol. 1).<\/p>\n

We certainly know of only a few works that Beethoven himself transcribed for another scoring:<\/p>\n