Beethoven: The man who freed music #4 Beethoven: His Chamber Music
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Beethoven love my music.
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And I'm reading the two letters that ever scrape the back of the big long Beethoven in 77.
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One of a series of programmes produced by the University of Michigan Broadcasting Service revealing
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the musical social and political climate of Europe during the lifetime of the man who
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freed music.
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Today's host is Dr. Louise e-collar professor of musicology and chairman of the musicology
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Department of the University of Michigan School of Music. By topic. Beethoven is
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chamber music.
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This is the first of two programs with Dr. Klein are on the chamber music of Beethoven and will deal
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entirely with the string quartets. Here now is Dr. Carter.
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During 1970 the whole civilized world is
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observing that 200000 are very serious. They tell the birth and knew about how goofy
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of this monster has already appeared and is probably the forerunner of others.
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Countless articles will probe everything from the genes that produce such a
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marvel to Beethoven's own creative processes and each of these
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200 odd compositions will be heard before the year is done. Many of
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them time after time the shades of a lesser mind might blend all
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in the cold light of so counter to scrutiny. But no one fears this for
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Beethoven he was the first truly free composer amount of
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encrypted convictions who could work when he chose to do so without the
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inhibited restrictions of patronage. A new musical menu
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came in with Beethoven and he was one of its profits. Many of his
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contemporaries to their everlasting credit heard his voice and in
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trying him along with good among their Titans the
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passing years have confirmed the sagacity of their judgment
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to attempt any precis of a great artist. Total legacy is of
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course naive and foolish. And this is especially true in the case of
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Beethoven. Perhaps the terse statement name from a freshman music
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paper. Beethoven had three periods early middle and late
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is as close to a summary as we may safely come and they
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told him 16 string quartets do indeed fit very plausibly into
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such a simple chronology. When the young composer turned first to the
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string quartet he was about twenty eight years old. Firmly established at
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Vienna and recognized already as a musician of exceptional
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promise. Toward the end of the eighteenth century when Beethoven was writing his first string
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quartets the six of his opus 18 Haydn To whom
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must go the credit for carrying the string quartet to a super majority
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was composing his last works in this room. Yet only
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occasionally during the course of his opus 18 quartets does Beethoven give
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evidence that he sought to emulate these splendidly sophisticated finer
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quartets versions of Haydn Beethoven migrated to Vienna from
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Bonn his native city in 1792 at that time.
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Mozart who passed his final ten years in the Austrian capital had
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been dead less than a year and just have Haydn then 60 years old
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count of Vienna his home Haydn was full of honors and was then
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embarked on a series of visits to England that brought such Reinado into his later
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years. It would be pleasant says there in his still
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authoritative biography to announce the arrival of lude big van Beethoven
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in Vienna with so to speak a grand flourish of trumpets and to indulge that
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fantasy in a highly colored and poetic account of his advent there. But
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unluckily there is none of that lack of data which is favorable to that
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kind of composition. None of that obscurity which exalts one to write
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history as he would have it there not as it actually was. The facts are too
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patent like the multitude of studious use and young man who
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came thither annually to find schools and teachers. This small
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thin dark complection and pock marked Dark Side be
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wigged Young Musician of twenty two had quietly journeyed to the capital
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to pursue the study of his art with a small thin dark
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complection pockmarked black guide and by a wig that ran
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this veteran who in fair describes was of course just of Haydn.
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But rapport between the young Beethoven and the venerable Haydn ceased
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with these physical similarities. What our own day likes to call a
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generation gap was apparent immediately between the practical revered
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older master and the neophyte who is destined to be chief spokesman for a
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new race of composers. In fact many traits
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apparent in works from Beethoven's earlier years may derive inadvertently from
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his lack of accord with Haydn seem in retrospect this circumstance
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was fortunate for Beethoven style was quite individual from the very start and
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paid scant deference to Haydn Mozart or any other of his
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contemporaries. Vienna in the 1790s was capital of the
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growing cult of instrumental music although other cities did
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her in devotion to opera church music and in the staging a public
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concert. Vienna surpassed all others in her development of
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orchestras and chamber ensembles of every variety. The en
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unnumbered is sizable group from the secular nor nobility among her permanent
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residents and this circle was augmented during certain months of the year
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with notables from the various Austrian States and from other parts of the Empire.
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Most of these secular princes were music lovers and patrons who vibe with each
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other in maintaining instrumental groups. Many of them were also tout
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talented actors and were eager to participate in the performance of chamber
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works. While the music of masters from a generation or two earlier was
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often played there was a special interest in reading new works with
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such an eager receptive discerning audience it has and it is little wonder that
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an impressive number of Beethoven's earlier works were written for some type of
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Chamber Ensemble. Not until about 1790 8
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however did Beethoven commence serious work on his first string quartets. Those
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of Opus 18 and heightens close identification with the court
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form may well have been a principal reason for the delay.
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The various movements of the Opus 18 quartets appear to have been composed
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intermittently over a considerable period of time. As a consequence
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heterogeneity and casual notice in association among the several movements
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of any single quartet are conspicuous traits. These
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quartets which are performers music written to be light the cultivated
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amateurs have Beethoven's own day pick in the styles they
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manifest and are distinctly an even quality.
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Within the compass of their 24 movements however may be discovered many of the
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sounds and devices of musical syntax that were to characterize
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Beethoven's later more distinctive works. Ultimately
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Beethoven's musical language became the most individual and the most eloquent ever
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forged by a major composer. We shall now examine some of the elements of that
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language as they are foreshadowed in the quartets of Opus 18.
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Firstly there is pretty election for statement of important
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material at the unison or the reinforced octave unison.
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Since at least 600 years before Beethoven's day sophisticated
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music had been developing ever more complex linear and harmonic
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associations. Consequently the lean uncomplicated
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sound of a unison passage was the antithesis of the textures prevalent
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in most 18th century music and the unison was a device Beethoven
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employed with powerful effect throughout his string quartets an excellent
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example occurs in Opus 18 number one at the very start
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when unison passages alternate with those set in conventional harmonic
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style.
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And. We
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heard.
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It with.
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Several distinctive aspects of Beethoven's music the language derives from
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temporal circumstances. What we now call the a god
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gesture is achieved through this sudden introduction of sounds of longer
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duration into a rapidly moving passage. Opus 18
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number one has an instance toward the close of the exposition section of
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the first movement.
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Or.
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A similar passage is found in Opus 80 number three.
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The first movement.
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To get through a.
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Nigger.
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You know short rhythms derives from the trip a foot in poetry
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and often referred to as low notes even a guy. In connection with
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by rock music especially seem to have intrigued Beethoven from his earliest
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years. Eventually these rhythms seem to have taken on special
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symbolic meaning for him and following their apathy ASIS and the great feel
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where they achieve total permeation of the texture in the first movement of Opus
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18 number to a bar in the long short rhythm constitutes the second
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element of the opening subject.
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Later in the same movement this long short rhythm assumes the
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dominant role in an expansion of the opening subject.
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With. You and.
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You and. The ear.
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The metric displacement as a source of tension or as a
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means of strength training and eventual resumption of regular metric grouping
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interested Beethoven throughout his life. The entire scare so of the
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last of the Opus 18 quartets is based upon the vitality of shifting
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meters.
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And.
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So the quartets of Beethoven second group the three of
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Opus 59 are dedicated to the count Reza musky the Russian
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ambassador at Vienna who is enormously wealthy and at the center of the
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glittering musical life of the Austrian capital. However when Beethoven was
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composing his resume off key quartets between May and December of eight hundred six
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most of the iris to Craddick cultivated music lovers who are Beethoven's ardent
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admirers had fled Vienna when Napoleon's soldiers marched down the
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Danube and seized the capital city during the autumn of 18:5 normal
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social and musical activities were suspended temporarily. This
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disruption may help to explain these surprisingly discouraging
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initial reception given the Reza musky quartets along with Beethoven's one
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opera Leonora Orphy Delio and several other compositions
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introduced to Vienna at about this time.
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If some of Beethoven's contemporaries showed a remarkable coolness toward the
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resume off key quartets succeeding generations have offered redress
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these quartets are now regarded as singularly robust examples of Beethoven
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style an early been to a Tate musical ideas of intrinsic
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quality are presented cogently and placed in context that
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enhance their native attractiveness in deference to the dead it could be
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Beethoven wove Russian themes into the fabric of the first two quartets in
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the F major quartet. This theme emerges in the cello at the start of the
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finale. Beneath the trill in the first LAN.
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In the second quartet the Russian thing occupies the trio of the
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SCART.
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As for that their aggressor musky quartet any Russian allusion is
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debatable as we shall discover presently.
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Considered as a group the reson musky quartets constitute vivid
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illustration of Beethoven's new compositional manner as it developed during
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a period between about 18 5 and 18 10 for his view
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of the very essence of musical materials had been undergoing profound and
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disturbing change composition after composition reveals Beethoven is
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angry and impatient over the restrictive notes of classical structure
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and works written during this transition period. A bond inset
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frustrated petulant gestures as abrupt long notes occurring often in
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awkward contexts unlinked phrase segments harsh chromatic
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notes and unwieldy shifts of register. Frequently these
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effects which are still difficult to explain rationally interrupt
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passages of lyric beauty that are themselves models of classic serenity
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