Lecture 7, Question 1: “Appassionata” —a masterpiece of economy

[Jill_Curtis Institute]

The first movement of the “Appassionata” is a masterpiece of economy, meaning that despite its size, it has very little melodic (or, rather, motivic) material. This is part of what makes the piece so powerful—Beethoven’s resourcefulness takes the breath away—but does it have any downside? Do we miss a wider variety of melodic material?

[Charles Butterworth]

to be honest I am just a novice and am just beginning to have an appreciation of the extra nuances of music. Before this class I was just a listener. With no desire to understand what the composer was trying to do. I can now say that that is changing. I found the "Appasionata". to be real stretch for me and I what might be missing. 

[Doris Fine]

I think it is a matter of taste, and perhaps more of the state of mind of the player and/or the listener. Sometimes we are open to the kind of intensity of this sonata, we bear down on it, get caught up in the vortex of its motion, pursue it with the relentlessness it inspires. But sometimes not. There are times when we are seeking variety, a first movement that may stir and absorb us, but then we crave something lighter --not another heavy and ominous theme/variations--perhaps a scherzo or waltz. And finally, why not a rondo, with some amusing sections to round out a more fulsome experience. I repeat: it is a matter of mood and taste. Thank you, Mr. Biss, for demonstrating the first kind of in-depth response that the music calls for. Now I need a break...

[dman3...@gmail.com]

Thanks to everyone involved at Curtis and Coursera, especially Mr. Biss of course, for bringing this to us. Every time I experience Op57 I feel crushed. Literally, welling up tears. I adore the piece but have to ration my listening as it is so emotionally draining.

The question re; lack of melodic content is thought provoking but ultimately simple for me personally. Nothing is missing, as nothing is missing in Shakespeare's Hamlet or Michelangelo's Pieta. It is what is. A Master channeling something for the rest of us to benefit from.

Far be it from me to suggest, (but I will because you provided the opening!), melody has no place here. In the first movement, I hear an abusive authority figure and a child trying to stand his/her ground - with no quarter given. The entire work speaks to the catastrophe of a dysfunctional and abusive childhood and the sick need for confrontation and revenge later in life. Biology may program 'love' toward the perpetrator but one cannot help but dance on his grave. My heart aches when I reflect on Beethoven's childhood and it's resultant afflictions.

For me, this work is 'Rage Against The Machine' circa 1805! It's the 'Wuthering Heights' sonata; disturbing, possessed, abusive and traumatic, not just passionate.

I know this was a personalized 'dump' but, for me, Op57 is one of the most important creations of the human mind and, considered in context, is utterly astonishing. I feel privileged to be able to listen to it on demand, performed by gifted individuals such as Mr. Biss. Thank you all again.

[elva.g...@gmail.com]

I loved the first movement so I don't have any suggestions about how it should be better in trying to achieve Beethoven's goals. To me, it does set the stage for movement 2.

[nschu...@gmail.com]

Well that is an interesting question. I'm a strictly amateur pianist so I have enjoyed trying to play the piece both before and after listening to the lectures. This has greatly improved my enjoyment and understanding of the pieces.

I think Beethoven ends up trying to move music forward but is constrained by his time and place. By moving to a small amount of melodic material we have the beginnings (or development along the line) of minimalism but we are still in the overall context of sonata form.

By adding more thematic material it would be a more colorful piece but I'm not sure it would have the same dark power. As with most alternate history interesting to contemplate.

[sgeb...@gmail.com]

Like another person's response, this sonata left me feeling exhausted, although also jubilant that a human being was able to compose such a piece. The jubilation is possible because we know that in later years Beethoven did break through to spiritual dimensions. However, the music has awakened a lot of pain in me - in sympathy with Beethoven and also in memory of some of my own harrowing times.

Listening to the Appassionata, it seems to me that there are brief segments where Beethoven was able to accept the reality of his difficult life, very transient moments of rest, only to rail strongly again and again against his fate. In this music, I do miss the soaring and uplifting power of Beethoven's later work, which also plunge me deeply into my inner world, but in a joyful and deeply peaceful way.

The transition from the Appassionata to say Op. 109 expresses musically the saying: 'Your pain is the breaking of the shell (around your heart) that encloses your understanding'.

[jack....@gmail.com]

Professor Biss' brilliant analyses and amazingly virtuoso, but faithful and sensitive performances of Beethoven's music in this lecture series have helped me understand Beethoven and his magnificent music better. I certainly understand Opus 57 better now and have a renewed appreciation of a repertoire warhorse I've heard a lot. Beethoven keeps upping the ante making powerful statements with haunting two to four-note sequences that I don't miss a wider variety of melodic material in the first movement. I think all three movements of this sonata are very strong and coalesce as a satisfying unity, but perhaps Beethoven could have added more lyrical melodic content to the variations of the second movement.

[john.c...@gmail.com]

Hell No! The Appassionata is magnificent as is Johnathan's explanation. To a civil engineer with no musical background of any significance, this is truly amazing. Not to what is missing but to what I don't know. Thanks, I am in your debt.

[jud...@aol.com]

On the contrary, melodic material comes across as trite and old-school after listening to the raw, economy that goes to the core of our musical sensibilities. While melodies are subjective in whether they are "good" or not, Beethoven's Appassionata literally strikes a resounding chord in every listener's heart.

[pmc...@gmail.com]

I actually do miss the lesser melodic content in Appassionata. Though spectacularly moving and dramatic, it does not stick to me like his more melodic works do. This may be due to my pop music background, so I'm curious if others find this to be the case.
Also, it is more difficult to for me to endure the emotional extremes of a piece that has fewer melodic 'hooks'. In music with such emotional extremes, melody has an anchoring effect.

[clsn...@gmail.com]

No, this is a great piece of music. I can't imagine adding anything to it or taking anything away from it, and Jonathan brings it to life magnificently. I'm a little puzzled though by everyone else who seems to find it emotionally disturbing ("terrifying" is the word Jonathan used). I find it powerful and passionate, but not dark. This is very interesting because I've always thought music is a universal language--that when we hear music we all hear the same thing, but evidently Jonathan and many in this thread heard this music differently I did. I find this piece exhilarating.

[robertelme...@gmail.com]

It is very interesting to see how personal this music is to People here, and how some of us experience it differently. The "Appassionata" is my favorite piece of music, period. It is a deep and personal relationship for me as well. I agree with the poster who does not find the music terrifying but empowering. It is the musical equivalent of standing in Yosemite Valley looking up at the massive granite walls and marveling at its titanic perfection ... I do not miss melody at all because, in my mind, Beethoven was expressing a philosophy of nature. Simple forms are permuted and re-iterated and these form the building blocks of everything we see. Beethoven knew Nature well and found inspiration there. This pattern of building complex and beautiful structures from a "germ-motif"is one of the many things he pioneered. In fact, I think this approach is much more flexible in providing melodic variations because the germs can be linked together to create a vast number of variations. You do that with a developed melody and you compromise it if you vary it too much ... Thank you, Mr. Bliss for a wonderful, guided tour through the works of our Beloved Mr. B!!

[evelyn...@gmail.com]

Does having a wealth of melodic or motivic material important or a mark how good the music is? Perhaps but we can look at how the composer develops the music. Compare meas. 43 and meas. 51 Ab, Cb, Bb, Ab, Ab. do they sound related or the latter emanating from the first? the first if followed by a series of trills in three meas. But m. 51 is engulfed in tremolo like sixteenth notes. I do not see any downside because we can view music at different levels and from different perspectives depending on where the journey that the composer takes us.

[kmus...@gullotta.it]

Trovare qualche aspetto negativo in questo capolavoro di Beethoven è un’impresa che supera le mie modeste competenze musicali!! L’economia melodica su cui si basa dovrà, a mio avviso, intendersi come costante, sublime trasfigurazione.

[benj...@gmail.com]

Without this question and the lecture I would have never thought the piece lacked melody. Seeing after the course how little melody plays a role in the piece, I think it goes to show how a simple emotion can produce such devastating results. I think it is some sort of sin to ask if such a great work is missing something, because it is so wonderful from beginning to end. Could it be more wonderful? Could Beethoven write another piece greater than a classic? Isn't that what makes it a classic? Impossible to out do. Perhaps that is why he stopped writing sonatas for a while after, he thought he was incapable of producing anything better.

[wrob...@gmail.com]

I don't mean to be flip, but this is a little like asking whether you miss biting into an apple when you're eating grapes. The pleasure taken in attending to the multifaceted but pared down message of this movement can only be diminished by wishing it to be otherwise.

[Vivien Naomi Lee]

I don't think there is any real downside to it. Unless you count the fact that there is just so much more to learn and experience with each listening. However, I was wondering if Dr Biss' interpretation of the Appassionata is typical. Could there be another storyline?

I wonder if it's really horrifying or could it tell something else?
Perhaps we could find out more about the material by looking at Beethoven's life at the time of this composition. Haha.

Whether we miss a wider variety of melodic material, well, I suppose Beethoven has a great imagination - all his variations and improvisations! And perhaps we didn't miss anything, just that Beethoven may have almost exhausted it leaving the rest of us little room for anything else. Haha.

[Shannon Thomas]

Simply by virtue of the piece's construction, we are missing a variety of melodic material. That's by design; as Mr. Biss points out, what one doesn't play is just as important as what is and if this were full of melodic material it just wouldn't be the same. And I suppose if you're looking for a piece heavy with melody than the lack here would be a downside, but not all music needs to be that way (though plenty is) and a work should be judge on what it is rather than what a listener wants it to be.

[Adrian Pop]

I think that, like in other forms of art, to get the essence create a masterpiece.

[arthur Geltzer]

Professor Bliss is unyielding in his building anxiety. I cannot wain until the playing of Op 57 in its entirety

[kristinoh...@gmail.com]

I find it hard to comment on this. Once I hear a piece it can be difficult to imagine it played a different way or with more or less melody.
I suppose to where Mr. Biss and others would call the Appassionata a masterpiece of economy, I'm sure others would/could argue that it does lack in melodic scope. I'll leave this one to the masters!

[tomb...@gmail.com]

Maybe the "economy" of motif in this sonata plays a similar role than the generous use of silences in other Beethoven works "less is more" sometimes

[ta5...@gmx.com]

I learned what you meant repeating the video and the title of the lesson explains the first movement is economical, I suppose asking if a person misses motivic material depends on the person's taste in music or how one likes music to be. Spaces and pauses can increase tension or contribute to making the listener happy if they want life quiet or music to be with less developed figuration of musical motifs?

[mlau...@tntech.edu]

I do not have much training in listening to music, however . . . I don't think we miss a wider variety of melodic material. The movement, and the sonata, would lose its impact, the "terrifying" ending if more melodic material were added. We would go in an altogether direction.

[i.hy...@gmail.com]

Personally I think that the stubborn, insisting repetition of the same material is what makes Appassionata so powerful. Particularly the repetition of Neapolitan in the last movement's coda, as Professor Biss points out, seems to remind us of the terror that has never left since the beginning and that will never leave. It almost feels as though one is dragged back into hell right when they think they almost escaped it. 

[robertg...@gmail.com]

Well, who dares to say it has downside? But anyway, we must be critical when learning. So I would agree to say that it lacks melodic material, but from my point of view it is alright to do so as long as the emotional idea is well-conveyed. Maybe this sonata does not need any graceful or charming melodic material, but instead harmonic motives were more than good enough to bring out all the colours and impulses. Anyway, piano is an instrument that can do more than just creating a pretty melody. It can convey the harmonic colours with only one person playing it. So I think Beethoven was successful in exploiting the capability of the instrument.  

[George Konstantinidis]

It is not a sonana in which Beethoven plays around showing his capacity of combining contrasting and interesting material.It is a work that seems to describe his battle with the coming end.The atmosphere it conveys makes me stand in awe,and so i do not dare look for other material that may be lacking.The content here stands rightfully above the form.It is also a proof that for Beethoven the content was creating the form,and not vice versa..

[Barbara Miller]

I don't think of Beethoven's sonatas as sources of memorable melody--it is the journey of the story being told that I find so fascinating.  Even without having consciously analyzing how he is doing it, I find that it holds my interest and engages my emotions.  After hearing these videos, I suppose I would characterize this sonata as being one of "haunted heroism", a personality that achieves grandeur while not being blessed with stability.  It would be exhausting to live with such a personality (little surprise that Beethoven never married and could be such a torment to his family members), but exhilarating to visit him from time to time.  My gratitude to the pianists who are willing to live with this sonata long and deeply enough to give me a chance to make that visit as a listener.

[Don Potter]

I don't feel that we're missing anything in the Appassionata's first movement. The almost constant repetition of the primary and secondary themes gives a sense of unity and in the end a satisfying conclusion. There is enough variation in the dynamics to satisfy those listeners who need variety.

On Sunday, May 31, 2015 at 5:29:11 PM UTC-6 Jill_Curtis Institute wrote:

The first movement of the “Appassionata” is a masterpiece of economy, meaning that despite its size, it has very little melodic (or, rather, motivic) material. This is part of what makes the piece so powerful—Beethoven’s resourcefulness takes the breath away—but does it have any downside? Do we miss a wider variety of melodic material?

[Gegege no Kitarou]

I think using the same melodic material helps to reinforce this dark energy coming from this sonata. Even before I watched these lectures, I never noticed any of the same themes repeating itself over so many times in this music, and this proves how much resources Beethoven has to disguise the little motifs. I think using the 4-note-motif adds additional suspense, and prepares the movement needs for any sudden outbursts of rage, anger, etc. 

I guess some people might find this predictable, once they know that it's repeated motifs and themes entirely through the first movement, but the way Beethoven uses them inside his music really changes the way we look at it... and also proves the point that we should listen to the Appasionata with 'open ears', as Mr. Biss said.

Also, thank you to coursera, Curtis, and Mr. Biss for bringing these lectures to us, it really changed the way I look at Beethoven's sonatas. I'm usually the person who plays pieces through without giving much thought to why composers used such phrases in different places, so these lectures gave me a greater understanding of both Beethoven and his sonatas, and made me see how truly great Beethoven is. 

[Holly Anderson]

I don't think that we miss any of Beethoven's melodic ability. The constraints of the economy of the piece only push the sense of masterpiece further and expose us to an even greater extent of innovation.

[Irene Bayona]

I think Beethoven, like Mozart, wrote the basic material on which the performer and himself could improvise.

[Raaghav Goel]

I don't miss the lack of melodic material and I think it this movement is truly a masterpiece of economy like Prof. Biss so eloquently stated. I think the fact that the two themes are so similar in nature lends to the terrifying nature of the first movement. The fact that the barren/eerie and lyrical can both be so closely linked and related is a thought-provoking and somewhat terrifying notion.  

However, while still a masterpiece, I am curious to know what Beethoven might have done by including more varied melodic material. Would it have added different dimensions of terrifying? Would it have diminished the terror put forth in this movement? We may never know for sure but knowing what we know about Beethoven's compositional genius and command, I am inclined to say that the inclusion of additional melodic material or variety, perhaps in the development, could have shown us additional dimensions of the monstrous faces that humanity can put on.