=== === ============= ==== === === == == == == == ==== == == = == ==== === == == == == == == == = == == == == == == == == == ==== M U S I C T H E O R Y O N L I N E A Publication of the Society for Music Theory Copyright (c) 1996 Society for Music Theory +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Volume 2, Number 4 May, 1996 ISSN: 1067-3040 | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ All queries to: mto-editor@boethius.music.ucsb.edu or to mto-manager@boethius.music.ucsb.edu +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ AUTHOR: Agmon, Eytan TITLE: Beethoven's Op. 81a and the Psychology of Loss KEYWORDS: Beethoven, Piano Sonata op. 81a, program music, psychology, psychoanalysis Eytan Agmon Department of Musicology, Bar-Ilan University Ramat-Gan, Israel, 52900 agmone@ashur.cc.biu.ac.il ABSTRACT: Two interpretations of the first movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata in E-flat Major, op. 81a, are offered. According to one interpretation (inspired by Bach's *Capriccio on the Departure of His Beloved Brother*), the movement depicts Beethoven's struggle against Rudolph's intended departure. According to the second interpretation the movement depicts an internal struggle, and in particular, the vacillation between denial and acceptance characteristic of the psychology of loss. ACCOMPANYING FILES: mto.96.2.4.agmon1.gif mto.96.2.4.agmon1.mid mto.96.2.4.agmon2.gif mto.96.2.4.agmon2.mid mto.96.2.4.agmon3.gif mto.96.2.4.agmon3.mid mto.96.2.4.agmon4.gif mto.96.2.4.agmon4.mid mto.96.2.4.agmon5.gif mto.96.2.4.agmon5.mid mto.96.2.4.agmon6.gif mto.96.2.4.agmon6.mid mto.96.2.4.agmon7.gif mto.96.2.4.agmon7.mid mto.96.2.4.agmon8.gif mto.96.2.4.agmon9.gif mto.96.2.4.agmon9.mid mto.96.2.4.agmnfig1.gif mto.96.2.4.agmnfig2.gif Dedicated to the memory of Yizhak Rabin, 1922-1995 [1] A curious tendency encountered among the numerous existing commentaries on Beethoven's piano sonata in E- flat major, op. 81a, is to downplay the significance of the work's representational trappings. To be sure, Beethoven himself has warned against taking descriptive titles too literally when he qualified his "Sinfonia caracteristica" as *Mehr Ausdruck der Empfindung als Mahlerei*.(1) Yet I doubt that any commentator on op. 68 has voiced an opinion comparable to Walter Riezler's, who states that "the superscriptions. . . intended for the first and last movements of [op. 81a] . . . today sound faintly comic, and Beethoven himself can hardly have meant them to be taken too seriously."(2) ======================================== 1. See Gustav Nottebohm, *Zweite Beethoveniana* (New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1970; orig. ed. Leipzig, 1887), pp. 375 and 378. 2. Walter Riezler, *Beethoven*, trans. G. Pidcock (New York: Vienna House, 1972; orig. German ed. 1938), pp. 81-82. ======================================== [2] While Riezler represents an admittedly extreme case, his uneasiness with the sonata's extra-musical pretensions is shared by other commentators. Wilibald Nagel, for example, who does not rank op. 81a among Beethoven's outstanding masterworks, accounts for its popularity by referring derogatorily to its descriptive titles. "The outwardly apparent has the quickest impact on the general public," Nagel explains, "in general, and specifically in the arts."(3) Even a commentator as Carl Dahlhaus, who never questions the sonata's artistic merits, prefers to emphasize its qualities as "absolute" music (its "formal" aspect), at the expense of its qualities as program music (its "narrative" aspect). "The sadness at Archduke Rudolph's departure and the joy at his return," says Dahlhaus,". . . are not by any means made more explicit by the painting of details during the course of the musical development; rather, they become more remote as the 'formalization' proceeds. As the formal elaboration of the motives grows more refined, and the relationships between them are made increasingly distinct, so the reference to extraneous reality fades and dissolves."(4) Indeed, Beethoven's famous admonition *Mehr Ausdruck der Empfindung als Mahlerei* has been put to good use in this respect, for it seems to relieve the analyst from the burden of proposing some *specific* representational interpretation of the music, not counting the (seemingly) transparent instances of pictorialism.(5) ======================================== 3. "Das A"usserliche wirkt wie u"berall so ganz besonders in der Kunst auf die Menge am raschesten ein." Wilibald Nagel, *Beethoven und seine Klaviersonaten*, vol. 2 (Langensalza: Hermann Beyer, 1905), p. 164; see also pp. 182-83. W. v. Lenz has also expressed misgivings concerning the pictorial aspect of op. 81a. For a valuable summary of various evaluations of the sonata, see Christoph von Blumro"der's article in Albrecht Riethmu"ller, Carl Dahlhaus, and Alexander L. Ringer (eds.), *Beethoven: Interpretationen seiner Werke*, vol. 1 (Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 1994), pp. 626- 28. My thanks to Mr. Ephraim Wagner for his expert linguistic advice with regard to the translated German passages included in this essay. 4. Carl Dahlhaus, *Ludwig van Beethoven: Approaches to his Music*, trans. by Mary Whittall (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), pp. 39-40. Carl Czerny [*On the Proper Performance of all Beethoven's Works for the Piano*, ed. by Paul Badura-Skoda (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1970), p. 61] remarks that op. 81a, ". . . when properly played, may, and indeed should, interest even those who are willing to enjoy it as pure music, without regard to the titles." See also the remarks of Charles Malherbe, cited in Jacques-Gabriel Prod'homme, *Les Sonates pour Piano de Beethoven* (Paris: Delagrave, 1938), p. 202, and Ju"rgen Uhde, *Beethovens Klaviermusik*, vol. 3 (2nd ed., Stuttgart: Reclam, 1980), p. 272. 5. See Nagel, p. 163; Donald Francis Tovey, *A Companion to Beethoven's Pianoforte Sonatas* (London: Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, 1931), p. 189; Prod'homme, p. 201; Eric Blom, *Beethoven's Pianoforte Sonatas Discussed* (New York: Da Capo, 1968), p. 183; Riethmu"ller et al., p. 627. For a study of the "storm" movement from Beethoven's Sixth Symphony that goes significantly beyond the pictorial surface, see Carl Schachter, "The Triad as Place and Action," *Music Theory Spectrum* 17, pp. 158-69. Schachter proposes that ". . . the stormy world. . . [this remarkable movement] depicts penetrates below the descriptive details of the foreground into the underlying triadic substance" (p. 158). ======================================== [3] Why is op. 81a, Beethoven's "grosse charakteristische Sonate,"(6) apparently a problem for many commentators? A number of commentators (though probably not the more recent ones) have quite possibly formed the erroneous impression that the public display of affection from one man to another that the work exhibits is inappropriate, if not downright perverse.(7) However, a less loaded explanation also exists. As Anton Rubinstein has pointed out, "in the first movement, . . . the character of the Allegro, after the introduction, does not throughout give expression to the usual idea of sorrow at parting."(8) Faced with such a (seemingly) glaring contradiction between title and content, commentators may have simply felt compelled to downplay the former's significance. ======================================== 6. See Beethoven's letter to Breitkopf & Ha"rtel dated Sept. 23 [1810], in *Ludwig van Beethovens sa"mtliche Briefe*, ed. by Emerich Kastner and Dr. Julius Kapp (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1975; orig. ed. 1923), p. 179. 7. Cf. Jacques-Gabriel Prod'homme (*Les Sonates pour Piano de Beethoven*, p. 202), who suggests (apparently after Charles Malherbe) that op. 81a may have been inspired by Beethoven's love to Therese von Brunswick more than his friendship to Rudolph. Adolph Bernhard Marx (who was possibly ignorant of the work's biographical background) similarly believed that the sonata depicted "moments from the life of a loving [opposite-sex] couple"; see his *Anleitung zum Vortrag Beethovenscher Klavierwerke*, ed. by Eugen Schmitz (Regensburg: Gustav Bosse, ca. 1912; orig. ed. Berlin, 1863), p. 218. While it is doubtful that Beethoven would have made public the sentiments expressed in op. 81a had he suspected that these could be interpreted in a homosexual light, at least from a present-day perspective the work's homo-erotic undertones cannot altogether be dismissed. These undertones, however, are totally beside the point as far as the present interpretation of the sonata is concerned. 8. Anton Rubinstein, *A Conversation on Music*, trans. by Mrs. John P. Morgan (New York: Da Capo, 1982; orig. English ed. New York, 1892), p. 9. As Uhde has remarked (*Beethovens Klaviermusik*, p. 279), "the fervent activity that the Allegro displays after this Adagio- 'Introduction' may have striked a naive observer as rather strange." Subsequently in the same paragraph he explains that "in the entire sonata the contrast between deliberation and determination, between hesitant question and definite answer, repeats itself again and again." See also Nagel's (*Beethoven*, pp. 167-68) sharp critique of A. B. Marx's attempt to see the Allegro in a passionate light. Nagel is evidently disturbed by the Allegro's apparent programmatic inappropriateness, for in the same paragraph he rationalizes (cf. Uhde) that "[Beethoven] never surrendered himself to a painful thought for long, and from the deepest emotional distress the strength for action arose in him." ======================================== [4] The present essay is an attempt to resolve the problem of musical representation in Beethoven's op. 81a by evoking the psychological notion of loss. The notion of loss, and in particular the related idea of an inner struggle between denial and acceptance, makes it possible to view the virile, energetic Allegro of the first movement as representationally wholly appropriate; as a result, there is no need either to question the validity of Beethoven's inscriptions, or to resort to his famous admonition as a convenient smokescreen. At the same time, sufficiently specific connections between Beethoven's music and the emotional realm can be drawn to offer a significant alternative to pictorialism. Although much of what follows concerns the sonata's first movement only, an interpretation of the entire sonata shall be suggested as well. The Meaning of the Interrupted Lebewohl-Motto [5] Any representational interpretation of op. 81a may well begin with the disruption, both textural and harmonic, that the left-hand's entry in m. 2 inflicts upon the right-hand's Lebewohl-entity initiated one measure earlier (Ex. 1). Leonard Meyer believes that "this [deceptive] cadence further defines the ethos of the motto, bringing 'the eternal note of sadness in'— and perhaps suggesting that the parting is not final."(9) Indeed, as Meyer subsequently points out, Beethoven's placing of the horn figure at the *beginning* of the composition rather than the end, where it more typically belongs, is already deviant.(10) However, I believe there is more to the left-hand's interference with finality than Meyer suggests. ======================================== 9. *Explaining Music: Essays and Explorations* (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), p. 243. Meyer presents a detailed analysis of the first movement (especially the opening twenty-one measures), and lays considerable emphasis on the structural implications of the deceptive cadence of m. 2. According to Blumro"der (in Riethmu"ller et al., *Beethoven: Interpretationen*, p. 630), the deceptive cadence carries "a specific emotional quality of uncertainty" ("eine spezifische Empfindungsqualita"t der Ungewissheit"). 10. Ibid., 244. See also Uhde, p. 272. Uhde points out that the sonata as a whole begins with an ending (departure), and ends with a new beginning (reunion), an idea that he develops into a thesis of contrasting experiences in the time dimension; see pp. 272-75. ======================================== [6] Several commentators have suggested a possible connection between Beethoven's op. 81a and Bach's "Capriccio on the Departure of His Beloved Brother" (BWV 992), apparently composed when Bach was only nineteen years old on the occasion of his brother Johann Jacob's departure to join the retinue of the King of Sweden.(11) Kenneth Drake's observations are most illuminating in this regard. Noting that Bach conceived his first movement as depicting the attempts of the brother's friends to deter him from embarking on his journey,(12) Drake presents examples from both Bach and Beethoven where ". . . melodic continuity and harmonic movement are held back, display vacillation, and are postponed. . . ."(13) Surely, though, the quintessence of held-back harmonic movement in Beethoven is the deceptive cadence of m. 2, which Drake fails to cite. It thus appears that Beethoven's movement is not so much a depiction of the sorrow of parting, as is commonly assumed; rather, like Bach's, the movement depicts (or at least begins by depicting) an instinctive reaction of any human being to a projected departure of someone he or she deeply cares for: *preventing that someone from executing the pain- afflicting plan*. This, I believe, is the meaning of the left-hand's interference with finality in m. 2, signified (as Meyer and others have rightfully observed) by the right-hand's Lebewohl-motto. ======================================== 11. Blom, p. 182; Richard Rosenberg, *Die Klaviersonaten Ludwig van Beethovens*, vol. 2 (Olten: URS Graf-Verlag, 1957), p. 325; Uhde, p. 279. However, I am not aware of any documentary evidence from which Beethoven's familiarity with Bach's youthful work may be inferred. 12. Bach's inscription for the first movement is: "Adagio. Ist eine Schmeichelung der Freunde, um denselben von seiner Reise abzuhalten." 13. Kenneth Drake, *The Beethoven Sonatas and the Creative Experience* (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), p. 69. ======================================== [7] In light of Bach's capriccio, in other words, the first movement of op. 81a may be interpreted as depicting an external struggle, namely, Beethoven's struggle against Rudolph's intended departure. As in the fourth movement of Bach's work, where the friends realize that the brother's departure is inevitable and bid farewell, by the end of Beethoven's movement the struggle against Rudolph's projected departure subsides, and leave-taking takes place. However, I believe that even greater insight into Beethoven's work may be gained by applying a variant of the same idea. According to this variant, which I shall pursue through the remainder of this essay, the struggle depicted in the first movement is *internal*: Beethoven's subconscious *denies* what his conscious self already knows, namely, that the Archduke's departure is imminent. This idea of an inner struggle, however, is more properly introduced through a brief psychological digression.(14) ======================================== 14. I realize that some readers may feel uncomfortable with the idea of an inner, psychological struggle, and might prefer an interpretation of op. 81a more on the lines of Bach's *Capriccio*. For such readers, the following section is optional. As for the remainder of this essay, the terms of an inner struggle (i.e., denying the reality of Rudolph's imminent departure) may be easily translated into those of an external struggle (preventing the Archduke's departure from taking place). ======================================== The Psychology of Loss [8] From a psychological and psychiatric standpoint, parting from someone we love is a particular case of a more general type of traumatic experience known as "loss." As Judith Viorst has observed, "we begin life with loss."(15) More typically, however, loss is associated with such events as the loss of a bodily organ; divorce; and of course, death, be it of a family member, close friend, or a political or spiritual leader. ======================================== 15. Judith Viorst, *Necessary Losses* (New York: Ballantine Books, 1986), p. 9. ======================================== [9] The psychology of loss probably manifests itself most clearly in the extreme case of one's own impending death. In her highly influential book, *On Death and Dying*, Elisabeth Ku"bler-Ross has proposed that dying patients pass through a progressive series of more or less pre-determined psychological states that include denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.(16) Although the rigidity of Ku"bler-Ross's five-stage theory has been put to task, the importance of denial as a defense mechanism in a loss situation has not, so far as I am aware, been challenged.(17) For example, one of Ku"bler-Ross's critics, Edwin Shneidman, asserts that "one does not find a unidirectional movement through progressive stages so much as an alternation between acceptance and denial. . . . This interplay. . . between understanding what is happening and magically disbelieving its reality, may reflect a deeper dialogue of the total mind, involving different layers of conscious awareness of 'knowing' and of needing not to know."(18) ======================================== 16. Elisabeth Ku"bler-Ross, *On Death and Dying* (London: Macmillan, 1969). 17. See for example Avery D. Weisman, *On Dying and Denying* (New York: Behavioral Publications, 1972), especially chaps. 5 and 6. 18. Edwin S. Shneidman, *Deaths of Man* (New York: Quadrangle, 1973), p. 7. ======================================== [10] In interpreting the first movement of op. 81a as representing the "alternation between acceptance and denial" characteristic of the psychology of loss, it is perhaps significant to note that Archduke Rudolph's departure is not the only loss that Beethoven has suffered in 1809, either just before or during the period he composed the sonata. On February 19, for example, Beethoven's physician Johann Adam Schmidt died. The death of Dr. Schmidt, "with whom he developed a strong personal bond,"(19) may have reactivated in Beethoven the trauma connected with one of his most painful losses, namely the loss of his hearing.(20) The suicidal impulses connected with that loss are well documented in the famous "Heiligenstadt testament" of 1802. "Lebt wohl," writes Beethoven in the testament, and in the postscript he adds: "so nehme ich denn Abschied von dir"; reverberating in op. 81a, the words "Lebewohl" and "Abschied" thus acquire a particularly poignant quality.(21) ======================================== 19. Maynard Solomon, *Beethoven* (New York: Schirmer, 1977), p. 114. 20. As Solomon notes (*loc. cit.*), Dr. Schmidt was extremely helpful in allaying Beethoven's anxiety concerning the symptoms of deafness. 21. In Beethoven's sketches, *(Der) Abschied* is the title of the first movement. See Nottebohm, *Zweite Beethoveniana*, p. 100. ======================================== [11] On March 21, Julie von Vering, a woman to which Beethoven seems to have been attracted, died at age nineteen after marrying his friend Stephan von Breuning.(22) This particular loss is perhaps symbolic of a more general one, namely Beethoven's self-imposed sacrifice of marital happiness for the sake of artistic freedom. Finally, on May 31, Joseph Haydn died. Haydn was possibly a father figure for Beethoven, and thus his death may have carried significant psychological undertones. ======================================== 22. See Solomon, 154; see also Gerhard von Breuning, *Memories of Beethoven*, trans. by Henry Mins and Maynard Solomon, ed. by Maynard Solomon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 38-40. ======================================== [12] Before turning to a more detailed analysis of the first movement, I should like to briefly consider the entire sonata from the present psychological perspective. [13] Psychoanalysts have noted a connection between loss and creativity. Hanna Segal, for example, states that ". . . when the world within us is destroyed, when it is dead and loveless, when our loved ones are in fragments, and when we ourselves in helpless despair, it is then that we must re-create our world anew, reassemble the pieces, infuse life into dead fragments, re-create life."(23) George Pollock has turned this idea into a thesis termed "the mourning-liberation process," according to which "the successful completion of the mourning process results in creative outcome."(24) Applying this idea to Beethoven's sonata, one may regard its first movement as depicting loss; the second mourning; and the third personal renewal. Thus seen, the sonata becomes a vehicle to one of Beethoven's favorite topics, namely the death of a hero and his subsequent resurrection.(25) Indeed, there may be special significance to Beethoven's choice of the "heroic" E-flat major as the sonata's key. ======================================== 23. Hanna Segal, "A Psychoanalytic Approach to Aesthetics." *International Journal of Psychoanalysis* 33 (1952), p. 199. 24. George H. Pollock, *The Mourning-Liberation Process*, vol. 1 (Madison: International Universities Press, 1989), p. 114. 25. As Maynard Solomon has suggested (*Beethoven*, p. 121), Beethoven enacted his own death and resurrection in the Heiligenstadt episode. "He recreated himself in a new guise, self-sufficient and heroic. The testament is a funeral work, . . . in a sense it is the literary prototype of the Eroica Symphony, . . . a daydream compounded of heroism, death, and rebirth. . . ." See also Uhde's (*Beethovens Klaviermusik*, pp. 275-76) characterization of the sonata's three movements (especially the third movement), as well as his comments on pp. 271-72 in favour of a "universal" interpretation of the sonata's program. ======================================== The Denial-Acceptance Axis: Three Representative Stages [14] The idea of a struggle between conscious awareness and subconscious denial is incorporated, I believe, into the pianistic fabric of the first movement. The sonata begins with the Lebewohl-motto in the right hand (see again Ex. 1). Like the word that Beethoven writes above it, the motto is essentially a conventional pattern, the significance of which may be accessed by purely intellectual means.(26) Thus the right hand may be seen as embodying Beethoven's conscious, rational side, the side that understands (to borrow Shneidman's phrase) "what is happening." The left hand-- traditionally carrying darker connotations (cf. the Latin *sinistra*)--assumes under the same interpretation Beethoven's subconscious, emotional side: it contradicts the right-hand's realistic stance (in "magical disbelief," to paraphrase Shneidman again), with its striking entry on the downbeat of m. 2. In other words, the thought of Archduke Rudolph's departure, while rationally valid (see the right hand), is at this stage emotionally unacceptable (see the left hand).(27) ======================================== 26. Uhde (*Beethovens Klaviermusik*, pp. 277-78), characterizes the Lebewohl-motto as a "Tatsache- Motive": an unchallengeable, factual, objective statement. 27. In "*Auf dem Flusse*: Image and Background in a Schubert Song," *19th Century Music* 6:1 (1982), 47-59, David Lewin employs a somewhat similar idea of "textural segregation." See especially Fig. 5 and its discussion on pp. 56-7. Another point of contact with Lewin's essay is psychological. According to Lewin, the poet in Schubert's setting suppresses a painful question. Suppression (or repression) and denial are related psychological operations. ======================================== [15] It is most illuminating to turn in this connection to the movement's ending. In m. 243, following what may be regarded as the movement's structural cadence, the left hand begins a descent in whole-notes from great Eb; contra-G, reached in m. 248, is confirmed as the goal of this descent in mm. 250 and 252. Since the initial great Eb is held in the inner voice as pedal, upon reaching contra-G the descending sixth is expressed vertically as the dyad G-Eb, the same dyad that concludes the Lebewohl-motto in m. 2 (whole-notes are typically associated with the Lebewohl-idea in the Allegro). The right-hand counterpoints the left-hand's descent with an ascending scale figure whose high-point is an appoggiatura C; after resolving twice to Bb in half-note rhythm (mm. 248 and 250), the appoggiatura figure is rhythmically expanded into whole-notes in mm. 252-53 (see Ex. 2). Now, the combination of an octave C in the right hand with a minor-sixth G-Eb in the left amounts in m. 252 to an exact exchange of parts between the hands in relation to m. 2. Attributing the same psychological content to each hand as in mm. 1-2, and given that the dyad G-Eb is now taken by the left hand, and moreover is placed low in the bass register, one might say that the painful idea of Rudolph's departure has been by this stage accepted by Beethoven's psyche, down to its innermost, deepest strata. With an exquisite ironic touch, the note C, so strikingly disruptive when taken by the left hand in m. 2, is turned in mm. 248-53 by the right hand into a harmless appoggiatura.(28) ======================================== 28. Pointing out that Beethoven's crescendo in mm. 252- 53 contradicts the "sigh" implications of the C-Bb motive (cf. mm. 248 and 250), William Rothstein (private communication) suggests that Beethoven is portraying a change from sighing grief into manly resolve. For more on the conventional "sigh" motive in this movement, see Rothstein's sensitive discussion of op. 81a in "Heinrich Schenker as an Interpreter of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas," *19th Century Music* 8:1 (1984), pp. 12-13. Heinrich Schenker [*Free Composition*, trans. and ed. by Ernst Oster (New York: Longman, 1979), p. 64 of the main text] views the two- note sequence Ab1-G1, Ab2-G2, F1-Eb1, Eb2-Db2, Db2-C2, C2-Cb2, and Cb2-Bb1 (mm. 66-86--see Schenker's Fig. 62/4), as representing statements of the Lebewohl- motto, shortened by one syllable. "The third syllable is lost" he states, "as though in a sob." ======================================== [16] Between these two extreme stages of downright denial (mm. 1-2, and their chromatically intensified repetition in mm. 7-8) and equally unconditioned acceptance (mm. 243-55), several intermediate stages, I believe, may be detected. In the following section I shall consider the bridge sections (exposition and recapitulation), the development section, and, of course, the highly important and deservedly celebrated coda. Here I should like to consider the second subject, which seems to represent a stage lying comfortably near the middle of our imaginary denial- acceptance axis. To facilitate comparison with the movement's beginning and end, I shall consider the second subject as it appears in the recapitulation, that is, in the home-key of Eb major. [17] The second subject consists of two four-measure groups, mm. 142-45 and 146-150, the second of which is essentially a transposition down an octave of the first. In each four-measure group the Lebewohl-motive is stated twice: in whole-notes at the beginning of the group, and in quarter-notes near the end (in m. 145 the quarter-note motion G-F is not followed by an Eb due to the new beginning on G in m. 146). [18] Weakened resistance to the idea of departure is suggested, I believe, in the disruption of closure on the downbeat of m. 150: a weakened version of the deceptive cadence of m. 2 (see Ex. 3a). Indeed, the augmented 6/3 chord Eb-G-Cb of m. 150 (first half) is analogous to the VI and bVI chords of mm. 2 and 8: a sixth G(b)-Eb in the upper voices is accompanied by C(b). Unlike mm. 2 and 8, however, where C(b) is given to the bass (resulting in a consonant, root-position triad), in m. 150 Cb is given to an inner voice, which lends it a much less stable quality; and sure enough, stability is soon restored, for in the second half of the same measure the disruptive Cb is revealed as a "mere" upper neighbor to Bb. If one isolates mm. 2 and 8; m. 150; and m. 252 from the rest of the movement (Ex. 3b), one sees an interesting process by which C(b) "migrates" from the bass, first to an inner voice, and ultimately to the top voice. Since the three positions of the C(b) are progressively less threatening to the stability of the accompanying G(b)-Eb dyad, the process as a whole makes a fascinating analogue to a gradual psychological transition from a state of denial to one of acceptance.(29) ======================================== 29. Concerning the G-Eb dyad, it is perhaps significant that the C-minor 6/4 chord on the downbeats of mm. 4 and 5 is represented by G and Eb only (note also the right-hand's melodic minor sixth G-Eb on the last eighth of m. 4). The sense in which the G-Eb dyad is unstable is rendered (following the deceptive cadence) doubly acute. A significant compositional issue in the movement is "C versus Cb" (or "G versus Gb"). See Heinrich Schenker, *Free Composition*, Fig. 119/7 and its discussion on p. 100 of the main text; and William Rothstein, "Heinrich Schenker as an Interpreter of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas," pp. 12-13 and 17. ======================================== [19] But why, one may ask, is closure disrupted on the downbeat of m. 150, rather than (say) mm. 144 or 148, that also conclude a statement of the Lebewohl-motive? The answer, I believe, concerns register. Observe the return to the one-line register in mm. 149-50, actually the first time in the Allegro that the motto (upper part only) is heard in its original key *and* register. Register is an important issue in the movement, given the obvious way in which the motto imitates the sound of two natural horns (thus the Lebewohl-motto, in a strict sense, is *register-specific*, an idea to which I shall return in connection with the coda). All the same, I am inclined to view the left-hand's biting, syncopated dissonances accompanying the right-hand's Lebewohl-motive in mm. 142-44 and 146-48 as yet another manifestation of (weakened) resistance to the idea of departure. The Bridge Sections, Development, and Coda [20] Generally in this sonata, there is a tendency to avoid sharp formal boundaries, and thus the traditional categories of first subject, transition, etc., must be applied with some caution. For example, a large-scale harmonic cycle T-S-D-T overlaps the onset of the Allegro in m. 17, where the sonata's first subject would seem to begin.(30) Note that m. 21 contains the first stable tonic chord in the movement, not counting the harmony implicit in m. 1. Since m. 25, also containing a root-position tonic, merely initiates a varied repetition of mm. 21-24, I shall take m. 21 as the bridge-section's harmonic point of origin. In what follows I shall propose that much of the bridge section is based on an enlargement of the Lebewohl-motive G-F- Eb in the upper voice. A comparison with the parallel passage in the recapitulation should help confirm such a reading. ======================================== 30. I read a prolongation of IV from m. 11 (second half) through m. 18. Uhde (*Beethovens Klaviermusik*, p. 282) makes the interesting proposition that mm. 35- 50, rather than mm. 50-58, are the sonata's second subject (Uhde considers mm. 50-58 as the exposition's closing group). ======================================== [21] Figure 1 compares mm. 21-50 (exposition) with mm. 114-42 (recapitulation) at a background level (there is no Lebewohl-motive at this level). Note that while a soprano progression, G-F, is common to both passages, the accompanying bass progression is quite different. In the exposition, the underlying bass motion is of a rising second Eb (I) to F (V/V); the half-diminished 6/5 chord of m. 36 provides an important melodic and harmonic link between these two referential events. In the recapitulation, on the other hand, the bass rises a fifth from Eb (I) to Bb (V); here the half-diminished 6/5 (m. 128) is part of the rising-fifth progression. [22] In Figure 2 lower-level details are added. Note that in both passages Beethoven composes a large scale voice-exchange between soprano and bass: G-F-Eb (the Lebewohl-motive) in the soprano is set against Eb-F- G(b) in the bass (I read an implied F in the bass in both the exposition and recapitulation underneath the same F-major 6/3 chord). Nonetheless, these two voice exchanges have an altogether different effect. Although in both exposition and recapitulation registral unity is lacking, in the recapitulation we have a single underlying key (Eb major), a smooth harmonic progression connecting two stable harmonic events (I and I6), and a more-or-less unified texture (the texture changes abruptly with the half-diminished sonority of m. 127, where a new subphrase begins). In the exposition, on the other hand, there is no single underlying key, and the harmonic progression is anything but smooth (especially in mm. 34-5); moreover, the progression ends with an unstable, dissonant event (the half-diminished sonority), which functions on the surface as a new beginning more than an end. As a result, although a large-scale Lebewohl-progression (G- F-Eb) unifies the upper voice, this unity is undermined by several factors, and especially by the dissonant, explosive event in m. 35. Thus the bridge section in the exposition may be interpreted as representing another instance of denial, denial that assumes a decidedly angry, even violent character. [23] I find the development section, harmonically one of the most daring Beethoven ever composed, rather enigmatic. Nonetheless, from the rhythmic, textural, and pianistic standpoints the development seems to coalesce around the contrast between long notes (representing the Lebewohl-idea) in the right hand, and a restless "anapest" rhythm, clearly derived from the first subject, in the left hand (mm. 73-90; 94-108). I would suggest that this contrast once again represents an inner struggle between acceptance (right hand) and denial (left hand). In mm. 98-103, in particular, the anapest rhythm in the left hand is identified with the note C, thus linking the first subject with the left- hand's entry in m. 2. [24] Mm. 181-97 of the coda (see Ex. 4) is one of several passages in the movement that employ the Lebewohl-motive in imitation between the hands (in all of these passages the right hand leads while the left hand follows).(31) In the coda, the imitated Lebewohl- motive corresponds rhythmically to the original Lebewohl-motto of mm. 1-2 (tonally, however, only the contour of a descending third is preserved). Here, as in the earlier passages, it is significant that the left hand does not contradict the right hand, but to the contrary, confirms its (quasi) Lebewohl- pronunciations through imitation. ======================================== 31. The first passage of this type occurs already near the end of the exposition (mm. 62-5); as several commentators have noted, the passage (restated in the recapitulation, mm. 154-57) makes use of rhythmic diminution. In a broad sense, the idea of the left hand following the right hand originates from the very beginning of the movement, where the left hand enters after a full-measure rest. ======================================== [25] The Lebewohl-idea in its original form dominates the remainder of the coda. It is interesting to compare mm. 197-201 with the second subject (specifically, mm. 146-50), from which they obviously derive (Ex. 5). Except for register (mm. 197-99) or rhythm (mm. 200- 201), the Lebewohl-idea in the right hand assumes in mm. 197-201 its original form (in mm. 146-50, by comparison, the sense of a horn-duo is lacking). Note further that unlike m. 150 there is no deceptive ending in m. 201--i.e., no (weakened) denial--and moreover, the left hand in mm. 197-99 accompanies with florid counterpoint, rather than syncopated dissonances (cf. mm. 146-47), the right-hand's cantus-firmus-like motto. However, lack of denial is not quite the same as acceptance. When the right and left hands exchange parts beginning in m. 201 (a type of imitative technique), the left hand is "unable" to follow the right-hand's previous example and leaves the Lebewohl- motto consistently incomplete (Ex. 6). The entire passage is repeated beginning in m. 209, as if to give the left hand a second chance; this is of no avail, however.(32) ======================================== 32. Schenker's implied Eb in the left hand in m. 207 is of course technically correct, yet nonetheless seems to miss the point. See *Free Composition*, Fig. 125/5 (the figure illustrates "deceptive intervals" that arise from keyboard writing). The pianistically awkward note- repetitions in mm. 219 and 221 seem to support the idea that Beethoven's B-flats have special significance, since these repetitions could have been easily remedied by resorting to the implied Eb. Although a crossing of the voices would have resulted in the process, such a voice crossing is pianistically less awkward than repetition. ======================================== [26] Given the left-hand's apparent difficulty in "pronouncing" the entire Lebewohl-motto in its original form, a step-by-step, "repeat-after-me" type of learning process follows (mm. 223-31). The motto is broken into its component parts, i.e., "second horn" and "first horn"; following the right-hand's example, the left hand imitates the second-horn part first, and only then attempts, for the first time in the entire movement, the entire motto in two parts (Ex. 7). Surprisingly, however, precisely as the left hand is finally about to succeed, the right hand enters with a rhythmically distorted version of the motto. The right hand's entry, initiating the celebrated imitative passage that superimposes tonic and dominant harmonies, does not seem to make much sense in view of the present interpretation. Why should the right hand, which presumably represents Beethoven's conscious, rational side, interfere with the left hand at this critical juncture, that is, interfere with the process by which Beethoven's emotional, subconscious side learns to accept the painful reality of Rudolph's departure? [27] In answering this difficult question, let me begin with some purely musical considerations. As commentators have not failed to observe, the superimposed harmonies of mm. 230-34 result from a logical compositional process by which the durational distance that separates statement (right hand) from imitation (left hand) is shortened from two measures to one. A glance at Ex. 8--a hypothetical version of mm. 229-35--reveals that the motto's rhythmic distortion serves a number of purposes (in Ex. 8 the distortion is revoked). First, by shifting the motto's initial dyad to an unaccented position in the measure the overall dissonant effect is weakened; second, the distortion calls for only two pairs of horns (as opposed to more than two pairs in Ex. 8), and moreover, preserves the one-to-one correspondence between the horn-pairs and the pianist's hands; third, the upbeat entry in m. 230 clarifies the hypermeter; and finally, the distortion ensures that the right hand is still heard as the leader, even as the imitative texture becomes considerably more dense. [28] It is this last point, I believe, that gives us a clue towards solving the question posed earlier. Note that since the right hand states the Lebewohl-motto in its original register in mm. 227-29 (see again Ex. 7), the left hand is forced to imitate one octave lower. But register, we have already noted, is integral to the motto's identity. *The left hand must state the Lebewohl-motto in its original register in order for acceptance to be complete*. The right hand's surprising entry in m. 230 reflects, as it were, this last minute realization: an important ingredient is still missing so as to make the left-hand's Lebewohl-statement an authentic token of acceptance. Indeed, in mm. 232-34 the right hand states the (distorted) motto an octave higher than before; following the right-hand's lead the left hand makes the corresponding adjustment, thus finally stating the Lebewohl-motto in its "correct" registral position (mm. 233-35). [29] Note the exquisite touch by which the right hand begins yet another Lebewohl-statement, in a still higher register, on the last beat of m. 234. As if suddenly realizing its mistake, the right hand aborts the attempted statement; a rest on the downbeat of m. 235 prevents a dominant/tonic clash similar to m. 231 from taking place. The imitative passage that follows in mm. 235-38 (Ex. 9) serves to confirm, as it were, the state of equilibrium that has been finally achieved within Beethoven's psyche: both rationally and emotionally, the idea of Rudolph's departure has been absorbed.(33) Following the brief codetta, mm. 243-55, which further confirms that loss has been indeed accepted (review the discussion in paragraph 15), we enter a new psychological phase, mourning, in the second movement. ======================================== 33. Or, in terms of an external struggle (cf. Bach's *Capriccio*), at this point Beethoven finally allows Rudolph to depart. Interestingly, mm. 239-43 are traditionally interpreted as depicting the withdrawal of the Archduke's coach. ======================================== [30] "Written from the heart," states Beethoven in the sketches to op. 81a. Perhaps the present essay should give a new meaning to this simple yet touching phrase. Transcending its immediate, personal context, op. 81a depicts with uncanny insight the inner workings of the human psyche as it copes with one of the most basic signatures of the human condition: the experience of loss +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ Copyright Statement [1] *Music Theory Online* (*MTO*) as a whole is Copyright (c) 1996, all rights reserved, by the Society for Music Theory, which is the owner of the journal. Copyrights for individual items published in (*MTO*) are held by their authors. Items appearing in *MTO* may be saved and stored in electronic or paper form, and may be shared among individuals for purposes of scholarly research or discussion, but may *not* be republished in any form, electronic or print, without prior, written permission from the author(s), and advance notification of the editors of *MTO*. 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