Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Part One Context
- chapter 1 Arrival and Relaunch in Vienna, 1792
- chapter 2 Beethoven, Pianist and String Player
- chapter 3 Amateurs, Patrons and Professionals
- chapter 4 The Spirit of the Composition
- Part Two 1793–9
- Part Three 1800–1803
- Part Four 1804–9
- Part Five 1810–15
- Part Six 1816–27
- Appendix 1 Early Chamber Music for Strings and Piano
- Appendix 2 Variations
- Appendix 3 Chamber Music for Wind
- Appendix 4 Arrangements
- Bibliography
- Index of Beethoven's Music by Opus Number
- Beethoven Index
- General Index
chapter 2 - Beethoven, Pianist and String Player
from Part One - Context
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 April 2017
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Part One Context
- chapter 1 Arrival and Relaunch in Vienna, 1792
- chapter 2 Beethoven, Pianist and String Player
- chapter 3 Amateurs, Patrons and Professionals
- chapter 4 The Spirit of the Composition
- Part Two 1793–9
- Part Three 1800–1803
- Part Four 1804–9
- Part Five 1810–15
- Part Six 1816–27
- Appendix 1 Early Chamber Music for Strings and Piano
- Appendix 2 Variations
- Appendix 3 Chamber Music for Wind
- Appendix 4 Arrangements
- Bibliography
- Index of Beethoven's Music by Opus Number
- Beethoven Index
- General Index
Summary
As one of the leading pianists of his generation, Beethoven took it for granted that he would be the first to perform his own violin sonatas, cello sonatas and piano trios with leading string players; this was his personal chamber music, personal in a way that his string trios and string quartets could never be. His brilliance and originality as a pianist owed much to Christian Gottlob Neefe, who, though a Lutheran, became organist at the Catholic court in Bonn in 1782. In addition to piano and organ lessons, Neefe taught him composition and thorough-bass and introduced him to a wide range of music, including Bach's Forty-eight Preludes and Fugues, teaching which Beethoven warmly acknowledged in later years: ‘I thank you for the advice you have very often given me about making progress in my divine art. Should I ever become a great man, you will have a share in my success.’
Although he soon wrote himself out of his increasingly difficult string trios and string quartets and had to entrust them to others, Beethoven was a capable violinist and violist in his early years. He had two excellent violin teachers: Franz Rovantini, a relation by marriage of his mother, and Franz Ries, a close family friend and a generous and considerate man, who later became leader of the orchestra. Both of them had been pupils of the violinist, conductor and impresario Johann Peter Salomon, who eventually made his home in England and commissioned Haydn to compose his celebrated ‘London’ symphonies; so their approach to technical matters is likely to have been similar. After Rovantini's early death, Franz Ries, recently returned from three successful years as a soloist and quartet player in Vienna, took over as his violin teacher. Beethoven never forgot his practical and moral support at the time of his mother's death in 1787 and was able to return Ries's many kindnesses when, later in Vienna, he agreed to teach his son Ferdinand piano and composition. Franz Ries lived long enough to be present when Beethoven's statue was unveiled in Bonn during festivities directed by Liszt in 1845.
Like any small boy starting violin lessons, Beethoven did not always practise what he had been told to practise. A neighbour, Cecilia Fischer, remembered his father reprimanding him for improvising on the violin and the piano.
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- Information
- Beethoven's Chamber Music in Context , pp. 4 - 9Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2010