Jeff Grossman, in response to Bill Pirkle:

>>I sense a lot of impulse, rather than overall design in Beethoven's music.
>>As if he decided to fly into a rage at a point in a composition - like OK
>>that's enough of this, it time for some excitement.  Maybe that is part of
>>his meta-composing style.
>
>I completely disagree.  I see much structure in Beethoven's music -- as if,
>for example, he decided all along that he wanted to end up in C minor, and
>he picks a specific way to do it.  In some pieces (the sonata in D major,
>op. 28), the only reason that the recap in the first movement doesn't take
>us back to the exposition is that Beethoven changes one note in the recap.
>The movement was constructed that carefully that one note changed the
>entire goal of the passage.

Exactly.  Another example is the letter he wrote to friend/composer Ries
in London, shortly before the publication there of the Hammerklaviersonata.
Beethoven urged Ries to add a few notes in the beginning of the sonata and
he showed himself very worried that it would be done immediately, before
the publication.  Ries gives it in his testimonies on Beethoven as an
example of Beethoven's sometimes almost flabbergasting perfectionism.

Greetings,
Joyce Maier
www.ademu.com/Beethoven