Being a boring day, I decided to go into meta-composition even more.
If you render printed music on an adding machine tape format which is
the way it is heard, one long stream of sounds, the Appassionata would be
approx.  115 feet long (if I counted and measured staves properly).  This
is a one dimensional surface, length.  For convenience in distribution, the
staves are stacked on a page, a two dimensional surface, which looses the
relationship between how it is heard and how it is seen.  To save paper,
there in no "white space" between the major sections of the piece or
especially within a given movement, i.e.theme statement, development,
recapitulation, etc.  If one inserts white space, the major sections of a
movement can be isolated, say, each starting on a new page, joined perhaps
with bridge passages.  This is how we "understand" the structure of a
composition as chunks of music.  So the printed form of sheet music is
not how we hear it nor how we understand it - its just to save paper.

When Beethoven said (ref my recent post) "...  I have the whole thing in
mind", I am curious what he had in mind, the adding machine tape format or
the white spaced "chunk" structure.  I think we can safely say it was not
the sheet music distribution format.  I can imagine the Appassionata in
both ways owing to my familiarity with it.  It can be pictured in the mind
(and written down in a sketch) as a long stream of sound effects, a stream
of moods and/or emotions, or as a "white spaced" block diagram of moods
and/or emotions, this chunk, that chunk.

I was wondering how others on the list mentally visualize a composition.
Surely our's and Beethoven's brain worked the same way in this basic
respect.

Perhaps through this discussion, we can identify the way Beethoven might
have seen the "whole thing", that is, in its meta-composition form.  I
assume we are talking about sound effects that evoke emotions and moods
even if those can't be named.  Or perhaps its at the theme/development
level, picturing the music for the themes, etc.  that he saw it.  If I
close my eyes, I can even picture the music for the grand introduction
to the piece and other passages.

Any thoughts? (I said it was a boring day)

Bill Pirkle