Peter Goldstein wrote:

>Back in the late 60s and early 70s, when I first went crazy for classical
>music, Beethoven was my god.  I got to know practically everything  ...
>His late works seem sterile--how could the Hammerklavier ever have moved
>me? Even my all-time Beethoven favorites, like the sonata Op. 111, the
>quartet Opus 59, No. 1, the Grosse Fuge, the Eighth Symphony, leave me
>cold.  Everything seems so labored, so unnatural, so forced, so willed
>instead of felt.
>
>I realize this may be just a phase, and in a couple of years I'll be back
>loving Beethoven.  But right now he's a bore--and a loud and pretentious
>one at that.

Glad to hear it!  Because in dislike you point to many things which
supporters of Beethoven have held up as important in his music.  Schenker's
famous essay on Beethoven's 9th over and over again return to the force of
the composer, how it is labored, how he has gone beyond the bounds of taste
and structure.  Liszt talked about the massiveness the very imposing nature
of the works, the pure artifice.  Wagner praised to the skies the
earnestness that seems now so over done.

Perhaps it is phase, but perhaps not - perhaps it is time to change
the performances you listen to.  Perhaps it is not so much Beethoven but
the particular conductors conception of it.  For wit - why not the 33
variations on a waltz of diabelli - a joke in almost every one, and some
times evne more.  Why not the bagatelles? Why not explore the sonatas more
closely, there is not a wasted note in the cello sonatas, early or late.
Why not look at his later middle works - there are two string quartets, a
trio and assorted other gems there.

And perhaps Beethoven will never be the same to you again at all, and other
composers speak to the older man in ways that the younger one did not
appreciate.

But that is the banquet of art - we need not eat breakfast every meal.

stirling s newberry
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