Beethoven's Sonata Pathetique
Seeing, feeling, and eventually comminicating the beauty of a piece of music is an exercise in interpreting a composer's interpretation adn expression of emotion. General sadness or general ecstacy is not written about - it is not possible to be sad or ecstatic as a general manifest - they are always specific and contextual, tempered by complexity and long strands of explanation, which is exactly what makes sadness or ecstasy interesting and worth composing a sonata about.
I've written before about the first movement of Beethoven't Sonata Pathetique; in short, it's all about Beethoven's angst. Not angst like a 17-year old not getting any - angst of time. Beethoven wrote this sonata nearing death and past the age expectancy, so the first movement is composed of starts and stops of rushes to have passion, and the anger of not having time for passion, and simultaneously the careful, oh painful slowness, dragging of the self in the progression of time. It is Beethoven's Pathetique.
The 2nd and 3rd movements I think are a memory. The 2nd is impassioned, like-thrill, like a fury. The 3rd is a sweet, the sweet, melody - which too, like the first movement, luxuriates in speed, slowing its own pace and so trying to steady time's furious pace. Its finale is a third of the piece.
The difference in the slowness though is that the third seems to be succesfully buying small amounts of time before an inevitable ending, and the first is only flailing.
I love this movement.
All of these movements are famous. You've heard all of them before, and this will make a good deal more sense if you can find them again and listen to them again.
In practicing, your goal beyond learning the notes well is to learn to love and identify with the piece. My teacher told me how old Beethoven was and handed me the metaphor of the first movement, but I was left to real interepretation for the others, which means that I listened to the second and third movements and then tried to identify the emotion and relate to it.
Hence: When you play a piece 5 times or more seven days a week, it begins to assert its reciprocal authority as an interpreter of your life too.
This sonata is playing one of my favorite memories - and so I can play that particular movement beautifully, as I enjoy playing the movement and savoring the idea of that memory enough to practice and focus on it more intensely than anything else I know how to play.
I want to play this sonata for you, as an expression of its beauty and the beauty of this set of specific emotions. I want you to love music in the way that I do.
I've written before about the first movement of Beethoven't Sonata Pathetique; in short, it's all about Beethoven's angst. Not angst like a 17-year old not getting any - angst of time. Beethoven wrote this sonata nearing death and past the age expectancy, so the first movement is composed of starts and stops of rushes to have passion, and the anger of not having time for passion, and simultaneously the careful, oh painful slowness, dragging of the self in the progression of time. It is Beethoven's Pathetique.
The 2nd and 3rd movements I think are a memory. The 2nd is impassioned, like-thrill, like a fury. The 3rd is a sweet, the sweet, melody - which too, like the first movement, luxuriates in speed, slowing its own pace and so trying to steady time's furious pace. Its finale is a third of the piece.
The difference in the slowness though is that the third seems to be succesfully buying small amounts of time before an inevitable ending, and the first is only flailing.
I love this movement.
All of these movements are famous. You've heard all of them before, and this will make a good deal more sense if you can find them again and listen to them again.
In practicing, your goal beyond learning the notes well is to learn to love and identify with the piece. My teacher told me how old Beethoven was and handed me the metaphor of the first movement, but I was left to real interepretation for the others, which means that I listened to the second and third movements and then tried to identify the emotion and relate to it.
Hence: When you play a piece 5 times or more seven days a week, it begins to assert its reciprocal authority as an interpreter of your life too.
This sonata is playing one of my favorite memories - and so I can play that particular movement beautifully, as I enjoy playing the movement and savoring the idea of that memory enough to practice and focus on it more intensely than anything else I know how to play.
I want to play this sonata for you, as an expression of its beauty and the beauty of this set of specific emotions. I want you to love music in the way that I do.