Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Chronological Bibliography of Books, Articles, Book Chapters, and Musical Editions by Lewis Lockwood
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part One A Creative Life
- 1 Of Deserters and Orphans: Beethoven's Early Exposure to the Opéras-Comiques of Monsigny
- 2 “A Really Excellent and Capable Man”: Beethoven and Johann Traeg
- 3 A Four-Leaf Clover: A Newly Discovered Cello, the Premiere of the Ninth Symphony, Beethoven's Circle of Friends in Bonn, and a Corrected Edition of the Song “Ruf vom Berge,” WoO 147
- 4 “Where Thought Touches the Blood”: Rhythmic Disturbance as Physical Realism in Beethoven's Creative Process
- 5 The Sanctification of Beethoven in 1827–28
- Part Two Prometheus / Eroica
- 6 The Prometheus Theme and Beethoven's Shift from Avoidance to Embrace of Possibilities
- 7 Beethoven at Heiligenstadt in 1802: Deconstruction, Integration, and Creativity
- 8 “Mit Verstärkung des Orchesters”: The Orchestra Personnel at the First Public Performance of Beethoven's Eroica
- Part Three Masses
- 9 “Aber lieber Beethoven, was haben Sie denn wieder da gemacht?” Observations on the Performing Parts for the Premiere of Beethoven's Mass in C, Opus 86
- 10 Heart to Heart: Beethoven, Archduke Rudolph, and the Missa solemnis
- 11 God and the Voice of Beethoven
- Part Four Quartets
- 12 “So Here I Am, in the Middle Way”: The Autograph of the “Harp” Quartet and the Expressive Domain of Beethoven’s Second Maturity
- 13 Meaningful Details: Expressive Markings in Beethoven Manuscripts, with a Focus on Opus 127
- 14 The Autograph Score of the Slow Movement of Beethoven’s Last Quartet, Opus 135
- 15 Early German-Language Reviews of Beethoven's Late String Quartets
- Part Five Explorations
- 16 Three Movements or Four? The Scherzo Movements in Beethoven's Early Sonatas
- 17 Utopia and Dystopia Revisited: Contrasted Domains in Beethoven's Middle-Period F-Major and F-Minor Works
- 18 Schooling the Quintjäger
- 19 Cue-Staff Annotations in Beethoven's Piano Works: Reflections and Examples from the Autograph of the Piano Sonata, Opus 101
- 20 Another Little Buck Out of Its Stable
- 21 Beethoven's Cavatina, Haydn's Seasons, and the Thickness of Inscription
- List of Contributors
- Index of Works by Beethoven
- General Index
16 - Three Movements or Four? The Scherzo Movements in Beethoven's Early Sonatas
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 September 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Chronological Bibliography of Books, Articles, Book Chapters, and Musical Editions by Lewis Lockwood
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part One A Creative Life
- 1 Of Deserters and Orphans: Beethoven's Early Exposure to the Opéras-Comiques of Monsigny
- 2 “A Really Excellent and Capable Man”: Beethoven and Johann Traeg
- 3 A Four-Leaf Clover: A Newly Discovered Cello, the Premiere of the Ninth Symphony, Beethoven's Circle of Friends in Bonn, and a Corrected Edition of the Song “Ruf vom Berge,” WoO 147
- 4 “Where Thought Touches the Blood”: Rhythmic Disturbance as Physical Realism in Beethoven's Creative Process
- 5 The Sanctification of Beethoven in 1827–28
- Part Two Prometheus / Eroica
- 6 The Prometheus Theme and Beethoven's Shift from Avoidance to Embrace of Possibilities
- 7 Beethoven at Heiligenstadt in 1802: Deconstruction, Integration, and Creativity
- 8 “Mit Verstärkung des Orchesters”: The Orchestra Personnel at the First Public Performance of Beethoven's Eroica
- Part Three Masses
- 9 “Aber lieber Beethoven, was haben Sie denn wieder da gemacht?” Observations on the Performing Parts for the Premiere of Beethoven's Mass in C, Opus 86
- 10 Heart to Heart: Beethoven, Archduke Rudolph, and the Missa solemnis
- 11 God and the Voice of Beethoven
- Part Four Quartets
- 12 “So Here I Am, in the Middle Way”: The Autograph of the “Harp” Quartet and the Expressive Domain of Beethoven’s Second Maturity
- 13 Meaningful Details: Expressive Markings in Beethoven Manuscripts, with a Focus on Opus 127
- 14 The Autograph Score of the Slow Movement of Beethoven’s Last Quartet, Opus 135
- 15 Early German-Language Reviews of Beethoven's Late String Quartets
- Part Five Explorations
- 16 Three Movements or Four? The Scherzo Movements in Beethoven's Early Sonatas
- 17 Utopia and Dystopia Revisited: Contrasted Domains in Beethoven's Middle-Period F-Major and F-Minor Works
- 18 Schooling the Quintjäger
- 19 Cue-Staff Annotations in Beethoven's Piano Works: Reflections and Examples from the Autograph of the Piano Sonata, Opus 101
- 20 Another Little Buck Out of Its Stable
- 21 Beethoven's Cavatina, Haydn's Seasons, and the Thickness of Inscription
- List of Contributors
- Index of Works by Beethoven
- General Index
Summary
Several major studies been devoted to the development of the scherzo movement from the eighteenth-century minuet, in which Beethoven played a significant role. Much less attention has been given to Beethoven's addition of the scherzo movement to the keyboard sonata and related genres. His use of the four-movement cycle in his Piano Trios, op. 1, and Piano Sonatas, op. 2, a design previously associated primarily with the symphony and the string quartet, is considered representative of his desire to treat the sonata (solo or accompanied) as a grand and serious genre. Four-movement sonatas had precedents in larger works of the London Pianoforte School, though they were not yet standard within the Viennese tradition. Beethoven's decision to compose his earliest Viennese sonatas in four movements exemplifies his characteristic striving for innovation, even though he returned to two- and three-movement designs in many later sonata works.
Beethoven's inclusion of the interior dance movement in the sonata cycle has rarely been considered in the context of the views of contemporary music criticism. Neither has this issue been examined in the early sonata sketches, even though there have been many sketch studies devoted to Beethoven's sonatas, including a recent survey of the creation of all the piano sonatas. Yet both of these contexts—music criticism and Beethoven's compositional process—can cast light on the composer's reasons for using the four-movement cycle in his early Viennese works as well as on his decision to abandon this design in later keyboard works. Since he sometimes used the terms “minuet” and “scherzo” interchangeably in the sketches (notably in the case of the Eroica Symphony), the focus here will be on both types of movement that function as an interior dance-type movement.
Scherzos in Sonata Works: Aesthetic Issues
Beethoven's use of the four-movement cycle in his early sonatas is rarely considered to be a controversial innovation, especially since this became the established structure for the nineteenth-century sonata. According to Anton Schindler, however, Beethoven later felt dissatisfied with his use of the four-movement cycle in some of the early sonatas.
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- The New BeethovenEvolution, Analysis, Interpretation, pp. 389 - 404Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2020