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Category Archives: Music
Lifesongs
I’ve had an interesting musical idea: essentially a musical autobiography, which I’ve referred to as a “lifesong”. Think of it as a really long leitmotif. Such a piece would capture the essence of a composer’s life, would be started as soon as a composer felt capable of undertaking such a project, and would be continuously maintained until the composer either died, in which case it should be concluded by another composer or left alone depending on the circumstances of the death, or the composer anticipated nothing more from life – that is, the composer’s purpose has been fulfilled and the composer has nothing of significance left to complete. It would include annotations detailing the life events that correspond to events in the musical score. It would not be “published” in the tradition sense until the composer’s death, but it could, and indeed should, be made available as it’s being constructed.
Why am I posting this? Because I’m ready to begin writing my own.
Update: Yay, another nonoriginal idea. Reinvention is talent screaming out for background.
How to write a sonata like Beethoven (first movement)
- Create a simple introductory theme.
- Play it really really fast.
- Make a lot of noise that has nothing to do with the theme but makes the piece sound demanding, including tremolos, arpeggios, etc.
- About 1/4 of the way through, lead into a beautiful 20 second theme that makes the entire piece worth listening to.
- Now’s a good place for a repeat!
- Create an “out-of-place” chord for a modulation in the second ending of the repeat. Might as well play it really loudly too, just to make the audience go “what!?” (this is definitely Haydn’s influence on the composer).
- Get really quiet as you introduce the new key (possibly repeating the introductory theme in the new key).
- Make more noise.
- Repeat beautiful theme again, usually twice.
- End either by quietly fading out or striking a simple cadence as loud as possible.
There’s your first movement!
This is a joke, of course, but listen to enough of his sonatas and this is indeed the pattern Beethoven followed.
Beethoven's Sonata no. 32 in C Minor
The depth of Beethoven’s late period compositions astounds me. The technical difficulty of the compositions also appears quite high compared to early period compositions, and I am most likely not capable of playing many of them yet.
Though I found the majority of the first movement of Beethoven’s final sonata profound, the chord about 2/3 of the way through introducing the developmental section is extremely surprising to find in a Romantic piece of music.
With the exception of the “boogie woogie” variation (which the movement is worth hearing for alone because it’s far ahead of Beethoven’s time), the second movement of the sonata clearly indicates that this is Beethoven’s last sonata – it’s as if he’s quitely and remorsefully bidding the form goodbye.
All in all, it’s a great piece, and Wikipedia has a great recording to listen to.