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Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven · German composer (1770-1827) · 1770–1827

Appears in 95 videos · 168 passages, 57 of them in depth.

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What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani sees Beethoven as the great break in music, contemporary with the French Revolution. He links him to the generation of Hegel and Hölderlin, who were twenty when the Bastille fell1. With Beethoven, freedom enters rhythm, which becomes unpredictable, in contrast to Baroque metre and to Bach's "unfolding"23. He stresses sonata form, the contrast between a brutal theme and a tender one, and a development that draws a whole universe from a trivial cell. He calls him a dramatist and contrasts him with Schubert's lyrical instant45. He often returns to the Ninth: the despairing first movement resolves nothing, then the finale brings the voice back and a collective salvation, which he connects with Hegel's "dawn"67. He examines closely the scherzo of the "Archduke" Trio, where popular and learned music mix, and the Arietta of Op. 111. For him, the late quartets foreshadow the twentieth century. He considers the use of the Ode to Joy as a European anthem an abuse.

  1. 110#4 De Lascaux aux musiques modernes, la permanence de l'enjeu politique dans l'esthétique3 Nov 2021 · 8:01
  2. 2#5 Libéralisme-libertaire, consommation libidinale et musique...27 Sept 2014 · 21:59
  3. 3#5.2 L’Odyssée du philosophe : La pensée révolutionnaire21 Nov 2018 · 1:17:35
  4. 4Musicosophie 3. Qu'appelle-t-on une musique moderne?3 Dec 2020 · 1:11:53
  5. 5BEETHOVEN POMPETTE ! • Pagani Parle Musique6 Jul 2022 · 0:00
  6. 6#5.2 L’Odyssée du philosophe : La pensée révolutionnaire21 Nov 2018 · 1:15:54
  7. 7Musicosophie 5. Bonheur contre pulsion de mort en musique11 Dec 2020 · 55:19

Summary produced automatically from 150 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.

Portrait: BeethovenWho is this?

Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) was a German composer, conductor, and pianist. Regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music, he was mentored during the Classical period, and his musical style was a key driver of the transition to Romantic music, and the expansion of instrumental forms such as the symphony, the piano sonata and the string quartet. His compositions have attracted extraordinary casual and scholarly interest, and remain among the most performed in the world. […]

Read the article on Wikipedia

Text: Wikipédia, CC BY-SA 4.0, excerpt · Portrait: Joseph Karl Stieler, Public domain

Series · 15 Dec 2020Musicosophy 6. The Jazz Variation... by Beethoven
  1. 2:37Piano Sonata No. 32, Op. 111The finale of his last sonata contains the so-called jazz variation, a term that did not exist in his time.
  2. 6:17A musician of the message, he rarely writes pianistically; he seems simple but remains very difficult to perform.
  3. 25:21Violin Sonata No. 9 "Kreutzer"Originally dedicated to Bridgetower, premiered by him with Beethoven at the piano despite their falling-out over a woman.
  4. 1:39:13Symphony No. 5The four notes of the motif organize an entire chaos into a sonic universe and pass through every mode of being.
  5. 1:45:55Piano Sonata No. 32, Op. 111The Arietta, a pianistic testament, carries a trivial theme through sonic universes without internal rupture.
Season 10 · 3 Nov 202110#4 From Lascaux to modern music, the permanence of the political stakes in aesthetics
  1. 3:20String Quartet No. 16, Op. 135Last quartet; the last quartets and sonatas of the third period count for all subsequent music.
  2. 8:01Born in 1770 like Hegel and Hölderlin, he was twenty at the storming of the Bastille.
  3. 25:41Symphony No. 5The contrast between a brutal theme and a tender theme characterizes sonata form, which he masters better than anyone.
  4. 36:06String Quartet No. 16, Op. 135The "Muss es sein? Es muss sein" of the finale answers a remark made by his cleaning woman.
  5. 58:51Symphony No. 9Chooses Schiller's text for the finale of his last symphony.
Series · 6 Jul 2022TIPSY BEETHOVEN! • Pagani Parle Musique
  1. 0:00Symphony No. 5He creates a musical universe in four movements out of a derisory cell; with him we enter modernity and he brings sonata form to perfection.
  2. 2:44With him, the minuet becomes a scherzo.
  3. 5:10Archduke TrioAgainst the image of the threatening Beethoven from the Kenwood advertisement, the scherzo of this trio shows a playful, light, almost tipsy Beethoven.
  4. 7:43Archduke TrioHe analyzes the exposition of the theme, the trilogue of the three instruments, and the central fugal and chromatic passage, a fusion of the popular and the learned.
  5. 9:42A Dionysian Beethoven, who called himself the Bacchus who presses for men a wine of magnificence.
Series · 11 Dec 2020Musicosophy 5. Happiness versus the death drive in music
  1. 14:12Archduke TrioFirst to make the popular dance melody resound in the most constructed music, with calculated vulgarities laid over fugatos.
  2. 17:42Expresses what has just happened historically: the Revolution's collision of classes.
  3. 45:21Anti-Beethoven predicates join anti-Hugo ones; his last quartets are closer to the 20th century than many romantic works.
  4. 55:19Symphony No. 9One hears his finale when Hegel speaks of the Revolution as a dawn.
  5. 1:10:00Maintains the dramatic whip-crack until the end of his life.
Series · 3 Dec 2020Musicosophy 2. From Lévi-Strauss to Nerval on music
  1. 18:03Normalized today, he grated on his contemporaries' ears; his last quartets, last sonatas, and bagatelles anticipate Webern.
  2. 27:04Children prefer him to Mozart because he disrupts a code.
  3. 45:06Symphony No. 9The reappearance of speech in the finale makes the work popular; the beginning of the first movement is an accumulation of energy.
  4. 49:21Piano Sonata No. 32, Op. 111The Arietta, a title almost ironic, presents a trivial theme whose variations are of extraordinary complexity.
  5. 1:14:54Symphony No. 9He recalls the collective destiny by sounding the popular anthem, as if in echo of the storming of the Bastille.
Series · 3 Dec 2020Musicosophy 3. What is called modern music?
  1. 2:56The first to make music corresponding to the new historical regime.
  2. 12:55Music before and after him has nothing in common; he starts from the classical sonata form and pushes the consequences of Haydn's break.
  3. 52:52Archduke TrioHe makes both peasant modal music and the strictly unheard-of, as in the chromatic fugue at the center of the Archduke's scherzo.
  4. 1:11:53His sonata constantly relaunches action through agogics: the opposite of Schubert's lyrical instant.
Talks · 26 Apr 2015The Music of History
  1. 33:05the late Beethoven of the quartets foresees the music of the twentieth century with a material poor in timbres
  2. 37:36his early works are another world, chaotic and anguished, after the French Revolution
  3. 55:30the tension between a virile theme and a tender theme in sonata form
  4. 1:44:42Ninth Symphonythe beginning without a theme, pure accumulation of energy; a modernity that does not age
Series · 10 Mar 2021Musicosophy 16. Programme music / Pure music
  1. 7:19Pastoral SymphonyIntroduces programmatic elements, such as the 'Scene by the Brook,' a title in his own hand.
  2. 32:49Pastoral SymphonySpeaks of 'expression of feeling rather than painting,' which anticipates impressionism; the symphony is not a picture.
  3. 47:00Piano Sonata "Appassionata"Publisher's title; its contrasts, from sotto voce to fortissimo, are typically Beethovenian.
Series · 3 Dec 2020Musicosophy 4. Sound ghettos
  1. 9:56The mass of his quartets, an imperishable monument.
  2. 14:15Musician of the message, indifferent to timbre: his message retains its force on the piano.
  3. 27:23More brutal than any rock, dramatic rather than lyrical, he wakes the listener with an unexpected fortissimo.
  4. 45:12Kept the Well-Tempered Clavier on his piano; fugues in sonatas 109, 110, 111 and in the quartets.
  5. 1:20:32Begins writing his own concerto cadenzas.
Series · 16 Dec 2014B for Bach
  1. 3:49A contemporary of the Revolution and of freedom, he goes off in every direction, opposite to the baroque meter.
  2. 7:49Listening to him makes Bach's originality better perceived.

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