"Out-of-body" Beethoven? We have three gifted samples (and then we'll add a couple more)

"[These three] extraordinary slow movements in the key of E major . . . share an almost out-of-body quality, and it’s inspiring to wonder what this beautiful tonality must have meant to Beethoven."

-- David Finckel, in "Making the most out of chamber music coaching,"

from The Strad newsletter, Jan. 21, 2025 [from which much more below]

(1) from the Piano Trio No. 2 in G, Op. 1, No. 2:
ii. Largo con espressione (Largo with expression)

Suk Trio (Josef Suk, violin; Josef Chuchro, cello; Josef Hála, piano). Supraphon-Denon, recorded in the House of Artists, Prague, April 1984
[NOTE: Volume on this clip is a bit low -- you might nudge your level up.]

Isaac Stern, violin; Leonard Rose, cello; Eugene Istomin, piano. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded in CBS 30th Street Studio, July 11 & Dec. 18-19, 1969

(2) from the String Trio in G, Op. 9, No. 1:
ii. Adagio ma non tanto e cantabile (Adagio but not too much and cantabile)

Jascha Heifetz, violin; William Primrose, viola; Gregor Piatigorsky, cello. RCA, recorded in Radio Recorders Studios, Hollywood, Mar. 27, 1957 (mono)

Trio à cordes français (Gérard Jarry, violin; Serge Collot, viola; Michel Tournus, cello). EMI France, recorded 1970

(3) from the String Quartet No. 8 in E minor, Op. 59, No. 2 (Rasumovsky No. 2): ii. Molto adagio. Si tratta questo pezzo con molto di sentimento (This piece is to be treated with much feeling)

Brandis Quartet (Thomas Brandis and Peter Brem, violins; Wilfried Strehle, viola; Wolfgang Boettcher, cello). Harmonia Mundi France, recorded November 1986

Borodin Quartet (Ruben Aharonian and Andrei Abramenkov, violins; Igor Naidin, viola; Valentin Berlinsky, cello). Chandos, recorded in the Small Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, March 2003

by Ken

Yes, yes, we have many important projects afoot, and during the long silence I've been toiling away at them. All I can say is, watch this space. Then, as part of my daily online dose of The Strad, that invaluable publication that takes as its brief everything and everyone having to do with string instruments, I found myself immersed in the above-referenced piece by cellist, professor, and general music administrator-impresario David Finckel offering an overview of one of his favorite and at the same time most demanding musical activities: coaching chamber music.

from "Making the most out of chamber music coaching"
(from The Strad newsletter, Jan. 21, 2025)

by David Finckel

"Teaching chamber music has been one of the greatest pleasures of my professional life. Students who seek my guidance garner my utmost admiration for their pursuit of expertise in one of the highest forms of art ever devised by humankind. I cannot possibly encourage them enough.

"That said, teaching chamber music well is very difficult. There is so much to absorb when hearing a student ensemble: their individual technical levels, the chemistry of the group, and their grasp (individually and collectively) of the style of the work and the composer it came from. In the space of an hour – the standard time for coaching at the Juilliard School these days – there’s a lot of work to be done. . . .

"Of the greatest interest to me when teaching is to ensure that the players have a solid sense of context. Why and how should Mozart sound different from Haydn? What are the greatest recordings of the work at hand, and why? How much articulation do you need in a concert hall? . . . Probably the most easily accessible – and often overlooked – context is the composer’s other music.

"Because I’ve lived a good long life filled with musical experience, I have a decent library of reference music in my head, and it’s a pleasure to share it with students. For example, Beethoven wrote several extraordinary slow movements in the key of E major: in the op.9 no.1 String Trio, the Second ‘Rasumovsky’ Quartet, and the op.1 no.2 Piano Trio. They share an almost out-of-body quality, and it’s inspiring to wonder what this beautiful tonality must have meant to Beethoven. And because I’ve played all three works, one helps the other, and I want my students to have the same experience. . . ."  [Photo: davidfinckelandwuhan.com]

Among his many other affiliations and activities, far too numerous and far-flung even to just list, Mr. Finckel has been co-artistic director -- with his wife, pianist Wu Han -- of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 2004. He's a longtime Juilliard School faculty member and a more recent artist-in-residence at Stony Brook University.

Oh yes, he was also the founding cellist of the Emerson String Quartet, of which he remained a fixture for 34 seasons, even as the rest of his musical life was becoming crowded-er and crowded-er. (He left the quartet in 2012. With British cellist Paul Watkins sliding into his seat, the Emerson remained active through a final season that ended in October 2023.) You know, this might be a good time to slip into a time tunnel and see whether, if we ask really nicely, David F. and his Emerson colleagues mightn't get their instruments out of their cases and play for us --

BEETHOVEN: String Quartet No. 8 in E minor,
Op. 59, No. 2 (Rasumovsky No. 2):
ii. Molto adagio. Si tratta questo pezzo con molto di sentimento (This piece is to be treated with much feeling)


Emerson String Quartet (Philip Setzer and Eugene Drucker, violins; Lawrence Dutton, viola; David Finckel, cello). DG, recorded at the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Lettters, New York City, October 1994

CONNECTING THESE THREE MOVEMENTS ISN'T WHAT
DAVID F.'S PIECE IS ABOUT -- IT'S JUST A CASE-IN-POINT

And a wonderful point it is. It never occurred to me to link these three movements -- all inner movements, you'll note. E major is a key Beethoven rarely used for opening movements, though we will be meeting up with one such. (Now E-flat major, that's another story. Think Eroica Symphony and Emperor Piano Concerto.) The connection David F. makes among these slow movements in E major is a dandy example of how the developing chamber musicians he coaches stand to benefit from his "good long life filled with musical experience."

What especially interested me in David F.'s linking of these three movements is that it gives us something to listen to. That they share a special quality seems clear; it's just hard to define that quality. As David F. mused, "It’s inspiring to wonder what this beautiful tonality must have meant to Beethoven." Which affected my thinking about these first performances we would hear of the three movements. My original plan was for one performance apiece -- a good "representation" of the piece in question, allowing for my biases as to how I might best like to hear each represented. Gradually my thinking shifted to multiple, interestingly contrasted performances, which would expand our hearing perspective on that special quality of "E major Beethoven."

The plan was always that we were going to follow up this initial encounter, probably into a sequel post, which would allow us to take a closer listen to our E major movements, to hear how differently performers have heard them. At the same time we would also consider how each of these interior movements relates to the piece it comes from as a whole.

That's still the plan. And it applies not just to David F.'s three "sample" movements, but to two more E major movements I thought we might add to the mix. So --

HERE ARE TWO (NO-STRINGS) E MAJOR MOVEMENTS --
PRODUCTS OF BEETHOVEN'S LATER AND EVEN LATER YEARS

(4) from the Piano Sonata No. 27 in E minor, Op. 90:
ii. Nicht zu geschwind und sehr singbar vorzutragen
(Not too swift and very singably carried forward)

Wilhelm Kempff, piano. DG, recorded in the Beethoven-Saal, Hannover, January 1965

Sviatoslav Richter, piano. Praga, recorded live in Prague, June 2, 1965

(5) from the Piano Sonata No. 30 in E, Op. 109:
iii. Theme: Gesangvoll, mit innigster Empfindung (Songful, with the most inner feeling): Andante molto cantabile ed espressivo
-- Var. I, Molto espressivo
-- Var. II, Prestissimo
-- Var. III, Allegro vivace
-- Var. IV, Etwas langsamer als das Thema (Somewhat slower than the theme)
-- Var. V, Allegro ma non troppo
-- Var. VI, Tempo I del tema (Tempo I of the theme): Cantabile

Rudolf Serkin, piano. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded July 22, 1952 (mono)

Claude Frank, piano. RCA-Music & Arts, recorded in RCA Studio A, New York City, 1970


NEXT TIME: We pursue the special quality of these E major slow movements, and we hear them in the context of the full works.

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