Beethoven and the Creative Process
- Author: Cooper, Barry
His book is a work of scholarship, in language the layman can understand ... the best available introduction to Beethoven's composing methods
Beethoven and the Creative Process
- Author: Cooper, Barry
Purchase product
His book is a work of scholarship, in language the layman can understand ... the best available introduction to Beethoven's composing methods
About
Beethoven's habit of composing by making large numbers of preliminary drafts and sketches was sufficiently unusual to attract attention even during his lifetime, and his creative process has attracted a good deal more attention since. The present book incorporates the findings of recent studies on this fascinating subject as well as providing many additional new insights. Cooper examines Beethoven's underlying creative motivation and there is and introduction to his compositional methods in general. The final part of the book is a detailed study of particular compositional problems in six different works, selected to provide a wide range of genres, dates, and types of problem. The book as a whole adds considerably to our understanding of one of the greatest figures in the history of our culture.
Contents
- Approaching Beethoven's creative process. Part 1 Factors affecting Beethoven's creative process: Beethoven's artistic aims
- professional pressures
- extramusical factors
- recurring ideas. Part 2 Beethoven's compositional methods: the sketchbooks and their use
- the visual appearance of the sketches
- types and relationships of sketches
- the sketching of form and key
- the sketching of melody
- the vertical dimension and finishing touches. Part 3 Stages in the creative process: first conceptions - piano concerto in D minor, Op 31 No 2
- planning the later movements - string quartet in B flat, Op 130
- musical structure and vivid pictorialism - "Meeresstille", Op 112
- the problem of the joins - "Egmont" overture
- a creation in three phases - the late bagatelles
- a long-running revision - second piano concerto.
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His book is a work of scholarship, in language the layman can understand ... the best available introduction to Beethoven's composing methods
