Klarinet Archive - Posting 000332.txt from 1995/08

From: niethamer@-----.BITNET
Subj: Re: Beethoven Op. 11
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 1995 11:26:11 -0400

On Wed, 23 Aug 1995, Jay Winick wrote:

> Somewhere I heard that the trio's third movement theme was suggested by the
> clarinettist and that it was based on an operatic theme to some opera with a
> funny name that involved food (more convoluted ??)
>
> Anyone know anything about this?

Gary Bisaga wrote:

> In fact,
> Beethoven's "33 Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli" (op. 120) does the
> very same thing. A simple but nice little tune (not a waltz actually)
> by a somewhat-well-known-at-the-time Viennese music publisher is
> transformed (transfigured?) into Beethoven's greatest set of
> variations. I don't doubt that Beethoven showed contempt for the
> tune; it's just that it would be very like him to be contemptuous
> externally but then use the tune as a basis for creation (I think it
> was Stravinski who said "All artists borrow ideas from others; the
> great ones steal them outright." :)

According to the Henle edition 342 of the Trios, Op. 11 and 38, The theme
of the Op. 11 variations is from the opera by J. Weigl "L'amor marinaro".
The theme, which translates "Before I begin work" was also used as a
theme by Hummel and Paganini.

Use of the themes of other composers is a commonplace activity in the
18th and 19th centuries, no doubt stemming from the art of improvisation
learned by performers in that day. We can add to Beethoven's list of
"borrowed" themes the "Kakadu" Variations for Piano Trio, "La Ci Darem"
Variations (for 2 ob/Eng Horn?) in addition to Gary's example.

I don't think Beethoven was making fun of Mssr. Weigl, at least not
musically. The Op. 11 variations show a complete range of emotion that
a "Classical" composer would have typically used in varying a theme -
limited for the most extreme examples to tempo changes and change to the
relative minor key.

I'm not a historical or theoretical scholar, but this piece shows a
Beethoven "signature" that I find very interesting. In the development of
the first movement, instead of beginning in the dominant key of F Major,
he uses Gb. One of my theorist/composer friends says this is historically
a comon occurence after Beethoven, and stems from various
pianist/composers discovering the piano key a half step up from the
conventional fifth scale step.

I like this trio - can you tell?

=========================
David Niethamer
niethamer@-----.edu
dbnclar1@-----.com
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