Author: Ken Shaw
Date: 2002-04-22 17:41
Rob -
Here's what I wrote 3 years ago on the Klarinet board:
The last movement of the Beethoven Trio is variations on a theme from an aria in the comic opera "L'amor marinaro" or "The Corsair" by Joseph Weigl. The text means "Before I begin work," which is incomplete -- It's actually "Before I begin work, I must have something to eat."
According to Weigl's bio in Baker's, the opera premiered on October 15, 1797. I have read (I don't remember where - on a record jacket, I think) that the opera was enormously popular, and this tune was whistled all over Vienna. Thus, everyone who heard the Beethoven trio would get the joke. My forgotten source went on to say that when the tune faded from popularity, Beethoven's papers showed he intended to write another finale, but never got around to it.
When you play the variations, remember that they're done on a comic tune and are meant to be funny. Beethoven really rings the changes - angry, heroic, sweet, impossibly sad (in the minor variation, you can hear the tears running down the cheek) and finally a learned fugue. In the fugue, Beethoven carries it to extremes at the end, with the 3 clarinet solo descending notes, followed by the same 3 pizzicato on the cello, and then staccato on the piano, which is then overwhelmed by the final rush to the end.
When I played this on a reproduction of an old clarinet, with fortepiano and a gut-string cello with no end pin, I realized what was going on. The lighter voiced clarinet can play those 3 notes like pizzicatos, and the fortepiano can do the same. We prepared the audience by playing the minor key variation with silent movie style swoons and got audible laughter (admittedly from an audience of musicians) with the fugue, pizzicatos and coda.
Have fun performing it.
Ken Shaw
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