Schindler describes Beethoven’s playing as “hard and heavy” and clarifies this by referring to the influence of the organ. I never thought of the Beethoven’s dynamic level being inspired by the organ. The opening of the Appassionata certainly comes to mind. Beethoven was often criticized for having a lack of refinement, delicacy, and clarity in his works. This might be true to some extent regarding his own performance but I find several of Beethoven’s early compositions to be as refined and articulate as the compositions by Mozart.
Piano duals. What is that? Can you imagine a time when it was fashionable for pianist/composers to alternately improvise on a single theme. It is hard to imagine a time when creativity was “judged” by developing musical ideas. We now live in an era where creative interpretation is rather separate from creative composition.
“The increasing mechanism of pianoforte playing would in the end destroy all truth of expression in music” This has already happened a lang lang time ago.
“No more metronome! Anyone who can feel the music right does not need it, and for anyone who can’t , nothing is of any use; he runs away with the whole orchestra anyway!” L van Beethoven.
Now I wish I could hear that in German.
In reading the previous chapter it made me sad that Mozart had to teach mostly because of financial reasons. It makes me sad that anybody in the prime of their careers, whether it be in performance or composition has to do so. (even if they are not as good as Mozart in or anyway near it-which I must say is probably even sadder.)
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Yes, it is sad story, but Mozart left a lot of valuable works if he was rich? In my experience, I could get lot of musical idea and learn the music in order to teach other students. I think Mozart could also get lots of musical things even though he was a genius.
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