{"id":67,"date":"2006-07-07T10:45:07","date_gmt":"2006-07-07T10:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2006\/07\/07\/intermezzo-3-notes-of-beethoven-but-only-one-pitch\/"},"modified":"2010-09-15T12:23:09","modified_gmt":"2010-09-15T11:23:09","slug":"intermezzo-3-notes-of-beethoven-but-only-one-pitch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2006\/07\/07\/intermezzo-3-notes-of-beethoven-but-only-one-pitch\/","title":{"rendered":"Intermezzo- 3 Notes of Beethoven (but only one pitch)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Very briefly\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\">My favourite moment in the second movement of\u00a0 Beethoven 3 is bars 157-159 (just after letter E), when we hear a very soft, very high a-flat in the first violins, followed by a very loud, very low a-flat in the celli and basses, then a very loud a-flat major chord with all the strings and the horns. I have my own, very personal, poetic idea of what this moment might express dramatically, but I thought it would be good to see if I could understand why Beethoven used those notes to create that moment. Certainly it is the most dramatic moment (of many very dramatic moments) in the movement, so why a-flat? Maybe the answer is in more questions\u2026<br \/>\n<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\"> <\/span><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Question: What is the first note with an expressive marking on it in the movement?<br \/>\n<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><br \/>\nAnswer: A-flat (First violins, bar 6, sf)<br \/>\n<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\"> <\/span><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Question: If the E-flat major theme at letter A is the first sign of any hope or respite, what note takes us back to c minor?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Answer: A-flat (in the first violins in the third bar of letter A)<\/span><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"> <\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><br \/>\n<span lang=\"EN-GB\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Questions: After the great, fortissimo climax of the Maggiore section, what note takes us back to c minor?<br \/>\n<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\"> <\/span><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Answer: A-flat (bar 102. Note that bar\u00a0101 could still be in major, the down beat is a c major chord- I think many performances lose that sense that it isn\u2019t until the next bar that we know where we\u2019re going).<br \/>\n<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\"> <\/span><\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Question: What harmony signals our entrance into the coda<br \/>\n<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\"> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Answer: A Flat Major (letter H)<br \/>\n<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\"> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Question: What is the highest note in the last phrase of the movement?<br \/>\n<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\"> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Answer: A flat (first violins bar 242)<br \/>\n<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\"> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Now that is cool.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">So, what does A-flat mean to Beethoven in this movement?<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2006\/07\/07\/intermezzo-3-notes-of-beethoven-but-only-one-pitch\/\" send=\"false\" layout=\"box_count\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"true\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Very briefly\u2026. My favourite moment in the second movement of\u00a0 Beethoven 3 is bars 157-159 (just after letter E), when we hear a very soft, very high a-flat in the first violins, followed by a very loud, very low a-flat in the celli and basses, then a very loud a-flat major chord with all the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,8,7],"tags":[422,424,414,423],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-opion-life-as-a-performing-musician","category-favorite-posts","category-masterclass","tag-a-flat","tag-analysis","tag-eroica","tag-funeral-march"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1854,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions\/1854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}