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Page 1: Beethoven and the Creative Processby Barry Cooper

Beethoven and the Creative Process by Barry CooperReview by: Lewis LockwoodNotes, Second Series, Vol. 48, No. 3 (Mar., 1992), pp. 847-850Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/941696 .

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Page 2: Beethoven and the Creative Processby Barry Cooper

Book Reviews Book Reviews

cultural history. His research is among the freshest and most thought-provoking to be found in any of the humanistic disciplines. His contribution is best summarized in his own words:

The writer hopes, however, that he has been able to furnish enough evidence to prove the value and potentialities of an approach that considers music (as did the ancients) as one provenance in the vast realm of the human mind, which cannot be fully understood in isolation, but only in constant comparison with the growth

cultural history. His research is among the freshest and most thought-provoking to be found in any of the humanistic disciplines. His contribution is best summarized in his own words:

The writer hopes, however, that he has been able to furnish enough evidence to prove the value and potentialities of an approach that considers music (as did the ancients) as one provenance in the vast realm of the human mind, which cannot be fully understood in isolation, but only in constant comparison with the growth

of human thought, seen as one single process though expressed in various media.... Only thus can we hope to un- cover the deepest sources of the changes and revolutions in musical style and structure, and only in this way can we hope to bring the study of music back into the circle of the humanities, from which it has been banished as a stranger and an outsider for much too long (p. 18).

SUSAN SCEA

Dalhousie University

of human thought, seen as one single process though expressed in various media.... Only thus can we hope to un- cover the deepest sources of the changes and revolutions in musical style and structure, and only in this way can we hope to bring the study of music back into the circle of the humanities, from which it has been banished as a stranger and an outsider for much too long (p. 18).

SUSAN SCEA

Dalhousie University

Beethoven and the Creative Process. By Barry Cooper. Oxford: Clar- endon Press, 1990. [x, 325 p. ISBN 0-19-816163-8. $55.00.] Beethoven and the Creative Process. By Barry Cooper. Oxford: Clar- endon Press, 1990. [x, 325 p. ISBN 0-19-816163-8. $55.00.]

This is an ambitious book. Whatever questions, doubts, and objections may be raised-and rest assured they will be-it comes off as a courageous attempt to sum up the current state of study and under- standing of Beethoven's sketches. Barry Cooper's aims are large in scope. Admitting that "any conclusions reached here must be somewhat provisional" (p. 1), Cooper of- fers the promise of bringing together "what is currently known on the subject," based on a "more wide-ranging and detailed as- sessment of the sources than was possible in Nottebohm's day." And he also aspires in broader terms to employ the study of the sketches (and in part the autographs) to do nothing less than "to see what were Beet- hoven's chief compositional goals, and what difficulties he had to overcome in order to achieve them" (p. 1).

From these blandly asserted but far- reaching goals we see that the book really aims at two objectives: (1) to offer a sub- stantial precis of what is currently accepted as factual information about Beethoven's compositional procedures, as recorded pri- marily but not exclusively in the vast body of his sketches, "by far the most informa- tive sources"; and (2) to take a deeper look into samples of the compositional process, in order to formulate views of Beethoven's compositional planning of specific works. Thus the first two parts of the book attempt an overview of the surviving material and the context in which Beethoven worked, with chapters on "Professional Pressures"

This is an ambitious book. Whatever questions, doubts, and objections may be raised-and rest assured they will be-it comes off as a courageous attempt to sum up the current state of study and under- standing of Beethoven's sketches. Barry Cooper's aims are large in scope. Admitting that "any conclusions reached here must be somewhat provisional" (p. 1), Cooper of- fers the promise of bringing together "what is currently known on the subject," based on a "more wide-ranging and detailed as- sessment of the sources than was possible in Nottebohm's day." And he also aspires in broader terms to employ the study of the sketches (and in part the autographs) to do nothing less than "to see what were Beet- hoven's chief compositional goals, and what difficulties he had to overcome in order to achieve them" (p. 1).

From these blandly asserted but far- reaching goals we see that the book really aims at two objectives: (1) to offer a sub- stantial precis of what is currently accepted as factual information about Beethoven's compositional procedures, as recorded pri- marily but not exclusively in the vast body of his sketches, "by far the most informa- tive sources"; and (2) to take a deeper look into samples of the compositional process, in order to formulate views of Beethoven's compositional planning of specific works. Thus the first two parts of the book attempt an overview of the surviving material and the context in which Beethoven worked, with chapters on "Professional Pressures"

and "Extramusical Factors." They also at- tempt to sort out in basic terms what the sketches in general tend to reveal (in chap- ters on "The Sketching of Form and Key," on "The Sketching of Melody," and, to close the larger synthetic part of the book, "The Vertical Dimension and the Finishing Touches"). Then the remainder of the book focuses on six useful case studies from a variety of periods and genres: (in order) the "Tempest" Sonata, op. 31, no. 2; the Quartet in Bb Major, op. 130 (with some remarks on the famous problem of its two finales); the choral setting of Goethe's "Meeresstille und gliickliche Fahrt," op. 112; the Egmont Overture; the two late sets of Bagatelles, opp. 119 and 126; and the Second Piano Concerto, op. 19.

"Somewhat provisional" is putting it mildly when it comes to present-day con- clusions based on even the known large sketchbooks. Not every reader will realize that the path-breaking inventory by Dou- glas Johnson, Alan Tyson, and Robert Win- ter (The Beethoven Sketchbooks: History, Re- construction, Inventory [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985], known in the trade by the abbreviation JTW) records a total of thirty-three "desk sketchbooks" (the larger-size sketchbooks, as opposed to the numerous pocket sketchbooks and score- sketches of the late period, not to mention the many loose leaves) but that of these thirty-three only seven have yet been pub- lished in full transcription. They are as follows:

and "Extramusical Factors." They also at- tempt to sort out in basic terms what the sketches in general tend to reveal (in chap- ters on "The Sketching of Form and Key," on "The Sketching of Melody," and, to close the larger synthetic part of the book, "The Vertical Dimension and the Finishing Touches"). Then the remainder of the book focuses on six useful case studies from a variety of periods and genres: (in order) the "Tempest" Sonata, op. 31, no. 2; the Quartet in Bb Major, op. 130 (with some remarks on the famous problem of its two finales); the choral setting of Goethe's "Meeresstille und gliickliche Fahrt," op. 112; the Egmont Overture; the two late sets of Bagatelles, opp. 119 and 126; and the Second Piano Concerto, op. 19.

"Somewhat provisional" is putting it mildly when it comes to present-day con- clusions based on even the known large sketchbooks. Not every reader will realize that the path-breaking inventory by Dou- glas Johnson, Alan Tyson, and Robert Win- ter (The Beethoven Sketchbooks: History, Re- construction, Inventory [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985], known in the trade by the abbreviation JTW) records a total of thirty-three "desk sketchbooks" (the larger-size sketchbooks, as opposed to the numerous pocket sketchbooks and score- sketches of the late period, not to mention the many loose leaves) but that of these thirty-three only seven have yet been pub- lished in full transcription. They are as follows:

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Page 3: Beethoven and the Creative Processby Barry Cooper

NOTES, March 1992

JTW pp. Sketchbook Date Transcription Facsimile

77-83 Grasnick 1 1798-99 Szabo diss. (Bonn, 1951) None 84-89 Grasnick 2 1799 Virneisel, 1974 Bonn, 1972 101-12 Landsberg 7 1800-01 Mikulicz, 1927 None 124-29 Kessler 1801-02 Brandenburg, 1976 Bonn, 1978 130-36 Wielhorsky 1802-03 Fishman, 1962 Moscow, 1962 174-79 Grasnick 3 1808-09 Weise, 1957 None 253-59 Wittgenstein 1819-20 Schmidt-Gorg, (1972) Bonn, 1968

NOTE: For full bibliographic information see the indicated pages of JTW. I exclude from this list the three pocket sketchbooks for the Missa Solemnis, Beethovenhaus MSS 107-9, which were published in 1968-70 [see JTW, 364-75]; also those sketchbooks that have been prepared for publication in tran- scription or facsimile, but that have not yet appeared, even though in one or two cases they have been anticipated eagerly for many years. One of the most important of these is Richard Kramer's edition of the sketchbook Autograph 19E (of 1800), which JTW, 89, reported in 1985 to be "in press" at the Beetho- venhaus but which as of this writing (1991) has still not yet been formally announced. A number of other sketchbooks are in preparation by various scholars but publication dates for them have not yet been made known by the Beethovenhaus. I also exclude from this list those that have been published in facsimile but not yet in full transcription (e.g., the Engelmann sketchbook of 1823); and also Joseph Kerman's monumental publication of the "Kafka" papers in the British Library, which constitute the most important body of sketch material from Beethoven's earlier years, before he began to use sketchbooks systematically (Ludwig van Beethoven: Autograph Miscellany from circa 1786 to 1799, 2 vols. [London: British Museum, 1970]). Dagmar Weise's edition of the London portion of the "Pastoral-Symphony Sketchbook" (Bonn: Beethovenhaus, 1961) lacks the portions located in Berlin, Vienna, and Bonn, and a complete revised edition is needed; see JTW, 166-73.

We may add to these the thirty-six cur- rently surviving pocket sketchbooks (one is lost) listed by JTW, of which only three have been issued in formal transcription. And if we add in the multitude of indepen- dent single leaves, bifolia, and fragments that are appropriately not included in JTW and have also not yet been published in transcription, we begin to see why Cooper's attempt at a synthesis-even allowing for his own research and that of others into the sources for a number of important works- necessarily remains a temporary summa- tion of the broad facts about a body of material that is still very imperfectly known. The plain truth is that the vast ma- jority of the Beethoven sketches are still unpublished in any reliable form and are certainly not generally available for study. All one can do is deal with the material as it appears in the light of the current tran- scription and facsimile editions (which are coming out at glacial speed from Bonn and for which a collaborative international scholarly task force should long ago have been formed to expedite transcription and publication of this mass of material). A cen- tury and more after Nottebohm, in spite of the gigantic step forward in factual knowl- edge represented by JTW, only a small

fraction of what we long to know and try to understand is actually available. Yet Coo- per is right to make this overview, since in no other way can we take the measure even of the material known so far.

Accordingly, this book will repay reading by anyone wishing to obtain an overview of the current state of the field. Yet in another sense what I have said about its relationship to the larger portions of the iceberg is in- evitably and equally true for what is known and published. This is because Cooper tends to present his ideas in deliberately direct forms of assertion rather than as questions and hypotheses, at times glossing over very difficult problems in exception- ally understated language. Thus (to return to the main goals mentioned above) he writes, reasonably enough, that "perhaps the two most fundamental questions that can be asked about Beethoven's creative process are why he composed and how he composed" (p. 2). Cooper then goes on in chapter 2 ("Beethoven's Artistic Aims") to reformulate (and answer) the first of these as follows:

What was the underlying motivation for Beethoven's compositional activity? On one level he regarded composition as

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Page 4: Beethoven and the Creative Processby Barry Cooper

Book Reviews

necessary for earning a living, but the prime motivation lay much deeper. It seems that from an early age he felt an urge to compose, and this urge remained with him throughout his life. (P. 19)

This has the ring of someone carefully de- scribing the chemical components of a well- known substance but neglecting to mention until much later that it is generally known as "dynamite." Not that Cooper is wrong to raise such issues-far from it. It is simply that they lie at so basic a level of our entire conception of art, and are so entangled with concepts of artistic personality, such as ambition, obsession, power, achievement, competition, immortality-in short, Plato's "divine madness"-as to make Cooper's blandness breathtaking. Moreover, to raise such questions without any reference to the domains of the history, philosophy, and above all the psychology of artistic creativ- ity, disciplines that have their own immense literatures, is to run the risk of seeming indifferent to the deeper levels of such is- sues, a posture that, I feel sure, Cooper neither aspires to nor endorses.

Things are better when we come to con- ceptual issues within the narrower perim- eter of Beethoven studies, but even here there are problems. Cooper does well to sift out from Beethoven's letters, dedications, and other accounts every scrap of refer- ence to his aims and procedures, but he does so without reference to the need for a large-scale view of Beethoven's aesthetic aims seen in relationship to contemporary and immediately pre-existent styles, genres, and compositional models. Admit- tedly there could not possibly be room in this book for adequate reference to what Beethoven must have learned from the greatest of his predecessors, or how his complex relationships to them-above all in the early phases to Haydn and Mozart and later to Handel and Bach-must have grown along with, and intertwined with, his own independent path of development. But at least alluding to such problems would have deepened the discourse. What Cooper does achieve in his earlier chapters is the presentation of a body of helpful and interesting observations about the general features of the Beethoven sketches as we have them, through an attempt to catego- rize what they contain.

If the treatment of the sketches in the book is extensive and ramified, one cannot say the same for the treatment of the au- tographs. To begin with, Cooper's list of published facsimile editions of autograph scores was incomplete at the time of his book's publication in 1990. Cooper lists only two piano sonatas as available in fac- simile (Opp. 53 and 57) but in fact there were six others then published: Op. 26 (1895); Op. 27/2 (1921; reissued in Tokyo in 1970); Op. 78 (1923); Op. 109 (1965); 110 (1967); and Op. 111 (known in five editions, including reprints, from 1922 to 1968). Still more remarkable is the omis- sion of the two symphony autographs avail- able in facsimile-the Fifth (1942) and the Ninth (1924; reprinted 1975, with two leaves added). Also left out are the 1976 facsimile of "Gott, welch' Dunkel hier" from Fidelio and that of the song cycle, An die ferne Geliebte (1970). All this suggests that Cooper's treatment of the later phases of the composition process, including changes in the autograph manuscripts, is less developed than that of the sketches, and that turns out to be the case. Even so, he is prone to strong assertions about the possible relationship between Beethoven's sketching of mainly single-staff ideas in sketchbooks and leaves, on the one hand, and his development of score versions of his ideas, on the other. On page 108 Coo- per notes that score sketches are "not ex- clusive to the late quartets," but occur spo- radically in earlier periods. Yet he goes on to say that "there is strong evidence that at this time [ca. 1800-1802], even in quartets, Beethoven generally worked straight from single-line drafts to the final score" (p. 108). Yet later (p. 158-59) he notes that often enough, when Beethoven was writing out the final score, problems of texture im- peded an easy path, and a score that had begun with clarity and serenity "became in- creasingly messy with corrections" as Beethoven reconceived his material. The chief example that he then discusses is the autograph of the first movement of the Vi- oloncello Sonata, op. 69, which I published and discussed in 1970. (See my article, "The Autograph of the First Movement of Beethoven's Sonata for Violoncello and Pi- anoforte, Opus 69," The Music Forum, 2 [1970]: 1-109; and the separate facsimile of the autograph issued by Columbia Uni-

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Page 5: Beethoven and the Creative Processby Barry Cooper

NOTES, March 1992 NOTES, March 1992

versity Press in that year. Both are now out of print, but the article and facsimile will be reprinted with minor emendations in my forthcoming volume of essays, Beethoven: Studies in the Creative Process [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992]. Since Cooper goes to some length [pp. 160-63] to take issue with my tran- scription of a couple of short passages in the first movement [mm. 65 and 101-5], the republication of the facsimile should make the material readily available to those who may wish to follow up these details and judge for themselves.)

Still, Cooper is not prepared to admit the possibility that Beethoven's way of getting from his many typical one-staff sketches up to final scores may more often than not have included rudimentary or partial scores that he did not keep and that no longer exist. While we do not have such rudimentary scores in great numbers, it seems to me more than likely that they once existed in substantial numbers but that (un- like the sketchbooks) they vanished from view once a work was finished, because (un- like the sketchbooks) Beethoven no longer had use for them musically or psycholog- ically. Conceptually, at least, I find it dif- ficult to believe that the many problems of voicing, registration, counterpoint, and continuity could readily have been solved with such ease that in complex works (e.g., the Eroica or the String Quartet op. 59, no. 1) Beethoven could simply have proceeded from single-staff sketches to score in one bound, without working out many passages in score or partial score. The surviving ma- terial for some works indicates just this, for instance that for the last Cello Sonata, op. 102, no. 2. Admittedly, however, this re- mains conjecture.

A word about the indexes for the book. As is customary, Cooper includes both an index of sketch sources and an index of references to Beethoven's works within the volume. With these I have no quarrel. But

versity Press in that year. Both are now out of print, but the article and facsimile will be reprinted with minor emendations in my forthcoming volume of essays, Beethoven: Studies in the Creative Process [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992]. Since Cooper goes to some length [pp. 160-63] to take issue with my tran- scription of a couple of short passages in the first movement [mm. 65 and 101-5], the republication of the facsimile should make the material readily available to those who may wish to follow up these details and judge for themselves.)

Still, Cooper is not prepared to admit the possibility that Beethoven's way of getting from his many typical one-staff sketches up to final scores may more often than not have included rudimentary or partial scores that he did not keep and that no longer exist. While we do not have such rudimentary scores in great numbers, it seems to me more than likely that they once existed in substantial numbers but that (un- like the sketchbooks) they vanished from view once a work was finished, because (un- like the sketchbooks) Beethoven no longer had use for them musically or psycholog- ically. Conceptually, at least, I find it dif- ficult to believe that the many problems of voicing, registration, counterpoint, and continuity could readily have been solved with such ease that in complex works (e.g., the Eroica or the String Quartet op. 59, no. 1) Beethoven could simply have proceeded from single-staff sketches to score in one bound, without working out many passages in score or partial score. The surviving ma- terial for some works indicates just this, for instance that for the last Cello Sonata, op. 102, no. 2. Admittedly, however, this re- mains conjecture.

A word about the indexes for the book. As is customary, Cooper includes both an index of sketch sources and an index of references to Beethoven's works within the volume. With these I have no quarrel. But

the "General Index" is disappointing, to say the least, and the reader will find that many important issues discussed in the book are left unmentioned there, including such topics as "repeats" (see pp. 130-31), "or- chestration" (see pp. 164ff.), and "dynam- ics" (see pp. 168ff.). Even names of im- portant contributors to the field are given only brief mention-e.g., Philip Gossett, whose study of Marzelline's aria in Fidelio (Beethoven Jahrbuch 10 [1978-81]) is noted but whose major article on the sketches for the Pastoral Symphony (JAMS 27 [1974]) is listed in the bibliography but goes unmen- tioned in the body of the book. Just as surprising is the absence of any reference to Allen Forte except in the bibliography, and the absence altogether of Heinrich Schenker's name, despite Schenker's im- portant use of Nottebohm's work in his monographs on the Fifth and Ninth Sym- phonies and his publication with commen- tary of three sketch leaves and his autograph-facsimile edition of the "Moon- light Sonata" (Vienna: Universal, 1921). In parallel vein, under "Jonas, Oswald" the bibliography lists two articles, of 1940 and 1965, but not his important essay, "Beet- hovens Skizzen" (Zeitschrift fiir Musikwissen- schaft 16 [1934]: 449-59), which attempted to draw some analytical conclusions from the sketches precisely at the same time that the later work of Jonas's teacher, Schenker, had developed in such a way as to relegate such foreground elements to the margins of analytical thought, where they seem in that tradition to have pretty much re- mained. Still, those who take the trouble to read through the book and make their own additions to the general index will find its usefulness enhanced, thanks to the fact that Cooper has indeed offered valuable and substantive comments on topics of broad interest to music historians and theorists, as well as to the general reader.

LEWIS LOCKWOOD Harvard University

the "General Index" is disappointing, to say the least, and the reader will find that many important issues discussed in the book are left unmentioned there, including such topics as "repeats" (see pp. 130-31), "or- chestration" (see pp. 164ff.), and "dynam- ics" (see pp. 168ff.). Even names of im- portant contributors to the field are given only brief mention-e.g., Philip Gossett, whose study of Marzelline's aria in Fidelio (Beethoven Jahrbuch 10 [1978-81]) is noted but whose major article on the sketches for the Pastoral Symphony (JAMS 27 [1974]) is listed in the bibliography but goes unmen- tioned in the body of the book. Just as surprising is the absence of any reference to Allen Forte except in the bibliography, and the absence altogether of Heinrich Schenker's name, despite Schenker's im- portant use of Nottebohm's work in his monographs on the Fifth and Ninth Sym- phonies and his publication with commen- tary of three sketch leaves and his autograph-facsimile edition of the "Moon- light Sonata" (Vienna: Universal, 1921). In parallel vein, under "Jonas, Oswald" the bibliography lists two articles, of 1940 and 1965, but not his important essay, "Beet- hovens Skizzen" (Zeitschrift fiir Musikwissen- schaft 16 [1934]: 449-59), which attempted to draw some analytical conclusions from the sketches precisely at the same time that the later work of Jonas's teacher, Schenker, had developed in such a way as to relegate such foreground elements to the margins of analytical thought, where they seem in that tradition to have pretty much re- mained. Still, those who take the trouble to read through the book and make their own additions to the general index will find its usefulness enhanced, thanks to the fact that Cooper has indeed offered valuable and substantive comments on topics of broad interest to music historians and theorists, as well as to the general reader.

LEWIS LOCKWOOD Harvard University

Puccini's Turandot: The End of the Great Tradition. By William Ash- brook and Harold Powers. (Princeton Studies in Opera.) Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991. [x, 193 p. ISBN 0-691-09137-4, $35.00. ISBN 0-691-02712-9, $14.95 (pbk.).]

Puccini's Turandot: The End of the Great Tradition. By William Ash- brook and Harold Powers. (Princeton Studies in Opera.) Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991. [x, 193 p. ISBN 0-691-09137-4, $35.00. ISBN 0-691-02712-9, $14.95 (pbk.).]

The last decade has witnessed something of a Renaissance (perhaps drop the "Re-")

The last decade has witnessed something of a Renaissance (perhaps drop the "Re-")

in Puccini scholarship. Though still rela- tively small, a growing number of articles, in Puccini scholarship. Though still rela- tively small, a growing number of articles,

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