Conversations in a Time of Change Ludwig van Beethoven’s Violin Sonatas
Richard Bratby
“Does he believe that I think of his wretched fiddle when the spirit speaks to me?” Beethoven’s famous outburst—supposedly delivered to the violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh during a rehearsal of a late quartet—has come to stand for the whole of his relationship with the violin. And indeed, as the eminent musicologist Joseph Kerman puts it, “like so many other deeply suspect anecdotes about Beethoven, on the deepest level, this one feels only too authentic.” Peel back its layers, however, and a more ambiguous picture emerges. Beethoven’s deafness might have isolated him from the world, but he wasn’t dealing with abstractions: he was talking to a musician who was also an old friend and who understood his string music better, perhaps, than any artist then alive. We can only guess at Beethoven’s tone of voice, though his use of the ultra-formal third person suggests heavy irony. Schuppanzigh knew that Beethoven understood the violin intimately: in fact, he had given him an intensive series of lessons on the instrument in 1794. Family members often criticize each other in ways that they would never tolerate from an outsider. Beethoven could tease Schuppanzigh because he was a close friend, and he could call the violin “wretched” because —although principally known as a virtuoso pianist—he was also a former violinist of professional standard. Beethoven’s ten sonatas for violin and piano are defined by that fact. They are the work of a composer who, like Mozart, was proficient on both instruments. Indeed, during an era in which works of this type were intended principally for sale, and when the variable nature and quality of domestic keyboard instruments meant
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