Liked the much needed treatise - 'Trouble in paradise ' seems a lot about utilising untuned lengths of string .Naming the silence .
' Stopping ' -tuning- a string is interesting - eventually 'traditio tradere' intrudes .. .Ottoman Empire having a system of research stretching from Fez to China being a documented start .
I have a 5 stringed Bridge's 'Lyra' - kevlar .
Simple pre input (box) stacking of frequencies can transfer function as a double bass ,and everything in between .
I just hate the kevlar . Aesthetic disobedience ?
But untuned Yakutian khomus* gets a kind of tuning close to 3rd 8ve divided into 51 seqments - - - gets Oostvaarders Plassen prewalski horses dance fighting above my head (filmed) - at first ,downwind,ie inaudible zereo amplification - 100m exposure ,of the whole herd 'clan' . Useless when they become friends for life thereafter .
Thanks for the information on Bach’s 6th prelude for cello/viola pomposa/da spalla/piccolo cello. The performance in the video is beautiful, sonorous and brook-like! Anna Magdalena’s specification of a 5-string instrument seems crucial.
There is something haunting about Beethoven’s brook scene, hinting at trouble in paradise (e.g. the composer’s incipient hearing loss), a quality shared by Death and the Maiden.
Here’s a very thorough treatment of the 5-string viola-cello if you’re interested:
Philippe Hirshorn hearing a Beethoven Symphony in his parents place ,at 4 years ...'please stop it - it hurts !''
It must have been how he was gifted - for the pain I had when he demonstrated 3rds middle passage 1st mt of Tchaikovsky vl concerto - 40 years later , was perhaps because it was slower than Oistrakh could have managed ,or anyone else ,for that matter - molto sostenuto meant portato ,not staccato ,like standing in the sun's plasma ,several impossible dimensions were further hidden - drawn out into the hair from the strings , I am still fascinated by the quantum mechanics involved ,40 subsequent years aggregate ..
This is a very interesting ,cross referenced theme . I was brought up on a less Toscannini driven rhythm- from moscow orchestras ,as first exposure to 2nd mt Pastorale .Russans do Furtwangler approach great honour .F is filmed waggling his baton intentionally vaguely at cue inserts in 7th sym Beethoven2nd mt into ..terrifyingly intentionally inaccurate .
Given new appreciation for Haitink - who had many years to find what he considered a 'middle way'.
I still hear a polder builder ( for which I love him) ,who has no streams to speak of (too much water being pumped BACK into the 40% polder underground 'quantum wave' between clay layers ),who attempts onamatopoeia without ever having been to Guca ; of which Miles Davis said 'I didnt know you could play trumpet like that !' (Look out uncut versions of 'Asphalt jungle' by Fanfare Crocodila before commercialisation )
Roma language is 1000 words , all onomatopoeic .As instigative of klezmer music - as Roma international language -of which Count Esterhazy kept an increasingly stolid collection of past masters .Roma language hails from Gujarat,the home of the 'untouchables' and has a 500 year Istanbul continious party -only recently stopped ,when communal dispersal ,high rise isolation became Istanbul's answer that infected the whole mediterreanean coast ,till Spain ,unforgiveably .All great flamenco players hail from a tradition of carrying gunpowder on carts into battlefield tight corners - for at least 400 years , Roma are the bedrock of every last mt of Hayden's string quartets ..Cant deceide which is harder .Carrying gunpowder may improve help either .
I shall never forget ,in 2006 - a summer Roma wedding celebration just metres across the water from me ,living room window meets eye level on lake surface ,6m away ,0.5m above back topiaried garden ,which evaporates 2 cube tons water per day ,every day .
Said party had the best music I had heard ,pre Guca ( only 5 hrs bus south of Belgrade) ..
So sensational that the traditional knife fight 2am was taken too seriously by local police 5 of whom had only very recently been fired for hard and soft dissemination 'with foreknowledge' .
'Beware the cop who hears no music ,for he will never do time ' .
So the !st C major Bach Cello suite mt has same conundrum .
The hand that wrote it is not JS Bach - but his second wife's ,Anna Magdalena - who was not above writing 'cast another string alongside' in the last suite intro .
But the first prelude suite has similar between 'water and rock' mysteries - the Yo Yo Ma approach is to articulate by a non wavy motion bow arm - very Davidoff Stradivari instrument - very over responsive -& very no - non according to minimalist energy expenditure aka great russians .
Having 3 healing recent arm breaks right side really brings this into focus - is one impulse - for many notes preferable - or smaller sporadic groupings of impulses?
This ,the Bachs and Beethovens ,if not the Toscannis of this world are still figuring out .
I’m beginning to think that all music traditions rely on onomatopoeia, specifically the human heartbeat that gives music its pulse, the same oscillation that sound waves themselves travel on. And of course Beethoven’s 6th/2nd movement concludes with the birdsong imitations (more onomatopoeia).
I agree that the first cello suite prelude is another example of uninterrupted watery motion. Oddly, Anna Magdalena puts repeat marks in the cello preludes, as if they were binary dance forms like the rest of the suites’ movements!
There is a mercurial code built into these wonderful examples ,DS - that hermetic interpretation subsume into 'late Beethoven' string Quartett interpretation .
It is an issue 'unturned' ,pedal wise .
Jurgen Hess introduced my mid teenage soul ,on a Mozart 4 year scholarship to Hermetic hints of interpretation *-which brings questions back to absolute tempo markings aka Toscanini 's assumption B's metronome was identical to today's mechanical ( little reason to believe that ).
The fascination with clock working models ,dolls royal combinations was not satire - but a question of humanity's favourite 'homunculous' - when B's mandatory 12 pedals on his self designed piano foot pedals are subsumed to 2 or 3 ,in blatant corruption of composer's wishes . for a sumary of this see **
It sounds nothing like todays conventional renderings of 'another' moonlit lake.. Yet Beethoven's manuscript version has ,from very beginning , an exact indication of how many strings should be sympathetically released - from one ;to two ;to three ;to four harmonic swells determined by merest key touch , utilising the untuned lengths of stopped string through 'pedal' ,no less than 5 !
(up to 30)- designed earlier by Clementi .
Today's hacks ,merely aggregated into 'undampened' timbre .Kinda crucial to suggesting light reflex in sound ,no?
No faithful resonations of Moonlight Sonata on a piano made only for 3 string vibration-- when instructions clearly exist for 4 strings PER note ; grouping its proportions to the 'light'-cathedral-like-effect in B's Moonlight sonatas' manuscript .B had 5 pedals in mind for performance . 4 strings per piano note give a drastic change to liminality of timbre -sample at https://youtu.be/HrV6vhXkTgU .
The modern trend to conflate liminalitues 'MIGHT' have something to do with 'commodification of moonlight ' ....(& Hollywood Bowl)
This precipitious contrast would be nice to collate with the drop stoned - brine washed ,lacrustine ,mid crust ,cool methane seep burst mud bubble ,below .
I had bought into the heart thing ,till bout 20 years ago .Picasso said concerning Lescaux neanderthal cave painting something about 'we have learnt nothing since '.That's earlier than 64 000 years .
First 7 images ,5th from foot of page (held still in my hands after 2 decades) is a ''lage strasse'' with 25 non human hearts ,from 450 -150 Ma .
All northern hemispheric profs stand to lose subsidy because of juxtaposition and age of at least these 25 life forms 'heartbearts' .
Proto avian 'minimicroraptor ' my still incorrect nomenclature - was attempting to lunch on side view (mama , green letters ,midpage) nemicolopterus nest ,when gassed too fast to hyperexternd neck -or even know he was dead ....Menuhen described his Mozart 5th vl concerto with Karajan as 'dead' ,which I never understood- untill old Berlin Phil'ers recounted an ancient Furtwangler walking into rehersal hall - all orch's sound reflexively became F's ,even when not conducting overtly ..Karajan pretended not to notice .
I hear pastorale like that .
Like this -
Speck of dust sized butterfly (5th from top ) an 'accidental photo' at merest 15 degree planar light shift -in near darkness ; showing its eye stalks unlikely to be mere pitch imprint washed away by brine ... .IE DNA extant ! Certainly in wasps' body ,thereunder both wings at either side of its body length ,clearly enough as the thereunder 'honeycombed' dragonfly wing still speaks of 30% CO2 . But the 'sticky ' ,tar pit unimprinted 1st layer is a volcanic mud bubble ' nacred' into a 13 sided ''Einstein Stone" -a one stone tesselation that transforms through most if not all dimensions ad infinitum ...
Until then ,my sporadic 20 yrs study had 'just about' clocked* the orthid cold water brachiopod imprint (5th from page bottom - bottom furthest right) ; 27 mmr teeth ; wasp mid layer on a way too small dragonfly wing .
But synergy has monism beat every time .This is an oil shale ,antarctic - that SHOULD have dissolved all the hearts completely . Conclusion = 'abiotic' oil formation in line with Mendeleev .
Because that tiny ,tiny butterfly is 200Ma ;70 Ma before first flower appeared ,lived off gymnosperms .Its ON an ancient wasp ,on a dragonfly wing .Wrong order ,for just about every N hemisphere paleo book ,profs .
* most of 19 years study was taken up with ploughing through images ,material of 12 000 species of brachiopoda . Some of which related are at Mariana trench not quite fullest depth ,shells ,empty found at 25 590ft .
So I love the prelude Yo Yo ma does ,angular - uncomfortable detache ,and still see Hirshorns 2/3 rds bow length circular -flat planed detache .
One is possible .
The other is not ,unless Davidov strad is SO forgiving ,which I dont believe .
Have offered all the North Hemispheric profs costless study for as long as they need , only world hydrostratiographer Jim Clark & no 1 & world microraptor no 1 Sangar Chatterjee confirmed receipt of questions ,2016 ..
None since
It is the lack of questions ,curiosity that bothers me - because mmr's stomach contents are ,on next page -visible stacked at 200X magnification , midpage .
Biotic is Pilgrims Society death grip ,because Abrahmic 'if biotic' origin of petroleum .
Yet simple Ca CO3 at 50kpascals ;1500C produces industry level hydrocarbons .
So monism is the only reason Wall street,Trump exists . Because abiotic origen truths are too cheap to apply profitably ,short term . Biomarkers usuallly occur AFTER the pollen has entered the tar pit -as the 25 life forms ,too perfectly preserved for biotic hydrocarbon formation ALONE .
* ''In some instances, the pedal piano was actually a special type of piano with a built-in pedal board and a higher keyboard and bench, like an organ. Other times, an independent pedal board and set of strings could be connected to a regular grand piano. Mozart had a pedalboard made for his piano. His father, Leopold, speaks of this pedalboard in a letter: "[the pedal] stands under the instrument and is about two feet longer and extremely heavy"
**Throughout his lifetime, Ludwig van Beethoven owned several different pianos by different makers, all with different pedal configurations. His pianos are fine examples of some experimental and innovative pedal designs of the time. In 1803, the French piano company Erard gave him a grand, "[thought to be] the most advanced French grand piano of the time... It had... four pedals, including an una-corda, a damper lift, a lute stop, and a moderator for softening the tone."
Beethoven's Broadwood grand, presented as a gift to him from the Broadwood company in 1817, had an una corda pedal and a split damper pedal — one half was the damper for the treble strings, the other half for the bass strings.[34] In an effort to give Beethoven an instrument loud enough for him to hear when his hearing was failing, Conrad Graf designed an instrument in 1824 especially for Beethoven with quadruple stringing instead of triple. Graf made only three instruments of this nature. David Crombie describes this instrument: "By adding an extra string, Graf attempted to obtain a tone that was richer and more powerful, though it didn't make the instrument any louder than his Broadwood." This extra string would have provided a bigger contrast when applying keyboard-shifting stops, because this keyboard shift pedal moved the action from four to two strings. Crombie states: "These provide a much wider control over the character of the sound than is possible on Graf's usual instruments."
This piano included five pedals: a keyboard shift (quad to due corde); bassoon; moderator 1; moderator 2; and dampers. A different four-string system, aliquot stringing, was invented by Julius Blüthner in 1873 and remains a feature of Blüthner pianos. The Blüthner aliquot system uses an additional (fourth) string in each note of the upper three octaves. This string is slightly higher than the other three strings so that it is not struck by the hammer. When the hammer strikes the three conventional strings, the aliquot string vibrates sympathetically.
As a composer and pianist, Beethoven experimented extensively with pedal. His first marking to indicate use of a pedal in a score was in his first two piano concertos, in 1795. Earlier than this, Beethoven had called for the use of the knee lever in a sketch from 1790 to 1792; "with the knee" is marked for a series of chords. According to Joseph Banowetz, "This is the earliest-known indication for a damper control in a score."[36] Haydn did not specify its use in a score until 1794. In all, there are nearly 800 indications for pedal in authentic sources of Beethoven's compositions, making him by far the first composer to be highly prolific in pedal usage.''
This is an area that I know precious little about, so I am very grateful for your insightful descriptions here, David. Your portrayal of how the compositions evoke water and its movement is beautifully written and does this subject matter justice.
Thank you for sharing something you are clearly passionate about.
You provided very appropriate visuals to accompany the writing. The first image of the composer by the brook is perfect. I especially liked the first sheet music image ... it really does look like ripples in water.
The khomus player gets an impressive variety of sounds and styles out what Americans call a jaw harp. The intonation (“stopping”) can’t be easy.
Liked the much needed treatise - 'Trouble in paradise ' seems a lot about utilising untuned lengths of string .Naming the silence .
' Stopping ' -tuning- a string is interesting - eventually 'traditio tradere' intrudes .. .Ottoman Empire having a system of research stretching from Fez to China being a documented start .
I have a 5 stringed Bridge's 'Lyra' - kevlar .
Simple pre input (box) stacking of frequencies can transfer function as a double bass ,and everything in between .
I just hate the kevlar . Aesthetic disobedience ?
But untuned Yakutian khomus* gets a kind of tuning close to 3rd 8ve divided into 51 seqments - - - gets Oostvaarders Plassen prewalski horses dance fighting above my head (filmed) - at first ,downwind,ie inaudible zereo amplification - 100m exposure ,of the whole herd 'clan' . Useless when they become friends for life thereafter .
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_u1mNQRCxM&list=RDi_u1mNQRCxM&start_radio=1
a) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbH3JYfRjOQ&list=RDwbH3JYfRjOQ&start_radio=1
b) https://5stringcello.com/english/i-j-s-bach-and-the-five-string-cello/i-j-s-bach-and-the-five-string-cello/
Still ,this analysis by DS is like a haunting ,long lost tree formation , birds of prey from afar ,until getting really close ,blackened dry wood .
Wasn't Death & the Maiden close to this ?
Thanks for the information on Bach’s 6th prelude for cello/viola pomposa/da spalla/piccolo cello. The performance in the video is beautiful, sonorous and brook-like! Anna Magdalena’s specification of a 5-string instrument seems crucial.
There is something haunting about Beethoven’s brook scene, hinting at trouble in paradise (e.g. the composer’s incipient hearing loss), a quality shared by Death and the Maiden.
Here’s a very thorough treatment of the 5-string viola-cello if you’re interested:
https://badiarovviolins.com/PDF/GSJ60_121-145_Badiarov.pdf
There is a true story of
Philippe Hirshorn hearing a Beethoven Symphony in his parents place ,at 4 years ...'please stop it - it hurts !''
It must have been how he was gifted - for the pain I had when he demonstrated 3rds middle passage 1st mt of Tchaikovsky vl concerto - 40 years later , was perhaps because it was slower than Oistrakh could have managed ,or anyone else ,for that matter - molto sostenuto meant portato ,not staccato ,like standing in the sun's plasma ,several impossible dimensions were further hidden - drawn out into the hair from the strings , I am still fascinated by the quantum mechanics involved ,40 subsequent years aggregate ..
This is a very interesting ,cross referenced theme . I was brought up on a less Toscannini driven rhythm- from moscow orchestras ,as first exposure to 2nd mt Pastorale .Russans do Furtwangler approach great honour .F is filmed waggling his baton intentionally vaguely at cue inserts in 7th sym Beethoven2nd mt into ..terrifyingly intentionally inaccurate .
Given new appreciation for Haitink - who had many years to find what he considered a 'middle way'.
I still hear a polder builder ( for which I love him) ,who has no streams to speak of (too much water being pumped BACK into the 40% polder underground 'quantum wave' between clay layers ),who attempts onamatopoeia without ever having been to Guca ; of which Miles Davis said 'I didnt know you could play trumpet like that !' (Look out uncut versions of 'Asphalt jungle' by Fanfare Crocodila before commercialisation )
Roma language is 1000 words , all onomatopoeic .As instigative of klezmer music - as Roma international language -of which Count Esterhazy kept an increasingly stolid collection of past masters .Roma language hails from Gujarat,the home of the 'untouchables' and has a 500 year Istanbul continious party -only recently stopped ,when communal dispersal ,high rise isolation became Istanbul's answer that infected the whole mediterreanean coast ,till Spain ,unforgiveably .All great flamenco players hail from a tradition of carrying gunpowder on carts into battlefield tight corners - for at least 400 years , Roma are the bedrock of every last mt of Hayden's string quartets ..Cant deceide which is harder .Carrying gunpowder may improve help either .
I shall never forget ,in 2006 - a summer Roma wedding celebration just metres across the water from me ,living room window meets eye level on lake surface ,6m away ,0.5m above back topiaried garden ,which evaporates 2 cube tons water per day ,every day .
Said party had the best music I had heard ,pre Guca ( only 5 hrs bus south of Belgrade) ..
So sensational that the traditional knife fight 2am was taken too seriously by local police 5 of whom had only very recently been fired for hard and soft dissemination 'with foreknowledge' .
'Beware the cop who hears no music ,for he will never do time ' .
So the !st C major Bach Cello suite mt has same conundrum .
The hand that wrote it is not JS Bach - but his second wife's ,Anna Magdalena - who was not above writing 'cast another string alongside' in the last suite intro .
But the first prelude suite has similar between 'water and rock' mysteries - the Yo Yo Ma approach is to articulate by a non wavy motion bow arm - very Davidoff Stradivari instrument - very over responsive -& very no - non according to minimalist energy expenditure aka great russians .
Having 3 healing recent arm breaks right side really brings this into focus - is one impulse - for many notes preferable - or smaller sporadic groupings of impulses?
This ,the Bachs and Beethovens ,if not the Toscannis of this world are still figuring out .
I’m beginning to think that all music traditions rely on onomatopoeia, specifically the human heartbeat that gives music its pulse, the same oscillation that sound waves themselves travel on. And of course Beethoven’s 6th/2nd movement concludes with the birdsong imitations (more onomatopoeia).
I agree that the first cello suite prelude is another example of uninterrupted watery motion. Oddly, Anna Magdalena puts repeat marks in the cello preludes, as if they were binary dance forms like the rest of the suites’ movements!
Thanks for your remarks.
There is a mercurial code built into these wonderful examples ,DS - that hermetic interpretation subsume into 'late Beethoven' string Quartett interpretation .
It is an issue 'unturned' ,pedal wise .
Jurgen Hess introduced my mid teenage soul ,on a Mozart 4 year scholarship to Hermetic hints of interpretation *-which brings questions back to absolute tempo markings aka Toscanini 's assumption B's metronome was identical to today's mechanical ( little reason to believe that ).
The fascination with clock working models ,dolls royal combinations was not satire - but a question of humanity's favourite 'homunculous' - when B's mandatory 12 pedals on his self designed piano foot pedals are subsumed to 2 or 3 ,in blatant corruption of composer's wishes . for a sumary of this see **
It sounds nothing like todays conventional renderings of 'another' moonlit lake.. Yet Beethoven's manuscript version has ,from very beginning , an exact indication of how many strings should be sympathetically released - from one ;to two ;to three ;to four harmonic swells determined by merest key touch , utilising the untuned lengths of stopped string through 'pedal' ,no less than 5 !
(up to 30)- designed earlier by Clementi .
Today's hacks ,merely aggregated into 'undampened' timbre .Kinda crucial to suggesting light reflex in sound ,no?
No faithful resonations of Moonlight Sonata on a piano made only for 3 string vibration-- when instructions clearly exist for 4 strings PER note ; grouping its proportions to the 'light'-cathedral-like-effect in B's Moonlight sonatas' manuscript .B had 5 pedals in mind for performance . 4 strings per piano note give a drastic change to liminality of timbre -sample at https://youtu.be/HrV6vhXkTgU .
The modern trend to conflate liminalitues 'MIGHT' have something to do with 'commodification of moonlight ' ....(& Hollywood Bowl)
This precipitious contrast would be nice to collate with the drop stoned - brine washed ,lacrustine ,mid crust ,cool methane seep burst mud bubble ,below .
I had bought into the heart thing ,till bout 20 years ago .Picasso said concerning Lescaux neanderthal cave painting something about 'we have learnt nothing since '.That's earlier than 64 000 years .
At a recent dig in Belgium https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/human-evolution/neanderthals-cannibalized-outsider-women-and-children-45-000-years-ago-at-cave-in-belgium showed Dutroux's authorized (?) approach ,1998 .2mill euros in his bank upon incarceration ,and added to while inside ,well above interest rates .
On a better note www.sofiamusicschool.nl
First 7 images ,5th from foot of page (held still in my hands after 2 decades) is a ''lage strasse'' with 25 non human hearts ,from 450 -150 Ma .
All northern hemispheric profs stand to lose subsidy because of juxtaposition and age of at least these 25 life forms 'heartbearts' .
Proto avian 'minimicroraptor ' my still incorrect nomenclature - was attempting to lunch on side view (mama , green letters ,midpage) nemicolopterus nest ,when gassed too fast to hyperexternd neck -or even know he was dead ....Menuhen described his Mozart 5th vl concerto with Karajan as 'dead' ,which I never understood- untill old Berlin Phil'ers recounted an ancient Furtwangler walking into rehersal hall - all orch's sound reflexively became F's ,even when not conducting overtly ..Karajan pretended not to notice .
I hear pastorale like that .
Like this -
Speck of dust sized butterfly (5th from top ) an 'accidental photo' at merest 15 degree planar light shift -in near darkness ; showing its eye stalks unlikely to be mere pitch imprint washed away by brine ... .IE DNA extant ! Certainly in wasps' body ,thereunder both wings at either side of its body length ,clearly enough as the thereunder 'honeycombed' dragonfly wing still speaks of 30% CO2 . But the 'sticky ' ,tar pit unimprinted 1st layer is a volcanic mud bubble ' nacred' into a 13 sided ''Einstein Stone" -a one stone tesselation that transforms through most if not all dimensions ad infinitum ...
Until then ,my sporadic 20 yrs study had 'just about' clocked* the orthid cold water brachiopod imprint (5th from page bottom - bottom furthest right) ; 27 mmr teeth ; wasp mid layer on a way too small dragonfly wing .
But synergy has monism beat every time .This is an oil shale ,antarctic - that SHOULD have dissolved all the hearts completely . Conclusion = 'abiotic' oil formation in line with Mendeleev .
Because that tiny ,tiny butterfly is 200Ma ;70 Ma before first flower appeared ,lived off gymnosperms .Its ON an ancient wasp ,on a dragonfly wing .Wrong order ,for just about every N hemisphere paleo book ,profs .
* most of 19 years study was taken up with ploughing through images ,material of 12 000 species of brachiopoda . Some of which related are at Mariana trench not quite fullest depth ,shells ,empty found at 25 590ft .
So I love the prelude Yo Yo ma does ,angular - uncomfortable detache ,and still see Hirshorns 2/3 rds bow length circular -flat planed detache .
One is possible .
The other is not ,unless Davidov strad is SO forgiving ,which I dont believe .
Have offered all the North Hemispheric profs costless study for as long as they need , only world hydrostratiographer Jim Clark & no 1 & world microraptor no 1 Sangar Chatterjee confirmed receipt of questions ,2016 ..
None since
It is the lack of questions ,curiosity that bothers me - because mmr's stomach contents are ,on next page -visible stacked at 200X magnification , midpage .
Biotic is Pilgrims Society death grip ,because Abrahmic 'if biotic' origin of petroleum .
Yet simple Ca CO3 at 50kpascals ;1500C produces industry level hydrocarbons .
So monism is the only reason Wall street,Trump exists . Because abiotic origen truths are too cheap to apply profitably ,short term . Biomarkers usuallly occur AFTER the pollen has entered the tar pit -as the 25 life forms ,too perfectly preserved for biotic hydrocarbon formation ALONE .
* ''In some instances, the pedal piano was actually a special type of piano with a built-in pedal board and a higher keyboard and bench, like an organ. Other times, an independent pedal board and set of strings could be connected to a regular grand piano. Mozart had a pedalboard made for his piano. His father, Leopold, speaks of this pedalboard in a letter: "[the pedal] stands under the instrument and is about two feet longer and extremely heavy"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeiGHWFmjg4
**Throughout his lifetime, Ludwig van Beethoven owned several different pianos by different makers, all with different pedal configurations. His pianos are fine examples of some experimental and innovative pedal designs of the time. In 1803, the French piano company Erard gave him a grand, "[thought to be] the most advanced French grand piano of the time... It had... four pedals, including an una-corda, a damper lift, a lute stop, and a moderator for softening the tone."
Beethoven's Broadwood grand, presented as a gift to him from the Broadwood company in 1817, had an una corda pedal and a split damper pedal — one half was the damper for the treble strings, the other half for the bass strings.[34] In an effort to give Beethoven an instrument loud enough for him to hear when his hearing was failing, Conrad Graf designed an instrument in 1824 especially for Beethoven with quadruple stringing instead of triple. Graf made only three instruments of this nature. David Crombie describes this instrument: "By adding an extra string, Graf attempted to obtain a tone that was richer and more powerful, though it didn't make the instrument any louder than his Broadwood." This extra string would have provided a bigger contrast when applying keyboard-shifting stops, because this keyboard shift pedal moved the action from four to two strings. Crombie states: "These provide a much wider control over the character of the sound than is possible on Graf's usual instruments."
This piano included five pedals: a keyboard shift (quad to due corde); bassoon; moderator 1; moderator 2; and dampers. A different four-string system, aliquot stringing, was invented by Julius Blüthner in 1873 and remains a feature of Blüthner pianos. The Blüthner aliquot system uses an additional (fourth) string in each note of the upper three octaves. This string is slightly higher than the other three strings so that it is not struck by the hammer. When the hammer strikes the three conventional strings, the aliquot string vibrates sympathetically.
As a composer and pianist, Beethoven experimented extensively with pedal. His first marking to indicate use of a pedal in a score was in his first two piano concertos, in 1795. Earlier than this, Beethoven had called for the use of the knee lever in a sketch from 1790 to 1792; "with the knee" is marked for a series of chords. According to Joseph Banowetz, "This is the earliest-known indication for a damper control in a score."[36] Haydn did not specify its use in a score until 1794. In all, there are nearly 800 indications for pedal in authentic sources of Beethoven's compositions, making him by far the first composer to be highly prolific in pedal usage.''
NB notes are from a rather lukewarm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_pedals -
Nobody bothered to look beyond traditional approaches at B's manuscript ?
This is an area that I know precious little about, so I am very grateful for your insightful descriptions here, David. Your portrayal of how the compositions evoke water and its movement is beautifully written and does this subject matter justice.
Thank you for sharing something you are clearly passionate about.
I hope the visual elements helped convey the subject, especially to an artist like yourself.
Thanks for the sensitive comments.
You provided very appropriate visuals to accompany the writing. The first image of the composer by the brook is perfect. I especially liked the first sheet music image ... it really does look like ripples in water.
Thanks to the copyist's patience & flair .Beethoven was not the neatest hand ,generously speaking .
Pretty crazy synchronicity, the last live piece of classical stuff I saw was Beethoven's.....6th Symphony. L
Haha it was meant to be.