Re: [Harp-L] Beethoven, shoved fists, and bent notes

[Steve <moorcot@xxxxxxx>]

> On 4 Nov 2014, at 21:26, "rosco" <roscoharp@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Did the gods of classical music such as
> Beethoven and Schubert recoil in horror at the inconsistent tone color of
> musicians fisting their horns? 

Beethoven deliberately made the sense of strain an essential part of the aesthetic of his music, stretching instruments and voices to their technical limits. In his day he was often reviled for being unsympathetic to those who were obliged to perform his works. There is a section in the choral finale of the ninth symphony in which the poor sopranos have to hold a top C for twelve bars. The finale of the Op. 130 quartet in B flat, the Grosse Fuge, was generally regarded as unplayable right up to the end of the 19th century. There are lots of other examples in his music like these where the deliberate call for extreme technique got people's backs up in his time. But how attitudes change. The Grosse Fuge is now regarded as one of his greatest works, and who would change a note of the Choral Symphony!