Op. 58: Orpheus vs. Furies of Hades?

[euphony131]

Ok,

I wanta' take time out to discuss the Andante from Piano concerto #4, op. 58. I've heard from more than one person that this mvt. was cast on the myth of Orpheus. That the piano is Orpheus and the Strings are the Furies of Hadies. Now I don't know anything about this myth...however, I certainly can detect a confrontation going on between the Strings and the Piano. And when the piano goes off on a cadenza-like run it seems to be asserting itself in the face of the dark-sounding strings. I especially love how, in the end, against the backdrop of fading strings, the piano plays like it's saying "And I'll be there..." to the "goblins" that may return. All sorts of allusions to the C minor symphony.

Can anyone elaborate on the Orpheus myth? And is there any validity to it? Finally, curious to know how others respond to this mvt.

[Peter]

It was E.M.Forster who suggested Orpheus in a 1935 essay 'Wordmaking and sound-taking' -

"....and elderly gentlemen before myself have called it 'beauty and the beast'. What about Orpheus and the Furies, though?...When the movement begins I always repair to the entrance of Hell and descend under the guidance of Gluck through diminishing opposition to the Elysian fields.....the piano turns into Orpheus and the strings, waving less and less their snaky locks, sink at last into acquiescence with true love."

That their is a dialogue going on between strings and soloist is obvious as is the fact that the piano wins and tames the strings with its soothing entries. The movement is an example of the improvisatory type of slow-movement B was adopting in place of the traditional slow movement - the Waldstein is another good example as we have the original slow movement to compare it with. Despite the beauty of the slow movements in his other piano concertos, this one is my favourite - it is just so striking and original.

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'Man know thyself'

[Chris]

Originally posted by Peter:
"...the Waldstein is another good example as we have the original slow movement to compare it with..."

You really love that Waldstein slow movement, don't you? I've noticed you drag it into the conversation whenever possible Not that it isn't relevent and not that I don't love it too, of course. In fact, when I got my complete piano sonatas books, it was the first thing I went for. It's a truly great movement (especially in the context of the whole work) and, as short as it is, really makes a mark on the piece. Then I tried to play the third movement and threw my piano out the window when I got to the glissandi (Something I bring up whenever possible!)

[PDG]

And, of course, the contrast between Orpheus and The Furies is further exaggerated by the fact that no other instruments besides piano and strings are scored in this movement.

[Rod]

Originally posted by PDG:
And, of course, the contrast between Orpheus and The Furies is further exaggerated by the fact that no other instruments besides piano and strings are scored in this movement.

And, of course, this 'exaggeration' is a part of the reason for this chain. But there are unusual elements to be found in the other movements as I have mentioned before. The first movement piano part has a particularly bubbling, rippling, harp-like nature that dwells more in the higher register than is typical of Beethoven (all of this is more noticeable still on pianos of the time). And uniquely the drums and trumpets are absent until the finale. I lean towards the opinion that there is a latent program to the whole work, but being Beethoven the emphasis is on the word latent. I've a good article that goes into more detail that I will post here when I have the time.

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[This message has been edited by Rod (edited 11-07-2001).]

[Rod]

Originally posted by Rod:
I've a good article that goes into more detail that I will post here when I have the time.

Viola! Scanned but not corrected, but readable.

By Owen Jander

The Fourth Piano Concerto comes from a period when Beethoven was engrossed in two new musical challenges: how to infuse music with poetic meaning, and how to unite the several movements of a larger work with a single idea. The chief examples of these concerns are the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies — both patently cyclic and programmatic. The two symphonies were premiered in a single concert on 22 December 1808 (the concert opened with the ‘Pastoral’ Symphony); and between them occurred the first public performance of the Fourth Piano Concerto. Not surprisingly this concerto turns out also to be cyclic and programmatic, its programme based on the ever-popular legend of Orpheus.

This, too, is not surprising, in view of the fact that Vienna, at the turn of the century was caught up in the discovery of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the greatest source of classical mythology In just these years Viennese audiences were treated to a wave of works based on favourite classical myths
— and for musicians, of course, Orpheus has always been the classical myth. (Interestingly enough, many of these new treatments of classical mythology were of a parodistic nature, testimony to the fun that Viennese audiences were having with these old tales).

The Orpheus legend is in three chapters: the Song of Orpheus, Orpheus and Euridice (or Orpheus in Hades), and Orpheus and the Bacchantes. These three chapters inspired the three movements of Beethoven’s concerto.

The Op.58 concerto seems to have originated with its second movement, which is Beethoven’s most amazing experiment in the realm of programme music. This movement was inspired by the Infernal Scene in Gluck’s Orfeo, the most famous scene in all eighteenth-century opera (a relationship already detected by Adolph Bernhard Marx 125 years ago). Internal evidence makes it clear, furthermore, that this concerto movement is a transcription of a brief work (only 72 bars long) originally conceived for solo piano. (Both Fanny Mendelssohn and Franz Liszt are known to have performed this movement by itself, as a solo piece). In 1803 Beethoven acquired a new piano that featured triple stringing and an una corda pedal. On such an instrument, through deft use of tbe shifting pedal, two distinct voices emerge. This suggested to Beethoven a dialogue between the Furies of Hades (tre corde) and the gentle-voiced Orpheus (una corda). The next step a very simple one — was to score the speeches of the Furies for strings, in angry fortissimo octaves.

The programme for the Andante con moto is amazingly detailed. The first 46 bars not only mirror the dialogue between Orpheus and the Furies in the famous Cluck opera, but translate into music a sequence of lines found in the Infernal Scene of an Orpheus opera that was performed in Vienna in 1807 — the same year as the first performance of Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto. Both the libretto and the score of this Orpheus were the work of Friedrich August Kanne, a close friend of Beethoven. To wit:
Ceister: Ha! Wer wagt es hier zu nah’n!
Orpheus: Ich wandle froh die Schreckensbahn.
Geister: Ha! Verwegner, geh zuruck!
Orpheus: Ich suche meines Lebens Cluck.
(Spirits: Ha! Who dares to approach this place!/Orpheus: I tread this path of terrors gladly/Spirits: Ha! Trespasser, get out of here!/Orpheus: I seek Euridice, who is my life’s joy)

The continuation of the programme in this movement is based on lines drawn from the classical Orpheus narratives of Ovid and Virgil. (The details of this programme are set forth in my article published in the Spring 1985 issue of l9th-Ceuturt1 Music).

Since this Andante con moto is narrative from beginning to end (and was presumably not originally devised to serve as a concerto movement), its form is unique and unprecedented. The first and third movements of the Concerto, on the other hand, are highly innovative treatments of existing classical forms. They are inspired by Ovid’s text, and so dozens and dozens of unusual events in the music reflect details in the poetic source. The famous opening of the concerto, for example — those five, tentative measures for the solo piano: Ovid says that before Orpheus sings his sdng he quietly tests the strings of his lyre with his thumb (Ovid, X, 143-47). And then there is that mysterious entrance of the strings, pianissimo, without the double-basses, and with the second violins playing below the violas — this is the strange key of B major! Here is Beethoven’s depiction of the amazement of Nature in response to the magical sound of the Orphic lyre (Ovid, X, 86-90).

In the Op.58 Concerto we encounter,as it were, three orchestras: in the first movement an orchestra of strings and winds; in the second, an orchestra of strings only; in the third, an orchestra of strings and winds plus trumpets aud timpaoi.

This third movement is fascinating! As the legend goes, Orpheus has offended the Bacchantes, so they decide to destroy him. To this end they must drown out the protective sound of his magical lyre; and so they pounce on him, howling in defiance, with an uproar of wind instruments, trumpets and drums (‘tibia, cornu, timpanaque’ — Ovid,XI, 1-19). The orchestral fortissimo at bar 32 — where the trumpets and timpani enter for the first time in this concerto — is the most jolting explosion in all of the music of Beethoven.

This finale is a study in dynamic violence like nothing in the history of the concerto —and it was made possible, of course, by the comparatively huge new pianos of the moment.

Just at the time that Beethoven was beginning to envision his Fourth Piano Concerto he commissioned a portrait of himself from his friend Willibrord Josef Mdhler. The Mahler portrait contains a network of symbolic devices, some of which have to do with the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, and some of which concern the ‘Orpheus’ Concerto. In his left hand, Beethoven grasps a lyra-guitar, symbolic of the ‘Song of Orpheus’ (even of those opening five bars). In the background is a lucus (Lat., a grove sacred to the dead), planted with cypress trees, in the vicinity of a temple —.and Virgil reports that Orpheus, on his way to Hades, journeys through a lucus. In the upper right-hand area is a writhing oak tree, a reference to the finale of the concerto. When the Bacchantes destroy Orpheus they are in turn punished by being metamorphosed into writhing oaks, their toes rooted into the ground (Ovid, XI, 67-84). At the very end of the concerto, as the Bacchantes’ theme is heard for the last time, the basses and bassoons, fortissimo, thrash about in frantic triplets.

Beethoven’s teacher in Bonn, Christian Cottlob Neefe, published an essay about instrumental music of pictorial intent. ‘The charlatan composer talks about painting in music, but fails to achieve that goal’, said Neefe; ‘the great, genuine artist, however, does indeed paint in music, but never talks about it.’ In Beethoven’s generation programme music was a fiercely debated issue. Quite understandably Beethoven found wisdom in presenting his Fourth Piano Concerto to his audience with no mention of the famous legend that had inspired it.



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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Rod]

I make the effort to get you guys some info and I get not a word of feedback! I can only presume you all think that no4 can reasonably and officially be called the 'Orpheus Concerto' from now on? Grumble...mumble...grumble...grumble...

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[David]

Well, Rod, you must believe me when I say I only just read this now, and was quite fascinated. I love analyses of compositions such as this, especially when I (who is not an accomplished musician, just a great fan) can hear in my head the precise musical moments and descriptions and how they relate to the concepts.

When I was in college (a good 20 years ago) I took two music courses given by the same ancient professor. I can't remember his name. One was titled "Haydn and Mozart", the other "Beethoven". All we did was listen to the old man discuss the pieces with respect to stucture, theory, "programme", history and myth, and then we listened to the music with the scores before us. Except for a final exam, there were no assignments, no quizzes or tests, no papers to write. Just show up and get lost in the exquisite music of the GREATEST (at least two of them) composers. Naturally, though, I went home and listened to the pieces over and over again while studying the scores. Another by-product of this has been that I love to play one part (say viola or cello, eg) on the piano while listening to the recording. This has given me some great insights into the compositions and part-writing, and has made me a better "listener". My guess is that the old man must have passed away by now, but he will forever live on in me (along with the mighty B).

I must say that this is the first I've heard of Orpheus as related to the 4th piano concerto. The old man never mentioned it.

Thanks so much.

David

[Bob the Composer]

Originally posted by Rod:

Beethoven’s teacher in Bonn, Christian Cottlob Neefe, published an essay about instrumental music of pictorial intent. ‘The charlatan composer talks about painting in music, but fails to achieve that goal’, said Neefe; ‘the great, genuine artist, however, does indeed paint in music, but never talks about it.’ In Beethoven’s generation programme music was a fiercely debated issue. Quite understandably Beethoven found wisdom in presenting his Fourth Piano Concerto to his audience with no mention of the famous legend that had inspired it.

That's very correct, I believe that listeners should be allowed to derive their own meaning from compositions, even if the composer had a specific story in mind during the composition. Otherwise, they might ignore a perfectly good piece of music simply because the composer is trying to force a particular meaning onto the piece that they might not like.

Bob


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Some have said I am ripe for the Madhouse. Does that make me Beethoven? No, but it is interesting.

[Peter]

Originally posted by Rod:
Viola! Scanned but not corrected, but readable.

By Owen Jander

I thought this was the very thing you so strongly disapproved of (aside from my web designing skills!) It reads like a Lisztian Symphonic poem - Romanticism let loose!

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'Man know thyself'

[This message has been edited by Peter (edited 11-29-2001).]

[Rod]

Originally posted by Peter:
I thought this was the very thing you so strongly disapproved of (aside from my web designing skills!) It reads like a Lisztian Symphonic poem - Romanticism let loose!

I don't really see this Romanticism in the above text Peter, it reads restrained enough for my tollerance and he uses quite reasoned argument. It only confirms my most non-Romantic suspicions about this unusual piece, but I don't really care either way, Orpheus or no. One usually just reads a few lines about the second movement but this guy goes much further on the issue.

[Rod]

Originally posted by Bob the Composer:
That's very correct, I believe that listeners should be allowed to derive their own meaning from compositions, even if the composer had a specific story in mind during the composition. Otherwise, they might ignore a perfectly good piece of music simply because the composer is trying to force a particular meaning onto the piece that they might not like.

Bob

I have said much the same myself on may occasions. This is precisely why I don't like names allocated to instrumental compositions, these names lead the listener.

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin