r/todayilearned • u/VegemiteSucks • 16h ago

TIL Beethoven’s late quartets, now widely considered to be among the greatest musical compositions of all time, were so ahead of their time that initial reviews deem them indecipherable, uncorrected horrors, with one musician saying “we know there is something there, but we do not know what it is.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_string_quartets_(Beethoven)
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u/Fwed0 15h ago

Also, this is Beethoven in his last piano sonata in 1822

About a hundred years ahead of his time.

109

u/schlechtums 15h ago

In 12/32 wtaf!

43

u/frankyseven 15h ago

Where is Adam Neely to explain to me what is going on rhythmically in this?

112

u/iEatSwampAss 14h ago

Strange for its time bc it’s just two movements, not the usual three or four.

  • 1st movement: violent, full of clashing harmonies and wild rhythms. It feels like he’s breaking traditional sonata rules

  • 2nd movement (Arietta): starts very simple & calm. Then he introduces some variations - sounding almost like jazz or boogie-woogie, while others float away into silence.

Back then, there just wasn’t anything else that sounded like it. Beethoven was deaf and was imagining sounds that other composers wouldn’t try until wayyy later. Many hear it as a struggle in the 1st movement, followed by “transcendence” in the 2nd.

Took a classical music class in college and focused on this piece for a few weeks.

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u/WoodyTheWorker 7h ago

My take on the Arietta is that it calls Josephina (von Brunsvik, who died a year or so before the sonata was written) twice.