1. Briefly summarize the newspaper and web articles and consider Beethoven’s struggles. How might these speak to those who experience mental anguish, difficult circumstances, or other challenges. in some way?
2. Go to YouTube.com and listen to a selection of Beethoven Symphonies, Piano or Violin Sonatas, String Quartets, and/or Piano Concertos.
3. Build a playlist of at least three compositions that presents an emotional self-portrait of you. Then respond to the following questions. Be sure to include very specific information about the pieces and their use of the elements of music- their use of form, their tonality, their use of harmony, their melodic structure, rhythmic devices and characteristics, etc. Do not just say- I like this. Connect your reactions to the elements of music.
4. How do these pieces speak to you? What emotions do they call forth in you? At what times in your life might have you had similar emotional outbursts, swings in emotion, periods of serenity/transcendence, etc?
5. Does Beethoven’s music resolve these emotions storms? Are you able to resolve such emotional storms?
6, With which piece (s) do you you identify the most? If you can be considered a captive, like the prisoners in the first article, what is your current emotional prison? Does your chosen “current staging” of Beethoven open the doors and liberate you in any way? What are the specific elements of the music that accomplish this or not? Be sure to link your response here to specific concepts that we have studied in the course, such as consonance, dissonance, melody, harmony, major and minor tonality, polyphony, sonata-allegro and other forms, etc.
7. Provide some historical context, background information, and other compositional information for the pieces that you selected.
Resources
1. New York Times: “Beethoven’s 200-Year Old Fidelio Enters Today’s Prisons” https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/04/arts/music/beethoven-opera-fidelio.html
2. The New Yorker: “Beethoven’s Bad Influence”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/20/deus-ex-musica
Suggested musical works to explore:
Piano Sonata opus 57, The Appassionata
Piano Sonata, Opus 109
Piano Sonata, opus 13, the Pathetique
Piano Sonata, no. 15 opus 28, “The Pastoral”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN
Piano Sonata, Opus 31 no, 2, no. 17, “The Tempest”
Piano Sonata, Opus 27 no. 2, no. 14, “The Moonlight Sonata”
Symphony no. 6, The Pastoral
Symphony no. 7
Sonata for Piano and Violin, no. 9, opus 47, The “Kreutzer” Sonata
Piano Trio, opus 97, the “Archduke”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BCcJIxiFX0
