The Later Works of Beethoven

The Later Works of Beethoven

For many years it has been common practice to speak of Ludwig van Beethoven’s career in terms of a rather tidy (and all-too convenient) division, like Omnia Gallia, into TRES PARTES. Up to a point this rather arbitrary carving up of an artistic lifetime can be useful, even revealing. But a checklist of dates and major compositions reveals the curious fact that the “early” and “middle” periods TOGETHER (1792-1812) occupy only a few more years than the “late period” (1812-1827) ! Thus a total of 8 symphonies, 11 string quartets, 26 piano sonatas, the various concertos and the only opera are crammed into as amazingly prolific and hectic two decades, set against a single symphony, 5 quartets, 6 sonatas and a gigantic setting of the mass which account for the composer’s output in the final decade and a half. The immediate response, of course, will be “Yes! And just CONSIDER those final works----mere bean-counting here in meaningless!” True enough. And an examination of Beethoven’s turbulent private life, and his health---to say nothing of a period of remarkable spiritual development as he went into middle age, can provide some clues to the very different nature of this final, “late period.” (Of course, had Beethoven been more attentive to matters of his health, there is every sign that the music composed in the mid-1820’s might have been looked upon as the onset of a “fourth period.”)

By no means was everything composed during Beethoven’s later phase of a quality associated with the last quartets and final symphony---the March for TARPEJA may be heartening evidence of Beethoven as a man of the world, quite capable of turning out an engaging trifle, earning a few gulden. (Anyone trotting around Vienna from one Beethovenhaus to the next might wonder if an occasional toe-tapper might have been useful, if only to cover some of those recurrent moving expenses!) But then, there are also some startling discoveries along the way to the very highest reaches of the last works, as is wonderfully illustrated by the remarkably original "Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage" Cantata, a work which reveals some unexpected links to the choral finale of the Ninth Symphony some years off in the future.