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The Allure of Beethoven's “Terzen-Ketten”: Third

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The Allure of Beethoven's “Terzen-Ketten”: Third THE ALLURE OF BEETHOVEN’S “TERZEN-KETTEN”: THIRD-CHAINS IN STUDIES BY NOTTEBOHM AND MUSIC BY BRAHMS BY MARIE RIVERS RULE DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Musicology in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2011 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor William Kinderman, Chair Professor Emeritus Bruno Nettl Professor Fred Stoltzfus Assistant Professor Katherine Syer ABSTRACT My primary argument concerns Brahms’s use of a specific musical resource: chains of thirds or “Terzen-Ketten” as this device is sometimes described in the original sources. Brahms used third-chains in various ways as a motivic and harmonic technique. Some of his earlier works, such as the Piano Sonata in C major, op. 1, and the Piano Concerto in D minor, op. 15, already show the use of such chains of thirds as a prominent feature. However, Brahms’s treatment of such “Terzen-Ketten” in his later works shows an especially impressive inventiveness and importance. The ways the chains of thirds are treated often lend to these works a character of intense concentration and melancholy, culminating in the setting of “O Tod,” the third of the Vier Ernste Gesänge, op. 121. I argue that Brahms’s sustained preoccupation with chains of thirds after 1862 was connected to his friendship with the pioneer Beethoven scholar Gustav Nottebohm who facilitated the composer’s access to Beethoven’s sketch materials for the “Hammerklavier Sonata” op. 106. Through Nottebohm, some of Beethoven’s sketches for op. 106 passed into Brahms’s personal collection of musical sources. It is remarkable that Brahms also acquired the autograph score of Mozart's G minor Symphony and the corrected copy of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, op. 123—two other celebrated works which make prominent use of chains of falling thirds. Gustav Nottebohm’s transcriptions of Beethoven’s sketches represented a major contribution to musicology in the late nineteenth century. Some of these transcriptions appeared with his commentary in issues of the Allgemeine Musikalisches Zeitung and the Musikalisches Wochenblatt in the 1860s and 70s; other studies were published as short monographs. As the ii surviving sources show, Brahms took an interest in these transcriptions and helped arrange for their publication. Brahms and Nottebohm socialized often and shared a strong interest in Beethoven’s creative process. An original sketchbook for parts of Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Sonata op. 106 containing a prolonged “Zirkel-Ketten” (or circle-chain) of descending thirds became one of the prized treasures of the composer’s collection. Brahms’s fascination with such descending third-chains is evident in many of his late works, and his use of this device in the Fourth Symphony bears close comparison with Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Sonata. My dissertation presents new findings on Beethoven’s use of “Zirkel-Ketten” drawn from Nottebohm’s posthumous papers (Nachlass) at the Gesellshaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna as well as previously unpublished correspondence between Nottebohm and Brahms. This material provides support for my argument that Nottebohm played a key role in enabling the composer’s study of Beethoven’s sketch materials, which was bound up in turn with the composer’s intensive exploration of “Terzen-Ketten” and their subsequent incorporation and development in his later compositions. The second part of my dissertation offers analytical investigation of third-chains in the late works of Brahms. Following an examination of descending third-chains in Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Sonata, op. 106 and Brahms’s Fourth Symphony, op. 98—two works frequently cited for their pervasive use of this device—I discuss selected examples from the later instrumental and vocal works of Brahms, some of which have received much less attention in the literature. Descending third-chains are used poignantly in texted works like “Feldeinsamkeit,” op. 86 no. 2, and the Vier Ernste Gesänge, op. 121, especially “O Tod, wie bitter bist du,” no. 3. An even more elaborate treatment of chains of falling thirds—or their inversion as rising sixths—occurs in instrumental works including the piano Fantasien, op. 116, the Klavierstücke, iii op. 118 and 119 and the Clarinet Sonata in F minor, op. 120 no. 1. In op. 116 the use of such “Terzen-Ketten” contributes importantly to the integration of the seven pieces, which can be heard as a larger work or cycle, despite the powerful contrasts between the successive pieces. Brahms’s lifelong preoccupation with chains of thirds reaches a remarkable climax in this cluster of works from his final years. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 1 THE FRIENDSHIP OF BRAHMS AND NOTTEBOHM ................................... 12 Brahms and Nottebohm’s Relationship ................................................................ 12 The Letters of Brahms and Nottebohm ................................................................. 27 CHAPTER 2 GUSTAV NOTTEBOHM AND BEETHOVEN’S SKETCHES ......................... 69 Nottebohm’s Pathbreaking Work with Beethoven’s Sketch Materials ................. 70 Recent Nottebohm Scholarship ............................................................................. 75 New Findings Concerning Beethoven’s Op. 106 Sonata, the “Boldrini” Sketchbook, and “Zirkel-Ketten” in Nottebohm’s Nachlass at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna ........................................................................................ 77 CHAPTER 3 BEETHOVEN’S “HAMMERKLAVIER” SONATA AND BRAHMS’S FOURTH SYMPHONY ..................................................................................... 120 Descending Third-Chains in Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Sonata, Op. 106 .. 122 Scholarship on Brahms and the Third ................................................................. 137 Brahms’s Fourth Symphony, Op. 98 ................................................................... 142 CHAPTER 4 “TERZEN-KETTEN” IN LATE BRAHMS ....................................................... 156 Fantasien, Op. 116 .............................................................................................. 159 Klavierstücke, Op. 118 ........................................................................................ 177 Klavierstücke, Op. 119 ........................................................................................ 180 F Minor Clarinet Sonata, Op. 120 No. 1 ............................................................. 190 “O Tod, wie bitter bist du,” from Vier Ernste Gesänge, Op. 121 No. 3 and “Feldeinsamkeit,” Op. 86 No. 2 .......................................................................... 197 LIST OF CITED BRAHMS CORRESPONDENCE ................................................................. 214 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................... 218 APPENDIX A: PAGE NUMBERING SYSTEMS FOR BEETHOVEN’S A 45 SKETCHBOOK ............................................................................................................................. 230 v INTRODUCTION On a Monday in early September 1862, Brahms left his North German hometown of Hamburg and headed south to Vienna with plans for a short visit. Brahms had contemplated the visit for some time with hopes to concertize and make professional connections with Viennese composers, musicians and directors. While looking forward to this Viennese adventure, he also anticipated returning later to Hamburg, where he was hoping to be appointed associate conductor of the Hamburg Singakademie; that position might have lead toward his permanent installment as director of both the Hamburg Philharmonic and the Singakademie, allowing him to remain anchored there. History had other plans for Brahms. He would soon learn that the Hamburg job was given to someone else, which forced him to reconsider his future. The eventual decision to remain permanently in Vienna would alter his life and career. Once Brahms arrived in Vienna that autumn he was soon introduced to the Beethoven scholar, Martin Gustav Nottebohm (1817-1882), commonly known as Gustav. Nottebohm had very few friends owing to his withdrawn and sometimes surly character. Despite his difficult disposition, Brahms befriended him warmly; the two men enjoyed a twenty-year friendship that was rich in musical scholarship, and was spiked by the occasional pranks that Brahms was known to play on him. One of these jokes involved a walk through Brahms’s favorite Viennese park, the Prater, with a few friends. Knowing that Nottebohm frequented a particular sausage stand, Brahms arranged for the vendor to wrap Nottebohm’s sausage in old music paper that the composer painstakingly prepared to look like a genuine Beethoven sketch leaf. As Brahms and the onlookers stood nearby, Nottebohm received his sausage with cheese tightly wrapped in the 1 manuscript, which he indeed eyed with keen interest and quietly tucked away in his pocket. On another occasion, when Brahms’s facial features had just disappeared behind his full beard and he had not seen Nottebohm in the interim, the composer wryly pretended to be a certain Herr Müller from Braunschweig. If the composer awaited an astonished response to his personal transformation just as he surely did with some of the thematic transformations in his
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