Beethoven in 1818, i.e. around the time his Piano Sonata No. 29 was written. (Source).
Part VII BEETHOVEN
Beethoven
By ERIC WAGNER
Special guest blogger
We have entered the Hammerklavier Zone. We will not leave until the Schroedinger's Cat study group finishes, if then. For the last six years I found myself dwelling in an exercise in the fifth circuit chapter of Prometheus Rising where Bob told the reader to attend a Sufi weekend seminar . Now I find myself in a dinner party in Schroedinger's Cat surrounded by concert pianists, all of whom got invited so the host could discuss the Hammerklavier with them. Steven De Groote got invited, and he brought along a few of his students including my friend Jai Jeffryes. Steven kindly allowed me to tag along. I recognize Charles Rosen, Vladamir Horowitz, Glenn Gould, Maurizio Pollini, Martha Argerich, Alfred Brendel, Murray Perahia, Arthur Rubenstein, Sviatoslav Richter, Radu Lupu, Rudolf Serkin, Peter Serkin, and Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli.
I remember when Jai first told me about the Hammerklavier back in August 1980. He saw a Rudolf Serkin LP of the Hammerklavier in a used record store. A week or so later Jai, his friend Jim, and I sat in Jai's dorm room listening to either the Serkin or Brendel recording of the sonata. Jim commented that every pianist but Pollini sounded like "they were about to fall off the end of the piano bench at the end of the sonata." In 2005 Rafi Zabor turned me on to Solomon's recordings of Beethoven's late piano sonatas. I mentioned Jim's comment about the Hammerklavier to Rafi, and he said Solomon didn't sound ready to fall off the piano bench at the end of his recording.
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4 comments:
I like your all star panel of pianists. Sviatoslav Richter is my favorite Beethoven interpreter, although he is not the go-to recording for every single piece -- I like other renditions of the "Pathetique" piano sonata No. 8, Opus 13. Alfred Brendel seems very reliable to me, all of his Beethoven recordings seem at least acceptable to me.
Thank you for your kind words. I love Richter's performance of Beethoven's Appassionata. My college roommate Jai had a box set of Brendel playing all of Beethoven's piano sonatas. I also enjoyed reading two of Brendel's books. Today I listened to Rosen playing Beethoven's Op. 106 and 109. From 2005 to 2025 I listened to a lot of Schnabel and Solomon playing late Beethoven due to Rafi's recommendations. I still love their playing, but this year I've listened to more Rosen.
Beethoven is the one composer of these three I have listened to over the years.
I went through a period of listening to all the symphonies. He's the one classical composer I can say that I truly love though I'm far from familiar with all his work. I get a similar intensity of feeling from the opening of the 5th Symphony as I do hearing Jimmy Page's opening guitar riff to "Whole Lotta Love." A question to the metaphysical question posed earlier, Who's on first? could be Who's listening to the last movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony?
I quite enjoyed listening to the Hammerklavier near the beginning of this course. I look forward to seeing the connection in Schrödinger's Cat
There seems an interesting confluence here at Rawillumination with Beethoven, Schrödinger's Cat and Castaneda. The latter put modern shamanism on the map. In SC, in the Hammerklavier zone, RAW suggests looking at the novel as a Manual of Shamanism. RAW loved Beethoven and appears to have been influenced by Castaneda's early writings.
This is Google AI on Castenada's music preferences:
"While there are no extensive public records detailing Carlos Castaneda's day-to-day playlist or casual music preferences, his relationship with music is heavily tied to his worldview of "stopping the world" and breaking conventional cognitive frameworks.
The primary insights regarding his taste and use of music include: Classical Music (Beethoven): Castaneda held a deep fascination with Ludwig van Beethoven. He did not view Beethoven’s compositions merely as entertainment or aesthetic pleasure, but rather as intense, structured expressions of intent and abstract sorcery. He frequently used Beethoven’s music as an example of an artist tapping into the "nagual"—the vast, unstructured realm of unknown reality—to channel something completely outside ordinary human perception."
Thank you for your comment. As I recall a passage in Schroedinger's Cat refers to the novel as a manual of cybershamanism. I did not know about Casteneda's fascination with Beethoven. That did seem common with people interested in psychedelics in the sixties: Lilly, Leary, Wilson, etc.
I wonder about 2027. Perhaps our Schoedinger's Cat study group can help us navigate these perilous times.
I love Rosen's two recordings of the Hammerklavier. I also love Solomon's version. I like Schnabel's recording of the slow movement. As we move into the end of our Classical Style study group, we move into the world of Schumann and Schubert. This acts as a nice transition into Rosen's book "The Romantic Generation," my favorite of his books. I love it even more than "The Classical Style." "The Romantic Generation" focuses on the composers active during the 1830's and 1840's: Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, etc.
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