>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. ^F00:00:05 ^M00:00:22 >> David Plylar: Hello, my name is David Plylar and I'm a music specialist at the Library of Congress. And it is my great pleasure to be here with Kristian Bezuidenhout, who gave us an amazing fortepiano recital last night where he played works by Beethoven and Haydn. And today we managed to corner him and keep him here for a little bit longer so that we can show him a few of our treasures from our holdings at the Library of Congress. We have a bit of a kind of Viennese and Austrian special set of selections that we're going to take a look at. So thank you for being with me. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Great pleasure. Thank you, David. >> David Plylar: I thought we would start with a piece that you have recorded with Petra Mullejans. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Yeah, that's right, yes. >> David Plylar: Who is a cofounder of the Freiburger Barockorchester. And it was a lovely recording. And this is Mozart's violin sonata in G major K379. And we happen to have it here, so I thought that would be. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Extraordinary. >> David Plylar: Yeah. ^M00:01:25 >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Wow. You know, I have to be really honest. I'm not one of these people whose involved in this repertory who has spent a lot of time actually looking at the manuscripts. So it's I think when you unveil the first page of something like this that you've actually seen in digital PDF versions many times, it's actually quite overwhelming. 379 is really -- how can I put this? Even straight off the bat, you see that this is a sonata for violin and piano, which is extensively this kind of very polite, delightful entertainment for amateurs to be playing. It should be quite easy to deal with, technically not too challenging. It shouldn't be anything too crazy. And yet Mozart sets up this part on here where he starts a sonata for violin and piano with an unbelievably richly scored elaborate adagio movement. Which then immediately leads into this wild G minor allegro in the beginning. So extraordinary. You see also that there's this sense I always think with these manuscripts with Mozart's penmanship, that there's a level kind of built in to the DNA detail that just is immediately there from everything, from every pen stroke to every slur to the trace of every slur to the end of every measure. >> David Plylar: Great clarity on the staccato marking. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Absolutely. That's really true, in fact, the articulation even in this stage really is just, it's like it actually is part of the basic character of the notes themselves, how they should be played, and not just getting the pitches down. You see that with the level of specificity with the slurring and staccatos, exactly as you say. >> David Plylar: This is the first time that both of us are taking a look at this, so we're exploring it together here. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: What's very interesting about this piece, just from a historical standpoint, Mozart is in Vienna in 1781 and he is obliged to play a private concert for his patron, the Archbishop. And I think it's really important to realize that this is a point at which Mozart is really fighting the fact that he desperately wants to be soft-spoken. And so I think this is probably the one moment when all of this gets put into sharp relief. Because Mozart is forced to play this private concert for the Archbishop, and it's exactly this piece that he plays. And we have a letter that he describes this situation in which he plays this piece with Brunetti, who was the leader of the court orchestra in Salzburg, and Mozart wasn't a big fan of Brunetti and kind of complained about his playing, in fact. But then pulls out a sonata like this. And 379 is I think really one of the pieces that puts Mozart on the map of kind of reshaping what the violin sonata is capable of as a genre in the sense that it would then be taken up later by Beethoven. I mean, this is a piece that starts with an adagio and then moves on to this allegro and is a theme in variations. [inaudible] totally, right. It's kind of fantasy-like in a sense because it moves a coda from movement to movement, and also ends with a set of variations, which we'll also see later. ^M00:05:13 >> David Plylar: Was he already -- he's newly in Vienna or just right on the cusp of that? >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: I think break hadn't yet happened, I think it happened in May, maybe 81. This was right before that, if I'm not mistaken, I could be dead wrong. But it was all about to go horribly wrong. And I think this, this piece really is emblematic of that. Because I think there's this comment that Mozart makes where he feels really put down by the fact that he has to sit with the servants at this function, or perhaps it's another function. But all of this stuff is happening at the same time. And you see him also in a piece like this, like let's say particularly with G minor, that there's all this -- how can I put this? Nostalgia for Amadeus. And how much of a breakthrough that was for him musically and artistically. I think it comes through very strongly in this piece, alternation between G major and G minor, these kind of dramatic pauses, Amadeus style writing and kind of wild virtuosity as well. >> David Plylar: You know, speaking of that, part of what comes out of this to me when I'm looking at it is that, we always have this image of Mozart and Mendelson as being perfect from the very moment that they write something down . But there's very clearly some alternative thoughts and some vacillation perhaps in the process, which is both humanizing but in the end still amazing work. But it also, you know, it offers something of a -- I always think with these composers that we hold so highly that there's a -- whenever people say you couldn't change the notes, I always think, well, they probably could've come up with something that was equally as good, just a different variation of it. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: This brings up such a good point, David. Because, especially with Mozart, we're really trapped by this, the tyranny of this idea that every note is preordained by the heavens or the cosmos, and Mozart just sort of writes it down. But you see this really with everything, there are very specific examples like the C minor piano marcato, which is one of the messiest, most fraught manuscripts that you'll look at. And like things that you see here in 379 where Mozart crosses out certain things and revises them or changes the figuration a little bit, like the actual notes that he wants played, you see that constantly in a piece like 491. Where he is actually still very much in this kind of process of figuring things out even in this stage of the manuscript. That is unusual for Mozart. And you see, it sort of changes character in a way. Like the first page is sort of very Apollonian and kind of perfect and everything in its place. And then somehow I like to think when we get to G minor and things get fraught and a little bit more dramatic, it gets a bit messier and a little more disorganized in a sense, or a tiny bit more unsure of itself in a way. >> David Plylar: You know, another thing I noticed, maybe in this region right here, you know, one of the other things that composers who write by hand -- there still are some who to this day still write by hand. Which I appreciate, especially at the Library, we appreciate when they give us those scores. Is the order that you write something and if it's not a finished thing, that does have an impact on then when you realize after you've written four bars of something, that, you know, with long notes and then you have to fill a bunch of short notes in. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Absolutely. >> David Plylar: It seems like that's a kind of problem that composers have never outgrown. And you can see that perhaps Mozart was slightly afflicted with that here. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Definitely. >> David Plylar: In some of the tightness of the writing. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: [inaudible] that he can really fit in those 30-second notes, isn't it? Absolutely. You see this especially with Mozart, he runs into this problem where he has memory issues. Because you'll see that he'll write out certain things, let's say, in a piano sonata, like he'll write up certain keyboard notes, and then he'll go back and write -- he'll go back and fill in, let's say, the second violin or something like that. Or they'll be some voice that has to be dealt with later, and he'll forget what he's written in another voice, and they'll be clashes. In the C minor piano sonata, there are tons of places whether there are just literally wrong notes together. Because the stage of composition is so delineated by Mozart, was separated, that he writes things at different times. And his memory doesn't allow him to keep up with what he's written. And he's not really checking vertically. He's still really just writing in this direction, horizontally. >> David Plylar: That's very interesting. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: And, of course, it's not such a problem in a piece for three lines, like one violin and two piano staves. >> David Plylar: But problematic in an orchestra. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Hugely problematic, especially when you add trumpets and timpani and yeah. >> David Plylar: And there are different keys, right. ^M00:10:26 >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: It's also very interesting to see how things look. You know, when you step back and you see moments that are really -- you know, where the ink really comes across as really sharply black or very delineated. And then these other places that -- it has such a beautiful kind of pattern into it. It's really. >> David Plylar: Yeah, and I'm not an expert in this at all. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Nor am I. >> David Plylar: It does have this look of -- also you can kind of see the ebb and flow of dipping or something like that, that's my supposition for how it might attain this type of a look. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: I think it's really it's very touching to see this actually, because you start to see that -- I don't know how I can put this quite. But this sense that -- around this time, Mozart is beginning to understand the latent artistic -- how can I put this? Artistic potential for a genre like this, like the violin sonata. Which is really locked kind of trapped away in this bourgeois amateur mileur [phonetic], where it's just supposed to be delightful entertainment for people playing at dinner parties. And I don't know why I'm so stuck by that. Maybe because it's a triple timepiece in G minor preluded by an adagio, that it really seems like he's saying, but possibly unconsciously while this is going to be a genre that will become very attractive to Beethoven as a real art form genre, much like the piano sonata becomes for Beethoven. And yet, after this shocking movement in G minor which ends forte with octaves and tremblers in the right hand, then you turn the page and you have this incredibly kind of innocent rococo genteel set of variations in andantino and two four time. And you also see that Mozart is still saying, oh, well, it's still very charming actually. Now, don't be too shocked by what I've just done. >> David Plylar: That is fascinating because the notion that it doesn't quite fit into its function, its assumed functional role, yet so much energy, whether, you know, maybe for Mozart it wasn't as much energy as it is for other composers. But the amount of thought and energy that goes into the production of any work, I think that that's always worth respecting and thinking about, like you are. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: For sure. Interesting that -- you're absolutely right what you say about these space issues. This is surprisingly kind of jammed together in places. I mean, like many of these variations that's for violin and piano, Mozart always has a variation for solo piano. It just has such an -- It's a very, I don't know, always struck me as very modern idea. It's like, okay, thank you for the theme, but now let me be the first to do this. It's quite combative. It's a little bit like, okay, now let's see what you can do. But he does really jam a lot into this first -- I can tell you, this is such an alarmingly -- this is a very a tricksy movement, let me put it that way. The theme is very charming and not easy to play, but it seems like, okay, this is lovely. And I can tell you, the first variation from the keyboard is so awkward. Very awkwardly written. For Mozart, surprisingly difficult to play, even though it sounds very easy. It's a very curious piece, and it just takes you by surprise. He sets up this structure in the theme where the beginning of the theme is quite lyrical and easy-going. But then he has these moments of mini drama when he goes to A minor and then back to C major. And in all of the variations, that moment becomes more and more dramatic, and I think more and more technically challenging. So in the first variation, it's actually these octaves and the bass and the piano all the sudden, and then hand-crossing without warning. And then the violin does its first variation, which is also sounds really chirpy and charming, but is very awkward actually. And then you can see that Mozart has to fit in all of these tiny demisemiquavers in the third variation. ^M00:15:11 >> David Plylar: Here's an interesting moment, where there's a lot of crossed out [inaudible]. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Yeah. So I think -- this is really interesting. It doesn't seem to be space-saving so much as it looks like Mozart finishes the G minor variation, which then in real time leads right into the adagio. But what's so telling is that he writes the adagio variation without the violin line above it. So I think he's really treating this, again, like a keyboard variation in a sense. I think clearly not -- the idea is not that he wrote the keyboard variation and thought, this will be a variation for keyboard alone and then decided to add the violin line later. But the fact that the violin line is sort of relegated to this tiny space on the other page. >> David Plylar: It's a coda, so yeah. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: That's exactly right. ^M00:16:18 >> David Plylar: It doesn't have as much of a motivating role as. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: That's exactly. Yes, this is true. And it's like what you see in Mozart's notational style or structural settings for things like the piano sonatas, the way the staves are aligned, the idea of the bass line on the left hand corresponding with the cello and bass department, and then you've got the violins at the top, and everything gets filled-in in a sense. Mozart is very clear about the most important structural elements of what he's writing being put in place first and then filling-in the blanks as it were as a kind of shorthand. And that's very. >> David Plylar: That's something that I think carried over to composers like Schubert and Brahms. My understanding was that Schubert would often write melodic line with a piano bass line. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Exactly. It's so wonderful too because the way the structure of this variation works, which is true of many Mozart variations, the last literal variation is this adagio variation. Which is really -- again, this is one of those moments in Mozart where you realize that things, like the universe, sort of just opens up like this in one moment. It's an extraordinary piece. You've got this pizzicato line from the violin. This unbelievably fluid, incredibly finely wrote adagio variation from the piano with incredible scales going all up and down the keyboard. Once that variation is over, Mozart literally writes, play the theme again [foreign language]. Which is so charming in a sense. Because, well, okay, we're done with that now, play the theme again. And once you finish playing the theme, oh, I've got this little coda that I'd like to add on to that. And here it is on the last two lines, and then just play that and that's the end of the piece. It's sort of so, I don't know, it's so riant, touching in a sense. It's like this is so gorgeous and romantic and completely from another planet. But then it's back to business. Play the theme again, but don't forget to play this legato. And there's a delightful little bit of semiquaver stuff from the piano, and that's the end of the piece and it finishes piano with short notes. That was that. >> David Plylar: Yeah, he just kind of grounds it. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: You see this in -- I really like this idea that when Mozart repeats a theme in this stage of the gestation process, he'll just say, look, just play the theme again [foreign language]. You see this in the C minor piano sonata four, five, seven, in the middle movement. The theme comes back again and again in the course of the movement. And this is through composed movement, it's not like a series of discrete variations like this, where he has to really make this clear. And he just says, play the theme again. And, of course, when the piece is prepared for publication, he realizes that he needs to give his audience some idea of what they might do with those varied returns of the theme. So then he writes up ornaments for us, for the layperson. And it's wonderful, very tantalizing sense of, okay, play it again, but what might you do differently the second time. >> David Plylar: So would Mozart have that sort of an expectation on, say, a repeated thing like this? >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: I think so. Bear in mind, this is one of those pieces we really know Mozart played. Mozart played a lot of his music, but he also -- we know that there's music that he didn't get a chance to play, or was possibly played by other people, or that he really wrote for other people in mind, like Barbara Ployer, his student. This is a piece that we know Mozart really played at a real event in 1781. In the same way that we know Mozart played 454, the B flat sonata for violin and piano. So I think there's this very strong sense that there is the sense of the unknown, that the theme has to come back and Mozart plays it again. And it's imbued with ever new levels of fantasy and ornamentation. And there's this possibly erroneous myth surrounding this piece, and that is that Mozart really had to write this sonata incredibly quickly for this private concert for the Archbishop. And that the reports are that he played from basically the vaguest sort of piece of paper with no real information on it. And I think the message that that is sending is that possibly Mozart gave Brunetti, who played this, clear notes to play. Like here's the adagio and here's the allegro and here's the variation set, and here's what you have to do. But I like to think -- and this is probably a little romantic -- but I think possibly Mozart didn't really know what exactly was going to happen in the variation movements, let's say. He had some idea of what the basic character of each variation would be. But possibly he had a very, very rudimentary sketch for himself to play from. Which ties into issues with Beethoven as well relates this is really a case of a composer should be involved in the performance of something of later. But this is really a case of a composer actually being involved in the performance of something. And that this being the manuscript stage of a text like that -- which is probably compared to what he played from in the performance -- even a much richer, more fully documented version of that. ^M00:21:43 >> David Plylar: This is fascinating. Why don't we compare this -- well, we don't have a direct comparison. Why don't we take a look at some works that straddle this here, in terms of we have a recent acquisition of a new Haydn manuscript and also one that we've had for a while. So a Haydn crescendo and a Haydn sonata. If you can kind of situate them. And these are the. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Fantastic. >> David Plylar: The next piece that we're going to take a look at is a very recent acquisition, as in last week. So it's very new to us at the Library. This is the Haydn Capriccio dating from I believe 1765. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Sounds right, yeah. In fact, I think I got an email last week saying, we've just got this piece, might you consider playing this in your recital. >> David Plylar: Yeah, we apologize for that. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: No, don't be silly. It's just it's actually it's quite a thorny and tricky and difficult to negotiate piece. It's one of those pieces that you think, oh, this looks charming. But there's a lot of very thorny stuff in this piece. >> David Plylar: Yeah, and it's also -- it might not have been the most appropriate selection for the program as well. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: I know, because the program is very serious and kind of very, yeah. >> David Plylar: But this is I believe based on an Austria folktale. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: We think so, yes. It's a little unclear exactly what, but, yes, that's right. And it does kind of -- I don't know exactly what the text is, but it's outrageous, one needs [inaudible] castrations or something like that. It's really probably kind of really toilet humor stuff I think. I've not played the piece, but right. ^M00:23:38 It's very interesting the few shorter works that Haydn has -- the one I played last night, the set of variations in F minor, and the C major Fantasia and other pieces like it, it's so fascinating how these pieces are so different from the so-called serious pieces in sonata form. And Haydn I think really takes that to a degree of kind of comic absurdity that's just -- that oscillates between that and a piece like the F minor variations, which is so deeply serious and kind of structured and thought about and really like just a real piece of art music in a sense. ^M00:24:25 >> David Plylar: I mean, not to divert to the program that you played last night, but you almost have an inverted sense of Haydn the jokester versus Beethoven the jokester in the second sonata. Which I think is hilarious in many ways. Then you paired that with the very serious Haydn work. So it was nice to see all that -- of course, all these composers are very -- you know, have multiple things that they offer, more than we tend to describe them generically. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: That's very true because I mean, Beethoven is very humorous at times. But often people are more drawn to the kind of pathos rhythm writing in the keyboard sonatas perhaps than they would be to the jocular, like let's poke fun at things. That's a nice point, absolutely. >> David Plylar: So around 1765, what kind of an instrument might Haydn have been looking at or playing on? >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Well, Haydn is one of these people who plays just every possible -- or he's exposed to every possible keyboard through the course of the trajectory of his career as a composer, pianist. Let's say a composer who plays the piano and writes for keyboard instruments. I'm only saying that because I think Haydn is one of these genius types who writes for instruments, but it's very clear that Haydn doesn't identify himself as a keyboard player when he goes to bed at night or wakes up in the morning. And I think people like Mozart and Beethoven really do and did. Mozart really, the whole of his career, and Beethoven pretty much until the early 19th century, when he starts to realize that -- let's say possibly until the fourth piano contatto when he realizes that the reality of playing in public as a virtuoso pianist suddenly is not an option anymore. And I think Haydn really never thinks of himself like that but happens to write for keyboard instruments. So I think if you look at the keyboard sonatas, there's the sense that he's writing certainly with the clavichord in mind, possibly not as any vehicle for any kind of real performance but as an imaginary stage full of performance in which the clavichord would be the mode of expression. So that's the first stage where you have maximum intimacy, kind of private theater of exploration with the clavichord. And then you go to his music, which is clearly inspired by the harpsichord, or could have been played on the harpsichord, or the harpsichord may have been the instrument that he was using to actually bring these pieces across. And then we go from that to the late 18th century five octave fortepiano, or the very early 19th century, five octave Viennese fortepiano. The piano I played last night, the Schultz, copy by Tom and Barbara Wolf. Haydn was a huge fan of those pianos and cherished their sound and their articulation possibilities and the color possibilities that they have to offer as well enormously. And then as we'll get to in a minute, you go from that to the pianos that Haydn got to know when he was in London for his visits there. Which are completely different beasts from Viennese instruments. They have a kind of denser, richer sound. They have a less scientifically Viennese perfect approach to damping. So the sound is a lot more kind of air and hallo around it. So the thing with Haydn is that you have to sort of situate every piece, every sonata, every shorter work, and try and find the logic from where to put it. Feasibly where it was played. What keyboard it might have been played on. And a piece like this Capriccio is so interesting because it's so kind of extensively folksy and banal. You have to find a way of coming up with a program for understanding, okay, which instrument what was he playing this on? Which instrument did he imagine this to be played on? Does it make sense to take it to the fortepiano if it may have been a harpsichord piece? It's pretty clear I think that Haydn was not in this stage where he was really exposed to keyboard, like real piano instruments, at this stage. So it must've been some kind of intersection of clavichord or harpsichord, possibly harpsichord. But Haydn is a fascinating -- it's a fascinating journey that he goes on. Because he's -- I mean, historically speaking, we're talking about 1732 to 1809, and that is like the transformation that one witnesses in that period is just. >> David Plylar: Amazing. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: But you see also, I think it's so interesting that this is a folk song so one's not expecting mega sophisticated or complicated notational extras. But there's really no articulation of any kind. It's just the notes. There isn't a dynamic marking in sight. I thought it was interesting in the 379, in the Mozart, Mozart begins with not a huge amount of information about dynamics. He doesn't say, you know, dolce or mezzo forte or anything like this or forte or piano. But the articulations are cared for in such a deeply detailed way. But here we have nothing. We have moderato to tell us what the character is. It's probably forte because most pieces begin forte unless you hear otherwise. [inaudible] Exactly. A kind of wedge here or there to show likeness. But it's really just it's kind of presentational in a sense. And it's a very -- I don't know, I think I'm definitely way over-analyzing this. But it's a lot more -- it's very ordered in a way. Everything is very neat. The script doesn't really change very much. The density of the notes, in a sense, it's very. ^M00:30:47 >> David Plylar: Yeah, I almost wonder if there's -- I know no idea if this is just out of left field -- but it looks the bar lines are almost pre-ruled or something. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Yes, yes. >> David Plylar: Because there's such uniformity. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Right. I mean, I guess he's in a handy situation because he's got a triple time variating Capriccio here where he's not -- it's not like the Mozart where he is sort of figuring out as he goes along. It's like, oh, dear, I need to read in 30-second notes now, that's going to be challenging. One thing that's so vividly clear about this, when you see it, is how much Haydn is so interested in playing around with texture as a form of variation. So I think becomes so attractive for Beethoven as well. Mozart is too, but it's kind of very vividly visual here, when you see, okay, here we have triplets in the left hand now, and now we have triplets in the right hand. And this is sort of a textual device that's really used for, you know, for big, big lines of music. >> David Plylar: Yeah. And you then you have those like the sudden pop-outs of register [inaudible]. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Yes, absolutely. >> David Plylar: Yeah, it's quite theatrical but also effective just in terms of setting up that kind of -- not a swampon [phonetic] sound but something. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Well, that's the thing is, I guess when you've got -- he's got this theme obviously, but it becomes the charm of these variations, a capriccio like this, or any type of thing where something is repeated over and over, and it gets objected to these modifications. This sort of delight in the simplest means, but the most graphically-varied textual devices is such a -- I think 18th century audiences would've found this absolutely so charming and almost like a Disney movie in a sense. It's like, oh, wow, that's amazing. How did you come up with that? And who knows what the intersection is between how much of it was really improvised or how much of it was kind of quasi-improvised, and then people go home and say, that was a great idea, let me just tweak it a bit more. >> David Plylar: You know, another thing that's interesting about this just thinking of your performance last night of the -- trying to think exactly where this happens in the variations. But where he'll do a figure, like a broken octave figure, in one register, and then emulate it in another one as kind of a reference point but also as a developmental tool and also a sonic. It's very -- I always find it fascinating with Haydn and Beethoven especially does that as well. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Yes, that's very true. >> David Plylar: But you can kind of see that happening. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Yeah, very clearly. It's interesting too, we've got G major to G major 379, I don't think we really planned that that way. ^M00:34:05 >> David Plylar: You know, one thing that pops out here also is that there's this stretch of about six or seven bars where -- and it's going a little bit -- where the ink seems distinctly different. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: It does. >> David Plylar: And it's not that clear that it's a re-inking situation or rather maybe something an over-writing, just because there is some distinct coloration between the two. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Yes. And we haven't seen that kind of variety before or -- I mean, it's not like the Mozart where there are sort of more intense places, and, you know, it's kind of all mixed in together. It's very -- the coloration is very clearly different here just for a small stretch, and then. >> David Plylar: Yeah. And I'm not sure whether this was something that was amended later just to bring clarity. Because it doesn't look like there are changes in pitches or anything like that. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: No. >> David Plylar: I don't know whether it was in Haydn's hand or not. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Also interesting that you suddenly get -- and it's true in the F minor variations as well. And it was always hard to know what to do in these pieces where, you're playing a piece that's actually a variation set, so the suspension of disbelief is that the audience is trying to convince themselves that you're actually improvising it. But then there are these places in the piece where you actually do get to a place where you have to say, well, what do I do now actually? Like, do I add something here? And invariably, these are the places in the Mozart variation set or in a piano connata or something like this where there's a fermata over a chord and then there's an arpeggio here between the hands that goes up the keyboard. And one then has to do decide, okay, is this a place where I add something else? We know that Mozart plays lead-ins in piano cantatas to get from the dominant back to the theme, or in many situations, and he rarely writes those out unless he's preparing something for publication. But it's really it's a big kind of a quandary in a way, because. >> David Plylar: What would your instinct be, like say in this case? >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: It's funny, my instinct would be not to do something there actually. And I don't know why, because normally I'm always for careful connective tissue like that. Like in 379, I think there are probably missing lead-ins as well to get from the -- it's a tough call. But possibly when you arrive on D major before you get to the G minor movement, there's a case to be made for doing something there. But, again, there's not a seventh chord, so maybe not. I don't know, I think some of Haydn's rye charm is that you're playing this piece that's a variation piece, and then when you get to one place where you might actually really do something, no. I don't know, and that's possibly way too sophisticated. Apparently when I think it was when Czerny played the Beethoven quintet for piano and winds, I think maybe he -- the story goes that he improvised a lead-in of some kind or some kind of unsanctioned improvisatory material happened. And Beethoven was furious with him. Because, he said, I mean, look, you weren't playing what I wrote, that's just -- you know, why did you do that? And I think sometimes there's this sense that when Beethoven writes music that he wants to sound improvised, he wants to control exactly how it sounds. And this is why he starts doing things like in the second piano connata where he writes out the cadenza or in the emperor connata, because he doesn't want to leave it to chance because he's such a control freak. I'm sure Haydn wasn't quite as maniacal as that. But it's hard to know, we don't have much to go on about Haydn's specific thoughts about the subject. ^F00:38:07 ^M00:38:16 Right, and I mean, these tropes, as well, you see these variation movements. They have everything. They have triplets. They have a minor variation. They have broken notes in the octaves. They have octaves with seconds as well. All these kind of stock virtuoso devices that are really -- I mean, I hadn't though of it until now, but the fact that this is really so early, really shows you where a lot of these default settings come from for someone like Mozart 20 years later. >> David Plylar: Well, I mean, to make a large contrast with this, maybe we should look at the [inaudible] >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Yes, absolutely. >> David Plylar: From about 30 years later. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: That's extraordinary to even think of, that it could be 30 years later. I mean, Schubert has one year of life left, Mozart has five. Yeah. So Haydn -- it's so tantalizing, all these concurrent events. Because Solomon invites Haydn to come to London. It's kind of a big celebrity star composer. I mean, in some sense this is kind of one of the first times this happens, that a composer is invited to come to a foreign city as a celebrity composer. I mean, Haydn is not coming to London to play private -- I mean, to play concerts as a pianist, because he's a well-known virtuoso. He's coming because he's a celebrity. And they want him to write music specifically for the London visit, which is played in London for the first time. I mean, someone like Mozart travels around to cities, but he's writing music for those cities in a hope that they might give him some position. And Haydn is not doing that in London. He's just there to kind of sit tight, get paid a lot of money, and write music and enjoy a kind of paid vacation. And what's so interesting is that it seems like Solomon was desperate to get Mozart to come to London as well. And Mozart was an avowed Anglophile. He loved English things and was very interested in English. So, I don't know, it's kind of wistful to think might've come of a Mozart London visit, you know, at that stage of his life. Because, of course, he was there in the 1760s. >> David Plylar: Forgive my ignorance on this. But would he -- so Mozart would not have had as great exposure to the other types of keyboard instruments as Haydn? >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Well, this is a very good question. I mean, it's very clear that Mozart's training is very much organ and harpsichord based. I don't know how much clavichord Mozart would've been playing. And I'm not sure that Mozart ever had a very clear sense of the clavichord as being a kind of expressive tool for him in the same way that we know it was for [inaudible], also for Haydn. I think what happens with Mozart, my theory, is that Mozart goes along as a super well-trained keyboard pro from the harpsichord and the organ. And then in around let's say 1775/6/7, he starts to change his thinking in a way. And that coincides with the fact that he gets to know these South German fortepianos built by Stein. And I think they kind of -- things lock in in a certain way where he kind of has a very strong idea of what the sound that he wants to create from his music because of this new piano and the possibilities that it affords him. He played square pianos when he was in London in the 1760s, when he was touring around and had met Johann Sebastian Bach. But I think it's that moment in the middle of the 70s when he realizes that he doesn't want to be a violinist anymore really, because it represents the tyranny of his father and Salzburg. And he finds this gorgeous new piano. And he says, okay, I could write lots of music for this piano, which is deeply idiomatically designed for it. And then maybe I can move to Vienna later and become a big star, and maybe I could play public concerts on this instrument and become a -- and then I could get a job as an opera composer because foot in the door. But Mozart doesn't play English instruments. And that's what's so fascinating about this visit to London, is that Haydn meets these newfangled English/French style pianos. Which are so, as we said earlier, so different from Viennese instruments. And then he has to come up with a way to write for them that makes sense for the English public. So you see -- and, again, this is all -- you see these richly-scored, richly-scored left hand chords, full notes, really densely -- I mean, look at the second chord, this E flat seven chord leading to E flat major. I mean, that is really thick business down there. It's really the chocolate, deep, full fat, chordal writing. Which is curious, because, in fact, these English pianos are known for a much kind of denser, richer sound anyway. So you might think, well, wouldn't Haydn write less dense chords? Yeah, but he's sort of. >> David Plylar: Embracing it. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Totally. He's like, okay, we'll really do this. But you can tell that his sense of textural awareness, vis-a-vis what the instrument has to offer, is just instantly in place. You've got thick chords around the tenor region, nothing too high. But then immediately, he transfers some of these motives and themes to an octave higher, and crucially with the left hand playing in this very light kind of hop-like guitar area. And then even higher than that after that in thirds sort of non-music in a sense, like just a little motive, repeat it again and repeat it again. And then thirds kind of cascading down, which return to some kind of thematic material again. But the whole thing is very choreographed, very visual, very theatrical in a sense. And you can just sort of see it. It's like -- I mean , even when you step back, it really looks like -- it looks a story is being told in a sense. And also, notice how -- I mean, compared to the capriccio, how super fussy Haydn is in this piece. >> David Plylar: Start with the dynamics. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: And slurs that are sometimes in curious places that go curiously long as well. Accents in metrically weak parts of the bar, very specific two note slurs that are then followed by wedges and short notes. It's clearly very cultivated, very thought about, really artfully put down on the page, not just the material as they were. >> David Plylar: Yeah. And I guess I didn't think to look at another edition of this before coming over. But just speaking of what you're saying, but the clarity of the slurs that he's writing. We have it there but then they're suddenly absent. Would the assumption be that he meant that to be a simile type of? >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: This is such an amazingly good question with Haydn. I mean, you see like in the Capriccio, the lack of articulation cannot stand for the idea there is no articulation going on. The question is just what is the basic character that he's trying to convey? And what is the articulation that you use to bring that across in the best way? Haydn, I think Haydn is really one of these people who tries to set up a basic paradigm notationally or within articulation and then he tries to say, okay, now go out into the world and figure out the rest for yourself. Mozart very rarely does that. But that's a wonderful example of that. We can get a bit caught up in our kind of vortex mentality when we see that slurs are not there, then we stop playing connected. And I think that might be a little bit too literal of an interpretation of a lot of his stuff. On the other hand, it's all shades of gray. One has to be very careful about coming up with any rule that suits any -- that suits way too many situations. I think it's all really case by case in a situation like this. Although these last -- these English sonatas are fiercely detailed by Haydn's standards, both articulation in the matters of articulation, and also dynamics. There's this theory that's positive that Haydn writes these English sonatas. And then the idea is, well, what happens when you get back to Vienna and you want to play this gorgeous new piece that Haydn wrote in London? But we haven't had the chance to play it here yet. And what do you do? Like how do play a sonata like this on a Viennese instrument from the same time, versus those people who got to play this in London on a broad wood or something like that. It's a wonderful sense of fun about people discovering these pieces and thinking, gosh, what is Hadyn thinking here? >> David Plylar: Right. They would have had more variety kind of at their fingertips, depending on where they are regionally, than we do today. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: That's right, absolutely. That's very well put. I think too, when you look at these -- when you look at something like the E flat sonata, the C major as well, you can just really see how much of a theater of gestures, kind of absurd comedic stuff, wildly differing textures and moods, just built into the rhetorical style of this music. And which becomes -- which is so beguiling and attractive for someone like Beethoven. I mean, we don't really have any kind of gorgeous melodies to latch onto here. It's just sort of these kind of almost second Viennese school style, like little snippets of things and then stop and now new this thing. >> David Plylar: Like even here, like in this moment in here that strikes you as a very Beethovenian type. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Totally, totally. >> David Plylar: Approach. Just to kind of isolate dramatically. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: That being said, it's, again, super Beethovenian in the sense that the basic setting that's established in a movement like this, which is kind of grand marshal E flat, dotted rhythms, but then these weird textural contrasts in the upper treble, combined with sort of flippant short notes and then intimations of melody in the tenor regions but never really fulfilled. Is then completely contradicted in the second movement in this image. >> David Plylar: Which in itself is a strange. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Again, like what does someone in 1793 make of that, that choice? I mean, this is something that Mozart would never in a million years even consider as a key choice. But then you've got this kind of richly lyrical heartfelt melody in image. I mean, it's a melody but then it's also fragmented and it breaks down into these shorter notes that you see It's kind of a little bit like Beethoven in the sense that it's just kind of a state of being. It's this kind of psychological position that you're in in a movement like this. And not so much this beautiful melody that has, you know, antecedent and consequent and exactly you know what you're going to get. I mean, the fret structure is clear, but it's always very so theatrical, so like not grounded in reality somehow. And also, Hadyn's incredible fussiness with writing out these very strange, hugely idiosyncratic, ornamental material styles that he introduces in this movement, also the back-and-forth between E major and the minor modes that we also were talking about in the F minor variations. Just you start in E major and then you just go to E minor. You don't really -- you just are there. >> David Plylar: And this might be a little bit too technical point for this conversation, but you notice things like his use of octaves as a color, it almost feels -- as opposed to any sort of reinforcement type of thing. When he lands on a semimelodic octave and then quickly pivots away from that. And it's just so beautiful to see that kind of thinking. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: That's right. And you have to understand that hearing -- we see these, this kind of a chord and we know it, because we know what happens in the 19th century. But a chord like this really sends shockwaves through the earth because it's a new sound. Like certain sonatas that Beethoven comes up with. They're invented in that moment and then they open doors for future experimentation. It actually ended up being a really, I don't know, serendipitous, the choice of pieces. I don't know why necessarily, but this idea of 379 being this three movement piece, but actually functioning as a two movement piece in the sense it's almost identical to 109. That you've got this intersection of fantasy and sonata happening at this point. I mean, in the 1820s when Beethoven is writing this, he doesn't want the sonata to feel like -- he doesn't want it to feel like a formal four-movement affair like his earlier pieces. Where you've got a first movement in sonata form, second movement adagio, third movement scherzo and trio or minuet and trio and then last movement some kind of virtuoso romp. It's supposed to be this sort of slithering creature that just goes in and out of these various states of being. And then you write this first movement, which is a sort of -- I mean, 109 is extraordinary because it feels like it could be like a Chopin prelude for a while or a bagatelle maybe, and then it breaks down into fantasy with all these diminished chords. >> David Plylar: It also feels like to me, it feels like it starts in the middle. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Totally, yes. As if you're in a recording session and you're kind of in mid-take. It's so fascinating in the sense that 110 and 111 have very -- their different ways, but they really -- they're pieces that really begin. You really know, okay. >> David Plylar: Right, right. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: And also -- and this is just so amazing because -- it's so weird how in terms of spacing how counterintuitive this is. I mean, the music that's happening here at the beginning [sounds] is actually really small, like it could take up half that room. And yet it really it takes up a lot of space. It's like every note is kind of being found and written down. And then as things get louder, like the strokes get more intense, and there's a bit more ink and little messes here and there, and then it sort of. >> David Plylar: Yeah, I have a colleague here, Ray White, who always says that -- especially with Beethoven and with others -- you get a sense of that personality from the way that they annotate things. And you also get a sense of where they are -- I mean, it's only one supposes that one has the sense, it may not have been that way. But you have the sense of where they are in their compositional moment, that they maybe have some degree of excitement about an idea or some [inaudible]. ^M00:55:00 >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Right. And so it really looks like what it sounds like. It's kind of searching and improvisatory bagatelle meets fantasy meets kind of moving prelude. It's everything that a first note of sonata should not be doing, even in the 1820s in a sense. But then the thing is, with the ensuing E minor material, you know, are these supposed to be separate things? They're actually literally linked in the way that the pedal is held down. But this sense of, you know, is this three movements, or is it kind of two little mini movements and then linked to those set of variations at the end? But as we were saying with 379, this wonderful sense that you have kind of a first movement that's finding itself in a little bit lost improvisation, and then you've got something kind of slightly more nailed down in the minor mode, in this case, in E minor. Like 379, something in triple time structured with a theme and a real sense of more kind of classical structure and rigger. And then you sort of finish that and then you've got this kind of really serene heavenly set of variations in E major, again, in triple time that defy expectations of what a keyboard sonata should be doing at this time. I mean, Mozart -- Beethoven had already written variation movements in sonatas before, as had Mozart. But it's a really -- it's still a really strong gesture of questioning what the form is capable of doing. It's just it's so touching. ^M00:56:43 >> David Plylar: I'll just point out, I think goes quite along with your notion of this looking at like a fantasy and fantastic thing. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Yes. >> David Plylar: It's one thing to have extensions that go into the margins where there's a scale that's going to be [inaudible]. That doesn't strike me as compositionally as, you know, unusual to see. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Yes. >> David Plylar: But there are other places where -- like here, where it looks like there's an insertion of a measure. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Right. >> David Plylar: From what was already composed. That actually creates quite a different -- I can't say for sure that it was meant to not have that original piece, but if it was, that's quite a difference on the take of the whole apparatus. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: That's very true. Like a completely new sort of new thinking about something in a sense. And not, oh, I just have to sort of fit this in somehow. >> David Plylar: And it's not that it's -- it's a simple edition that's in character with the rest of what's going on. Which means it could be also [inaudible], copying slip, that happens. Let's take a look at one or two more pages. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Yes. ^M00:57:58 Yeah, these, it's so amazing. These places where the piece really breaks into these fantasy moments where you have these cascading [inaudible] down and up. They just look like that. They're appropriately hectic or fraud. They just really look like trouble. >> David Plylar: Yeah. And then you have this literal writing out of forte that's almost angry. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Yes. [inaudible] ^M00:58:35 And yeah, it's just pure emotion somehow. ^M00:58:47 Yeah, it's just so extraordinary how much space these bars take up. I mean, it's like every one is a real -- like is sort of etched like down. And there's no fluidity here, even though the music actually is very fast and sounds like it's really going along, you know, like a duck just sort of gliding along a pond. But there's a sense of every bar being kind of fought for and won. And here's the andante. And, again, you know, somehow this sense -- I think Hadyn and Beethoven are really lined up about how they think about keys so strongly. Like this could be -- you know, this is absolutely cut from the same cloth as the flat sonata from the 1790s. You know, it's this sense of hymnal devotional E major, a piece of great reverence and internal kind of struggles with divinity or spirituality. These are really strong ideas for Beethoven. And I think maybe not -- he didn't literally get them from Hadyn from it on a philosophical level, but they're the same struggles, and E major is a very strong choice of key for him I think. ^M01:00:15 And also you see this sense of the crescendos, the hairpins really having a kind of -- they're just, you know, you can feel the emotion in them actually. It's sort of like -- the expression of these places is actually he's trying desperately to actually just build it in here and show it and as if he's actually doing it with you, with it, as he's writing it. Damn it. >> David Plylar: It's performative aspects to the writing. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Totally, totally. Yeah, and again, like what we've been talking about, this Beethoven suddenly exposed these worlds of texture, like trills and repeated notes and arpeggios and all manner of almost like Impressionist, swimmingly liquid types of new piano sounds in a movement like this. He sort of just abandons all fear about what is possible in these last three sonatas. Any type of new figuration that's possible, especially in 111, but also crucially here in 109. And, again, like the trajectory of that through the through three pieces is really -- the four pieces, is really fascinating. >> David Plylar: Well, I'd like to thank you so much. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Thank you, David. What a pleasure. >> David Plylar: To be able to speak here with Kristian Bezuidenhout. And it's been a great pleasure to hear him on fortepiano last night and also to speak with him about these manuscripts. So thanks again. >> Kristian Bezuidenhout: Thank you, David. >> This has been a presentation at the Library of Congress. Visit us at LOC.GOV.