Beethoven's version is definitely better and the people who edited it don't understand Beethoven's harmony. The flat third resolves to the major third, like a suspension. It's exactly the same philosophy as all tonal music, dissonance resolving to consonance. The 'corrected' version doesn't sound right because then there is no dissonance to be resolved so the return to the tonic appears to jump out of nowhere.
@Jakob Jones While I agree with you on which one sounds better, I am fairly certain this kind of resolution has mostly melodic connotations and not harmonic ones.
justjack 42 Beethoven doesn't strike me azz sumbody dat would compose wit perfection, n mind. I am sure he wuz smart enuff 2 know life wuz not perfect & thus n his muzak, I am sure he ntertained mperfection & found those mperfectionz nteresting 2 resolve.
1) It could be (partly) the tuning issue too. Slightly different tuning between instruments and the music eras, and some chords sound off (especially diminished). 2) Then it could be the nature of the instruments: Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, etc. used straight strung pianos, that definitely produce a different sound when compared to more modern instruments which are cross-strung. When straight strung pianos wires vibrate, some harmonics created (vibrations of other wires) are definitely missing in later pianos.
@@waryviewer488 Also when they've switched to equal temperament and cross stringing they actually made adaptations that are appropriate for this temperament.
As a jazz player, I greatly prefer the original version of the Chopin nocturne, (as played at 4:20). The dissonant version resolves much more satisfyingly, and is music to my ears, so to speak. Many years ago, an instructor taught me that when composing, (including improvisation), no single note is a mistake. It's the NEXT NOTE that determines if the first one was wrong! Nice video, and very impressive playing, too. I wish MY octave scales were that clean. Luckily, octave scales don't show up much in jazz. :-)
I liked the originals better. Whether you like them or not that is what they wrote. They would have fixed their own mistakes. They would have heard them performed and performed them themselves. Editors are arrogant.
It's not always clear what the composer wrote; that's why the Beethoven ms was shown. Mistakes could be introduced by the composer, by a copyist, and by the printer.
In Beethoven's "Hammerklavier" Sonata (1st movement), right before the recapitulation there's a bunch of A-sharps leading back to the home key of B-flat major. However, this sounds wrong because the harmony goes A#-E to A#-F (enharmonic perfect fifth of B-flat) without a proper V-I cadence. Some editions correct the A-sharp to A-natural, which complies more to Beethoven's earlier harmonic tendencies (perfect fifth expanding to a sixth), and pianists today are still divided over which version is the correct one to play.
As a young composer myself i must say, composers of course make mistakes, but don't they always say that the mistakes are your best teachers? I recently composed an Impromptu where the coda should have featured some B major chord figures but while going through it i accidentally once played a C Diminished Chord (or C, D#, F#, C), but then i realized that it actually fits quite well and I decided to leave it in the piece. 😄
Wait, I'm planning on taking piano lessons, so I'm wondering when you.go to piano lessons do they teach you like the chords like #D, C, F etc. And do they teach you how to read and know the piano symbols the notes when you play a piece on the piano
@@Owkd19389 they teach you everything you need to know about playing the piano, starting from the chords to the theory, augmented and diminish and many more. Honestly, it's fun.
Dude - music is a reflection of life, odd chords are resolved. Live with the odd chords and resolve them. The theme of this video is a great concept, keep up the good work.
If you have the score to the original ending that Clara Schumann suggested that Liszt should change because of its overall difficulty ( too ) I would have liked to have heard you play it. The ending to this piece as we now know it to be is totally right; from Horowitz's performance ( of which I first heard it ) to Watts, Argerich and every one else who has performed it since. In this case, Mrs. Schumann was spot on. She forced Liszt to reexplore the depth of his own genius, temper the bombastic in which he wowed his audiences when on stage, and paint a true work Art. Not so in the case of her husband's sonata in g minor in the finally. The original finally which we know now as the presto appassionato, Clara also dubbed as too difficult. Schumann wrote the finally we now hear in most performances of which any dedicated music student can handle. I am surprised Argerich didn't feature the Presto in her recording of the g minor. Mrs. Schumann was in error in this case. The Presto Appassionata is a master piece by itself and really does belong with the sonata as a whole; it just takes a little practice, some crossing of the hands of which Robert was good for in in his writing for the piano, but, lies very well under the fingers. A great ebb and flow and crescendo ending in a wonderful and rewarding climax. the performer of this piece has to hold on to his temperament less he/she smudge the ending. The best recording of this work for me, is by Ronald Turini; it may have been suggested to him by Horowitz of whom he studied with early on. Horowitz's recording of this piece is too fast and the music isnt' allowed to breath.
Where have you read that Clara Schumann asked Liszt to rewrite the ending? I've read on wikipedia that she hated the whole piece and she even refused to play it (it was dedicated to Robert Schumann).
I certainly prefer Ludwig’s version. I think it makes it special. The corrected version sounds ok but ordinary. The original stands out. It’s called genius
I wouldn’t change any of these great men’s work, I don’t think they are mistakes, but even if they were, “Great men's errors are to be venerated as more fruitful than little men's truths.” As Nietzsche said.
I like the "original" peace's with the "funny" notes more because it brings a own style in it and if not it sounds normal and it is not interesting, so I won't hear it. But with this accidents it has an character wich I like more and in my opinion is more authentically. Also it says something to the listener just like "I am special".
Fantastic video, no one is putting content out like this. I really enjoyed some of the unedited version, those harmonic clashes really added a lot of colour. It’s a shame they changed it
Thanks Robert! I came across your video just by chance on another quest. I was surprised that such questions could be raised on the works of such masters and am pleased that they do! A choice could be confusing and sometimes seem obvious. Its the essence of the preceding section and the following which should be considered, which you have done. Who could prove it anyways. Thanks again, good thinking!
There is also Bach's 2 part invention in A minor that has this dramatic cross relation that was corrected for quite some time and close study revealed the "wrong" note was what was in the original (and sounds better)
Beethoven "Ecossaise": the "mistake" is correct in my opinion. Another example: Beethoven Piano Concerto No.1, 1st Mov., 2nd Theme, Bar 172. Is it an F or F#? Robert Levin and Andrass Schiff play an F. The rest play F#. Was this an editor's "correction"? Or did Beethoven want an F natural?
"A suspension is the harmonic formation that arises, when not all the voices of a chord enter simultaneously; one or more of the voices enter later (are suspended), causing dissonances, which find their resolution in the chord itself" (Guide to the practical study of harmony, Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky).
In the Chopin nocturne, I think I prefer it the 1st way with the C#. The second one uses a Cnat which clashes against the c# and b in the left hand and sounds weird resolving to the diminished chord that follows.
A teacher showed us a famous orchestral piece by Richard Strauss where there are unplayable notes given to, I think, the cello. I think you simply have to go up an octave because the notes are out of range for the instrument.
Beethoven: I think the A# kind of makes more sense logically, because if you listen to the previous phrase (that has the same rhythmic figure), it also emphasizes a non-chord tone, and it resolves to a chord tone on the last 8th note of the measure. 1st phrase: F# E D over a D7 chord. The note that gets emphasis is the E that's a non-chord tone, and it resolves to D in the end of the measure. 2nd phrase: A A# B (though, the B also starts the next phrase and works as a pick up which is why I guess it gets a bit less emphasis) played over G. Again, the note that gets emphasis, A#, is a non-chord tone and it resolves to B in the end of the measure. So, this is a similar figure as in the previous phrase, and the notes would function in a similar way. Also, notice how the A# is actually played over a Gsus4 chord that only resolves to G major when there's a B in the melody. To me this suggests that the A# is meant to be there - it's basically a suspension. The third is approached by a half step from two directions, so it's a 4-3 and #2-3 suspension. The edited version also lacks the Gsus4 in the left hand... I think if there hadn't been the sus4 chord in the original version, I would have found it more plausible that the edited version was correct, but to me the sus4 in the left hand suggests that the A# is correct and can't really be a mistake.
It's a tricky one - how to know what the composer's intent was. Fwiw, I thought both original Beethoven and Chopin could have been intended - it depends on the effect they were after. The Liszt more clear cut as he changed it himself; and yet when he wrote the original, he must have thought he was doing the right thing! My pet hate is the editorial change made in many versions of the Chopin posthumous C#m nocturne (LH harmony change which first occurs in bar 8) - the original seems far better to me, and the altered version gives the game away too soon by prematurely releasing all the tension that has been built up!
Damn editors. Don't they consult with the composers and ask them their intentions. I also liked Beethoven's original. Neither his or Chopin's sounded odd to me and like others said, is preferred over altering it to a perceived prettier version. Makes you wonder what other original works unbeknownst to us that have had the misfortune of being "corrected" by editorial intervention.
RE bar 24 of Chopin's Nocturne in E minor: the C# appears in first editions of the nocturne. In bar 48, which is analogous, Chopin puts an F natural. It seems unlikely that Chopin could have wished to differentiate bars 24 & 48 in this respect, so the sharp found in the first editions is most probably erroneous: the autograph, which is lost, most probably contained no alteration to the C, and the first editions added that wrong sharp after seeing that the left hand has a C#. But of course we can't be sure about it.
There’s a similar thing with Bach’s first unaccompanied Violin Sonata, where some editors mistook the tails/flags (whatever you call them) of a sixteenth note to be an actual note in a chord.
I have 2 editions from the same publisher(G. Shirmer if you are curious as to who) of the K 545 sonata. One edition(which I was able to find years ago on IMSLP before the edition changed) has an extra few bars of the A section of the second movement before the C section repeats. That is the edition that I play. But the one I see most often doesn't have that and it just goes straight into a whole repeat of the A section. So it brings up the question of whether or not Mozart wrote those extra bars.
Played the ecossaise as a kid with the A# on the upbeat (the first way you played it). Since, I got it into my mind that way, it is really hard to hear it as "correct" the other way. Who knows how I'f hear it if I grew up playing it with a different edition of the score.
Discrepancies in Chopin's music came from the fact that he was always changing the way he played things as he taught them to different students/performed them at different places, especially in his posthumous works. This is the reason that almost all of his posthumous music is very different in each score you'll come across. He never officially published a "correct" version of any of the pieces, so all of the editions we have came from his various students basically saying "oh hey he taught it this way" and other students would say "nuh uh he taught it this way." In reality they were both right. A lot of times he would write a piece, perform it, decide he didn't like what he wrote, and change it. An excellent example of this situation occurring is in the C# Minor Nocturne, Op. Post. Almost every single edition I have looked into (the actual number was like 5 or 6) has a lot of differences in several different sections of the piece in notation, grouping, ornamentation, etc. I can't speak definitively to the Beethoven example, as I'm not as familiar with his tendencies in composition, but this is actually the reason urtext isn't necessarily always quite as helpful as everyone thinks that it is. In a situation where a composer is always changing what he is writing, there really can be no true "urtext." Just something interesting my professor taught me last year because she and I were having a really interesting conversation about this same topic.
I think this example has much greater implications for the rhythm and circularity of that phrase than for either its melody or harmony. The harmony essentially doesn’t change at all no matter which way you play it- it’s some version of the dominant chord while this note is happening above. The melody does change- and its character is different too- one is more playful, challenges your ear to wait, and asks you to bear a dissonance. But- it’s the rhythmic circularity that really loses when somebody edits this out of existence. The Bb resolving perfectly to the major third of the root chord tidies up the first repetition of the rhythmic figure for sure....and simultaneously destroys the rationale for the second repetition of the figure because it was being prompted by both sounding incomplete (ending on the flat 6 of the Vth chord) and literally not ending up where it started. So now you’ve sort of got a repetition of the same figure twice and Beethoven is just so infinitely much more interesting than that. Yeah, it’s not Beethoven-y enough the second way. I cannot comprehend why we would take a composer we love, then remove the things that make him quintessentially himself.
I just want to add, in the electronics world people will often add mistakes to their circuits to stop people from copying their designs. Usually obvious to someone who knows better but sometimes wrong value caps or resistors or floating wires/odd groundings. That being said I was playing Beethoven's woo 47 no.3 and noticed in the sheet music it calls for a D# and i've never heard it played that way everyone plays the D.
I enjoy your channel quite a bit. What make of piano and model did you play here? It was wonderful.This past Sunday at Tanglewood in ma. They did the Listz sonata for Leonard Bersyeins’s centennial.
Beethoven, love the first part you play, with a bit dissonating note. Chopin, love the 2nd part you play. The 1st part, it sounded like someone angry hitting twice a car horn. The second part is more lyrical, a bit melancolic but growing towards happyness. Liszt sonate: you sure know how to play. Thanks for your performance!
I agree with some of the comments I read Mozart's work seems perfect to me but maybe during that era that was the trend Beethoven definitely had more dissonance in some of his passages he wanted to create the tension in order to show it's beautiful resolve
In their time it's normal to make mistake or by the composer or by the editor but but that can be always fixed by other masters like you , isnt it ? In my music I also use that strange notes wich is unique back on the days but I add a C7 for example and sounds good enough for me
Very interesting. I would have liked a bit more musicological analysis, a la Rick Beato. Wat was the Beethoven chord in context (an 11th or something?), where did the bum note sit in relation to the key, does the piece use that interval anywhere else, etc? I preferred it actually, as the alternative was a bit bland, and Beethoven is anything but bland. Chopin I know less about and the parallel movement did sound awkward/amateur; but again more analysis of it would have been made it even more interesting.
Not Beethoven. Well, I take that back. There is one instance that was documented where he said that he made a mistake. When asked what mistake he made, he stated that the mistake he made was thinking he had made a mistake.
I have often wondered (as a newbie) if what I was hearing was intentional or not. Sometimes there just seems to be a better way, but who am I to say. Purest will cringe but others may not even notice. I'm playing for my own enjoyment so I think I'll just have to play it by ear.
I almost don't listen to Franz Liszt repertoire yet i somehow knew that the last piece could be one of his composition, guess composers put they personality and style in music.
I’m sure composers could have made mistakes, but wouldn’t most of these “mistakes” be artifacts of older tuning standards? That would make many the things sound differently. Playing the “unfixed” versions on a piano tuned to the frequencies in which they were written would be the only way to judge whether or not these pieces still sound wrong.
There is another way to answer this question, and that is, that during PERFORMANCE classical composers (I'm thinking Beethoven in particular) DID make mistakes. But this was not due to a lack of skill (obviously!), but rather that, Beethoven for example was so passionately and intensely connected to his music; to his inner MUSE while in live performance; and to his medium of expression (i.e. the piano); that accidents were simply a HUMAN result of putting so much energy and passion and intensity into it. And so these are the accidents that only occur when you are DARING to go beyond what your current limitations of "perfect playing" are, and yes you make mistakes when you cross that line of being able to execute perfectly, but also it is only when you cross that line that you will reach deeper insights and intensity into the piano (or other instrument) than you would have by playing it "perfectly". And it is also a healthily humbling reminder for when we make mistakes, that even the greats such as Beethoven made mistakes sometimes and that's okay.
Actually, Beethoven didn't just "sometimes" make mistakes, but he was kind of known for often making them (as I remember reading during my college days). But again, it was just his human nature, as is ours. Though he spent countless hours at the piano no doubt, he actually spent MUCH of his day and such in nature, writing his music away from the piano. (Let us be reminded that he had perfect pitch in his head, obviously proven after he went deaf, so he didn't NEED a piano at his hands in order to write.) Chopin, on the other hand, in his chronic sickness, was quite a recluse and thus practiced (and taught) piano as such, ALWAYS at the piano. Liszt, in his own way, was ALWAYS practicing piano, basically. [Chopin and Liszt didn't get to the level of Chopin and Liszt by "not-always-practicing" the piano!] So, not all composers had super strict practice regimens and some of them did! :D
Those corrected versions are not generally professionally or academically accepted. It's like how in edited versions of Für Elise, the V7 harmony is 'corrected' to a straight dominant - but only in popularised versions. Choice dissonance moments have always been in classical music, from the Renaissance, through Bach, certainly in Beethoven, achingly beautified in Brahms, and thoroughly celebrated in Bartók and later. These aren't corrections, they are misunderstandings.
Well, we can't say if the grandiose original Listz ending is right or wrong, aesthetic or not. It is opinion after all. The popular ending became the alternate take that stuck. I don't know- I loved Mahler for some years, then could barely listen to him in all that pompous grandiosity and egoism, but now I really love Mahler again. He was absolutely brilliant. So like, that's just my opinion man.
I'm thinking that many times a composer might not always be settled as to some chords, melodies, etc. They might like both the "right" and the "wrong" versions. Sometimes I like the safe, normal harmonies one day, and prefer something edgier the next. Probably composers are like that too.
How about Mahler swapping the 2nd and 3rd movements of his 6th symphony? I personally like the new order better, but it seems like a lot of orchestras play the original order.
I feel that the title of this video seems to be a little misleading. I find it hard that composers "make mistakes" more than they tend to experiment with harmony. We wouldn't be where we are with music if we had not decided to experiment with music all together. There is a possibility that a mistake was made, but there is also a possibility that they were playing around with the music they wrote.
I'm not 100% sure, but it seems like in the second version of the Chopin Nocturne, you replaced the dissonant chord (was that an augmented triad? I couldn't quite tell) which functions as a separate harmony with what sounded like a deliberate appoggiatura that renders the previous chord as implying the same harmony as the chord that follows, except with a non-chord tone. I'd say that's completely reinterpreting the meaning of the piece, if what I'm saying makes sense. I guess, to put it simply, it sounds like you're taking two distinct harmonies and turning it into one harmony with an appoggiatura that gets resolved. That's just my take.
@@intervalkid Sometimes the mistake just sounds more colorful so you just leave it in. Or the mistake inspires you to alter the harmony somehow, and what was originally a "mistake" becomes a happy accident. ( an "accidental accidental" haha) Happens all the time.
Yes a beautiful ending but you really have my curiosity going now. I'm going on TH-cam and find the version with the mega fireworks ending that Liszt wrote first and I'll come back and make another comment after I've heard it.
I've read that Clara Schumann hated the whole piece (sadly), it was dedicated di Robert Schumann and -according to wikipedia- "His wife Clara Schumann did not perform the Sonata; according to scholar Alan Walker she found it "merely a blind noise". So Liszt must have rewrote the ending by his own initiative. He rewrote often his pieces so it isn't that strange. Maybe he just wrote that ending impulsively then, after a moment of reflection, he understood that was not the proper way to end such a sonata.
Oh how classical pianists hate dissonance, I prefer Beethoven's version much better. They didn't like the tritone either. It was called the devil's interval. Jazz uses it as a main staple and is great for creating tension that resolves a half step away.
Right-O! ole Chap! "You hit the nail on the head!", so to speak with your comment. To quote the great Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, ... "Dissonance" is "A suspension in the harmonic formation that arises when not all the voices of a chord enter simultaneously; as one or more of the voices enter later, whether interval or sporadic, (said voices are suspended whether interval or sporadic), causing interval or sporadic dissonances, which find their home eventually in the chord itself".(resolution in the chord). (The Devil's Interval)
!["สนธิ" ห่วงมีขบวนการปกป้อง "ทนายตั้ม" : [THE MESSAGE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/2GQNp3EoMc0/mqdefault.jpg)
Beethoven's version is definitely better and the people who edited it don't understand Beethoven's harmony. The flat third resolves to the major third, like a suspension. It's exactly the same philosophy as all tonal music, dissonance resolving to consonance. The 'corrected' version doesn't sound right because then there is no dissonance to be resolved so the return to the tonic appears to jump out of nowhere.
@Jakob Jones While I agree with you on which one sounds better, I am fairly certain this kind of resolution has mostly melodic connotations and not harmonic ones.
justjack 42 I’m not very educated in music theory, but you explained this really well.
@@adamdonahue2079 funny joke mr Bach! It's like Gordon Ramsey saying: "I don't like insulting people over a fucking steak"
justjack 42
Beethoven doesn't strike me azz sumbody dat would compose wit perfection, n mind. I am sure he wuz smart enuff 2 know life wuz not perfect & thus n his muzak, I am sure he ntertained mperfection & found those mperfectionz nteresting 2 resolve.
Hanzo Hattori funny joke indeed
*We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents.*
- Bob Ross
Inspiring!
Bob Ross 😂
All a mistake but nice to see him paint.
Well said my man!
1) It could be (partly) the tuning issue too. Slightly different tuning between instruments and the music eras, and some chords sound off (especially diminished).
2) Then it could be the nature of the instruments: Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, etc. used straight strung pianos, that definitely produce a different sound when compared to more modern instruments which are cross-strung. When straight strung pianos wires vibrate, some harmonics created (vibrations of other wires) are definitely missing in later pianos.
Wow! Such great infotmation! It opens up a new dimension to consider. Thank you!
@@waryviewer488 That was also before those Pianos were converted into Cross Strung Pianos
@@waryviewer488 Also when they've switched to equal temperament and cross stringing they actually made adaptations that are appropriate for this temperament.
I like the funny chord, it sounds colourful and cool
Who else like Beethoven's version better?
I think Beethoven's version added some tension in the melody where it was needed. The player emphasized it and thus made it sound wrongly.
Obviously
I do.
Thanks
I prefered first version of Beethoven and Chopin.
I like all of the first pieces. The “mistakes “ make the compositions more interesting to listen to and play.
To me it is totally obvious that the Beethoven example is intended. That Kind of sound is all over his work
Yes, not that I know his entire body of work by any means yet it sounds unmistakably Beethoven.
Can you imagine the young people in Beethoven’s day, hearing that piece and telling their fiends “oh, man, it’s SICK!!!!”
I thought the “wrong” chopin sounded beautiful?? Anyone else think??
It had more mistery, more life, more depth, the corrected version seems artificial, fabricated, without that sense of emotion and of soul.
This man's soul is pure art. From feeling to performance..
As a jazz player, I greatly prefer the original version of the Chopin nocturne, (as played at 4:20). The dissonant version resolves much more satisfyingly, and is music to my ears, so to speak. Many years ago, an instructor taught me that when composing, (including improvisation), no single note is a mistake. It's the NEXT NOTE that determines if the first one was wrong! Nice video, and very impressive playing, too. I wish MY octave scales were that clean. Luckily, octave scales don't show up much in jazz. :-)
The funny chord is his genius part. What do you call Debussy's pieces?
I liked the originals better. Whether you like them or not that is what they wrote. They would have fixed their own mistakes. They would have heard them performed and performed them themselves. Editors are arrogant.
As far as I ever read Clara Schumann was never friends with Listz.
@@intervalkid I was just going to mention that. Thank you.
Beethoven wouldn't have heard them performed.
It's not always clear what the composer wrote; that's why the Beethoven ms was shown. Mistakes could be introduced by the composer, by a copyist, and by the printer.
@@supercoolfacething Why?
In Beethoven's "Hammerklavier" Sonata (1st movement), right before the recapitulation there's a bunch of A-sharps leading back to the home key of B-flat major. However, this sounds wrong because the harmony goes A#-E to A#-F (enharmonic perfect fifth of B-flat) without a proper V-I cadence. Some editions correct the A-sharp to A-natural, which complies more to Beethoven's earlier harmonic tendencies (perfect fifth expanding to a sixth), and pianists today are still divided over which version is the correct one to play.
I know why because I guess there was probably an ink spill or something
As a young composer myself i must say, composers of course make mistakes, but don't they always say that the mistakes are your best teachers? I recently composed an Impromptu where the coda should have featured some B major chord figures but while going through it i accidentally once played a C Diminished Chord (or C, D#, F#, C), but then i realized that it actually fits quite well and I decided to leave it in the piece. 😄
where can i listen to it
Wait, I'm planning on taking piano lessons, so I'm wondering when you.go to piano lessons do they teach you like the chords like #D, C, F etc. And do they teach you how to read and know the piano symbols the notes when you play a piece on the piano
@@Owkd19389 they teach you everything you need to know about playing the piano, starting from the chords to the theory, augmented and diminish and many more. Honestly, it's fun.
DerSibbe good for you, as I have also seen your “If you can play it fast you can play it slow” flight of the Bumblebee arrangement on TwoSetViolin
Be careful though, I have written in things that sound perfectly reasonable to me, but absolutely wrong to everybody else.
I disagree with him on Chopin's nocturne. The dissonance makes it much more beautiful and interesting.
I always love what you're wearing. You look like such a dad hehe it's cute! (:
Dude - music is a reflection of life, odd chords are resolved. Live with the odd chords and resolve them.
The theme of this video is a great concept, keep up the good work.
What sounds “wrong” is just the tension the composers were trying to create. It’s called art.
If you have the score to the original ending that Clara Schumann suggested that Liszt should change because of its overall difficulty ( too ) I would have liked to have heard you play it. The ending
to this piece as we now know it to be is totally right; from Horowitz's performance ( of which I first heard it ) to Watts, Argerich and every one else who has performed it since. In this case, Mrs.
Schumann was spot on. She forced Liszt to reexplore the depth of his own genius, temper the bombastic in which he wowed his audiences when on stage, and paint a true work Art. Not so in the
case of her husband's sonata in g minor in the finally. The original finally which we know now as the presto appassionato, Clara also dubbed as too difficult. Schumann wrote the finally we now
hear in most performances of which any dedicated music student can handle. I am surprised Argerich didn't feature the Presto in her recording of the g minor. Mrs. Schumann was in error in this
case. The Presto Appassionata is a master piece by itself and really does belong with the sonata as a whole; it just takes a little practice, some crossing of the hands of which Robert was good for in
in his writing for the piano, but, lies very well under the fingers. A great ebb and flow and crescendo ending in a wonderful and rewarding climax. the performer of this piece has to hold on to his
temperament less he/she smudge the ending. The best recording of this work for me, is by Ronald Turini; it may have been suggested to him by Horowitz of whom he studied with early on. Horowitz's recording of this piece is too fast and the music isnt' allowed to breath.
Where have you read that Clara Schumann asked Liszt to rewrite the ending? I've read on wikipedia that she hated the whole piece and she even refused to play it (it was dedicated to Robert Schumann).
I certainly prefer Ludwig’s version. I think it makes it special. The corrected version sounds ok but ordinary. The original stands out. It’s called genius
No need to change or correct these things by the great composers. They were just adding a little jazz, that's all. :)
I wouldn’t change any of these great men’s work, I don’t think they are mistakes, but even if they were, “Great men's errors are to be venerated as more fruitful than little men's truths.” As Nietzsche said.
I'm amazed at how many pieces you can play so well.
He is a pianist :D it is his job
I like the "original" peace's with the "funny" notes more because it brings a own style in it and if not it sounds normal and it is not interesting, so I won't hear it. But with this accidents it has an character wich I like more and in my opinion is more authentically. Also it says something to the listener just like "I am special".
Am I the only one who likes the original of the nocturne more? This was my first time hearing it anyway.
Noah Feazell totally!!
This wasn't the only time Liszt erred....Lots of great music, also lots of justly forgotten music. The sonata is magnificent.
Fantastic video, no one is putting content out like this.
I really enjoyed some of the unedited version, those harmonic clashes really added a lot of colour. It’s a shame they changed it
Actually the edited version is based on the Original manuscript which strangely enough ended up in Japan. They adapted it for Equal temperament
Thanks Robert!
I came across your video just by chance on another quest.
I was surprised that such questions could be raised on the works of such masters and am pleased that they do!
A choice could be confusing and sometimes seem obvious. Its the essence of the preceding section and the following which should be considered, which you have done.
Who could prove it anyways.
Thanks again, good thinking!
There is also Bach's 2 part invention in A minor that has this dramatic cross relation that was corrected for quite some time and close study revealed the "wrong" note was what was in the original (and sounds better)
I guess the original manuscript did have an error in it. There's a lot of research going on still.
Beethoven "Ecossaise": the "mistake" is correct in my opinion. Another example: Beethoven Piano Concerto No.1, 1st Mov., 2nd Theme, Bar 172. Is it an F or F#? Robert Levin and Andrass Schiff play an F. The rest play F#. Was this an editor's "correction"? Or did Beethoven want an F natural?
What does "Second theme, Bar 172" mean? How can I listen to it?
Actually it was an F sharp, it's just one of the measures was split.
"A suspension is the harmonic formation that arises, when not all the voices of a chord enter simultaneously; one or more of the voices enter later (are suspended), causing dissonances, which find their resolution in the chord itself" (Guide to the practical study of harmony, Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky).
In the Chopin nocturne, I think I prefer it the 1st way with the C#. The second one uses a Cnat which clashes against the c# and b in the left hand and sounds weird resolving to the diminished chord that follows.
A teacher showed us a famous orchestral piece by Richard Strauss where there are unplayable notes given to, I think, the cello. I think you simply have to go up an octave because the notes are out of range for the instrument.
I guess it was probably written for an extended range Cello that plays lower than C2.
Beethoven: I think the A# kind of makes more sense logically, because if you listen to the previous phrase (that has the same rhythmic figure), it also emphasizes a non-chord tone, and it resolves to a chord tone on the last 8th note of the measure.
1st phrase: F# E D over a D7 chord. The note that gets emphasis is the E that's a non-chord tone, and it resolves to D in the end of the measure.
2nd phrase: A A# B (though, the B also starts the next phrase and works as a pick up which is why I guess it gets a bit less emphasis) played over G. Again, the note that gets emphasis, A#, is a non-chord tone and it resolves to B in the end of the measure. So, this is a similar figure as in the previous phrase, and the notes would function in a similar way.
Also, notice how the A# is actually played over a Gsus4 chord that only resolves to G major when there's a B in the melody. To me this suggests that the A# is meant to be there - it's basically a suspension. The third is approached by a half step from two directions, so it's a 4-3 and #2-3 suspension.
The edited version also lacks the Gsus4 in the left hand... I think if there hadn't been the sus4 chord in the original version, I would have found it more plausible that the edited version was correct, but to me the sus4 in the left hand suggests that the A# is correct and can't really be a mistake.
It's a tricky one - how to know what the composer's intent was. Fwiw, I thought both original Beethoven and Chopin could have been intended - it depends on the effect they were after. The Liszt more clear cut as he changed it himself; and yet when he wrote the original, he must have thought he was doing the right thing! My pet hate is the editorial change made in many versions of the Chopin posthumous C#m nocturne (LH harmony change which first occurs in bar 8) - the original seems far better to me, and the altered version gives the game away too soon by prematurely releasing all the tension that has been built up!
Damn editors. Don't they consult with the composers and ask them their intentions. I also liked Beethoven's original. Neither his or Chopin's sounded odd to me and like others said, is preferred over altering it to a perceived prettier version. Makes you wonder what other original works unbeknownst to us that have had the misfortune of being "corrected" by editorial intervention.
Didn't pay much attention to the Liszt piece.
RE bar 24 of Chopin's Nocturne in E minor: the C# appears in first editions of the nocturne. In bar 48, which is analogous, Chopin puts an F natural. It seems unlikely that Chopin could have wished to differentiate bars 24 & 48 in this respect, so the sharp found in the first editions is most probably erroneous: the autograph, which is lost, most probably contained no alteration to the C, and the first editions added that wrong sharp after seeing that the left hand has a C#. But of course we can't be sure about it.
There’s a similar thing with Bach’s first unaccompanied Violin Sonata, where some editors mistook the tails/flags (whatever you call them) of a sixteenth note to be an actual note in a chord.
I have 2 editions from the same publisher(G. Shirmer if you are curious as to who) of the K 545 sonata. One edition(which I was able to find years ago on IMSLP before the edition changed) has an extra few bars of the A section of the second movement before the C section repeats. That is the edition that I play. But the one I see most often doesn't have that and it just goes straight into a whole repeat of the A section. So it brings up the question of whether or not Mozart wrote those extra bars.
Very interesting show. I love your playing and the stories!
In the words of Bob Ross, there are no mistakes just happy accidents.
Some of my accidents aren't all that happy.
@@baruchben-david4196 at least your learning something from making them
let's just put another happy appoggiatura right over here...
Another very informative and helpful video.Thank you Bob...
Thank God it's only one note we need deliberate over, and that the bulk of the music remains so special.
Played the ecossaise as a kid with the A# on the upbeat (the first way you played it). Since, I got it into my mind that way, it is really hard to hear it as "correct" the other way. Who knows how I'f hear it if I grew up playing it with a different edition of the score.
Editors would routinely "correct" Mozart. He would roll his eyes, and have them do it again...
What an interesting video! And what a nice host, I love his enthusiasm.
Discrepancies in Chopin's music came from the fact that he was always changing the way he played things as he taught them to different students/performed them at different places, especially in his posthumous works. This is the reason that almost all of his posthumous music is very different in each score you'll come across. He never officially published a "correct" version of any of the pieces, so all of the editions we have came from his various students basically saying "oh hey he taught it this way" and other students would say "nuh uh he taught it this way." In reality they were both right. A lot of times he would write a piece, perform it, decide he didn't like what he wrote, and change it. An excellent example of this situation occurring is in the C# Minor Nocturne, Op. Post. Almost every single edition I have looked into (the actual number was like 5 or 6) has a lot of differences in several different sections of the piece in notation, grouping, ornamentation, etc.
I can't speak definitively to the Beethoven example, as I'm not as familiar with his tendencies in composition, but this is actually the reason urtext isn't necessarily always quite as helpful as everyone thinks that it is. In a situation where a composer is always changing what he is writing, there really can be no true "urtext." Just something interesting my professor taught me last year because she and I were having a really interesting conversation about this same topic.
However Barenreiter is based on the Original Manuscript but cleaned up and fine tuned to be playable
The kind of thinking that corrected Beethoven would have denied us the late quartets.
What do you mean?
I think this example has much greater implications for the rhythm and circularity of that phrase than for either its melody or harmony. The harmony essentially doesn’t change at all no matter which way you play it- it’s some version of the dominant chord while this note is happening above. The melody does change- and its character is different too- one is more playful, challenges your ear to wait, and asks you to bear a dissonance.
But- it’s the rhythmic circularity that really loses when somebody edits this out of existence. The Bb resolving perfectly to the major third of the root chord tidies up the first repetition of the rhythmic figure for sure....and simultaneously destroys the rationale for the second repetition of the figure because it was being prompted by both sounding incomplete (ending on the flat 6 of the Vth chord) and literally not ending up where it started. So now you’ve sort of got a repetition of the same figure twice and Beethoven is just so infinitely much more interesting than that.
Yeah, it’s not Beethoven-y enough the second way. I cannot comprehend why we would take a composer we love, then remove the things that make him quintessentially himself.
I just want to add, in the electronics world people will often add mistakes to their circuits to stop people from copying their designs. Usually obvious to someone who knows better but sometimes wrong value caps or resistors or floating wires/odd groundings. That being said I was playing Beethoven's woo 47 no.3 and noticed in the sheet music it calls for a D# and i've never heard it played that way everyone plays the D.
really incredible the perfect amount of rubato and dynamic range for bach
Awesome video! Thank you so much
Yes I have heard the Liszt sonata before and I enjoy parts of it..but I must not yet be at a point where I can take it yet melodically
Maybe I spend too much time listening to dissonant music, but I found the first two "mistakes" to be significantly preferable to the "corrections"
I enjoy your channel quite a bit. What make of piano and model did you play here? It was wonderful.This past Sunday at Tanglewood in ma. They did the Listz sonata for Leonard Bersyeins’s centennial.
Love these videos, thanks for all your work!
I just have to say that I LOVE the alternate ending to Liszt b Minor Sonata. So powerful!
Beethoven, love the first part you play, with a bit dissonating note.
Chopin, love the 2nd part you play. The 1st part, it sounded like someone angry hitting twice a car horn. The second part is more lyrical, a bit melancolic but growing towards happyness.
Liszt sonate: you sure know how to play. Thanks for your performance!
Very interesting video with a clear explanation and great playing!!
I agree with some of the comments I read Mozart's work seems perfect to me but maybe during that era that was the trend Beethoven definitely had more dissonance in some of his passages he wanted to create the tension in order to show it's beautiful resolve
In their time it's normal to make mistake or by the composer or by the editor but but that can be always fixed by other masters like you , isnt it ?
In my music I also use that strange notes wich is unique back on the days but I add a C7 for example and sounds good enough for me
Very interesting. I would have liked a bit more musicological analysis, a la Rick Beato. Wat was the Beethoven chord in context (an 11th or something?), where did the bum note sit in relation to the key, does the piece use that interval anywhere else, etc? I preferred it actually, as the alternative was a bit bland, and Beethoven is anything but bland. Chopin I know less about and the parallel movement did sound awkward/amateur;
but again more analysis of it would have been made it even more interesting.
Everybody makes mistakes
Not Beethoven. Well, I take that back. There is one instance that was documented where he said that he made a mistake. When asked what mistake he made, he stated that the mistake he made was thinking he had made a mistake.
everybody has those days
-i'm sorry i had to-
sEnD hELP lol
@Black hat He kind of was arrogant. He once said "There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven" lmao
Epic Terry
Wrong.
this is Chopin no 19 Op 72 no. 1, which is one of my favourite... : ) and will able to play soon
1:14 That sounds much cleaner
great playing, thanks
How about Chopin's etude "Wrong Note"? How many of these chords are mistakes and which ones are "correct"? : )
I have often wondered (as a newbie) if what I was hearing was intentional or not. Sometimes there just seems to be a better way, but who am I to say. Purest will cringe but others may not even notice. I'm playing for my own enjoyment so I think I'll just have to play it by ear.
The C natural in that Chopin nocturne is soo common, I have never heard it as a C sharp.
Great composers’ mistakes are their intention.
My intentions are all mistakes🤣🤣🤣
I saw the soul of Listz. Very free thinking individual
Thanks so much Robert..🙏Good job..👏🎶Warm cheers..😊
Whoever is right I don't mind, what is right is that your bringing a great subject to us and delivering a great channel. Keep it up its great. 👍 😀
I almost don't listen to Franz Liszt repertoire yet i somehow knew that the last piece could be one of his composition, guess composers put they personality and style in music.
I’m sure composers could have made mistakes, but wouldn’t most of these “mistakes” be artifacts of older tuning standards? That would make many the things sound differently. Playing the “unfixed” versions on a piano tuned to the frequencies in which they were written would be the only way to judge whether or not these pieces still sound wrong.
What happened here was that the original recordings were lost. As Equal temperament became standard, they had to adapt it for that tuning.
The eminor etude by Chopin has what number?
i like the originals better.. makes it more colorful, flavorful, and portrays the emotion better. imho
There is another way to answer this question, and that is, that during PERFORMANCE classical composers (I'm thinking Beethoven in particular) DID make mistakes. But this was not due to a lack of skill (obviously!), but rather that, Beethoven for example was so passionately and intensely connected to his music; to his inner MUSE while in live performance; and to his medium of expression (i.e. the piano); that accidents were simply a HUMAN result of putting so much energy and passion and intensity into it. And so these are the accidents that only occur when you are DARING to go beyond what your current limitations of "perfect playing" are, and yes you make mistakes when you cross that line of being able to execute perfectly, but also it is only when you cross that line that you will reach deeper insights and intensity into the piano (or other instrument) than you would have by playing it "perfectly". And it is also a healthily humbling reminder for when we make mistakes, that even the greats such as Beethoven made mistakes sometimes and that's okay.
Actually, Beethoven didn't just "sometimes" make mistakes, but he was kind of known for often making them (as I remember reading during my college days). But again, it was just his human nature, as is ours. Though he spent countless hours at the piano no doubt, he actually spent MUCH of his day and such in nature, writing his music away from the piano. (Let us be reminded that he had perfect pitch in his head, obviously proven after he went deaf, so he didn't NEED a piano at his hands in order to write.) Chopin, on the other hand, in his chronic sickness, was quite a recluse and thus practiced (and taught) piano as such, ALWAYS at the piano. Liszt, in his own way, was ALWAYS practicing piano, basically. [Chopin and Liszt didn't get to the level of Chopin and Liszt by "not-always-practicing" the piano!] So, not all composers had super strict practice regimens and some of them did! :D
🎼excellent, Robert, Thank You.
He looks like just came out of the movie good fellas.
Those corrected versions are not generally professionally or academically accepted. It's like how in edited versions of Für Elise, the V7 harmony is 'corrected' to a straight dominant - but only in popularised versions. Choice dissonance moments have always been in classical music, from the Renaissance, through Bach, certainly in Beethoven, achingly beautified in Brahms, and thoroughly celebrated in Bartók and later. These aren't corrections, they are misunderstandings.
Killer playing there.
I feel like I've listened to too much jazz so the original versions always sound better.
xD
Well, we can't say if the grandiose original Listz ending is right or wrong, aesthetic or not. It is opinion after all. The popular ending became the alternate take that stuck. I don't know- I loved Mahler for some years, then could barely listen to him in all that pompous grandiosity and egoism, but now I really love Mahler again. He was absolutely brilliant. So like, that's just my opinion man.
I'm thinking that many times a composer might not always be settled as to some chords, melodies, etc. They might like both the "right" and the "wrong" versions.
Sometimes I like the safe, normal harmonies one day, and prefer something edgier the next. Probably composers are like that too.
What brand of piano are you playing? really nice and I need a color like that.
I found it from your list of the sales, it is Wm. Knabe Classic Semi-Concert Grand Piano 57574.
How about Mahler swapping the 2nd and 3rd movements of his 6th symphony? I personally like the new order better, but it seems like a lot of orchestras play the original order.
I feel that the title of this video seems to be a little misleading. I find it hard that composers "make mistakes" more than they tend to experiment with harmony. We wouldn't be where we are with music if we had not decided to experiment with music all together. There is a possibility that a mistake was made, but there is also a possibility that they were playing around with the music they wrote.
It's because click-baity titles get more views, unfortunately...
I expected a lecture and instead I received a serenade. thanks for the surprise
How many hours per day do you practice?
I can't say for him in particular, but a friend of mine studying piano at the University level aims to practice around 6 hours a day.
Very interesting!
I prefer the third rendition!
I'm not 100% sure, but it seems like in the second version of the Chopin Nocturne, you replaced the dissonant chord (was that an augmented triad? I couldn't quite tell) which functions as a separate harmony with what sounded like a deliberate appoggiatura that renders the previous chord as implying the same harmony as the chord that follows, except with a non-chord tone. I'd say that's completely reinterpreting the meaning of the piece, if what I'm saying makes sense. I guess, to put it simply, it sounds like you're taking two distinct harmonies and turning it into one harmony with an appoggiatura that gets resolved. That's just my take.
Interesting topic, thank you for this video. What piano are you playing? I can’t quite make out the name.
That is a Knabe semi-concert grand: livingpianos.com/pianos/wm-knabe-classic-semi-concert-grand-piano-57574/ It's about to go on sale next week!
Thank you, this is very interesting 😊
Of course they made mistakes. They’re still human too.
Why would you think that they wouldn't fix their mistakes? They heard the pieces performed and played them themselves.
@@intervalkid Sometimes the mistake just sounds more colorful so you just leave it in. Or the mistake inspires you to alter the harmony somehow, and what was originally a "mistake" becomes a happy accident. ( an "accidental accidental" haha) Happens all the time.
Yes a beautiful ending but you really have my curiosity going now. I'm going on TH-cam and find the version with the mega fireworks ending that Liszt wrote first and I'll come back and make another comment after I've heard it.
Have you heard about symphony creator illaraja
I never really appreciated the Liszt until I heard the youtube performance by Carles Marigo.
I've read that Clara Schumann hated the whole piece (sadly), it was dedicated di Robert Schumann and -according to wikipedia- "His wife Clara Schumann did not perform the Sonata; according to scholar Alan Walker she found it "merely a blind noise". So Liszt must have rewrote the ending by his own initiative. He rewrote often his pieces so it isn't that strange. Maybe he just wrote that ending impulsively then, after a moment of reflection, he understood that was not the proper way to end such a sonata.
Oh how classical pianists hate dissonance, I prefer Beethoven's version much better. They didn't like
the tritone either. It was called the devil's interval. Jazz uses it as a main staple and is great for
creating tension that resolves a half step away.
Right-O! ole Chap! "You hit the nail on the head!", so to speak with your comment. To quote the great Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, ... "Dissonance" is "A suspension in the harmonic formation that arises when not all the voices of a chord enter simultaneously; as one or more of the voices enter later, whether interval or sporadic, (said voices are suspended whether interval or sporadic), causing interval or sporadic dissonances, which find their home eventually in the chord itself".(resolution in the chord). (The Devil's Interval)
@@A9P7F3T1RZ Great quote, never heard that one before!