Transcendent Mastery

The purpose of the four long chapters in this volume is to consider widely and deeply four of Beethoven's most excellent works. Each work represents a different genre and each comes from a different period of Beethoven's stylisticdevelopment. Thus, the Piano Sonata, Op. 10, No. 3 (1797-98). represents the early period; the Violin Concerto, Op. 61 (1806), and Violin Sonata, Op. 96 (1812), the middle period (though with several later traits) and the StringQuartet, Op. 132 (1825), the late period. As a result, the reader becomes acquainted with the special character of each genre as well as the overall development of Beethoven's style including a large range of structural types andunique forms. Each work is given a comprehensive analysis rarely applied to single compositions of Beethoven.

In addition to necessary historical background and references to the critical reception, comparisons have been included with other works by Beethoven in the same genre and period. This wider personal context combines with an effort to view Beethoven's music not only in terms of the heritage of Haydn and Mozart, but also in relation to the long development of Classic style and its procedures from the early Classic period onward, starting in the 1730s.

In analyzing the music Prof. Churgin has used the series of analytical symbols designed by Jan LaRue.These symbols replace many descriptive words, and identify with perfect precision musical functions, phrases, subphrases, and motives, the very essence of the musical language. Ideally suited to Beethoven's style, the symbols assist in identifying motivic and other variants, as well as derivations and developmental processes on various hierarchical levels. (From the Preface)

Bathia Churgin, Professor of Musicology at Bar-Ilan University, Israel, is a leading Beethoven scholar and is currently editing the Third and Fourth Symphonies for the Gesamtausgabe by the Beethoven House in Bonn.