Beethoven Forum

James Webster evaluates the critical tradition of dividing Beethoven's career into three periods and discusses its artificiality and its implications. Jurgen May's essay considers Beethoven's relations with one of the first of his most important patrons. Lewis Lockwood examines Beethoven's sketchbooks to describe how Beethoven composed with and against models from Mozart. Glenn Stanley surveys Beethoven's sets of piano variations written in his first decade in Vienna. Elaine R. Sisman provides a historical and aesthetic analysis of one of Beethoven's most popular piano sonatas. The composition of the "Spring" sonata is traced in the sketchbooks by Carl Schachter. Nicholas Marston discusses the composition of the "Second Symphony", and William E. Caplin defines "hybrid themes" and shows their variety in Beethoven's early compositions. William Kinderman concludes with a review of Klaus Kropfinger's "Wagner and Beethoven."