{"id":3030,"date":"2023-09-29T07:36:36","date_gmt":"2023-09-29T11:36:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=3030"},"modified":"2023-09-29T07:37:26","modified_gmt":"2023-09-29T11:37:26","slug":"the-art-of-the-struggle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2023\/09\/29\/the-art-of-the-struggle\/","title":{"rendered":"The Art of the Struggle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,<\/em> click here<\/a>
 
Great musicians write killer songs.
 
One of history\u2019s greatest musicians wrote a composition that almost \u201ckills\u201d those who are courageous enough to try to play it.
 
We\u2019re talking about Ludvig van Beethoven\u2019s Hammerklavier Sonata<\/em>, arguably the ultimate piano masterpiece from the man who almost singlehandedly defined the technical possibilities of the keyboard. 
 
Beethoven wrote 32 piano sonatas.  Sonata Pathetique<\/em> (No. 8) and The Moonlight Sonata<\/em> (No. 14) are his best known, and lie well within the range of moderately talented pianists.   But the Hammerklavier<\/em> (No. 29), which was published in 1818 during the last great compositional flourish of Beethoven\u2019s life, is not for beginners. 
 
Music historian and composer Robert Greenberg calls it \u201cthe big, gnarly, nasty knucklebuster.\u201d 
 
Hammerklavier<\/em> is German for \u201chammer-keyboard,\u201d which was Beethoven\u2019s preferred name for the instrument the Italians called a piano-forte<\/em> (literally, a \u201csoft-loud\u201d), which we today simply call a piano.  During his lifetime, pianos were rapidly evolving from humble, fragile things (his playing style was so violent that, more than once, strings snapped right off the soundboard) into instruments that could mimic an entire orchestra.
 
Greenberg describes the 29th<\/sup> sonata as \u201ca mega-sonata for future mega-pianos, pianos that didn\u2019t even exist at the time.\u201d  Beethoven was trying to go as far as someone could possibly go, compelling the pianist\u2019s hands to range up and down the keyboard at lightning speed, crossing over at odd angles, hovering over endless trills.
 
The fourth movement of the Hammerklavier<\/em> is a fugue \u2013 a classic device where a musical subject is introduced in one \u201cvoice,\u201d then repeated a number of times at higher and lower pitches, perhaps even in different keys.  Critics have called Beethoven\u2019s effort the fugue to end all fugues.  Can the piece go faster?  Then faster still?  What if the fugue subject is suddenly introduced upside-down? 
 
It\u2019s little wonder that from the day it was published, the fourth movement of the Hammerklavier<\/em> was considered virtually unplayable.  It seemed to be an idealized composition, the technical demands of which raised the bar far beyond what was reasonable.
 
The Ukrainian-American pianist Valentina Lisitsa, fortunately, has shown herself equal to the task.  When you can, take a few minutes to check out her extraordinary performance<\/a>.
 
Let\u2019s be honest: This composition is not what most of us would call beautiful or restful or joyful.  It sounds more like the depiction of a colossal struggle. 
 
And that would be a great way to describe Beethoven himself. 
 
Greenberg suggests that while many of us might envy Beethoven\u2019s gifts, not one of us should envy the German composer\u2019s life.   He had a harrowing childhood under the rod of a cruel, overbearing father.  He became a \u201ccrotchety, touchy, irascible man, even on his best days.\u201d  He was not physically attractive, but was short, clumsy, and cursed with \u201cthe worst hair this side of the Bride of Frankenstein.\u201d  Beethoven was unlucky in love, angry, isolated, and lonely.  He became obsessively paranoid to the point where some of his friends feared for his sanity. 
 
And perhaps, in the end, he was in fact a little mad. 
 
Worst of all, he gradually suffered the loss of the one thing a musician needs more than anything else: his hearing.  By 1818, as he was finishing the Hammerklavier<\/em>, he was completely deaf in his right ear and could only hear low frequencies in his left.  But his genius was such that he could still sound out the right notes in his compositional imagination.
 
How did Beethoven respond to so much suffering?
 
Since he couldn\u2019t post his troubles on social media, pour them out to a cognitive behavioral therapist, or appear as a guest on Jerry Springer<\/em>, he translated his experiences into music.  As Greenberg puts it, \u201che composed music that by some amazing alchemy universalized his problems and his solutions.\u201d
 
That\u2019s another way of saying that Beethoven\u2019s compositions are expressions of his own colossal struggles.  And he wrote in such a way to let us feel what he felt in those struggles.
 
The Hammerklavier Sonata<\/em> represented a turning point in Beethoven\u2019s spiritual and musical life.  Its pounding chords and roaring cadences seem to be asking \u2013 more like demanding \u2013 answers to some very hard questions: 
 
God, who are you, and why do you behave the way you do?  If this is your world, why is there so much disorder?  What greater good can possibly be served by taking away a musician\u2019s hearing?<\/em> 
  
Critics agree that Beethoven\u2019s music, although often agonizing, inevitably lands in the same place: \u201cThere is hope.\u201d  When the last notes of the Hammerklavier<\/em> are played, we sense that there is beauty, complexity, and an underlying order to the cosmos, even in the midst of our struggles. 
 
Beethoven would never have been caught dead in church. 
 
But he exuded the kind of awe that we encounter in Psalm 8:1: \u201cO Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.\u201d    
 
As for why one of the world\u2019s greatest composers should suffer the loss of his hearing, we can only affirm that it accomplished something that might otherwise have never happened: the creation of some of the most stirring and hopeful music the world has ever heard.
 
And it just may be that our own struggles are accomplishing equally beautiful things.    <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Great musicians write killer songs. One of history\u2019s greatest musicians wrote a composition that almost \u201ckills\u201d those who are courageous enough to try to play it. We\u2019re talking about Ludvig van Beethoven\u2019s Hammerklavier Sonata, arguably the ultimate piano masterpiece from the man who almost singlehandedly defined the technical possibilities of the keyboard.  Beethoven wrote 32… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3031,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[641,299,112],"class_list":["post-3030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-art","tag-music","tag-suffering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3030"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3033,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3030\/revisions\/3033"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}