LATE BEETHOVEN LATE BEETHOVEN - Luisa Guembes-Buchanan

Variations) notes that “he sets up the possibility of mobilizing
every conceivable metaphor of maximum contrast: that
of the miniature and the boundless, the blade of grass and
the starry vault, the earthly and the unearthly, the profane
and the sacred, the lowliest and the divine”. 40 With a pedal
trill that moves from one voice to another, a scherzando
section of comfortable and calm demeanor, Bagatelle 7 fits
such a description. However, when the opening returns with
harmony and spacing changed, all is changed. The bass trill
rumbles while a gradual intensification obtained by rhythmic
diminution and rise in pitch grows faster and faster,
higher and higher until the accumulated energy spills over
to a descending final arpeggio. Beethoven used rhythmic
diminution in other late works. Sonatas op. 109, op. 110
and op. 111 come to mind as well as the ostinato trill in the
bass at the end of op. 106.
Bagatelle 8, like number 7, bears close ties to the
Diabelli Variations. To my ears this bagatelle, also in C
major, gives tonal resolution to the ambiguity presented
at the beginning of its predecessor. Bagatelle 9 is a less
complicated, wonderfully dance-like piece. Bagatelle 10 is
Beethoven’s shortest single published work. It has a synco-
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pated texture that is carried until the final measure. I found
it to be great fun to play.
Bagatelle 11, marked innocentemente e cantabile,
represents Beethoven at his most lyrical. Simple, hymn-like
in character, it shares traits to be found in other works such
as Fidelio, the Ninth Symphony and the violin solo in the
Benedictus of the Missa Solemnis.
It is a source of wonder to find an affinity between these
small piano pieces of Beethoven and works by him of other
instrumental schemes and genres and to derive as a result
what William Kindermann calls “a surprising richness of
meaning”. 41
A note on the performance of these pieces. It is a
known fact that Beethoven tried to achieve multiple publications
for his works and in so doing occasioned multiple
errors, depending on who copied from whom and so
forth. In Bagatelle 1 measures 19-20, I have chosen the
Schlesinger version which does not have the parallel octaves
that sound contrived to my ears. In Bagatelle 2, the last
note that appears in the Clementi edition is the one I have
chosen simply because this is a witty piece that alternates
the high and low registers of the piano.