“Nothing so much raises discourse, as a fine Pathos seasonably applied. It animates a whole performance with uncommon life and spirit, and gives mere words the force (as it were) of inspiration.” — Pseudo-Longinus, “On the Sublime”
“Pathetic style is the speech of all strong and great emotions and passions, and if it attains an unusual strength and size that awakens wonder and astonishment, then it begins to constitute the sublime.” — Johann Christoph Adelung, “On the German Style” (1785)
“PATHETIC [PATHÉTIQUE]. A kind of dramatic and theatrical music, which tends towards the painting and touching the nobler passions, and more particularly grief and sorrow….
“… The true pathetic [pathétique] is in the passionate accent, which is not determined by rules; but which the genius finds, and the heart feels, without the art being able to give its laws in any respects.” — Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Dictionary of Music” (1767)
Beethoven’s Opus 13 proclaimed itself a “Grande Sonate Pathétique,” and that single word Pathétique has been used ever since to refer to this much-loved landmark work. Maynard Solomon cites it as “the most dynamically propulsive of Beethoven’s piano sonatas yet written the first to utilize a slow, dramatic introduction, and the first whose movements are clearly and unmistakably linked through the use of related thematic material and flashbacks or reminiscences.” (“Beethoven,” p. 138)
#Beethoven250 Day 106
Piano Sonata No. 8 “Pathétique” in C Minor (Opus 13), 1798?
Indonesian-born pianist Janice Carissa at the Curtis Institute of Music.
“The depicting of suffering, in the shape of simple suffering, is never the end of art, but it is of the greatest importance as a means of attaining its end…. Therefore the pathetic [Pathos] is the first condition required most strictly in a tragic author…
“… The first law of the tragic art is to represent suffering. The second law is to represent the resistance of morality opposed to suffering….
“… It is not suffering in itself, but only the resistance opposed to suffering, that is pathetic [pathetisch] and deserving of being represented.”
— Friedrich Schiller, “On the Pathetic” [“Über das Pathetische“] (1793)
Beethoven’s Pathétique “fully deserves its acclaim. It surpasses any of his previous compositions, in strength of character, depth of emotion, level of originality, range of sonorities, and ingenuity of motivic and tonal manipulation.” (Barry Cooper, “Beethoven,” p. 88)
#Beethoven250 Day 106
Piano Sonata No. 8 “Pathétique” in C Minor (Opus 13), 1798?
A pianist born of Argentinian-Jewish parents who has perhaps played this work before.
“A noble heart struggling against adversity is a spectacle full of attraction even for the gods.”
— Seneca (at least as quoted by Schiller)
“Happiness! Heart! Love! God!
I have no name to give it!
Feeling is everything,
name is but sound and smoke
that damp celestial ardor.”
— Goethe’s “Faust,” Pt. 1, Martha’s Garden
#Beethoven250 Day 106
Piano Sonata No. 8 “Pathétique” in C Minor (Opus 13), 1798?
The music as it might have sounded to Beethoven’s contemporaries, performed by Hungarian pianist Petra Somlai on a copy of a 1795 fortepiano.
In 1841, composer and pianist Ignaz Moscheles looked back on his days as a 10-year-old music student in Prague: “I learnt from some school-fellows that a young composer had appeared in Vienna, who wrote the oddest stuff possible — such as no one could play or understand; crazy music, in opposition to all rule; and that this composer’s name was Beethoven. On repairing to the library to satisfy my curiosity as to this so-called eccentric genius, I found there Beethoven’s Sonata pathétique. This was in the year 1804. My pocket-money would not suffice for the purchase of it, so I secretly copied it. The novelty of its style was so attractive to me, and I became so enthusiastic in my admiration of it, that I forgot myself so far as to mention my new acquisition to my master, who reminded me of his injunction, and warned me not to play or study any eccentric productions until I had based my style upon more solid models. Without, however, minding his injunctions, I seized upon the pianoforte works of Beethoven as they successively appeared, and in them found a solace and a delight such as no other composer afforded me.” (Preface to “The Life of Beethoven,” London, 1841)