Beethoven's Piano Sonatas: A Short Companion . - with CD - book review

American Music Teacher, August-Sept, 2002 by Robert Spillman

by Charles Rosen. Yale University Press (P.O. Box 209040, New Haven, CT 06520-9040), 2002. 256 pp., $29.95.

Musicians have learned to open a new book by Charles Rosen with happy anticipation; we appreciate the combination of lucid style and solid scholarship that he brings us. This latest book has all of Rosen's trademarks: thorough research, a return to the sources, synthesis of performance practices and gentle prodding of the reader toward excellence, all written in clear and straightforward prose.

The first half of the book deals with some of those perplexing problems of Beethoven performance: tempo, phrasing and articulation. The indications in the scores have given rise to countless interpretations over the years, and it is greatly to Rosen's credit that he refers to the first editions whenever possible. He is thus able to bypass the wrangling and disagreement that have marked every edition of the sonatas since their first appearance.

It is not that Rosen avoids the fray; he cites the first edition as his evidence to refute later writers, as well as sloppy performers.

Rosen gets detoured for thirty pages (in a volume of only 249) to prove a point about the meaning of allegretto in the classical period; here there is a great deal about this one indication in Mozart, not Beethoven. Rosen's points are always interesting and well-grounded; Mozart's use of 4/4 and "cut time," however, is a rock on which many have foundered.

The reader can learn a lot from discussion about phrase marks and rests as they were used around 1800, as well as about legato versus staccato. These discussions will no doubt stick in the mind of the attentive reader for years, as will comments on Beethoven's rubato and his pedaling.

Rosen gets around to the individual sonatas on page 123, offering his contribution to those of Tovey, Schnabel, Czerny, Casella, Ferguson and all the others whose footnotes we have loved to read. After a disclaimer on page three stating that he does not intend to tell people how to play the thirty-two sonatas, he wisely, and naturally, recants immediately, filling the remaining chapters with many helpful suggestions about what Beethoven might have been trying to say. In doing so, he proves himself a worthy follower and companion of all those other scholars and pianists who have loved this central body of piano literature.

The thoughtful reader will find many tidbits of knowledge and kernels of controversy spread before him or her, and will benefit greatly from Rosen's quick mind and passionate scholarship. Reviewed by Robert Spillman, Boulder, Colorado.