Ioannis Fulias, “Minuet
and scherzo forms in the complete oeuvre of Ludwig van Beethoven”,
in:
Ioannis Fulias, Katerina Levidou and Iakovos Steinhauer (ed.), Ludwig van
Beethoven: 250(+1) years since his birth. Meeting proceedings, National and
Kapodistrian University of Athens / Department of Music Studies, Athens 2021,
p.
38-79
(with
an extended English summary,
in p. 143-149).
By exploring an anything but exhausted field of research, the present
contribution examines at first the position of any minuet or scherzo type
movement in the whole musical output of Beethoven, discerning in particular a
number of cases in which they appear inside or – much infrequently – at the end
of instrumental works consisting of two to seven movements. The 102 movements
(or
independent pieces)
of this kind are then classified into individual forms, which, apart from the
standard three-part sequence of the main part, a trio and the da capo return of
main part (either with or without its original repetitions and, occasionally,
written out in full), include also one-part (without trio) and five-part (with
two different trios) structural designs that were already known from the past,
as well as two new formal possibilities that Beethoven has been developing since
the beginning of the 19th century, juxtaposing the same trio twice into a new
five-part form and/or elaborating a double trio by attaching a second trio
immediately after the first one. After a thorough investigation of
the
specifications of form in all these movements, with particular references to
linkage methods and tonal correlations among their constituent parts, focus is
placed on the inner structure of these 210 parts in total through their
systematic classification into eight structural types of minuet (ternary and
binary, where the first section concludes in the tonic or the dominant of the
main key or
even
modulates to a secondary key, while the last section ignores
or
assimilates the sonata principle afterwards) plus an additional structural type
of scherzo, distinguished from all other minuet types through the developmental
expansion of its last section. Detailed references are especially made to many
works from the middle and late creative period of Beethoven, such as the
symphonies opus 60, opus 67, opus 68, opus 92 and opus 125, the string quartets
opus 59 no. 1, opus 74, opus 95, opus 127, opus 131 and opus 135, the piano
trios opus 70 no. 2 and opus 97, but also the violin or violoncello and piano or
solo piano sonatas opus 30 no. 3, opus 69, opus 78, opus 101, opus 106 and opus
110.
© Ioannis
Fulias