Name: Kate Barry

Word Count:
Date: 5/1/15

Presentation and Listening Assignment due Friday 16th January

Question:
1) Investigate the claim that Rosen made
2) Discuss its veracity - the accuracy and the truthfulness of the claim
3) Give an account of how I went about investigating this, and how i attempted to verify
/disprove Rosen’s claim

Rosen claims that:

‘Beethoven did say that he could distinguish between music in D fat and C sharp, but his
remark applies even to music played on the piano, and has nothing at all to do with
intonation and temperament. What Beethoven was talking about was the ‘character’ of the
different tonalities, a subject that is more relevant to the psychology of the composer than
to actual musical language’. look at the footnote on the page that kevin barry gave us
the question to this assignment i.e. Charles Rosen’s book What Rosen is claiming is
that Beethoven could distinguish between music in D flat and C sharp, though it was to do
with the psychology of Beethoven rather than the physical difference being distinguished.
The veracity of this claim is controversial because one is trying to base a fact on a
feeling, and it is universally known that feelings that humans feel, can be investigated
through science, yet feelings differ from one person to the next and therefore one cannot
base a fact on a feeling as, in general, it is inaccurate compared to factual evidence. If one
were to look at the physical difference between the notes D flat and C sharp, the
conclusion would be that there is no difference, and therefore it is impossible to be able to
tell the difference. However Tovey makes an interesting point that backs up the idea that
Beethoven could possibly distinguish between the two keys.
Tovey explains that when a musician is first learning to play an instrument, for
instance the piano, one learns first the key of C major, and then when learning the other
keys, one relates them to C major, so a relational awareness is formed. Rosen page 28
Tovey says that ‘The ear judges by sense…’, explaining that when the music rises from C
sharp/D flat to D, it is sensed in C sharp, though when the music falls by step from C
sharp/D flat to C natural, the music is sensed in D flat, and therefore the possibility that
Beethoven may have been able to distinguish the two keys, would have been by a
relational characteristic, which can be understood.page 49 Tovey
Schindler discusses that Beethoven was capable of distinguishing between D flat
and C sharp, by ‘feeling for the subtle difference between hard and soft that are
respectively the characteristic features of these two keys’.page 368 schindler Rosen does
not include a direct source for his claim, though the claim of Schindler’s is possibly where
Rosen may have gotten his. However, if this is the case, Rosen’s claim should be taken
with caution because even though Schindler was friends with Beethoven, and therefore
being a probable accurate source of information regarding Beethoven, his reasoning for
Beethoven’s skill is based on a ‘feeling’ that Beethoven is said to have had, and not on any
facts. If one were to argue the veracity of Rosen’s statement, Tovey’s explanation of the
relational character of the two keys would provide some understanding and factual
evidence, compared with Schindler’s claim which is based on a feeling and sense.
In investigating this claim, I approached Barry Cooper’s book Beethoven and The
Creative Process and on page 123, where Cooper mentions Schindler’s claim of
Beethoven having the skill to distinguish the two keys. After this I found Schindler’s book
Beethoven As I Knew Him, and found on page 368 the reference that Cooper had made.
Being without enough information to prove Rosen’s claim, I found on page 28 of Rosen’s
book, the reference to Tovey’s explanation, which gave a more reliable idea that suggests
that Beethoven did have the capability to distinguish between the key of D flat and C
sharp.