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Martha Frohlich
Bar-Ilan University
Beethoven's Compositional Process. Edited by William Kinderman. (North American Beethoven Studies, 1.) [Lincoln]: University of Nebraska Press, 1992, c1991. [xii, 195 p. ISBN 0-80321222-4. $45.00.]
An International Beethoven Symposium held at the University of Victoria, British Columbia in 1986 was the impetus for this inaugural volume of the series North American Beethoven Studies. All eight contributors focus on the composer's orchestral music. Works examined include the First, Third, Fifth, and Ninth Symphonies; the first two Piano Concertos; the Egmont Overture; and the Missa Solemnis .
The book falls into two parts. Part 1 offers four brief commentaries culled from a panel discussion on the value of sketch study. Topics here range from the philosophical to the practical. In ''The Sketch Itself,'' Richard Kramer provides an eloquent rumination on the reciprocal relationship between inspiration and ''reasoned contemplation'' in Beethoven's sketching process. William Drabkin's ''Beethoven's Understanding of 'Sonata Form': The Evidence of the Sketchbooks,'' touches on an area rich for investigation. Lewis Lockwood's useful précis, ''The State of Sketch Research,'' reviews the different sketch types, raises some thorny problems of sketch chronology, and emphasizes the need to consider potential connections between sketches and autographs. Together with William Kinderman, whose ''Compositional Phases and Analysis'' rounds off the introductory section, Lockwood stresses the need to keep an open mind both with regard to the approaches applied to sketch study and the kinds of rewards it can yield.
Of the seven longer studies comprising part 2, Lockwood's ''The Compositional Genesis of the Eroica Finale'' furnishes an exceptional model of how to...